International Trade committee  It depends on the type of product. If you're talking meat products or vegetable products, refrigeration would be critical. When it comes to peas, lentils, and grain products, it's not as much of an issue. But there I think the issue would be making sure that you could get your product right to the final market.

International Trade committee  Indian farmers have had quite a bit of opportunity with some of the spices there. With some of the commodity-type products there is likely not as much opportunity. But some of the spices and specialty products would be the market opportunities for them.

International Trade committee  Well, I think the South Korean one is extremely urgent, particularly for pork producers wanting access to that market. Now that the United States has an agreement in place, they're going to have preferential access all of a sudden, so anything that can be done to speed up that negotiation would be appreciated.

International Trade committee  I think the elimination of tariffs is one of the reasons, but I think the other reason is that we have really established ourselves as a reliable supplier with a high-quality market. I think the problem with temporary tariffs and temporary tariff elimination is that it doesn't give you confidence to do the planning you need to put the infrastructure in place for the long term.

International Trade committee  I think the word I would use to describe it would be “predictability”. You don't have knowledge of what the rules are going to be. We can see that the Indian government has put a lot of effort into making sure they have domestic capacity. It's fine to have domestic capacity, but we also understand that there's going to have to be a lot of trade in agricultural products just because of the size of the marketplace.

International Trade committee  I have to go back to my notes on that. As I said, I'm not specific in each sector. I believe it was on lentils and other pulses. There's a 50% tariff on peas.

International Trade committee  I think this is where some of the change is taking place in Indian society. A middle class is starting to rise in India. When you take 1.2 billion people, a very small percentage creates a fairly substantial number of people. I think what we have to start focusing on is targeting some of those high-value markets where Canadian product could be given a premium price.

International Trade committee  Thanks for the opportunity to make a presentation to you on behalf of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. Today we're talking in particular about the possibility of an India-Canada agreement. I think that's part of an overall initiative of trying to open up trade agreements around the world.

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  Anything that can be done to increase clarity would really build public confidence in the process. I come at this not only from the agriculture perspective, but in a previous life I was a municipal counsellor. Trying to get your hands on what an EA process was going to be, what the regulations were going to be, and what the definitions were going to be was a moving target all the time.

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  No, and I think that goes back to when you developed the regulations. We need to get some definitions on the types of projects that should be subject to more thorough reviews than others. Basically it's a waste of resources to go through a full-blown review on those types of projects.

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  That's right.

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  I think it goes back to the changes I described. Right now in the Fisheries Act, it is very clear that if there is any harmful alteration or destruction or disturbance, immediately you're in contravention of the Fisheries Act. Just to go through basic maintenance on a drain you're going to be disrupting and making changes to that habitat during the period it's under construction.

Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38 committee  Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity to present to the committee. I think I've met a number of you. Just so you're aware, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture represents farmers right across the country, representing all provinces and a number of commodity groups. We were supportive of some of the changes that had been proposed with respect to Bill C-38 in part 3.

Environment committee  They called it that.

Environment committee  There are a number of things that are being done now. Some of it is education in the classroom. Work is being done, primarily at the public school level, trying to make young students aware of some of the farm practices that are taking place. Most of the provinces have some type of farm-tour day.