Agriculture committee  I did mention briefly about the advance payments program. As a proactive measure, the government should be looking at the advance limits that are currently in place. Right now, if farmers have not delivered and paid down much of their advance and they're at the maximum $400,000—say they paid it down to $300,000 due to slow movement—they're running into a brand new program on April 1 and they're only eligible for another $100,000.

Agriculture committee  Our interest is on the rail side of the bill and on how it handles grain and grain products. We have no interest in, or at least our organization has no comment on, the passenger bill of rights side of things, or marine aspects or those types of things. We are very focused on the rail side of the bill.

Agriculture committee  Lastly, looking forward, Canada must continue to find ways to address the fundamental problem of railway market power and the resulting lack of competitive forces in the rail freight marketplace. Bill C-49 appears to make progress towards this goal in several areas and does reflect a consideration of what the Canadian rail shippers and the grain industry have been telling successive governments for years about the core of the imbalanced relationship.

Agriculture committee  Thank you and good afternoon, Mr. Chair and members of this committee. My name is Rick White. I'm the CEO of the Canadian Canola Growers Association. Thank you for inviting me here today to contribute to your committee's investigation into the current grain transportation backlog.

Agriculture committee  Again, I can't speak to the integrity of scientific research in other countries.

Agriculture committee  No, it's the inability to get it into Ontario and Quebec because of the milk acts in play. There are labelling issues and on what you can blend with butter and call it butter. There are restrictions on what you can call cheese if it's not made from cream, for example. Those are areas of the market that the consumer should decide whether or not they want to buy it, not a provincial regulation prohibiting those kinds of things from happening.

Agriculture committee  Our experience, for instance, with canola, is that we need pollinators. We would do nothing to take a chance on killing bees. We need bees to pollinate the crop. There's a symbiotic relationship there that we're well aware of and when you look at say, canola, there are millions and millions of acres where canola is coinciding and in harmony with beekeepers.

Agriculture committee  Yes. I just want to make it clear that the tribunal concept relates directly to the Agreement on Internal Trade. That agreement should be handled by a tribunal. I'm not saying that neonics have to circumvent PMRA's science-based regulatory approach.

Agriculture committee  I guess it's to make sure at the provincial level that they are making their decisions based on sound science, because they will come up with the same decision as you do at the federal level. The problem at the provincial level is they are avoiding relying on science-based regulatory processes to allow commerce and products to be developed and used in this country.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  I think on the cosmetic ban issue, it again comes back to what those decisions are being based on. I don't disagree that if you're in a watershed and you get runoff issues with the application of some of these products and it's proven that it's an issue, then maybe in some of those areas you need to do something specific.

Agriculture committee  Yes, that's an estimate from the Grain Farmers of Ontario. Should they go forward with a neonicotinoid ban in Ontario, it's going to affect corn production and certainly canola production as well. It will either be losses due to infestation of flea beetles, for example, because they won't be able to control them nearly as well with some other products that we're aware of.

Agriculture committee  Well, it starts to affect seed developers in terms of genetics. If you can't get your product into Ontario, you have to start asking if we are going to make these products available in other parts of Canada. It starts to break apart the supply chain. It starts to pit a grower in one region against another at a competitive disadvantage, and growers in that region against our international market competitors as well.

Agriculture committee  The tribunal concept is to replace a more temporary panel approach that we have right now, so that you can gain expertise within the tribunal. It's up; it's running; it's predictable. In addition to that, the AIT needs more teeth. That's one point I really didn't hammer home. Through this experience with Ontario and Quebec, we hold our breath that they are going to comply because there are not very substantial monetary penalties in place.

Agriculture committee  Right, thank you. It is a very serious issue. We have the federal authorities in place that do very rigorous testing, monitoring, and assessments before any of these products are released for commercial use. Those tools, like pesticides for example, are used by farmers. That's what helps them to grow these crops we make food from.