Response to Question - February 4th, 2004

Mr. Maurice Vellacott (Saskatoon—Wanuskewin, CPC): Madam Chair, I have a question for my colleague across the way. I think he is well aware that we are still importing large quantities of beef into our country despite the fact that there is growing domestic over-supply. I would be interested in his view of why that is so from the government's point of view. Also, what does he believe the government can do about that over-supply we have when we are importing all the time into the county?

Mr. Paul Steckle: Madam Chair, as the hon. member well knows, Canada does have commitments within the North American Free Trade Agreement. We have TRQs in terms of quotas that we have to honour, because basically those quotas have been honoured, and the beef industry itself knows that Canada has a commitment to those agreements. It was on the supplementary import side quotas that we basically said that we would close that down. There are no supplementary quotas being honoured or being engaged in at this time.

However the 78,000 tonnes that we normally import, that is an ongoing agreement that we have with the Americans. While we are exporting we are also importing. Canada, because of its diversity in terms of geography, imports a lot of beef, particularly into Ontario, because we do not sustain the appetite of the consuming public in Ontario. We simply do not have the beef in Ontario. We have to rely on the west and on the Americans, and much of the western beef, of course, goes to the United States. It is an integrated market so there is a shifting of meat both north and south and east and west as well. That will continue because those are long standing agreements.