International Trade Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2014

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

I know that's a topic for a much larger conversation, but I thought it was important to have your perspective given the number of times we heard about supply management from people who weren't necessarily farmers.

I want to touch on the geographical indications. Canada, as was pointed out earlier, didn't ask for any GI protectors, but conceded 179 to the EU in this agreement in principle. It says here that while Canada has retained the right for existing producers to continue to produce certain cheeses, such as feta and Parmesan, the Canadian cheese sector cannot export these products into the EU.

Can you comment on that issue around geographical indications?

[Stan Van Keulen]

I'm not an expert on it, but I do understand it a little bit. I think you've touched on the fact that we can't ship into the Parmesan region of wherever that is, and we can't ship into feta, wherever that is. It's just that those are geographical indications of the product, and—

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

But we didn't ask for any protectors. My colleague talked about Oka cheese, for example.

[Stan Van Keulen]

I guess we could ask for Canadian cheddar. I don't know if that's significant in the eyes of the Europeans or Americans.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Chair, do I have more time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

You have 40 seconds.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Just very briefly, Mr. McCauley, did your organization do any analysis on the cost implications to provincial governments if this patent protection were extended?

[Gordon McCauley]

We didn't do any specific analysis, but I would acknowledge a couple of things.

First of all, nothing in CETA impacts on a government's capacity to manage prices. Secondly, the most compelling argument to me is that if greater intellectual property protection equalled higher prices, then prices would be higher in the EU, and they're not.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Thank you.

And thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Mr. Holder, the floor is yours. You're the final questioner of the day and you have a full five minutes if you want to use it.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank our guests today, especially Mr. Van Keulen. He's actually the trooper of the day, because you actually hung in from this morning. You need to get a life. Just imagine spending the whole day with us and we're going to have you back tomorrow.

[Stan Van Keulen]

Yes, and all day too....

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

I look forward to that opportunity.

And I would like to thank all of our guests for being here today.

Mr. Van Keulen, since you seem like a lot of fun, I'm going to stay with you on a couple of things if I can. You know up to this point, up to the point of CETA, that Canada has negotiated many trade agreements. You'd know... I'm going to list several of them—of course, the United States in the NAFTA, including the United States and Mexico; free trade agreements with Peru, Chile, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Israel, even Jordan; four countries in Europe, the EFTA group, which is Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Switzerland; and there may be several others.

My question for you, though, is how do you feel the federal government has done in protecting supply management for your industry up to this point?

[Stan Van Keulen]

I'm going to say you actually did not a bad job, considering.... And I know the people on the other side here might disagree with that.... I've got to compliment the government on this “pizza kit” issue that we've had, where people were trying to circumvent the border again, and it was your government, or my government, or whoever....

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

All of our government.... Up here we all—

[Stan Van Keulen]

All of our government in this room brought that to fruition. We've had Liberal governments, we've had Conservative governments. We have not had an NDP government—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, Oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Order, because now we're deteriorating....

[Stan Van Keulen]

The reality is, I have to compliment the government that is existing today...that they did move in on the “pizza kits”.

I want to say one thing here and we're going to have some fun here because I have to get a jab in too. It is remarkable that we've been lobbying for almost a year and a half, we've eroded a bunch of our markets, and it took no more than a week and a half and an order in council to have it done. So I've got to compliment the government, but it took a while, that's all.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Well, my Cape Breton mother used to say the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago, but the next best time is today.

But didn't we do that also with milk protein concentrates? Wasn't that a fairly positive thing as well?

[Stan Van Keulen]

Yes, you did that with milk protein concentrates. There are a number of loopholes more that we have to work with the government on, if we're going to continue on. You did do that and there are some whey protein concentrates now. And there are other products that are trying to come into this market too that we have to work on.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

That kind of brings us back to CETA. There's this Spanish company that's going to be opening up in my city of London, Ontario, the 10th largest city in Canada. What's interesting about this company called Natra is that it's actually a Spanish company that is going to be making chocolate.... The good news about that company from Europe is that when they need to make chocolate they need...?

[Stan Van Keulen]

Milk.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Milk. So that's going to significantly impact our industry. And of course southwestern Ontario—of which I am a resident I'm proud to say—is according to one of our colleagues, Gary Schellenberger, the heart of dairy production in Canada, with no disrespect to British Columbia, ever.

When I look at the opportunities that can happen as a result of this example of this company coming into my city of London that will support the industry, I think that's a very positive thing. Here's what I find interesting. We've moved up the cheese limit from 48%. Mr. Hoback was quite correct.

The EU ambassador—we were all present at that meeting this past week in Ottawa, our nation's capital— made a great point of saying that cheese producers in Canada have unfettered access to the whole of the EU market, so please take that back to your colleagues because one of the things I heard you talk about was the concern about the imbalance of imports versus exports. So I thought, well, whose fault is that? I don't know, fault might be the wrong word, but it occurs to me that if you have some opportunity to have unfettered access, and the most they get is an additional 4%....

And again, from a southwestern Ontario perspective I'll share this with you. The cheese producers in that area—and dare I say if Mr. Morin, who is part of our committee, were here he would tell you that the artisan cheese-makers in Quebec, at least the ones he's spoken to me of, are very confident.

My quick question then is this—and I apologize for the diatribe—would the unfettered access to the cheese markets in all of Europe help that balance of trade that you were concerned about?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

A very quick answer—