Agriculture committee  I have a couple of quick points. It's the second time, Mr. Chairman, that I've been challenged on my comments around bilaterals, and I'll repeat it. I think bilaterals are good, but I do believe that if we don't look after the industry here at home, we'll have nothing to sell on

Agriculture committee  My own thoughts here are that we should be promoting Canadian, and I believe we are starting down that road. Minister Ritz will be helping us with that. At the end of the day, consumers are not aware that two-thirds of the products on their shelves are products of the U.S.A.

Agriculture committee  Partly, but it's also that we have different standards here.

Agriculture committee  That's a multi-part question, Wayne, but I'll tell you what I hear in the countryside. There is a struggle with where Farm Credit's policy has been in the past. In talking with accountants and lawyers--producers call me all the time, and I'm the local rep--15 or 20 years ago, Fa

Agriculture committee  No.

Agriculture committee  No.

Agriculture committee  That's a good question. There's been a lot of talk over the years about supply management in the pork industry. I believe in 1972 there was a vote, and it wasn't put there. One of the challenges we have in supply management, and supply management is COP-plus, so there's always a

Agriculture committee  That's very true. While I like the idea of supply management, I don't believe I've ever been a proponent of moving the hog industry there. We do depend on world markets. To me, there's a difference between supply management and a support program that guarantees you're going to ha

Agriculture committee  And the question is...?

Agriculture committee  Okay. I think I understand a little better. The cost of production, as we see in the supply managed commodities, is an excellent way to ensure that producers make a reasonable return on their investment for their time and labour. By not having cost of production in the formula,

Agriculture committee  Thanks, Wayne. First of all, those from AgriRecovery have limited experience in our industry, other than looking at it from a foreign animal disease perspective. When individual producers or the Pork Council approached the government and said that circovirus was a disease--a non

Agriculture committee  You covered a lot of ground there. There are two things I'll touch on. First of all, I didn't slam the bilaterals. I firmly believe that the bilaterals are part of what we need to do. What I said was that the minister can build them, but if we don't have an industry here to supp

Agriculture committee  I hope I didn't misquote myself.

Agriculture committee  The vaccine.

Agriculture committee  That's a great question. I appreciate that, because in 2004, when we decided to embark on our new building construction—I never said expansion, I said we recapitalized and built new buildings—we were pushing 1,400 sows. We had contract barns scattered across the province. We were