In Canada, we are lucky to live in this wonderful country. We are prosperous. The prosperity of Canada comes from international trade: 60% to 65% of our GDP comes from international trade.
Many times when I meet with Canadians for various things, one of the fun things I enjoy telling them is that Canada, with its small population and tiny population of farmers, for food grains and agri-food exports, Canada is the fifth-largest in the world. That is something I'm very proud of, and I keep repeating it.
My riding is in Ottawa. Mine is a suburban bedroom community. I don't have many farms, but I'm cognizant of how much Canadian farmers and agri-food exporters contribute to Canada and how much they contribute to the prosperity that we all believe in and we all live in. I would like thank the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance members for the hard work they have been doing.
I have some questions.
Let's come back to NAFTA or the CUSMA renegotiation at a later stage.
Right now Canada is looking at Indo-Pacific countries for future growth, because that is the area where the population is growing and the economies are growing. That's where our exports will grow. One of the countries there is Indonesia, which we're also trying to have a bilateral agreement with. They have their own palm oil there.
Another country we are negotiating with currently is India. Obviously we want a free trade agreement with India, but right now the negotiations are an early or preliminary trade agreement. Again, this is a fun fact I mention to many of my audiences many times. The biggest export from Canada to one of the biggest markets in the world, one of the growing markets in the world, India, is lentils.
Now, Mr. Darling, my question is this: If this bill becomes law, as the negotiations are going on with India, with Canada being the major exporter of lentils to India—and India also exports dairy products, I think more than 400 million dollars' worth of dairy products—do you think that it is not a real possibility that the Indian trade negotiators will use this as a tool to block the market we want India to open up for our exports?