Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for the invitation. It is a pleasure to be here to talk about the WTO. Certainly all of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture members would like to see a successful Doha Round, and we believe we need to continue to negotiate very strongly as a team to ensure that we can achieve the objectives we need to achieve for the entire agricultural industry across Canada.
Of course, our goals for this round of negotiation are to considerably improve market access for exporters, to continue to ensure that we can maintain orderly marketing systems such as supply management and the Canadian Wheat Board, to make sure we can increase our trade in value-added products, and simply to make sure we can develop and implement clear, enforceable trade rules in this next negotiation.
I'm very quickly going to run through the positive parts of the negotiation and those where we still have concerns when it comes to export competition.
Clearly it's good news that export subsidies will be eliminated. We'd like them to be eliminated immediately, but certainly it looks positive.
We're also looking positively at getting hopefully better disciplines in government export credit and food aid programs. The concern, of course, is that the rules will not be tight enough on government export programs and promotion programs and also that our Canadian Wheat Board continues to be pressured in the Doha Round. Whether you agree with the Canadian Wheat Board philosophically or not, that is a decision that should be made by farmers in Canada. We continue to support our negotiators on that front.
On domestic support, it looks positive that we will finally be able to get the U.S. to at least significantly reduce their amber expenditures. The concern we have is that they will simply move money around, into either a blue box or a green box. Of course, some of their green box programs are as trade distorting as any amber program. We would really like to see a re-definition of green box programs. We know our negotiators are working on that, and clearly we support them.
We also want to make sure our production insurance programs can be put into the green box as well, and we continue to push on that one. The concern there is on product-specific supports: they want to cap them based on historical spending. If that happens, the U.S. is going to be capped at some very high levels for some of their commodities, and Canada, because Canada historically hasn't provided much commodity-specific support, would be capped at a very low level. That would simply institutionalize that disparity.
We believe we can achieve significant market access. We want to see significant reductions of tariffs in the tariff reduction category. At the same time, we also have a sensitive product category that we want to make sure we can get enough of our supply management tariff lines into, to ensure that our import-sensitive industries aren't undermined through this negotiation.
A concern there is that the Europeans would like to, for example, put a sensitive product such as pork into the tariff reduction category. What we fear will then happen is that the tariff reduction category will not be as aggressive as we want it to be. They need to put their sensitive products into the sensitive product category as well, to make sure we use it for its intended purpose and to make sure that in fact the Europeans have to improve market access.
For example, I'm a turkey producer and a hog producer. Coming out of the Uruguay Round, as a turkey producer I had to give up 5% of our consumption in Canada for market access to the rest of the world. As a hog producer, I and the rest of the world got only 0.5% market access into Europe. That's a disparity that needs to be solved or changed as well.
In conclusion, Mr. Chair, I would like to emphasize one thing. That is that this negotiation does not have to be a tug of war between supply management and our exporters. As I said, I'm a turkey producer and a hog producer. I believe Minister Strahl and Minister Emerson have the tools they need to negotiate in such a way that there will be a win-win for everybody. I think we need to continue to push for that and support our negotiators, because they have to date done a very good job.
We also believe it's counterproductive to suggest that Canada should give in during the negotiation. We believe our negotiators should push right to the wall, and we shouldn't talk about what Canada is willing to give up, because this is a negotiation for the entire agricultural industry. We need to support our negotiators and to push right to the wall to get the best deal we possibly can for the entire agricultural industry in Canada.
While some people say that Canada is isolated with sensitive products, every other country has a sensitive product as well. This is about negotiating market access, this is about negotiating tariff reductions, this is about making sure that each country has the ability to put their sensitive products in the “sensitive product” category, so that those industries aren't undermined.
Mr. Chair, we continue to work closely with our negotiators and with our ministers to make sure, again, that we get the best deal we possibly can for the entire agricultural industry.
Thank you.