International Trade committee  It's interesting that you mention grocery stores, because although we think about consumer choice, consumers can only choose what is on offer in the grocery store shelves. Grocery stores will make decisions about what to stock or what not to stock depending on the margin they can

International Trade committee  Well, as a dairy farmer myself—

International Trade committee  My diesel fuel or farm equipment and labour cost is higher in Canada than it would be in the U.S.

International Trade committee  Based on that, yes. But my point is that because we pay more for diesel fuel or farm equipment or labour, does that mean we as dairy farmers are subsidizing the farm equipment manufacturers, or are they—

International Trade committee  The price of milk has gone up probably less than the rate of inflation. That's at farm gate; I'm not talking about retail. I mean, the retail world charges what the market will bear, and it really is not directly connected to what the farmer receives.

International Trade committee  I don't think we've ever said we were opposed to greater access for Canadian meats to the European market. The other thing to remember, too, is that the subsidies they have in the EU for farmers are not limited to dairy farmers. These are programs that are decoupled from product

International Trade committee  To answer your first question, because of the massive amount of subsidies in the European Union, dairy producers there receive 40% to 50% of their revenue from the mailbox, from government program payments. So that means that they don't have to receive as much from the market. Th

International Trade committee  Currently, under the access that was negotiated during the GATT agreement, Europe obtained about 13,400 tonnes out of the 20,000 tonnes of total cheese access. Now, with CETA, that will augmented by a further 17,700 tonnes.

International Trade committee  That's correct, yes.

International Trade committee  First of all, our numbers indicate that the rate of growth is probably about half of the number that you cited. Secondly, speaking as a dairy producer, that growth is very important to us as producers. Our production per cow increases on an annual basis and we need to grow our f

International Trade committee  In cheese or in dairy production?

International Trade committee  Just off the top of my head, in Ontario, since 2000, so over the last—

International Trade committee  I'm not sure I have the numbers for Canada.

International Trade committee  Ontario's pretty representative of the country. Since 2000 we've had about 10% more quota issued. That's been growth in the market over 13 years, so that's a growth rate of about 0.7% to 0.8% per year. That's not just cheese, that's all milk product.

International Trade committee  It is a concern. In our view this may set a precedent. Certainly other countries looking at this will be saying that if you did this for Europe you can do this for us, too. It's fair game, right?