International Trade committee  The U.S., and I think Europe. In England we have a cheese quota, a cheddar cheese quota, of a certain amount.

International Trade committee  My understanding is that under this agreement right now the dilemma we have is on the pricing mechanism we use in Canada, which they consider a subsidy. The WTO ruled a couple of years ago on that.

International Trade committee  We would not be competitive.

International Trade committee  In order for supply management to work you need three pillars. One is you have to have import controls. You have to control production and you have to have the ability to set price locally to your producers. When we have unpredictable access into the country, whether that be cross-border shopping or whether that be importation of fractionated milk products or any sort of products that don't fall within the tariff lines, it becomes very unpredictable for us.

International Trade committee  Yes, it's substantial.

International Trade committee  I don't think so, not that I'm aware of. Maybe there are smarter people out there who can, but I can't.

International Trade committee  Yes. The legislation that protects us.... There are three pillars of supply management, and one of them is import controls. We have legislation that establishes what those products are that we have controls over. What the industry has been capable of doing in the last five or six years, and the last three of four years especially, is they've been able to fractionate the products down and then reconstitute them back into products.

International Trade committee  There's no direct cash benefit from the Canadian government. There are direct payments in the European markets to producers. Because of the supply management system, we do not have any subsidies in that regard, cash benefits.

International Trade committee  There was a question that was alluded to earlier here that we had a panel ruling against us because supply management is considered a subsidy when it comes to the pricing mechanisms. I did talk to one of my colleagues earlier about there being no reciprocal right now because of supply management.

International Trade committee  Of course, yes. We share the market nationally with all our other counterparts, and if they have unfettered access or increased access into this country, they're competing against us unfairly.

International Trade committee  No, it's going to be, hopefully, a predictable import control. To say it's a violation of import control..... The violation is all these other holes that we have of all these other products that are coming in. CETA does provide us with a predictable amount of product coming into this country on the cheese alone.

International Trade committee  Of course. We are very much aware of that. The point of this presentation is to make sure that this trade committee and the government know that if they're going to do the TPP.... I'm here tomorrow to speak on it too.

International Trade committee  I think the number was 36,000 direct and indirect jobs that are created from the industry. Any type of erosion of our market, whether it be through TRQs or whether it be through things sneaking under those TRQs, is going to have an effect on jobs. The way our industry is going right now, we're probably stagnated.

International Trade committee  The closing statement is that I do appreciate the fact that we're here. But I think, as I pointed out earlier, that we'd like to have a 10-year program. I'll answer any questions on supply management or anything during the question period. Thanks for the opportunity.

International Trade committee  Thank you. It's been an interesting day here. I've been listening to a lot of the witnesses and presentations. I thought it was very intriguing. Just to let you know who I am, I am a milk producer here, from the Fraser Valley. I've been involved in dairy politics or dairy industry leadership for probably the last 30 years.