Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for this opportunity.

I'm pleased to be able to represent the perspective of our 10,000 dairy farmers from coast to coast in support of your study in preparation for this upcoming review of CUSMA.

My name is David Wiens, and I am a dairy farmer from Manitoba. I am also the president of Dairy Farmers of Canada. I'm joined today by my colleague, Daniel Gobeil, who is also a dairy farmer and who serves as vice-president of Dairy Farmers of Canada. He is also the president of the Producteurs de lait du Québec.

I would like to thank you all for this opportunity and for undertaking this study on this upcoming CUSMA review. As committee members are aware, there are still a number of trade irritants regarding CUSMA that the Government of Canada will need to be cognizant of as it enters into formal discussions. Daniel will talk about an important one in a moment, which impacts Canada's ability to export.

We have heard that one of the outcomes of the next U.S. election may be of particular concern for some. In dairy, I would note that the last two panels initiated against Canada were under the current administration. The attention Canadian dairy gets south of the border is related to domestic U.S. politics, with many of the dairy states being swing states for both Democrats and Republicans. For that reason, Canadian dairy will continue to be of interest for some politicians in the U.S., regardless of their political affiliation.

I'd also like to remind the committee that the combined potential impact of the World Trade Organization, WTO; the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA; the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the CPTPP; and CUSMA amounts to an estimated 18% of Canada's domestic dairy production.

We're greatly concerned that despite the second CUSMA dispute panel ruling entirely in Canada's favour and dismissing all U.S. claims, the U.S. could use the review mechanism in the accord to try to achieve what it couldn't through the complaint process. As we know, CUSMA is based on a system of rules that is subject to a dispute settlement system. We believe that if one of the signatories wants to override panel decisions through the review, it calls the whole agreement into question. It is essential, therefore, that the government ensure that the CUSMA review is not used to create a pretext for more concessions.

Put simply, we expect the Canadian government to advocate for Canadians and oppose any further market concessions.

With that, Mr. Chair, I'm ready to pass it on to my colleague Mr. Gobeil.