Thank you.
I just want to bring this to your attention. Some of you may have heard the panel earlier. The government and the officials were talking about how important it is to diversify markets, and they're finding all of these new markets for Canadian agricultural commodities. However, when we asked them to name specific countries, none of them could name any.
As a matter of fact, we asked an Order Paper question, and I want to quote the question exactly:
With regard to government measures to open agricultural markets in Southeast Asia to Canadian products: what is the quantity and dollar value of Canadian agricultural products that the government projects will be exported from Canada for each of the next five years, broken down by product and country?
The response from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada was this: “Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada...does not possess the projected information requested related to Southeast Asia.”
I'm finding it very difficult because the government is talking about how important it is to diversify markets as a result of issues with the United Kingdom, the European Union and China, yet it has no data whatsoever in terms of potential access to new markets. It keeps talking about them, but it's done no work to even give a projection of what potential is there.
To add to that, just a few months ago, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada put out its self-ranking on how it has done over the last three years in advancing trade and policy through negotiations, agreements and discussions. Its goal as a department is 80%. It gave itself a 90% mark on its success rate in advancing trade policy through negotiations, agreements and discussions. I think, given everything we've discussed here today, I don't know anybody who would give themselves a 90% grade.
Maybe I'll start with you, Mr. White. Would you agree with that ranking of a 90% success rate?