Evidence of meeting #16 for International Trade in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was tpp.
February 4th, 2014 / 11:50 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rob Merrifield
I just have a clarification question.
Rhonda, does your organization, the British Columbia Agriculture Council, represent the grape industry, grape growers, or the wine industry at all? I don't know where the line is drawn on agriculture on that.
Chair, British Columbia Agriculture Council
Sure, we do. Any producing group, so yes, grape growers are included with us.
Chair, British Columbia Agriculture Council
Do you want to talk about wine?
Chair, British Columbia Agriculture Council
That's our favourite topic, wine and gin.
Conservative
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
It's almost like you did it on purpose.
I'll start with you, Ms. Driediger.
At the beginning you said you defend supply management, but some of your members are also not part of supply management. How do you reconcile the two, or how do you represent both sides?
Chair, British Columbia Agriculture Council
Being the chair of BCAC, firmly on the fence, but in these negotiations....
I mean, this is something I think that's fairly unique to Canada, this type of management system. I think it does extremely well for us, especially here in B.C. We have exorbitant land costs. It's not just something where you can say, dairy is popular so we're going to jump into dairy, jump out of dairy, jump into chickens, jump out of chickens. It's extremely expensive and disruptive to do that, and I think we have a very steady, safe, well-managed, well-priced program, especially here in B.C. So I think for me personally to defend supply management, I don't have an issue with that at all.
There are those of us who are just naturally...like in blueberries, we also have a number of other commodities where we're just natural export marketers. A lot of our product goes outside of British Columbia. I sell virtually nothing from my farm in B.C. Everything is exported, so a supply management system isn't going to work for me, obviously.
Ray Nickel Representative, British Columbia Agriculture Council
Can I comment?
I think it's a very good question, and I think that it pertains to some of the conversations that have already gone on—the fact that bilateral trade agreements, I think, are the best way for Canada to move ahead in making trade deals in comparison to what was being done over the WTO. But as a supply management individual, I think Canada has always put forward a very good proposal on how this should be done. We're not argumentative about the fact that there are exporters who need to expand their markets. On the other hand, I think it behooves Canada to protect what they have and continue to support that.
I don't think you need to be at crosshairs or at odds over moving forward with those two positions, and doing it with a clear conscience and with all the strength that you bring in those sorts of negotiations. I think it's the right way to go and the way to proceed.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Thank you.
On some of the non-tariff issues, I'm not sure if I heard you, but have you given your input to the negotiators? Have you had any dealings with them?
Chair, British Columbia Agriculture Council
Not me personally, but we have through the Ag Council and also through most of the commodity groups.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
Are they receptive to it? Does it look like your requests will be met?
Executive Director, B.C. Blueberry Council
Definitely.
I've asked some of them before they go into negotiations, and made them aware of what the tariffs are and that—
Liberal
Executive Director, B.C. Blueberry Council
The non-tariffs as well, yes....
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
I guess my next question would be for you, Ms. Etsell.
Why is the duty so high on blueberries if everybody wants them across the world?
Executive Director, B.C. Blueberry Council
I would say that's part of a non-tariff barrier as well. I really view it as such, and so do the growers and people in the industry. Especially in Korea, it does prohibit. There are some concerns in the markets we're going into that if there is some domestic production, this is some way that they can maybe slow down what's coming in, even though so many of the countries that we're looking at have such high populations that their internal production would never be able to feed their consumers. So I think in a way it really is a non-tariff barrier.
Liberal
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
No, I understand that, but are they trying to protect their own crop by changing eating habits and pushing you from blueberries to something else that they might be producing?
Executive Director, B.C. Blueberry Council
They actually look to us for that. They know that we know so much about blueberries. The countries that have started producing them lately don't really.... It's native to North America, the blueberry, and we've been doing this for many years. We're known as the experts for blueberries in the world. Therefore they want that knowledge. They want us to come in and do the marketing, which we do. We don't just come into these countries and just sell blueberries. We help the consumers. We help the growers. We make trips to some of these countries and interact. We're part of the International Blueberry Organization meetings, where we meet with them and share.
Liberal
Massimo Pacetti Liberal Saint-Léonard—Saint-Michel, QC
In a normal crop year where nothing affects the crop, does your supply fill the demand? Or do you have oversupply or over-demand, normally?