Thank you for the opportunity for the Canadian Canola Growers Association to appear on your study of Bill C-282. We appear in opposition of the bill.
I am joining today from Killam, Alberta, where our family farm, Century 12 Farms, grows cereals and oilseeds. I also serve as the chair of both Alberta Canola and the Canadian Canola Growers Association, known as the CCGA. I'm joined by Rick White, CCGA's president and CEO, who's based in Winnipeg.
I mentioned the name of my farm because it tells you about our family farm. My great-grandfather started farming on the land in 1912, which makes ours one of the oldest farms in our region of the Prairies. This makes me a fourth-generation farmer and makes my 27-year-old son a fifth-generation farmer.
CCGA represents Canada's 43,000 Canadian farmers on issues that impact their success. Canola is the number one revenue source, earning Canadian farmers $13.8 billion in revenue in 2022. That's more than cereals, horticulture and livestock, including dairy and poultry. It contributes roughly $30 billion in annual economic activity and creates over 200,000 jobs nationally.
Canola's success and its contribution to our economy is based on innovation, international trade and the series of free trade agreements successfully concluded by the government. As the world's largest producer and exporter of canola, Canada represents 90% of what we grow as seed, oil and meal, which were valued at $14.4 billion in 2022.
Free trade agreements eliminate barriers and provide clear rules of trade, providing predictability and stability and reducing market risks. For example, the North American Free Trade Agreement, now the CUSMA, spurred development of the Canadian canola sector in growing acres, attracting value-added activities and generating the innovation needed to grow a sustainable crop and to be partners in Canada's climate change commitments. The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership diversified market opportunities for oil and meal, keeping the processing at home and generating a multiplier effect in rural areas as well as urban centres.
I want to state up front that I am not opposed to supply management or to the concept of protecting it. However, I am opposed to this bill because it is a bad policy that is not necessary, I believe, to protect our supply management system.
Bill C-282 is bad policy on many fronts.
First, if passed, Canada's attractiveness as a free trade agreement partner would diminish, which would adversely affect Canada's ability to launch and enter into new negotiations. Canada's leverage in successfully renewing the CUSMA under President Trump or in negotiating a membership to and conclusion of the CPTPP agreement would have been greatly diminished if such a bill were in place.
Second, the bill would constrain negotiators' ability to seek the best and most ambitious deal for Canada as a whole. According to the department's website, Canada is negotiating bilateral or regional FTAs with a dozen partners, as well as advancing World Trade Organization modernization and renewal of the Agreement on Agriculture. Robust negotiating strategies, flexibility and compromise are required to achieve successful conclusions. This fact was acknowledged during the department's testimony on February 16 regarding the CUSMA.
Third, the bill creates a dangerous precedent that invites our trade partners to also seek exclusions and undermines Canada's reputation globally. CCGA supports ongoing government efforts to diversify our exports and strengthen free trade worldwide. This bill contradicts those efforts and sends a strong protectionist signal globally at a time where it has never been more important to avoid new trade barriers and to discourage trade and/or access to food.
Canada needs a new agriculture trade strategy where FTAs are a central trade policy tool. The Indo-Pacific strategy commits $2.3 billion over the next five years to expand our political, economic and security relationships with the Indo-Pacific region, including through FTAs with Association of Southeast Asian Nations, India and Indonesia. Countries that are developing their—