Thank you, Minister, for coming.
I only have one round of five minutes, so what I'm going to do, Minister, if you don't mind, is I'm going to ask you three questions and then let you do your best to answer the three.
It's my understanding that last week Tom Vilsack, secretary of agriculture, called you up and stated that produce exporters, farmers who are selling in the United States are not going to have the protection they used to have for selling there. It has also been noted that a lot of these produce sellers down there, farmers.... Now we have to put a bond in place.
You mentioned in the House that it's under the Minister of Industry's portfolio. I have recently talked to Minister Moore about that, but this is a big, big hit for produce suppliers and growers across this country. Since the secretary of agriculture called you, I want to know what you told him and what you are going to do for the produce industry to help correct this big issue.
Recently, Mr. Trudeau and I were at the International Plowing Match and we met with all the agriculture leaders from Ontario. One of the biggest concerns they had was the business risk management, some of the tools that are in place. They stated that there's less from the federal part than there was before, so when things are going bad down on the farm, they say there's going to be less coming from the tools that you are presenting to them.
My last question is about the bill we have in front of us. I think you're right, Minister. It is an important bill. It's a bill that's needed for our industry, the food industry and agriculture especially. There has been a lot of work by your department on this, but as with a bill this big with so many components, there are always little glitches in it that need tweaking. There are two that come to my mind. One is dealing with the word “privilege”. That terminology, that it's a privilege to grow these seeds, is a real problem and it has already been talked about.
The second one is the limit on crop insurance, the cap at $400,000. Many of the commodity groups are out there saying that with the size of farms now and the amount of crops that they grow, the limit needs to be up to around $800,000.
I'm hoping that you're going to be willing.... If this committee comes forward with some of those changes, those tweaks, it would be really nice if we were unanimous and all parties agreed on this bill, because I think all parties agree that something needs to be changed.
I'm hoping you're open to that.