International Trade committee  To Mr. Gerrard, who happens to be a constituent of mine, welcome. Could you talk about the stress that this is placing on you and your family from a very personal standpoint? When you're speaking with your neighbours, what kind of stress are they feeling?

International Trade committee  Thank you.

International Trade committee  Okay, thank you. Mr. Barlow.

International Trade committee  I have one comment and one question, and then I'll turn it over to Mr. Barlow. My comment is this: the head of the CFIA at our meeting last time pointed out that Canada and China use two different methods to test the quality of canola. That's an elephant in the room, in my view.

International Trade committee  Do you believe in Lord Palmerston's dictum that countries don't have friends, only interests?

International Trade committee  Mr. Verheul, given your experience in trade negotiations, and given that China is very much a top-down system of state capitalism with a culture that's very different from western cultures, how difficult is it to negotiate with the Chinese on these kinds of matters, knowing as we

International Trade committee  Just really quickly though, if the presence or absence of weed seeds, for example, is one of the things that they allege, that's very easy. How can there be a difference in testing processes to determine if a weed seed is present or not?

International Trade committee  Okay. Thanks. I'll turn it over to my colleague.

International Trade committee  Thanks. Ms. Mithani, you said something that really stuck out to me. Did you say that the canola testing methodologies are different between Canada and China? That's just a simple yes or no.

International Trade committee  Okay.

International Trade committee  I get it. I was shocked by that statement, absolutely shocked, because the essence of the scientific process is replicability. If the two methodologies are different, the Chinese will have an out every single time. What are you going to do if the Chinese use the excuse that the

International Trade committee  Mr. Chair, I agree with everything my colleagues said, so I will not repeat what they said. Canola is an iconic Canadian crop. It was developed from a plant called rapeseed, which was used to produce just industrial oil, but through the magic of modern plant technology, Dr. Bal