International Trade

Opening remarks

Thank you, Madam Chair. Good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today. My name is Tim Klompmaker. I'm a third-generation chicken farmer from Norwood, Ontario, and chair of Chicken Farmers of Canada. Canada's 2,800 chicken farmers play a vital role in our economy and food system. Every day we produce safe, high-quality chicken, raised with care right here at home, for Canadians. We support trade agreements that grow Canada's economy, but not at the expense of domestic food production. Supply management ensures stability for farmers, reliable supply for consumers and ongoing reinvestment in rural communities across this country. However, recent agreements—CPTPP and CUSMA—have already had a significant cumulative impact. Combined with WTO commitments, Canada has granted 129.6 million kilograms of market access, representing 10.8% of Canadian chicken production when these concessions were made. This is not speculative. It is real and significant access that was already provided. A potential agreement with Mercosur presents an even greater risk. Brazil is the largest exporter of chicken in the world and the third-largest producer globally. In 2025 alone, Brazil…

Opening remarks

Thank you, Madam Chair and members of the committee. Fertilizer Canada represents fertilizer producers and manufacturers, importers, wholesalers and retail distributors of nitrogen, phosphate, potash and sulphur. Together our members contribute over $42 billion annually to Canada's economy and.... Sorry, that's the problem with being on an iPad; sometimes you touch the wrong thing. We support more than 118,000 Canadian jobs. Fertilizer is essential to feeding Canada and the world. It contributes to roughly half of all global food production. At 23 million tonnes per year, Canada is the world's largest potash producer, supplying approximately 40% of global exports. Canada is also the most sustainable producer of potash, with emissions 50% lower than those of Russia or Belarus. The current conflict in Iran is a reminder that fertilizers are a globally traded commodity and highly sensitive to geopolitical shocks. The conflict's shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz has created volatility in nitrogen, phosphate and sulphur markets, pushing prices sharply higher and raising concerns about meeting demand. An event far from Canadian farms, such as the war in Russia and Ukraine, a ship…

Opening remarks

Thank you for the question, Mr. Groleau. As our association president said, this agreement is a threat. Brazil is a world leader in the chicken sector and in other agricultural sectors. It's the largest exporter in the world. To give you an idea, last year, it exported 5.3 billion kilos of products, about four times more than Canada's entire production, to more than 125 countries around the world. It's really a superpower in chicken production. Its production costs are extremely low, which means there's no way we can compete with Brazil's imports.

Opening remarks

Thank you very much for having me. Please interrupt if I go past the five minutes. Canada's trade diversification toward North and West Africa should be anchored in a small number of priority countries in which economic momentum, political stability—relative to the region—and existing ties make commercial expansion realistic in the near term. In North Africa, Morocco is arguably Canada's most promising partner. Its industrial strategy has successfully built export-oriented sectors, such as automotive manufacturing, aerospace and renewable energy. Canadian firms can plug into these ecosystems through component supply, engineering services and clean energy technologies, particularly in solar and green hydrogen. Morocco's extensive trade agreements with the EU and the U.S. also make it a gateway for firms seeking to integrate into transatlantic value chains from an African base. Egypt offers a very large domestic market, major infrastructure needs and a central role in regional energy and logistics, including the Suez Canal corridor. Canadian opportunities here lie in infrastructure finance, water management, agri-food systems and education partnerships, although regulatory…

Opening remarks

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Members of the committee, thank you for giving the Chambre de commerce Québec-Afrique the opportunity to contribute to your study on trade relations between Canada, West Africa and North Africa. The committee's motion is particularly relevant because it seeks to identify concrete avenues for trade diversification, strengthen Canada's presence in Africa and mobilize the Francophonie as a catalyst for trade and partnerships. That's where the Chambre de commerce Québec-Afrique comes in. I'm going to present several points to you, in no more than five minutes, to elaborate on this. The first point concerns high-potential economic sectors. For us at the chamber of commerce, the high-potential economic sectors are agribusiness, agritech, traceability and compliance technologies, renewable energy, global health applied to agri-food supply chains and technical and vocational training. The second point has to do with existing trade tools and those that need to be strengthened. It must be recognized that Canada already has useful tools, but these tools must be better adapted to African realities. I'm thinking in particular of the tools deployed by…