Indeed, if you look at the interests of agriculture, on the one hand China needs food security—access to certainty on access to supply. Even though China is moving to become self-sufficient in certain commodities, the overall demand means that they will always need foreign inputs, not simply as a backstop but to feed the population.
On the other hand, Canada needs market access certainty. If we are going to have producers risk farms, risk investments, risk things that have been in their families for generations, we need certainty about access to markets. That certainty has just been redefined by the U.S.-China phase one trade agreement.
At Canada West, we're engaged on a project to examine how other countries are dealing with non-tariff barrier issues with China. We've looked at Australia and New Zealand, obviously, but also Brazil. I would suggest that at the committee you always hear Australia, New Zealand and the United States, but Brazil has some interesting insights.
Looking at the phase one agreement, what the U.S. has done is redefine what market access certainty is. There are, give or take, 121 specific concessions that the U.S. got from China in that agreement; 51 of them are what I would call hyper-specific commitments and concessions. They're such things as that, within 20 days of receipt of any monthly updates to the list of U.S. pet food and non-ruminant-derived animal feed facilities that the U.S. has determined to be eligible for export, China shall register the facilities, publish the updates to the list on the Chinese GACC—the Chinese customs website—and allow imports of food derived from animal feed from U.S. facilities on that list.
You have the same thing for pork. You have the same thing for beef.
These types of market access certainty are the bar. This will essentially have us out of the Chinese market.
If you think about access and what we need to get from China, agriculture offers a possible solution. If we were to engage China and guarantee access to Canadian supply—not that we'll send a certain amount, but that we will not impose political restrictions on China's access to food, on China's access to agricultural technology, on China's ability to invest in or to access agricultural biotechnology, on China's ability to invest in agricultural production, on China's ability to invest in agricultural processing—we'd have the makings, potentially, of an agreement.
This distinguishes us from the Americans, who used food as a political weapon throughout their history. Even just two months ago, a former U.S. undersecretary was threatening to cut off food to North Korea. We distinguish ourselves from the Americans, we establish why we are different and we have the basis for re-engaging China to reset the relation. Obviously, China will want more, but this is a start.
For the committee—