Agriculture committee  I'll ask Chris to address that. He would be more familiar with it.

Agriculture committee  It's a regulatory issue that would be helpful for the whole industry, the whole value chain. It provides new opportunity, new innovation, that will help the processing sector and help others. Essentially, it comes down to a number of those things. Gene editing particularly, as a new and innovative technology in plant breeding, can unlock a toolbox of innovation that seed developers can use.

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the very good question. Both, really, is the answer to that. We are currently processing close to 10 million tonnes—or maybe just a little bit over 10 million tonnes of canola—in Canada. Almost half of the crop is now processed in Canada. A few years ago, it would have been a lot less than that, so we have done a lot of value-added expansion in Canada.

Agriculture committee  There are two things I would point to. They're both regulatory programs. It is to provide the predictability and the confidence for processors to invest in the Canadian marketplace to grow our processing side. The first would be, as I mentioned in the brief, regulations around plant-breeding innovation, particularly gene editing.

Agriculture committee  Maybe I can start, and Chris can add a comment too. What we find, for example, is that there are maximum residue limits on seed and products that are exported from Canada and other markets, which are there to protect animal health and safety in various countries. Canada has a list of its own, so it regulates the chemical residues from crop products that are allowed on seed and other products coming into Canada.

Agriculture committee  I don't know that I can speak to rail transportation for other commodities. I'll stick to what I know and what Chris knows, which is the grain side of things. The Canola Council of Canada does market development and relationship work with our major customers around the world. When we have a transportation issue in Canada, we hear about it immediately from our customers.

Agriculture committee  Chris, why don't you go ahead with that one?

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chairman and committee, good afternoon, and thank you very much for having us today. We're very interested in talking about Canada's value-added canola sector and about increasing processing capacity for our exports of seed, meal and oil, as well as the domestic market through biofuels.

Agriculture committee  I am here today with Chris Vervaet, as you mentioned, from the Canadian Oilseed Processors Association. Our two associations work very closely. Competitiveness in the global export market is critical for the canola industry. We export 90% of what we produce in Canada, so we need to be competitive globally.

Agriculture committee  I think the recommendation was that there are issues of quality that have been raised. I saw on the weekend that the Chinese embassy here indicated they were open to a communications with Canada about the issue. I take that as an invitation, that this delegation would be accepted in China, so that we could get to the bottom of this issue as quickly as possible.

Agriculture committee  Sure. I think Mr. Jeworski and Mr. Vossen are probably better placed to answer that question, so I will turn it over to them. At the beginning of my testimony, I indicated that this market, China, is larger than the next three all put together that we have for seed, so it's a very significant market.

Agriculture committee  I think that in the case of this kind of circumstance we have to look at all things. We have to look at all measures, including any possible chances we have to make sure that all importers are living up to their obligations under SPS rules and so on. Mr. Vossen referred to the protocols that usually take place in these kinds of circumstances.

Agriculture committee  With SPS, it's much more complicated. I think our trade commissioners have to be really well suited to that kind of market access issue.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the committee for having the Canola Council here today. The council, for those who don't know, is a value chain organization. It represents the 43,000 canola growers, the seed developers, the processors who turn canola seed into oil for humans and meal for livestock, as well as the exporters who export canola for processing at its destination.

Finance committee  No, those were the four.