Good morning, everyone. My name is Gorazd Ruseski, and I'm the director of international fisheries policy at DFO. I'd like to offer a few brief remarks that build on the discussions at SCOFO last week.
When the chair of these negotiations introduced his draft fisheries subsidies text and draft text on other aspects of the agreement on subsidies and countervailing measures on November 30, he stated that he did not expect participants to agree to the text at this stage; he expected every participant to find things they did not like, and even things they disliked intensely. This goes to show that everyone involved in these negotiations accepts that there's a great deal of work ahead.
The chair's draft fisheries subsidies text has not yet gone through a first reading, and is only the first in what will likely be a series of drafts. As my colleague just mentioned, in other areas of these negotiations WTO members are working on second and even third drafts. In the end, until all WTO members, including Canada, agree to all areas of the round by consensus, including fisheries subsidies rules, there will be no deal.
In some places the chair's draft fisheries subsidies text was both controversial and unacceptable to Canada and a number of other WTO members. As a result, Canada is working with other like-minded WTO members to remove prohibitions on income support and port infrastructure from the text. We will also be working with other like-minded WTO members to develop text that will protect inshore and aboriginal fisheries programs, for example, that in our view are not part of the global overcapacity and overfishing problem that these negotiations are intended to help address.
Canada also has trade and sustainability interests to advance in these negotiations when it comes to developing countries. We have no interest in giving a blank cheque to those developing countries that are heavy subsidizers and contribute to overcapacity and overfishing. Canada has taken the view that if developing countries can afford to subsidize their fishing sectors, they can first afford to manage their fishing fleets responsibly. However, we've also taken the view that both developing and developed countries can benefit from legitimate, small-scale, inshore or aboriginal programs, and we will work with others in this direction.
Achieving the best outcome for Canada in these negotiations means not only ensuring that we retain the program flexibility we require for sustainable fisheries development within Canada's exclusive economic zone, but also ensuring that those programs that do contribute to global overcapacity and overfishing are eliminated.
Thank you.