International Trade committee  I'm sorry. I don't know anything on that, I'm afraid.

International Trade committee  It definitely is. We have major choke points in our infrastructure system. There's one bridge that goes into the Port of Vancouver—one bridge. We saw different outages that happened around Abbotsford as well. If one part of our supply chain breaks down, it has massive reverberations.

International Trade committee  Absolutely. Canada is a country with wild swings in temperature, from minus 35° to plus 35°, so I would agree with your assertion that it will help. There's no silver bullet and there's no panacea, but we need to start looking at infrastructure as a nation-building process. We can't think in two to three years; we need to think 30 or 50 years down the road, because if the Americans, as alluded to earlier—regardless of party, regardless of dynamics in Congress or the Senate—need more capacity at Long Beach, they get more capacity at Long Beach.

International Trade committee  That is correct.

International Trade committee  It has not yet been resolved; however, Seattle is able to do it, and they have a very similar climate. It does have an impact. Certainly we have times when we cannot move the product, particularly in a rainy place like Vancouver.

International Trade committee  Japan is the example I used, but we hear that constantly. A number of members do outbound trade missions, both with government and solo, and the number one topic that is raised across all agriculture commodities is whether it will be there on time, and they can source from other countries.

International Trade committee  It's much easier if you're dealing with North America or western Europe, but in Indonesia and that part of the world, the Indo-Pacific, it's not transactional; it's a relationship. It's about rebuilding a relationship. It's not just a transactional occurrence. These are relationships that take years to build, and as we all know, a reputation and a relationship can take years to build but a moment to erode.

International Trade committee  I agree with my colleague that the federal government absolutely has a role to play and could have an even stronger one. There are many tools in the tool box of parliamentarians when it comes to segments of the economy in which we simply cannot have a strike. If we have both class I railways on strike, nothing moves, including commuters in some of Canada's biggest cities, and back-to-work legislation is something within the power of parliamentarians.

International Trade committee  Yes. It's over the last four to five years. Previously there were other conversations about how they just wanted the raw product so they could add the value themselves. Now it's all about whether it will get there on time. They are watching what's happening in Canada when it comes to collective bargaining and the class I railways.

International Trade committee  CAFTA members have established the following priorities for our work. One, to open new markets for Canadian agri-food, including by prioritizing trade liberalization discussions with growing emerging markets like Indonesia and ASEAN countries. Two, to uphold the international rules-based trading system.