International Trade Committee on Feb. 10th, 2026

[Brian Innes]

The first thing I'll share is that when we travel overseas—and I've just returned from a three-country trip with 25 of our farmers and exporters—we hear from our customers that they value what Canada provides. For us, that's quality, sustainability and trust. They don't get that from every country in the world right now. There is a real opportunity for Canada to seize the moment that our customers are experiencing and to provide high-quality, sustainable and trusted food.

On the value-added side, there are certainly opportunities, and we want to see that grow. One example I would share is that there is a new soy milk powder plant coming on stream just south of Ottawa, in Morrisburg. It's a partnership with a Japanese company. That's an opportunity to further process our soybeans and to be able to export more of a food ingredient than the soybeans.

I would also say that when we think about value added, we want to have factories, but the choices that the farmer has also represent many gradients of value added. I use the example of food-grade soybeans, where farmers make 50% more per bushel than they do from commodity soybeans. They take extra work, and it takes extra care throughout the whole chain to create a bespoke variety, to keep it separate, to test it and to keep it pure.

There are opportunities to add value, including what the farmer does, in the value chain as well as in a factory.

[Yasir Naqvi, Liberal, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Very quickly, Mr. Correa, I have a similar question.

What do these opportunities look like for the meat sector when it comes to these Southeast Asian countries?

[Jorge Correa]

It's huge. We're talking about countries like Indonesia, where we have no access at all in beef and pork. They import $1.1 billion in beef, so this is a huge opportunity for the beef side.

In terms of the other countries, we're looking for an FTA with Thailand. Thailand also is a big importer of beef, but it's not as much for pork, because they produce a lot. Then, the Philippines is a huge market for Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much.

We're moving on to Monsieur Savard-Tremblay for two and a half minutes, please.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

Let's continue the discussion on this topic. I'm genuinely pleased to see that some sectors stand to gain from this agreement. I'm delighted about this. However, I agree with Mr. Trew that we should set stricter and more stringent limits when we enter into an agreement. In other words, we should trade, but not at any cost. We shouldn't trade at the cost of the planet and human beings.

On that note, Mr. Trew, are you concerned about deforestation over there? Some industries tied to warlords are causing the destruction. There was a hole in the Indonesian forest the size of the whole of Belgium. Does this worry you? Should we find a way to insert a stricter control mechanism directly into the bill?

[Stuart Trew]

I think we should always strive to find ways to factor these things into our trade agreements. We should not be importing products produced as a result of deforestation, for example. I don't know if we've found the exact way to do that. I'm concerned about deforestation in Canada as well.

We talked about the investor-state dispute settlement process. Maybe I can use this opportunity to say that one of the risks for Canada from this treaty would be that it could put Canadian forestry policies at risk of disputes from forestry companies as well. As we know, the largest one in Canada is owned by Indonesian investors.

Yes, I am concerned, but I don't know exactly how we would go about fixing that problem.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

However, when it comes to investor‑state dispute settlement, I imagine that you're inviting the members here to vote against this clause during the clause‑by‑clause consideration this week.

[Stuart Trew]

Yes. Absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

You have 40 seconds.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC]

What more can you say in 40 seconds?

Do you have any other recommendations on how to improve the bill?

[Stuart Trew]

Not really. For us, it's the dispute settlement process.

That's the biggest problem with this treaty.

I appreciate the opportunities, for example, that our soy farmers are going to achieve from lowering tariffs—

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Trew.

Mr. Kram, please go ahead for four minutes.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Mr. Innes, I'd like to start with you, because you said that your members expect to benefit from this free trade agreement. I certainly hope they do.

I was a bit surprised to read that Global Affairs Canada first announced that it was beginning free trade negotiations with Indonesia way back in June 2021. This deal did not come up for a vote in the House of Commons until just last week. I certainly hope that it becomes law before we reach the five-year anniversary, but it still has to go through the Senate, and it still has to receive royal assent.

I'm wondering if you could offer any advice as to how we can move faster when it comes to free trade agreements with new and emerging markets. It seems that five years is a long time to wait.

[Brian Innes]

Over my 20 years of experience in trade agreements, I've seen many iterations of how it can roll out. I would offer that I think Parliament and committee have really important roles with the processes that have evolved lately.

In that, I would draw the example of Indonesia, where the substantial conclusion was, I believe, more than a year and three months ago. Why did it take a year and three months for it to be tabled in Parliament and get to committee? Those things are all in the control of the Canadian government. Yes, we have elections. Yes, we have parliamentary sessions, but it's not clear to me why it took so long.

I would certainly share your view that controlling the things that we can control within Canada, within Parliament and within committee to put agreements—once they've been agreed to, legally scrubbed and all of that—to Parliament sooner would be a helpful aspect. That's one thing I've seen with the Indonesia agreement. Indeed, through CAFTA and through Soy Canada, we've been recommending that it come before Parliament as quickly as possible after conclusion.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Do you have any speculation or answers as to why it took a year and three months for it to be tabled in Parliament?

[Brian Innes]

I don't have visibility into that.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

Okay, that's very fair.

In addition to having these deals on paper, it's important to have the infrastructure in place so that we can export our products far and wide. You mentioned ports in an answer to an earlier question.

I was wondering if you could share with the committee your members' experiences with the port of Vancouver in particular. How have your members experienced exporting through that particular port, and what improvements could be made?

[Brian Innes]

The port of Vancouver is important for agricultural products and soybeans from western Canada, but it is also important for soybeans produced in eastern Canada. Soybeans produced in Ontario and Quebec headed toward the Indo-Pacific, or Asia more broadly, do transit by rail to Vancouver to be loaded into container ships and sent to their destination.

When we look at the system, it's about the port of Vancouver and it's also about the two railways and the power that they exert on the whole system to get our product from inland to the port of Vancouver.

Our experience broadly on transportation is that we have work to do in Canada. We have work to do on how our railways respond to the needs of the country and our needs as a soybean industry in particular to access opportunities through them to the ports, through the container ships and to the customers.

For the port of Vancouver, we're happy to see opportunities to expand container capacity. What we see globally in places that use the container system is that systems with capacity that encourage imports also enable exports. More capacity through Roberts Bank Terminal 2, for example, to expand container capacity will be helpful for our agricultural exports in containers.

Overall, the port of Vancouver is part of a system, and I would say that it hasn't been the biggest challenge for us.

[Michael Kram, Conservative, Regina—Wascana, SK]

You also mentioned railways. In the time that we have left, can you offer any recommendations that could improve railway policy to make sure that what farmers produce gets to global markets faster?

[Brian Innes]

We recognize that as publicly traded companies they have responsibilities to their shareholders, but we also believe that as two railways in Canada that have significant market power and ultimately control what we can sell, they also need to respond to the needs of the country, and that comes in terms of rates and service.

An example I would share with you is that all of the things oftentimes get downloaded onto our industry. When we deliver a container of soybeans to a container terminal in Toronto, how much time that trucker waits in the terminal is entirely determined by the railway. They don't pay for it. Ultimately, it comes out of the farmers' pockets and what we have to back off in terms of what our customers provide for the product at the end.

[The Chair, Liberal, Judy Sgro]

Thank you very much, Mr. Innes.

We'll go on to Madame Lapointe, please, as the last speaker.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to welcome the witnesses. The topics covered are quite intriguing.

Mr. Trew, we're talking about safety rules for workers. A witness came earlier to talk mainly about major projects. He said that the safety rules were similar or at least quite good compared to our safety rules.

You said that the situation was different for safety rules concerning workers. I would like you to comment on this. The previous witness said that he was happy to see that the people working on the major projects had the same safety equipment as here in Canada.

[Stuart Trew]

What I might say is that I don't want to speak for the previous witnesses, but I think what they were saying was that when they go and operate abroad, they take their own practices with them. They obviously would not want to treat workers badly or undermine health and safety and so on and so forth.

The Indonesian rules are quite sophisticated, from what I understand. It's a very sophisticated democracy, and they do concern themselves with these things, but there is a prevalent use of forced labour across the economy, and, as I said, in the shrimp industry for sure. We've heard about terrible cases in nickel production, for example, and domestic and Chinese-owned plants where workers die in the hundreds, sometimes, in a couple of years.

There's a matter of enforcement, there's a matter of what the government wants to do and then there's a matter of the market itself compelling companies to cut costs and cut corners. We need to think about the ways in which we're increasing trade in some areas like nickel, like shrimp, whatever, that—

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

I gather that the safety rules aren't the same throughout the country. Thank you.

Sorry, but I have only five minutes of speaking time. I'll turn to Mr. Correa and Mr. Innes.

Mr. Correa and Mr. Innes, I would like to wish you a happy national Agriculture Day. Thank you for joining us.

Mr. Correa, you said earlier that meat exports offer major opportunities. We're talking about Indonesia, but do you want to talk about opportunities in other places?

[Jorge Correa]

Absolutely. Are you talking about other opportunities besides—