International Trade committee  I'll just underscore what I said earlier in terms of our big concern. Certainly, our membership is diverse. There are a lot of Canadian companies, primarily, of course, but there are also a significant number of U.S., South American, European and so on companies. One of our big

International Trade committee  Certainly, as you noted, the environment, the rights of indigenous populations and the rights of populations that are not always as recognized, including women, are part of what we like to see in any kind of progressive trade. For us a progressive trade agenda also means this exp

International Trade committee  Oh, I'm sorry.

International Trade committee  That's an important question. I think what we're saying is that it's important in any of these agreements. Certainly, right now, we have mutual recognition of food-safety systems between the U.S. and Canada. As I understand it, CFIA is still pursuing one with New Zealand. That is

International Trade committee  I think that at this time there's not a tremendous volume of exports to Ecuador. Certainly the hope in a free trade environment is that it could be enhanced. For our exporters, I think it was Mr. English who noted that they're always looking for more export markets and are lookin

International Trade committee  Yes, absolutely.

International Trade committee  Good afternoon and thank you for the opportunity to speak to all of you today on the proposed free trade negotiations between Canada and Ecuador. I'll tell you a bit about CPMA. We represent over 850 companies that grow, pack, ship and sell fresh fruits and vegetables in Canada.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  For some of your constituents, whom I am sure you know well—apple producers, for example, is a really good one—that integration across the markets is so important. It's important that they don't lose those markets—the U.S. market in particular, because it's the biggest, but also

Agriculture committee  I did not bring this up, but yes, of course, you're referring to the request for a mechanism to reinstate our preferential treatment under PACA in the U.S., the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act. To do that, we have to have a similar mechanism here, which we don't have. W

Agriculture committee  Obviously, for us, any additional consultation, any additional opportunity for more voices to be heard, is welcome. I don't even know if I would characterize it as a caution, but the one thing that I think all of us at this table, and probably any of the associations, would want

Agriculture committee  Certainly for our sector, we put a lot of effort, of course, into understanding what the economic impact would be if NAFTA was thrown out, if we didn't go forward. We made those figures and that information available at every opportunity we had, whether we were meeting with the n

Agriculture committee  We prepared them.

Agriculture committee  Yes. I mean, obviously it was not coming from government. I don't know what your experience was, but certainly Agriculture Canada did prepare some documentation that was helpful—you know, they did the burger that Frank was referring to, so that was helpful, for sure.

Agriculture committee  That's okay.