International Trade committee  I will give the complete formal presentation.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Really quickly, I'm wondering if it's of any use to the committee to look at the concept of equivalence that is used in the international—

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Equivalence is a concept in the WTO codes on sanitary and phytosanitary barriers, providing a way for countries to deal with each other and not require each other to have identical systems, but system results that are equivalent. I don't know if that is a concept that can be brought into this federal versus provincial inspection realm or not.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Okay.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you very much. Also, I thank many of the members around this table today who came to our barbecue two weeks ago, because it had the enormous benefit of giving producers a sense that they weren't dealing with this by themselves. We were, I think, one of those bodies that were trying to get rid of this word “swine” that was attached to this flu.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  On this matter of international versus domestic, I think the one thing that CFIA does is this. For each of those export customers, where there is a difference, they take the responsibility to certify that the product does meet that difference. Increasingly, in trade agreements and elsewhere, we are looking for countries to accept our system so we don't need to have them look at each of our individual plants.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  The members of the Canadian Meat Council are going to be much more informed than we are in terms of the efficacy of the inspection system that's in the plants, but I guess we would share the view that more can be done with the data that is being collected in plants and the data that is being generated by these on-farm quality assurance programs, which we don't really see as being utilized to their potential yet to help in addressing present risks.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I would say just a quick word. We have not, in the Canadian Pork Council, ever had to take a position on whether there were two systems operating. It has been a fact of life for a very long time. But if you had interprovincial movements of provincially inspected product, I guess our concern would be how to ensure that it didn't move into international commerce.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you. I think we should be looking at trying to have greater international standardization on food safety tolerances, on maximum residue limits, things of that nature. We do have reference to the Codex Alimentarius of the FAO, and the World Health Organization bulletins, and so on, but I think that until we have a greater commitment to using those international tolerances, and not only using them when they're to the U.S. or anyone else's advantage, I think it would help us get over this matter of each country doing its own separate examination of safety data.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you. Ms. Lawrence is going to make the presentation.

International Trade committee  Mr. Chair, do you have a tentative date yet for when the committee will go to Washington?

International Trade committee  I'll put a couple of pork perspectives in there. On country of origin labelling, I think it's important to remind ourselves that there was no consumer demand for country of origin labelling.

International Trade committee  Right, but through this integrated market, we don't lose that ability to be able to follow those movements. We definitely have taken advantage of the opportunities that NAFTA and other trade agreements have provided for specialization in areas that we have advantages in. COOL really drives a wedge into that whole thing, and it upsets a huge amount of investment.

International Trade committee  On the flexibility on trade negotiations, Canada did sign on to the 2004 framework agreement, and the rigidities in its current negotiating position really remove it, pull it back, from that commitment that it made in 2004. I think, as Dennis suggests, it hampers our negotiating ability in arguing for the trade liberalization we've been looking for in other sectors.

International Trade committee  In terms of promotions, yes, we certainly would be far behind our major competitors in terms of overall government resources made available through the technical aspects, through embassy promotions, and through that kind of cooperation. Ted was mentioning that we would be well behind our major competitors in that respect.