Thanks, Dave.
How does this impact canola farmers? Most canola production is grown with herbicide-tolerant GM varieties, such as glyphosate resistance. Biotechnology is a key part of canola's sustainability story, enabling the widespread adoption of conservation tillage, improvements in soil health and reduction in other inputs. Responsible farming practices such as these allow farmers to sequester, on average, 11 million tonnes of GHGs in their fields each year. Crop protection products provide invaluable tools against pest, disease and agronomic pressures, protecting yield and farm profitability.
Without approvals in our export markets, our exports face zero tolerance for a canola biotech trait or crop protection product residue in an export shipment. This is an impossible proposition with our bulk handling system and multiple crops grown on farm. Canola farmers must select between market access or the adoption of innovation until the technology is recognized in our export market, if it is recognized. Often, this means farmers are not using the newest, best technologies, which have been deemed safe by our Canadian regulatory bodies based on robust scientific assessments.
These differences often come down to the use of precautionary principles and increasingly different views on sustainable agriculture. While we respect our partners' sovereign right to enact policies related to human and animal health and the environment, our landmark agreements indicate that such measures should be based on science, not create an unjustified barrier to trade, and provide guidelines to recognize equivalency.
In conclusion, we offer the following recommendations to your study as actions to maximize existing and future FTAs.
To fully capitalize on the benefits of trade, we need an ongoing commitment to resolving non-tariff barriers across government departments and at all levels. This will be key to expanding trade, investment and supply chain resilience under the Indo-Pacific strategy and to the success of the first ever Indo-Pacific agriculture and agri-food office.
Future agreements should incorporate trade-facilitative solutions to manage differences in innovation and sustainable agriculture. Both CUSMA and the CPTPP contain language on agriculture biotechnology that should be emulated. Recognition of international standards such as Codex would provide a solution to missing or different crop protection product registrations.
Once an FTA goes into effect, a strategy is required and dedicated resources are needed to ensure full implementation and compliance with the negotiated agreements and concessions, particularly in the areas of sanitary and phytosanitary measures and technical barriers to trade.
More largely, Canada needs an agriculture trade strategy to grow our agriculture and food exports, to leverage our existing FTAs and to define a pathway to ensure that Canada remains a leading provider of food, fibre and fuel worldwide.
Thank you.