International Trade Committee on Feb. 4th, 2014

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Thanks.

To Debbie, your member of Parliament, Minister Fast, is the trade minister, and is a strong advocate for the blueberry industry as always. When he comes out he talks about his blueberries and we show him our cherries and grapes and all the rest, and we're proud to be representing our constituents.

I know that our colleague Pierre Poilievre was just recently out here and the federal government contributed $2.8 million, and I think there was $1 million from your industry, to partner for research and development to continue to develop the quality of research so that we can have a product that is internationally number one.

[Debbie Etsell]

Definitely. A large component of this is a breeding program so that we can have some identity that's separate. We were the first and we are the experts in blueberries. Everyone is using the varieties that we had in North America, so we need to have something that will set us apart, like the apple industry with the Ambrosia apple. It's a benefit to us to be able to work on that.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Excellent.

I have one last comment. I know you talked about the need for feet on the ground and working with our trade commissioners around the world. I just wanted to have a recognition to the provinces working together as well. In British Columbia, Ben Stewart, who was the MLA, stepped aside for the premier, and he has been appointed as a special representative of B.C. in Asia, an investment and trade commissioner. So he is also recognizing the importance of British Columbia's agriculture and opportunities for wine and all the rest. So we have somebody with feet on the ground locally here as well.

[Debbie Etsell]

That's been expanded greatly this past year, especially with the reduction of the number of trade commissioners. When I said that I'm proud to go under Canadian pavilions, one of the things I've talked to the provincial government about for the last five years is that I see other provinces across these export trade markets but I haven't seen B.C. As of this year there are now B.C. booths in those Canadian pavilions, so that's showing the collaboration that's being built and is moving forward.

[Ron Cannan, Conservative, Kelowna—Lake Country, BC]

Ben will be a great asset and it's a good partnership. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Davies, you have five minutes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here. We just recently concluded negotiations with the EU on CETA and one of the aspects of that deal was that Canada give the Europeans 179 geographical indications, and Canada had zero. I think part of that was that it's not considered a Canadian offensive interest. I don't think we actually proposed any GIs.

I think of Saskatoon berries or Montreal smoked meat or Oka cheese. Do we have any geographical indications that we could maybe or should maybe be putting on the table in TPP to help develop a Canadian brand like the Europeans have?

[Debbie Etsell]

I know from the wine industry I've had emails come to my office asking why we don't have ice wine as a geographical indication. So I think there is some interest in that. Whether or not that has been formalized I have no knowledge of.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Are there any other suggestions? Did that come up amongst your members?

[Rhonda Driediger]

It has come up from some of the members but I think as this negotiation starts to move forward you'll start to see that. But I don't see any industry that's really marketing something so unique that it could be wiped out by a generic at this point. So I think it will come up. I think it's a great question and it's something I'll take back to the members.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you. I appreciate the spirited defence of Canada's supply management system. That has historically been an all-party issue. In 2005 there was a unanimous motion passed in the House of Commons that stated that Canada will accept no over-quota tariff reductions and no TRQ expansions for its supply-managed products as part of our balanced negotiating position.

In CETA we saw a little bit of a crack in that as we saw a doubling of the over-quota cheese coming from Europe. I talked to a number of farmers in the supply-managed sectors who are concerned that this is a bit of the foot-in-the-door. With TPP coming with Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, countries that have historically not liked Canada's supply management system, do you have any concerns that there may be further inroads made into the supply management system of our country, particularly with the over-quota allowances?

[Ray Nickel]

I think you nailed it on the head. That has been the overwhelming concern. Is that the start of something that's going to roll into something sliding down the hill? It's been strongly supported not only, as you mentioned, in 2005 but all the way up into last October in 2013. What does that mean when that sort of negotiation happens? We would really like to continue to encourage open and transparent discussion with our commodity groups, particularly the supply management groups, as to what is being discussed and thought of, and that the government would stick to what it has mentioned.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

One of the thorny questions I think we all experience here as we enter trade negotiations is the desire to have common standards that we can negotiate worldwide, while preserving our democratic ability to set our own standards. Here in Canada we don't allow hormones in our milk that the Americans do. The Europeans have a different perspective on GMOs than we have in Canada.

Do you have any thoughts or advice to give the committee on how we can preserve a responsive democratic ability for Canadians to set our own standards, while also negotiating our ability to get our products around the world?

[Ray Nickel]

If I could speak to that just for a minute, one of the things that you see more and more is the heightened interest in demand by consumers around food safety. There is no system in the world that allows you to regulate, particularly in the case of Canada, the dairy and poultry products like the supply management system does. Yes, we are being regulated to death, but on the other hand it does provide you the comfort that you are getting what you're asking for and that you can control what is being done at the farm level, and all the way through that value chain.

Just off the top, I would say that is an extremely strong strength of the supply management system.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Ms. Etsell, did you have something you wanted to say?

[Debbie Etsell]

I was thinking along the same lines. We're known for our food safety with blueberries here in Canada. We started long before the other countries. The U.S. even asked for our binders on that from what we were working on. So it is one thing that's really important.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Ms. Driediger.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Yes, go ahead.

[Rhonda Driediger]

Contrary to...we don't grow them in ditches either. I just wanted to add that point.

I just wanted to tie up a couple of loose ends. One was the question by the vice-chair about why tariffs were set in the first place with the demand that's there. The demand came after.

The tariff was there as a trade barrier because they did want to protect fledgling domestic product. Unfortunately, most of these countries found out they could not grow blueberries at the level that we can, and certainly never enough for their own domestic supply—not even close, you're talking drops in the bucket. In China, say, you would have to take thousands of acres of land out of other food production to put into blueberries, because they don't have the water, the pH, the soil, and the temperature all in the same place to grow blueberries like we can. They've come to that conclusion, that's why. They've had a taste of this particular product and there is more demand for it. That's why now it's up to us to start removing those trade barriers, non-tariff barriers, and work towards getting that tariff down to zero.

Chile also tied their agricultural products to their resource products, so a lot of minerals, metals, went to China. But the agricultural products that went in with that are now zero-rated.

If Canada could tie a few more things up with our agricultural products, that would be great.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Okay, thank you very much.

Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair. Thank you, witnesses.

I have a couple of quick questions. I just want some clarification on the labelling and GMOs, where you stand on those.

[Rhonda Driediger]

I thought I answered that.

As a person who does supply—I pack blueberries and I supply them to different retail chains—if you said to me, “Give me specifically what is on that particular berry”, I would have a very difficult time doing that. There's desire and what we want versus reality. I think we have to find a happy medium between them when it comes to any labelling. You want to be as specific as possible, but it may not be.... Otherwise you'd have to test every single berry.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Yes. As a legislator, myself, when I look at it, when I see that plate of food that's sitting on the table, my first concern is that of safety, so that child, when it puts that blueberry in their mouth, or cherry or strawberry, whatever else, it's safe to eat. Now if I know it's safe to eat, I don't necessarily want to get into the decision on what's the best marketing campaign to decide what you purchase. If you want to buy organic blueberries, if you want to buy non-organic blueberries, you want to buy GMO canola or non-GMO canola, really, at the end of the day, that's up to you as a consumer, to know and to decide. But reality for me, as a legislator, I just want to make sure that it's safe to eat.

Is that not a fair statement, that's the role of government in some of this?

[Rhonda Driediger]

I think that's a very fair statement, and that's why we come back to having a standard, a Canadian standard, that other countries will have to meet, and that's again in their labour standards, their organic standards. Does it match up with ours? Is there actual testing being done? Anyone can fill out paperwork, but we want to see some of those products tested to make sure they say what they are.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Exactly.

Now, we've talked a lot about the TPP, the products, like blueberries, for example, here. We know the pork sector is excited about it. We know the cattle sector is excited. The grain and oilseed sectors were excited about it. Are there any other micromarkets or any other commodities that you see coming out of the agriculture in B.C.? There's the wine sector, but is there anything that you haven't identified that you would say, “This has huge growth potential”?