Agriculture committee  I'd like to thank everyone for giving me the opportunity to come here and speak today too. We work fairly closely together on a lot of what Gerard was just talking about, shipping internationally and so on. I'm an organic farmer. I'm the sixth generation on my mother's side on t

Agriculture committee  I nearly fell off my chair, too. It was brought very clearly to me when I was sitting there, this company I was dealing with, talking to, had agreed to meet with me and when I sat down and started explaining.... I will say it was right before the Copenhagen summit, so environment

Agriculture committee  That's exactly what I immediately did, was show on the map where P.E.I.was, where we were. I talked about our wind power, I talked about our ability to trace everything from P.E.I. to show.... That's the first time I've kind of faced this issue, but it wasn't really surprising to

Agriculture committee  I agree with Mike. The farming community has to come up with a vision of how we want to go. The government's job, in my perspective, is to facilitate that happening. Earlier I mentioned the fact that the provincial government was very helpful when I was going to trade in Japan. T

Agriculture committee  I think we definitely should have on the product when we go to the store where the product was produced, where it's coming from. I've got a blue label, I was just looking at it yesterday, on parmesan cheese. I was looking at the label. There's only a Loblaws address in Toronto. W

Agriculture committee  I can get it for you. It's a Danish company. I have the information at home, so I'll pass it on. One of the things I would say, though, is what drove me to going overseas or going somewhere.... I just went down to Wayne's office; he's got the book on embassies. I didn't know th

Agriculture committee  Well, on the research side--different things. But I even see support for flying.... A few years ago I could get assistance through different programs to go to conferences or go to different places. That seems to have stopped to a large extent. They don't want to send people somew

International Trade committee  I'll give you just a short history first of what my experiences are in Japan. I'm an organic farmer from P.E.I., and I've been involved in many farm organizations in P.E.I. for the last number of years trying to figure out ways of making it more profitable on the farm, but it see

International Trade committee  I just phoned the embassy in Tokyo and asked to talk to somebody who might be interested in buying organic products or products from Prince Edward Island. The guy at the embassy said, what's your company profile and what's your product list? And I said, I don't have a company pro

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and ladies and gentlemen, for the opportunity to come here today.

International Trade committee  Certainly the first phone call I made to the embassy in Tokyo was unhelpful, and probably more than that, even discouraging. The consul and the people who are working in the field in the small offices have been excellent. They have been really good to work with. As for the embass

International Trade committee  Yes, much more polite. He was confused, too, because he wasn't used to just a farmer phoning up wanting to sell something on a blank sheet of paper—I wanted to find out what the market wanted and grow it. I've been growing stuff for years and waiting for the phone to ring, so now

International Trade committee  No. I don't want to be too hard on the embassy staff. The individuals and certainly the trade officers scattered around Japan have been great. It's only that it was discouraging at first. The biggest issue was that we did get caught one time with a residue. It was allowable but

International Trade committee  Well, the Canadian government has equivalency with the national organic program in the States now. Also, we have equivalency in Europe, in the EU, but we don't have it with Japan. I'm not sure at what stage it is; it seems to be taking longer. Of course, the first one that was lo

International Trade committee  The GMO testing that we do is done in the United States. There are labs in the United States that are recognized in Japan. We have to send the sample. It goes, I think, to Alabama, or somewhere there, to get that tested. With the other, it would depend. What they would do, I thi