Thank you for inviting me today to speak on behalf of CAFTA, the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance.
CAFTA is a coalition of organizations seeking a more open and fair international trading environment for agriculture and agrifood. Our members represent farmers, processors, and exporters from the major trade dependent sectors, including beef, pork, grains, oilseeds, sugar, pulse, soy, and malt. Together we account for 80% of Canada's agriculture and agrifood exports, about $50 billion in exports, and an economic activity that supports hundreds of thousands jobs across the country.
What I would like to imprint on the committee today is the importance of competitive access to global markets for the export-oriented sector.
As you know, the Canadian agriculture sector depends on trade for the large part. Over half of everything we produce is exported. That's 50% of our beef, 70% of our pork, 75% of our wheat, 90% of our canola, and 40% of our processed food products. Being competitive in international markets is not a choice, it's a requirement.
In the current environment of trade liberalization, the competitiveness of our sector depends on the timely negotiation and implementation of trade access to the markets that our competitors are also after. What we lived through with Korea cannot happen again, as this billion-dollar market was cut in half virtually overnight, and our competitors, namely the U.S. and Australia, had access and tariffs eliminated, when we did not.
It is critical that Canada ratifies the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement quickly. CAFTA strongly supports the TPP and believes it is integral to the future viability of our export-based agriculture sector.
The TPP region absorbs 65% of our exports. It includes some of our largest traditional markets, such as the U.S., Mexico, and Japan, but also some of our largest competitors—the U.S., Mexico and Australia—and some of these countries already do have free trade agreements with one another. The more TPP drags, the more we fall behind. Ultimately, if we're not part of the TPP, Canada will fall behind.
We strongly encourage the completion of the respective legal and political processes related to the Canada-Europe free trade agreement, CETA, while simultaneously completing technical discussions, so that the stated benefits of the agreement can be realized in the form of commercially viable access for all exporters.
CAFTA strongly supported CETA, as it's expected to result in significant benefits for exporters, this assuming that negotiated outcomes will provide commercially viable access for our members. Outstanding technical issues to allow real access to the EU remain and we are confident that the Canadian government is working hard to resolve these issues before CETA is implemented. Our support for the implementation of CETA will be based upon the extent to which the negotiated outcomes will result in commercially viable market access for Canadian agriculture and agrifood exporters.
Our recommendations for the Government of Canada to contribute to a globally competitive agriculture and agrifood sector in Canada are as follows.
The Government of Canada should allocate proper resources to the functions in charge of negotiating free trade agreements, specifically the team of negotiators working on the TPP, CETA, WTO, and the next generation of future agreements for Canada.
The Government of Canada should allocate proper resources to the functions in charge of implementing free trade agreements, and maintaining and restoring market access. Typically, once free trade agreements are implemented, we see multiple non-tariff barriers arise. It's essential that adequate funding be allocated to the market access secretariat, MAS, so it can continue its critical work of minimizing technical barriers to trade and restoring real access for exporters. It must be noted that MAS depends on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, CFIA, to deliver the technical support. Proper CFIA resources would be a component of that.
The Government of Canada should allocate proper resources to the network of Canadian representatives abroad, particularly the embassies and agriculture trade commissioners. Canada's ability to build a competitive industry depends in large part on how well the country will open doors abroad and leverage relationships with relevant government and industry influences.
The Government of Canada should also continue to support relevant ministers and senior-level officials in their activities to build and cultivate relationships at a high level in foreign markets. This is critical to enhance trade and market development efforts for Canadian exporters, particularly in Asian countries.
In closing, our sector encourages financial policies that expand our ability to competitively market our products to the world.
Thank you.