International Trade committee  You touched on something I think is very important to us and in which we as Viterra have invested. When I say invested, I mean we're working with community colleges and universities on scholarships. We've announced a number of them to assist students with post-secondary education, which is really critical, and our first nations.

International Trade committee  Certainly my experience has been that trade in agriculture is pretty transparent and open. The issue, though, for us—and it's been touched on by a number presenters—really is about having science-based rules. That's where we get hung up. It isn't multinationals exerting influence, but we get caught up with misaligned rules and regulations on phytosanitary issues, on maximum residue levels, on issues dealing with biotech.

International Trade committee  Certainly.

International Trade committee  I'll try to answer some of that. In working with our various associations—and I would agree that we may have to do additional work to hone the numbers—we do have a pretty good sense of it, given past agreements and such.

International Trade committee  For wheat, we're looking at an increase of about 1.2 million tonnes. For barley, we're looking at about a half a million tonne increase. For canola we're looking at a net economic benefit of some $780 million plus, approaching $1 billion. This is a substitution effect. Rather than shipping raw canola to Japan, what we're hoping for with this deal is to process it here.

International Trade committee  Yes, we do.

International Trade committee  We haven't gone directly to our employees.

International Trade committee  They understand that we're an export-based company and an export-based country. We have great buy-in from our employees.

International Trade committee  We're a big global corporation. I'll leave it at that.

International Trade committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. On behalf of Viterra, I would like to thank the standing committee for this opportunity to present our views on the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement. By way of a quick background, Viterra is Canada's grain industry leader and marketer of grains, oilseeds, and pulses.