Agriculture committee  I have just one housekeeping matter. Our statement is currently in translation and should be circulated to all the members some time today.

Agriculture committee  Thank you. I guess I think of this as not so much what's happened up to this point, but what could happen. What could happen in the next couple of weeks, and where are the opportunities? And what does Canada have to do to maximize the opportunities to get access for Canadian agr

Agriculture committee  I believe that the meeting at the end of June will be the first ministerial meeting of the WTO. There have been some little side meetings of groups here and there, but this will be the first time that the WTO director general has called ministers and asked them to come.

Agriculture committee  I guess that's the question I often struggle with. Why can't we find some common ground? Why are we entrenched in our positions domestically at one extreme or the other? I think having this dialogue this morning to try to find that common ground perhaps could be useful in getting

Agriculture committee  One thing that has been done is obviously to have an open dialogue with all the sectors that are involved, that before the ministers go to the negotiations we have discussions like this, forums where everybody is represented and we talk about defining what a win-win situation is.

Agriculture committee  I think we can learn from history. I think you know the B.C. wine industry very well. I grew up in the Niagara region, and I recall that in the late 1980s the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was going to be the death of the wine industry in Canada. When you have these market f

International Trade committee  Thank you for the invitation to be here before you on this important topic of the Canada-Korea free trade agreement. The Canadian beef industry is highly export dependent. Nearly 90,000 Canadian cattle producers collectively produce approximately 1.6 million tonnes of beef and

International Trade committee  We participate in an agriculture trade consultations group. We have a beef cattle trade advisory committee in which we participate as well.

International Trade committee  Yes, we were consulted a few times in the last few months and we got the impression the agreement was getting close with Peru, especially after the U.S. Congress ratified it in early December. The sense we had from the Canadian negotiators is that Peru wanted to sign it with Cana

International Trade committee  Absolutely.

International Trade committee  If we look at what the opportunities for beef in Korea would be....and that's what we're looking at, because we represent independent farmers, small producers, and basically we get paid to represent them, and I know that the auto manufacturers and large multinational companies ha

International Trade committee  Right. Thank you for that reminder. About a year and a half ago--and I think that's when the beef export federation was here--we discussed with them what our strategy with Korea should be. At that time we were extremely frustrated that Korea would not even speak to the Canadian

International Trade committee  I was going to say, as I look at the trade, how it's evolved with Korea. It used to be that we sent mostly tongues and stomachs, the beef offals. They face an 18% tariff in Korea. The beef cuts, like the rib-eyes, the short ribs, the chuck roll, have a higher value. Those face a

International Trade committee  I don't think I'd use those words. In the EFTA marketplace, it seemed that those negotiations were going on for so long, and then all of a sudden there was a deal. I'm not sure what happened. I think the closest thing we got to benefiting from the EFTA agreement is that there wil

International Trade committee  We're funded in many different ways. Our primary source of funding is the check-off. Every time a head of cattle is marketed in Canada, this check-off is collected, and depending on which province it is, it's different. In Alberta it's $3. In Ontario it's $2.50, but I think there