Agriculture committee  Maybe I'll start—is it okay for me to start?

Agriculture committee  We do have national standards, which Ms. Scovil could go over, for our on-farm quality assurance, and so on, and in animal care, which are areas that were in the past considered provincial domains. That's not under the Constitution or anything, but.... On the environmental side, we did make an effort several years back to have a single national environmental farm plan.

Agriculture committee  I don't think there's anything that our membership collectively has been seeing as an impediment. There is from time to time an interest in being able to see product move between provinces that is from the smaller provincially inspected plants. It's not something that has been raised as a national issue, but when the question does come up we look at it as something that....

Agriculture committee  We would certainly want to see the provinces maintain their current level of engagement unless the federal government saw a significant increase in its resources because it really depends on the provinces to do a lot of that on-the-ground early response. They have all the laboratory capacity.

Agriculture committee  Because over 96% of our product goes through federally inspected plants, and the amount that's not going through federal plants is really more for local consumption, we couldn't really point to any losses that would be material. Live swine move quite frequently between provinces and there's no system of production allocation quotas, for example, that would restrain movement of live animals.

Agriculture committee  In terms of transporters, for example, being licensed to move between provinces...?

Agriculture committee  The only case I can think of, and I don't know how significant it is really, is the case of Prince Edward Island, which, because of a provincial health status they acquired, would restrict any live pigs coming into the province without a permit and without a health certificate of some kind.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much. I wish to thank the committee for inviting us here this afternoon to discuss our perspectives on this study of promoting the domestic trade of agricultural and agrifood products by reducing interprovincial barriers. The Canadian Pork Council serves as the national voice for hog producers in Canada.

International Trade committee  We don't have contacts directly ourselves with legislators, other than the few who have come to Canada in the recent couple of years, but there are well-developed relationships with the Korean industry. I think we'll be reaching out to the Korean suppliers and to the Korean meat industry, I guess, where we could be of any help to them getting the agreement through.

International Trade committee  Yes.

International Trade committee  It is for our major export of frozen pork. For the fresh, chilled pork, it's over a longer period. I think it may be 10 years. That market has been found to be quite a bit easier to deal with, but it's a much smaller market.

International Trade committee  That is where we are at a severe disadvantage right now, with that 10% or 15% tariff differential. With each 5% gain back, we would become much more competitive, and certainly be able to compete with the rest of them on equal footing after five years.

International Trade committee  That's right.

International Trade committee  That $150 million is somewhat larger than you would typically see, just because of that disease situation Korea had two years before that. However, we are not seeing all of these very well-developed business relationships totally disappear; we are not starting out from square one as we get back on our feet.

International Trade committee  On frozen pork we are at a 15% disadvantage now to the Americans and Europeans, because they have had three of the five equal cuts in the tariff. As of January 1, if we can have our agreement in place, we can at least lock in to that 15%—