Agriculture committee  I think the other challenge right now is that, for instance, would you expect be getting 50 centimetres of snow in Newfoundland? We make decisions, with a decision tree, about whether to load or not load based on weather. To give you an example, if there's extreme heat in the sum

International Trade committee  Thank you.

International Trade committee  Yes, I have my left winger.

International Trade committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, members. Thank you for inviting us today to speak on NAFTA. At the outset, let me say that NAFTA, as currently structured, has been positive for both the Canadian and the U.S. chicken industry. With the stability provided by supply management, the

International Trade committee  Mexico is their largest in both volume and value, and we're the second largest in both volume and value. The U.S. chicken industry understands that NAFTA is of benefit to them. If they got a bit more access, would they say they liked it? Yes, but what's important to them, as Cl

International Trade committee  The key piece on that one, which we've been pushing for, is DNA testing. We've worked with Trent University to have DNA testing. We're at the point where the government needs to test, to get it's own validation of our test. We think it's good. We didn't do it. The people at Trent

International Trade committee  We have no indication in terms of that, so our message to Mr. Trump is that if he wants more access, sign TPP. It's there.

International Trade committee  There was a deal done in TPP. Would I say, if I was negotiating only for the Chicken Farmers of Canada, that I liked that deal? No.

International Trade committee  I'm not sure that there is, but I think there are enough demands from the U.S. side that we need to put back the same demands. There is a risk that some of our colleagues in agriculture fear the U.S. coming back on COOL. All I want to signal is that if they're coming back, our pu

International Trade committee  There are a couple of steps. In 2014, we eliminated any preventive use of category I antibiotics, most important to medicine. We made a decision in May of this year that by the end of 2018 we will eliminate category II, and our goal is to eliminate category III by the end of 2020

International Trade committee  Nothing is harmonized. We're moving ahead as an industry. There isn't a government regulation in place, in that sense. We're trying to move a whole industry. When we say there's no category I antibiotic use, it's across all production in Canada. In the United States, it will be d

International Trade committee  We've talked about the marketing advantage over here. Some companies are taking a marketing advantage. You can't raise 100% without antibiotics. That's an impossibility. Birds will get sick. Humans will get sick. Our point is not to use the ones of importance to human medicine

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The chicken industry in Canada is a growth and value-addition success story. Production has increased 12% over the last four years, and will increase another 4% this year. Just to give you a sense of what the sector comprises, there are 244 hatching e

Agriculture committee  I know there's a concern. As I said, we paid $2.3 billion in taxes. I don't think one of our members will say they shouldn't pay their fair share of taxes, and I think they feel they do. They have some concerns about trying to understand the impacts of this proposed legislation.

Agriculture committee  We're all in favour of improvement on transportation changes. We're in line with making sure we're doing it for the right reasons, for the benefit of the animals. But also, as we've said, the biggest risk to us is Atlantic Canada, the transportation distances. What they were prop