International Trade committee  In terms of promotions, yes, we certainly would be far behind our major competitors in terms of overall government resources made available through the technical aspects, through embassy promotions, and through that kind of cooperation. Ted was mentioning that we would be well be

International Trade committee  May we just confirm, though, that we were willing to give some time, after that final rule was put out in January and before the Secretary of Agriculture indicated that he wanted this additional compliance, these additional steps, to see whether this would have corrected. We are

International Trade committee  I think traceability, as seen for some time as having more than just animal disease trace-back capabilities, is the thing that I guess is the most topical for livestock producers who depend on foreign market access and depend on the country being able to assure its customers that

Agriculture committee  I'll just say a few words in total. We don't really sell pigs; we sell hams and we sell shoulders and bellies. It is all broken up, and the cut that is the most problematic for our industry in the world market is the ham. The European market for hams is the best in the world, p

Agriculture committee  I will just say that we in Canada need the WTO to get back on the rails, because that's where we can catch up with the U.S. again. The U.S. has achieved a lot of bilateral advantages over the last couple of years, which we need to close.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Jurgen. This committee certainly is aware of what country of origin labelling is. In terms of U.S. legislation it is something that originates in the 2002 Farm Bill. We were quite content with the final rule that the U.S. administration published in December—that wo

Industry committee  I certainly wouldn't say you're incorrect, because there are substantial imports and they've increased considerably. Our imports were about 30,000 tonnes, I think, maybe five years ago, and this year they will probably be 170,000 tonnes. Now, I wouldn't say that this is an indica

Industry committee  Thank you.

Industry committee  It would not be specific to exchange rates, but for us to cope with the exchange rate changes and to be able to generate enough revenue and cashflow to keep our farms in business, we definitely need support for the loans that we've asked for from the government to tide us over to

Industry committee  First of all, thank you, Mr. Vincent. The slaughterhouses are primarily Canadian owned and Canadian controlled. That's on the pork side. On the beef side, they are largely U.S. owned. I think we do have a challenge to reach the levels of scale of some of the U.S. companies. At t

Industry committee  We are increasing our exports to China, primarily in the products that are not used as much at the consumer level in Canada. These would be primarily the organs of the animal—the heart, lungs, liver, etc. We hope that is going to result in increased pig meat exports. However, C

Industry committee  Thank you very much. This pork cycle exists, but it is not nearly as predictable as it once was, primarily because we are more of a global industry. At one time, we really just had cycles that were related to grain price cycles, and they were contained in North America. We are

Industry committee  Okay, one minute. Another table in here explains the impact on the cost situation. I'll close off with a point about the flexible exchange rates. We wouldn't argue against them as being an important tool for economies to adjust to changes in cost conditions, but we have this hu

Industry committee  Thank you very much. My president, Clare Schlegel, who was scheduled to come, sends his apologies for not being able to make it up from southwestern Ontario. His farm situation required him to be there today. We appreciate this opportunity because the Canadian dollar impact has

Agriculture committee  Only to underline some of what's already been said. We still have an excellent situation here for producing pigs and pork in Canada. At the genetic end of things, we still have a measured advantage over the United States in terms of productivity of our sows; it's 10% to 20% abov