Thank you very much. It's always my pleasure to come and visit with you on the trade issues, and there are many trade issues that are very important.
As you know, and as we've talked about in the past, over half of Canada's beef and cattle production is exported. Nearly 80% of what we export goes to the United States, but we can do better in other markets, and we do face a number of barriers in other markets.
Japan is one of those markets that is very important to us. It's a high-income market. It's the kind of market that's made for the kind of beef that we produce, which is a high-quality, grain-fed product. We tend to want to serve the high end of the market, and Japan is a market that can do that for us. But there are a number of barriers.
We did express our support for moving forward with Japan, in response to the Canada Gazette notice in March of 2011. I've submitted a copy of that to the clerk as evidence for the committee to have on the record. I'm just going to highlight some of the pieces from this.