International Trade committee  Thank you. You asked about the Canadian Wheat Board. I think the issue there is that if your biggest competitor doesn't want you to have a tool, you should consider why. But again, it's our position that producers should be the ones to decide this. Relative to value-adding, we are in a situation in this country, and have been for many years, where we have asked our producers to compete against the U.S. treasury.

International Trade committee  Thank you. You asked if our producers want free trade. Our producers want fair trade. They want access to profitable markets. Our producers will take 5% clean access that gives them some profitability in that marketplace, well over some philosophical 30% reduction of a 400% tariff that gives them nothing.

International Trade committee  We should be keeping abreast of the rest of the world, certainly, in that context.

International Trade committee  Canada should be doing bilaterals and Canada is doing bilaterals. We're suggesting that there be more resource and more energy put to it, because there's a great deal of energy being put to it by other countries. There's a lot more energy being applied to it since WTO was discontinued.

International Trade committee  Thank you. I think the key to this is going to be to recognize that market signals are made in government policies. If we continue to try to open market access without dealing with that domestic support issue, we open the world up for market access, with reduced tariffs, to fill up with subsidized product out of countries that have high domestic support.

International Trade committee  Thank you. I believe there are some significant differences in agriculture relative to other products that move around in the world in the context of trade. When you start with plant production, and recognize that as the basis for agriculture in that it provides an opportunity to add value, that's a raw commodity.

International Trade committee  I think Canada has an ability to maintain the quality reputation that we have as long as there is an ability to provide producers with sufficient money for doing what they're doing. We have a problem in doing that. Whether or not we have a Canadian Wheat Board, whether or not we have a Canadian Grain Commission, we have a problem in getting sufficient money for producers.

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the opportunity to be here. I have Clinton Monchuk, who is the Canadian Federation of Agriculture trade policy analyst, here for technical support. CFA is the largest farm organization in Canada. CFA represents general farm organizations in every province, as well as national commodity groups.

International Trade committee  Thank you. It seems to me that domestic support is the basis for a lot of the problems. If you look back to where domestic support was first provided, it was to create food self-sufficiency. Then it over-produced that, and then it put export subsidies in place. Countries that couldn't provide it put in place barriers so that they didn't have to accept subsidized product.

International Trade committee  Thank you. Just to follow up, I think Canada is still very clearly involved, and Canada is working for a good deal for Canada. That's important, because if you accept a bad deal, you've accepted that other countries can do this to you for a period of time. There's some risk in not getting a deal, but there's a lot of risk in accepting a bad deal.

International Trade committee  Thank you. I think there are three points. I think Canada still is at the table. Canada is very instrumental and has shown a great deal of leadership in and around the WTO talks in bilateral country meetings, in those kinds of discussions. Canada continues to exert a great deal of influence and is highly respected in this process.

International Trade committee  Yes, I do, thank you. Following up on what Mr. McCreery just said, when you look at the domestic support currently provided by the United States--we'll take corn as the example he just used. The United States has said they will reduce their amber support, but they will have a fairly significant ability to continue to provide that.