Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's certainly great to see a good Cape Breton face sitting across from me today.
Thank you very much to the entire committee for having us here. We appreciate your time and efforts.
I'm going to get into a brief introduction, and then I'll turn it over to Victor Oulton, who is our CFA director for the Federation of Agriculture.
My name is Chris van den Heuvel. I am the president of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture and a dairy farmer down in Cape Breton.
Nova Scotia has a strong and diverse agricultural industry. Not only is the industry diverse, but many of the individual farms are diversified as well. The agricultural industry in Nova Scotia is made up of farms that supply the domestic markets with dairy, poultry, and horticultural crops, and those that rely on export markets, such as blueberries, mink, beef, potatoes, and Christmas trees. The province also has many commodities, such as apples and carrots, that supply both the domestic and export markets.
The Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture commends the federal government for doing its best to maintain a balanced position across the various agricultural sectors in the CETA and TPP trade agreements. However, in order for farmers to fully access the opened markets, support programs need to be put in place so our farmers can meet their market demands. On the other hand, producers of commodities that are facing more access by foreigners into the Canadian market, especially the supply-managed commodities, need to be compensated for future losses.
When it comes to international market access, the main priority of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture is to ensure that there are support systems in place for the farmers and commodities that are facing changes to market access. One area of change is for the supply-managed commodities. TPP has allowed market access for all supply-managed commodities of between 2% and 3.25%. When I have spoken with the other commodity associations, each has painted a picture of what their respective reductions in quota will look like. For example, Turkey Farmers of Canada has said that if turkey enters Canada as all-breast meat, which is the expectation, the impact will be equal to the entire yearly production of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick combined. That is a huge loss.
The supply-managed industries need to be compensated for these losses that they will face when trade agreements are ratified. The farmers in these commodities have invested in quotas in order to be able to produce their respective commodities, and these farm businesses rely on the security of the supply management system and base their business plans on it.
Farmers producing under supply-management systems must be compensated not only for their loss in quota, which they have purchased, but also for future losses as a result of imports. Though it can be calculated, since maximum import percentages are known, it will take time for these commodities to adjust to the difference in their production levels. The federal government must come through to fully mitigate the hurt to these sectors that are negatively impacted by these deals.
Collaboration, as Minister Colwell alluded to earlier, is key and very important when it comes to determining what programs will be effective and how they should be implemented. We recommend that any mitigation programs be put in place in consultation with the commodity organizations that will be affected by the trade negotiations.
Now I'll give it over to Victor for a few words.