International Trade committee  We think it's already having an impact and that it makes us look unserious to our American partners. Nobody else in the world does this sort of legislative handcuffing of their trade negotiators. It's normal to give instructions, but it's not normal to do legislative handcuffing.

International Trade committee  I'd say across the board that what's problematic here is legislating in favour of just one sector and against the interests of all other sectors. We think an important thing to be studied in the Senate committee is the interests of other sectors outside of agri-food. My comment about the lack of depth in the study was not about the level of work on the issue by members of Parliament; the main problem we saw was that there weren't many witnesses called from sectors outside of agriculture.

International Trade committee  Right now it's still in the Senate, and we're asking senators to apply their traditional sober second thought to this piece of legislation. We think that senators are going to see that what it does is highly problematic for Canada's trade policy. We're not arguing against supply management.

International Trade committee  Canadian agri-food exporters have a very good carbon profile with low carbon production and are constantly working to improve the technology. We think it's very important that sustainability at a global level not be used as a disguised trade barrier. We do think that sustainable trade has a very key role to play in reaching our sustainability goals.

International Trade committee  The CUSMA has means of managing disputes around non-scientific trade barriers. A good example is Mexico, which has banned GMO corn; the United States has opposed that, using the dispute settlement mechanism, and the Canadian government has supported the U.S. position, and we supported Canada's support for the U.S. position.

International Trade committee  No. We've reached out to the government and made some invitations to come speak.

International Trade committee  I think the most important thing is to explain to the Americans why CUSMA is good for them and not always come at it from the perspective of explaining to them why CUSMA is good for Canada. If you look at some of our members, you see that we're in these deeply integrated supply chains.

International Trade committee  Good morning to everyone. Thank you to the members of the committee for inviting me to appear today. The Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance, or CAFTA, is a coalition of national organizations advocating for a more open and fair international trading environment for agriculture and agri-food.

International Trade committee  Sure. CAFTA's priorities are as follows: Number one is to open new markets for Canadian agri-food, number two is to uphold the international rules-based trading system and number three is to strengthen trade diplomacy capacity and industry/government collaboration. The United States is Canada's largest agricultural trading partner by far, buying 59.2% of Canadian exports and supplying 57% of Canadian imports.

Canada-China Relations committee  We just went through the recommendations, so I'm looking for something else. I think one thing that we know is a very difficult political circle to square are the conversations with India, where there have been a lot of barriers over the years. The political relationship is very difficult, but we can't ignore the fact that it's a major market.

Canada-China Relations committee  We need to advance discussions with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and with Indonesia. Those are two very important potential agreements.

Canada-China Relations committee  That's a key agreement. You have some of the most important countries in the region and major markets like Japan and South Korea. The CPTPP is also an area in which we have a competitive advantage over the U.S. because they're not members. It's—

Canada-China Relations committee  —a key agreement.

Canada-China Relations committee  We have asked for the Indo-Pacific office to concentrate very much on the expanding markets, the growing markets like those in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. We want it to concentrate on the regulatory issues that often become non-tariff barriers. We were mentioning, just a few minutes ago, the difficulties of the EU, where there may not be tariff barriers but where we're being blocked out by non-tariff barriers.

Canada-China Relations committee  No, that's good.