International Trade committee  It's a big issue that the day-to-day trade issues that happen between Canada and other countries that we're involved with aren't being addressed on the level that needs to be done. Whether that precludes you from moving on in FTAs in other countries...but I do think that if we're going to be a seriously exporting nation, then we need to put the resources toward that to make sure it happens.

International Trade committee  Quite quickly, CFIA plant and animal health needs to get away from human health. It needs to get back in the realm of agriculture. Signing free trade agreements, and this kind of stuff, has no bearing on the Minister of Health, so if the Minister of Agriculture is out doing that, then the work falls to the CFIA.

International Trade committee  I'm going to leave that to the experts, but if you're going to do a FTA, I would assume that some of the benefits of an agreement with another country or a group or trading bloc is that you have mechanisms in place to expedite, to resolve trade issues as quickly as possible, because other than that, what's the point?

International Trade committee  Again, that's back to private industry and enterprise. They do a lot of research and development, and then a lot of it's within the genomic world and working with genes. I think that's where most of the intellectual property and copyright items come from. We don't have big concerns with that down there.

International Trade committee  No.

International Trade committee  I don't really know what they do. As Canada, we have a limited market, so access back for dairy product is probably around 5% or so. But on the other side of the coin, the genetics usually doesn't come back to Canada just because we are world leaders. I can say that confidently.

International Trade committee  It's more in that sanitary-phytosanitary realm, and it could be anything from asking us to produce the documentation that says a product is safe when they pioneered the document, pioneered the whole thing in the first place. It could be back to just, for example, a testing regime, or what needs to be done, say, on the bulls that are housed in Canada in order to export the frozen semen.

International Trade committee  They do.

International Trade committee  Right now, as I said, we're doing about $11 million, but it's a $15 million-plus market. It's enough. They have a sales force that networks out through that whole region—we've been in it a long time—and do market development in there on various levels. Even on the small ruminant side, some of the poorer parts of the different countries are interested in the genetics of sheep or goats to try to enhance the standard of living in rural environments.

International Trade committee  We use agents. My members use agents and distributors. Some of them go down directly. It just depends on the size of the organization and what resources they have. Then products ship directly from Canada to the destination.

International Trade committee  Yes, and that goes both ways: into those other countries and then back. I mentioned negotiations, certificates, and trade agreements. That's what that boils down to, just getting that done. Sometimes it takes forever for them to respond, but then, as I mentioned, with the lack of resources, Canada is headed the same way.

International Trade committee  It's hard to say. It's always our hope, truthfully, that things will become more stable and more predictable. I'll give you an example. We wanted to get an agreement with Brazil to export IVF embryos, in vitro-produced embryos. Brazil came back and said they wanted all our data on the health and safety of these embryos and all this stuff, but the problem with all that was that Brazil pioneered IVF embryos.

International Trade committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair, and thank you, committee members, for the opportunity to come today to speak to you. I'll say a little bit about the Canadian Livestock Genetics Association. We're a not-for-profit trade association of genetic exporters. Genetic exporters in this context means live dairy cattle, frozen semen and embryos, and, in the poultry industry, day-old chicks and hatching eggs.

Agriculture committee  Again, we see genomics as a big aspect of where the industry is going on the genetic side and applying that to human and animal health. Europe is definitely a leader; you mentioned the agreement, CETA, with their health herd protocols. I think it puts us in a spot where we really have to take a hard look at ours and then make sure we're up to the task.

Agriculture committee  Absolutely, but the mandate of my organization isn't actually research, so I can't speak to it. I'm not involved. The Dairy Farmers of Canada would know more on the dairy side of the value of the research, as compared to the Canadian Livestock Genetics Association.