Finance committee  That's correct.

Finance committee  We're not sure.

Finance committee  Actually, there's a very good example, very close to Ottawa. It's a company called Sevita seeds. They developed a soybean that has a healthier oil profile to meet a market demand in Japan. It doesn't need pre-market assessment anywhere else in the world. It's not a GMO. It's not a product of gene editing, but unfortunately CFIA couldn't decide whether it needed to go through the two-year assessment process or not.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Richards. I would say the biggest issue flagged by our members is re-evaluation of existing products—existing pesticides—by PMRA. It's a very large and onerous job. The number of re-evals coming through are increasing and will be increasing over the next 10 years.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members. As Mr. Easter said, I'm Dennis Prouse, vice-president of government affairs for CropLife Canada. CropLife Canada represents the Canadian manufacturers, developers and distributors of pest control and modern plant-breeding products. Our organization's primary focus is on providing tools to help farmers be more productive and more sustainable.

Agriculture committee  I ran into a grower at a conference who was growing quinoa in Manitoba. It surprised us, but this was happening. To Susie's point, it's going to be a mixed bag. There are going to be positive impacts and there are going to be negative impacts. How do we help farmers manage those?

Agriculture committee  I think that the grower groups themselves would be better positioned to speak to that. We don't represent those grower groups. Much as with Susie's group, everybody that we work with is committed to sustainability, and we're working toward sustainability broadly. Those more specific competitiveness issues would probably be best addressed by the actual grower groups that represent those farmers.

Agriculture committee  Sure, I can start, and I'm sure Ian can finish with anything I may have missed. You're right. If China, which is the most important market for canola, doesn't approve a trade, that means a Canadian farmer can't grow and does not get the benefit from those technologies. When I tell people that story, they find that fairly shocking, but that would be true of any number of markets.

Agriculture committee  That is why we've said that farmers are dealing with the effects of climate change now. This isn't an abstract. In many ways, as you've seen, they're seeing it now. You can parse words and you can call it what you like but they are having to deal with the here and now. That just speaks to the research on seeds.

Agriculture committee  I'll ask the farmer to go first.

Agriculture committee  I'll add very quickly that it was today, in fact, that the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it has tossed aside the previous set of proposals on regulating these. It is not proceeding with that particular set. It is going back to the drawing board in terms of looking at how it is going to regulate these technologies.

Agriculture committee  Our member companies will tell you that the battle for investment happens internally. When there is a multinational company, and it is deciding where to invest, within the company the various branches have to fight for their space, if you will. That's why it is so incredibly important for Canada to be competitive and to benchmark itself, in terms of regulation, to where we are globally.

Agriculture committee  Yes, and very quickly, that drought-tolerant corn is what allowed the United States to actually have a yield two summers ago when they had a terrible drought. They ended up having a yield equivalent to about 1990's, which wasn't great, but 50 years ago, drought conditions like that would have completely wiped out the crop.

Agriculture committee  Sure. My colleague, Ian, referred to it somewhat regarding speeding up the approval process. Right now, we look at that two- to three-year period. If we want to make Canada a leader in biotech and in investment, we should be able to drive that down to a one-year period. There's no cost to the government for that.

Agriculture committee  Sure, but go ahead, Ian.