Agriculture committee  Overall, when technical barriers come up, they are handled directly by the CAFTA members who are facing these issues. It's not a CAFTA activity. It's not something that we work on. I'd like to add that overall, the communication with our negotiators, officials, and those who han

Agriculture committee  I don't want to speculate about what will happen and I don't have a crystal ball, but in its current form the TPP needs both the U.S. and Japan to go ahead. That said, who knows? The 11 TPP countries could negotiate something on the side on their own, and maybe give two, three, o

Agriculture committee  Thank you. Thank you for inviting me today to speak on behalf of CAFTA, the Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, on the next agricultural policy framework. CAFTA is the voice of Canadian agriculture and agrifood exporters. We are a coalition of national and regional organizations

Agriculture committee  The concern is, what if Canada doesn't ratify the agreement, though? And that is directly related to the costs of not ratifying. We've seen what happened with the Korean deal, and we certainly cannot relive that experience again. Who knows what would happen if Canada were not par

Agriculture committee  In general, the rules are established by all the countries that are signatories to the agreement. For specific products, I would invite my colleagues to answer your question in detail.

Agriculture committee  We've supported the CETA, as it's expected to result in significant benefits for our export-oriented agrifood sectors. On the TPP, we've heard about the benefits, the risks, the costs. What I want to impress upon the committee today is the importance of having competitive access

Agriculture committee  Maybe I'll give you a brief comment. Malaysia is one of those countries, and Vietnam another, that our members are very interested in in terms of the TPP. Of course, there are others in Asia, but our members are interested in Vietnam and Malaysia in particular. Vietnam has a fast

Agriculture committee  On the SPS and TPP provisions, as was mentioned before, the TPP builds upon the WTO SPS and TBT measures. There are, I believe, close to 20, maybe 25 different committees that are to be established that touch on the trade of agriculture and agrifood products. For those committees

Agriculture committee  I will let the witnesses who work specifically in that sector answer that question. But I would say, however, that the TPP puts everyone on an equal footing in terms of standards.

Agriculture committee  Today, Canada is the world's fifth-largest exporter of agriculture and agri-food products. In other words, we are positioning ourselves rather well. We are in full support of the TPP as a means for us to remain competitive at world level.

Agriculture committee  As mentioned before, for all of the sectors, including soybeans and canola exports, that's very much the case. In Japan they are looking to ship a lot more value-added products, including canola oil, but a lot of the other products that we present, whether they be pulses, malt, b

Agriculture committee  I would like to answer the question quickly and then let the other witnesses speak to their sectors more specifically. You mentioned 35 million consumers, but many of those 35 million people are also farmers. In Canada, in the sector we represent, 90% of farmers directly depend

Agriculture committee  We are always in conversation with the government about the implementation, in particular when we sense that the implementation is getting closer. That is the case with CETA, where there are some outstanding agriculture issues that tend to originate in the meat sector but also ha

Agriculture committee  In principle, what we have observed—and this view is also shared by the government— is that when free trade agreements are implemented, tariffs go down. They are eliminated or phased out. Non-tariff barriers tend to come up, so it's the other way around. There are a number of mec

Agriculture committee  Those topics and issues are addressed by members who are affected by this directly, so this is not something that CAFTA looks at. But certainly, transportation is needed to get products to market. My mandate is trade liberalization in the TPP—to represent the interests of our mem