International Trade committee  British Columbia produces some of the best products in Canada, including especially on the commodity side, whether it is timber and wood or whether it is fresh berries and other agricultural products. The B.C. regions will have opportunities to export products like that, similar to other regions across Canada.

International Trade committee  In terms of the agreement, there are no specific provisions for small and medium-sized enterprises, but it does allow them to access the provisions, as it does other companies. The other part of that, though, is that the government does open up the access, but then we need to help.

International Trade committee  Again, from a goods perspective, I don't think they're vulnerable. I think we are covered by the memorandum of understanding, which provides for duty remission on Canadian exports into the U.K. marketplace for goods that would qualify under the TCA. So I think we're—

International Trade committee  That's correct. It does.

International Trade committee  There are provisions in the agreement that will strongly entice, as opposed to compel, both countries back to the table. The cumulation provision, a very important provision, before the United Kingdom, will expire after three years, so on December 31, 2023, unless it is renewed.

International Trade committee  That's correct. The U.K. has finished, and the MOU does expire at the end of March. It does allow for it to be extended if necessary, and so we do retain that as a possibility.

International Trade committee  I think we will see what happens, certainly, in the interests of our stakeholders vis-à-vis the CPTPP versus the bilateral negotiations. Are there certain areas? I think there are other areas in the bilateral where we could go farther than we would have under the CPTPP—for example, with respect to small businesses, digital trade, trade and gender, and the environment.

International Trade committee  All of those things are certainly possible and will certainly be looked at before we launch negotiations, absolutely.

International Trade committee  Yes, that's correct. We have made it clear that the TCA is not sufficient to complete the bilateral negotiations in the context of the CPTPP. They would need to do more.

International Trade committee  I think the MOU was seen as very helpful by businesses, because it eliminated some of the uncertainty that would have happened as of December 31 as a result of not having the TCA in place as of that day. From that point of view, it was very positive. We have heard from Canadian companies exporting goods into that market that things are going well.

International Trade committee  The United Kingdom is our third-largest export market. We have had a strong and stable bilateral trade relationship with them for a great number of years. I think it's more likely the case that we will see ongoing opportunities in that marketplace. We are certainly seeing them in the agriculture space but also in other commodities, wood products and industrial products as well.

International Trade committee  The pork outcome that we were able to achieve in the Canada-U.K. TCA is reflective of the potential of the bilateral trade. There's no question that there have been more than a few challenges in accessing the European Union marketplace, both on the pork side and on the beef side.

International Trade committee  Our exports of pulse crops in general have been excellent. I'm not sure of the exact HS code that is in question right now, but I can say for sure that the exports to both Europe and the United Kingdom, as well as around the world, have been outstanding over the last few years. Certainly what was available to us in CETA is now available to us in the context of the CUKTCA, so I would expect that those strong exports would continue.

International Trade committee  Thank you for the question and clarification. That's where I was going with some of the SPS issues that we have to deal with in the EU that may not necessarily be translated over to the U.K. It will take some time for them to get their own domestic SPS provisions in place, to perhaps modify them as they do their own domestic consultations and move forward.

International Trade committee  Again, I would come back to my earlier answer. The goal of the exercise we completed with the United Kingdom was to replicate what was in CETA. Changes were not made for the most part, except in areas, for example, of goods TRQs, which could not be replicated—