International Trade committee  If I may, I'd like to add here that even though the dairy farms are incorporated, legally speaking, they remain family-owned and operated at the end of the day. Even the bigger farms that are incorporated are family farms, according to us.

International Trade committee  No.

International Trade committee  With respect to the tariff on milk protein concentrates or isolates, it is not likely going to result in increased imports of MPI into Canada in part because MPIs are currently coming into Canada tariff free, duty free, from the United States. The market is completely open for MP

International Trade committee  I'll just respond to that by saying that, as I pointed out, the world marketplace is a highly distorted marketplace to begin with. In the mid to late 1990s we tried to participate in the export market. We put in place programs that would allow producers to participate in the expo

International Trade committee  We believe that the mitigation measures should be beneficial for both dairy and cheese producers because cheese producers will also be affected by this. In terms of marketing strategies, we feel that cheeses imported to the Canadian market will first and foremost compete directl

International Trade committee  With the quality, you mean?

International Trade committee  With respect to quality, no.

International Trade committee  With respect to price, it's a different story.

International Trade committee  They already do so, because concentrated milk products imported from the United States are not subject to any constraints. The quota that was established in 2007, after the Canadian government invoked article XXVIII under the GATT rules, does not apply to imports from the United

International Trade committee  With respect to the over-quota tariff, I would say that it is essentially a matter of cancelling an agreement that Canada had negotiated under the GATT agreements. Canada had moved ahead with enforcing a new quota that applied to imports from the European Union, among others. Now

International Trade committee  I find myself in a fairly delicate situation. Since we are currently in talks with Government of Canada officials, I cannot really get into the details of what we have presented to them. However, we can say that we have presented constructive options to the Government of Canada t

International Trade committee  They have reiterated their support towards the plan on many occasions.

International Trade committee  Compete with what? With the EU treasury?

International Trade committee  There may be an opportunity. I'm not disputing this. There is an opportunity, as we speak, in the U.S. market. There have been pilot projects that have been put in place in combination with the Canadian government and Dairy Farmers of Canada to promote fine cheese exports into th

International Trade committee  I'd like to also add that I've spent more time on the negative aspect of this deal for the Dairy Farmers of Canada because we see more negatives than positives in it as far as we are concerned.