Evidence of meeting #25 for International Trade in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was kovrig.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much. I'm sorry. You're down to 20 seconds.
I'm going to give the last two minutes to Monsieur Savard-Tremblay.
Bloc
Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay Bloc Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot—Acton, QC
Mr. Burton, you have stated in the past that lifting tariffs on canola will not solve anything. I would like to hear your reasons for this.
If there is time afterwards, Mr. Pike, as you are at the heart of grain production, I would like to hear your response to Mr. Burton’s comments.
February 26th, 2026 / 12:55 p.m.
Senior Fellow, Sinopsis, As an Individual
I have enormous sympathy for our canola partners, and I'm quite encouraged by Mr. Pike's suggestion that we need to move more into biofuels. Farmers have enough worry with the rain and the droughts, and now they have to worry about matters that have no relevance whatsoever to hard-working people on tractors or whatever, producing food for Canadians. My heart really goes out to them.
China has used this canola thing a lot. Previously they made—I think Mr. Pike would probably agree—completely spurious allegations that the dockage in our canola was full of mites and bugs or something. There was no basis for this whatsoever. They seem to target canola because it's a powerful constituency.
If China wants to engage in economic leverage, they can then start to go after our other agricultural commodities. They might suggest there's something wrong with our potash, meat or whatever. It is a dangerous thing. I think these agricultural commodities have a global market.
It's regrettable that after the Meng Wanzhou and the two Michaels matter was resolved, we went back to having a very high dependence on the Chinese market for our canola marketing. I really think that we need to be looking to partners that are more likely to maintain contracts in an honest way than depending on the hope that we can trust the Chinese to be fair in their dealings with us.
Vice-President, Government and Industry Relations, Canadian Canola Growers Association
I would reiterate the amount of frustration that our farmers are facing. We get targeted because we're such a large industry, as I mentioned. There is over $43 billion in economic contribution, representing over 200,000 workers. We're a major player when it comes to exports to China. This isn't the first time that it's happened.
Mr. Burton, I think, characterized it really well. Farmers already deal with the weather. There's a huge level of uncertainty. They don't want to deal with the uncertainty of global geopolitics. We want predictability in our international markets.
I keep going back to this, but I'm going to say it again for probably the third or fourth time—our domestic biofuel policy.... That can be increased so that we don't have to face some of this geopolitical uncertainty. Over the past few years, we've been able to weather, so to speak, some of the storms with these recent retaliatory tariffs.
The opportunities out there are domestic and international. We can do both well.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you, Mr. Pike.
Ms. Wood has raised her hand, and she's been very patient all of this time. I would like to give her the floor for a minute or so.
Brittany Wood Senior Policy Manager, Trade and Transportation, Canadian Canola Growers Association
Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. I'll be quick.
Dustin has made many of the points that we want to ensure that you hear and repeated the topic of biofuels as our market diversification strategy.
I want to note that market diversification takes time. It is not something that we are reacting to or putting forward as what we want to see right now as a result of some of the tariffs we've just experienced. This is a strategy that our industry has been working on for years. I would say that's evidenced by the investments in canola processing that have been on the table and worked on here for perhaps about five years. We are starting to see that come to fruition.
We anticipate that by the end of 2026, we will have the processing capacity to process about 75% of our canola crop here in Canada. That's incredible.
I just want to reiterate that we are working hard to create new markets and new opportunities for canola farmers. Canola farmers need open and stable access to markets, and the canola industry has been very much committed to and focused on this. While China is important to us—we anticipate that it will be—we see this added opportunity, and there are details that are important to us to get right in order to increase the domestic market share.
Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Judy Sgro
Thank you very much to our witnesses for the wonderful information you have provided for the committee.
To the members, on March 10 we will be doing Mercosur, and March 12 will be about the invitation that has gone out to the Minister of International Trade regarding the Taiwan motion.
Thank you all very much.