Thank you.
Mr. Chair, honourable members, let me introduce the organization that I represent here today. Canada Pork International is the export promotion and development agency of the Canadian pork industry and it brings together the hog producers, pork processors and trading companies.
I thank you for giving us the opportunity to express our views on Bill C-24 pertaining to the implementation of the free trade agreement with Peru.
From the very beginning, the Canadian pork industry has been very supportive of the negotiations to come to an agreement with Peru, even if that country has never been a significant market for Canadian pork as a result of its prevailing high import tariffs. We were and we remain more than ever convinced that population growth and dietary habits will offer significant market opportunities in Peru once tariffs are completely eliminated.
Like many other countries, Peru has always maintained high tariffs on pork and our negotiators were expecting strong opposition to getting them reduced. When they requested that Canada should get the same treatment as the United States, that is, the complete elimination of pork tariffs over a period varying between five and ten years, Peru flatly rejected it.
Knowing that we would never get what the Americans received, our negotiators became very creative in ensuring that we would still get some benefits. They accepted a longer tariff elimination period, 17 years instead of ten, but they were able to get for us a duty-free quota that will allow our exporters to better position themselves at the very beginning.
We have to admit that this quota of 325 tonnes, that will progressively extend to 504 tonnes over 10 years, is relatively small for an industry that exports over one million tonnes every year.
That being said, we have learned over the years that we need to get access to the largest possible number of countries and that some of them, which at the beginning did not look too promising, turned out to be quite significant. With such an approach, our industry, which in the 1980s was shipping more than 75% of its exports to the United States, was able, even when doubling its sales to that country, to reduce the proportion to less than 30%. In the last few years, the US has become a major pork exporter and our exports there have decreased.
You can be assured that, with the implementation of their country of origin labeling legislation, our industry is not regretting having adopted an export market diversification strategy. With the current crisis that we are experiencing, and I do not think there is a need to expand on it, could you imagine where we would be? I do not even want to think about it.
We will be back here when you review other agreements, like those that are currently being negotiated with Central America and especially with the European Union, to endorse them.
In closing, I would like, on behalf of our industry, to thank you and your colleagues of all political parties, in the House of Commons and in the Senate, for your tremendous support during this difficult period. We were very impressed that so many of you came to meet with us at the barbecue that Minister Ritz and Minister Blackburn held with our representatives. In fact, so many people showed up that we ran out of pork. Be assured that, next time, there will be more than enough.
I am ready to answer all your questions.