Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for allowing me to make a presentation today. It's an honour to be allowed to speak to such a distinguished group. The ladies and gentlemen in this room have a very important job and a very important role in the Parliament of Canada, so I am honoured to be here.
I'm also happy to be here because we had a half millimetre of snow in Toronto last night, there were over 100 accidents, and my plane was delayed. You wonder what's going to happen when it actually snows.
Anyway, I'm going to try to do three things today. I'm going to talk about the history of the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance and how that fits in with the WTO, and to fit that into the current situation at the WTO. Then I'm going to give you my ask. Everyone here today has an ask. I'm up front about it. I'm going to do it at the end, but I'll do it at the front so you know what it is: we need Canada to take a leadership role in getting the WTO talks back on the rails, and we need Canada to work with other countries on gaining convergence. On the toughest topics, sensitive products, Canada is isolated in the world, 149 to 1. That's my ask, and I'll ask again at the end. I just wanted you to know I was going to ask.
On the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, our genesis goes back to the late 1990s.
My name is Liam McCreery. I'm a farmer from southern Ontario. I grow soybeans, corn, and wheat. In the late 1990s, a group of like-minded people got together in Ottawa and looked at the Uruguay Round of the WTO. The reason we looked at it was we were being devastated by the effects of what the Americans were doing with the U.S. Farm Bill, what the Europeans were doing with tariffs, what the Japanese were doing with tariffs and subsidies, and we thought surely what they were doing couldn't be legal, because in the mid-1990s our government negotiated a free trade agreement at the WTO called the Uruguay Round. What we found out was they really hadn't negotiated a free trade agreement. They negotiated a framework from which to move toward free trade in agriculture. It was excellent news that we had a Uruguay Round, but we still had to deal with huge subsidies and tariffs.
In the late 1990s, like-minded groups such as the Ontario Soybean Growers and others from across Canada formed a group called the Canadian Alliance of Agri-Food Exporters. You guys are all political types. You know what happened in the late 1990s. The Reform Party changed its name to the Alliance. We had to change our name too, and we became CAFTA, which is the only trade advocacy organization that represents the entire agricultural value chain in Canada. We're very proud of that. CAFTA's members represent over half of Canada's primary producers and account for approximately 60% of Canada's total cash receipts. We have 14 members. You've already heard from one of our great members, the Canadian Canola Growers Association.
I'm going to highlight two of the groups, the Grain Growers of Canada, which represents the largest sector in Canadian agriculture, and the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, which represents the second largest primary agricultural sector in Canada. We have another 12 members as well. The reason I point that out is that CAFTA really does represent the majority of Canadian farmers' trade interests.
Your excellent clerk has our submission. I apologize that it's only in English. He has told me he will distribute it when it's done in both official languages.
That's what CAFTA is.
Let's talk about trade in terms of the context of all of Canada. Everyone in the room will be very familiar with the fact that over 40% of Canada's gross domestic product comes from international trade. That's why we're here today, to talk about trade. From an agricultural point of view, let's zero in on the great sector of agriculture. Canada is the world's third largest exporter of agricultural and agrifood products--the third. We have the ninth largest economy; we're the third largest exporter of agricultural products.
Over half of our farm gate crosses borders. To flip that around, if we didn't have international trade for agricultural products, and some will advocate that, over half of Canadian producers would have to go away. That's over 120,000 producers. This is a very key point for agriculture: over 91% of us rely on international markets either as a destination for our products or for a price-setting mechanism. That's the reality. Whether I sell my soybeans through my broker to Asian buyers or I sell my corn here in Ontario, the price is decided in Chicago. That price in Chicago is absolutely distorted because of American subsidies, European subsidies, and tariffs in the richest of the rich countries of the world.
I really would ask that the members take the time--I know how busy you are--to read the submission when the clerk circulates it. It will define clearly the devastating effects of these distortions on CAFTA members.
These numbers are measured in the billions. You talked about the $1.3 billion for the subsidies, Rick. You talked about the $1.6 billion for the tariffs. It's close to $3 billion just for the grains and oilseeds sector. I will quickly go through this.
I hope we're here to talk about the Doha Round and the fact that it is off the rails, and we need momentum to get it back on the rails for a successful conclusion. It's important to remember, too, that the Doha Round is about more than us. Canada is very linked to trade--it's nearly half of our economy--but developing countries around the world also would like to participate in international markets to better their own lot. It's important to remember this is not just about trade; it's about foreign affairs.
When we go back to 2001--here's a bit of a history lesson--there was a very ambitious plan laid out in the Doha Round. Fast forward to 2004: the July framework further defined it. Canada did support both of those--the launch of the Doha Round and the July 2004 framework.
Let's remember that at the July 2004 framework they said there would be reductions in all tariffs, and every other country in the world has said that is the case. That's the basis we're moving ahead on, what we agreed to.
What are the consequences of a failure to negotiate an agreement?
I see I have one minute, so I'd better hurry.
Let's pick on the United States for a minute. People are pretty upset, and should be, that the Americans spent $15 billion in trade-distorting support that year, $10 billion of it going to corn farmers. Under the current WTO rules, they could ramp that up to $19 billion. I'm a corn producer. I saw what happened to the markets last year when the Americans dumped $10 billion into that market. Right now the Americans have put something on the table that would limit that trade-distorting support to $7 billion. That's what's on the table. If we do not get a successful Doha Round, that's what we could lose.
Back to my number one ask. It's absolutely vital that the Government of Canada support Pascal Lamy's call for a relaunch of the negotiations, and it's absolutely vital that Canada, as one of the largest trading countries in the world, a world leader, and a country that's vitally dependent on trade, actually start to work on convergence.
Again, I can't emphasize it enough. The toughest nut to crack of the WTO is sensitive products. We absolutely understand that, and Canada has made a decision not to participate in those talks. We are isolated: 149 to 1. There's no nice way to put sugar on it and say that's not the case. We have to get engaged.
As we negotiate, I hope we also remember that we have made a commitment as a country for all three pillars, which Rick so ably outlined in his presentation.
Mr. Chair, you asked that I keep my presentation to eight minutes. Thank you for the extra minute. I really appreciate that. One last plug: please read this document. It has a lot of information that's very useful, and I'm sorry to make your job tough, but the reality is that you are the decision-makers who can make the plight of 91% of producers in Canada better.
Thank you.