Agriculture committee  Yes. Certainly, consumer attitudes toward GM and biotechnology are a challenge. You see the public swayed by a really nice meme on the Internet and ignoring years of research and studies. I think we need to do a lot more in terms of getting the message out, not only about the saf

Agriculture committee  The ag policy framework has really helped us uncover the health benefits and the feeding benefits of canola oil. We have used that to differentiate ourselves in the international market to try to get a premium back into the industry. There has been a huge investment in the indust

Agriculture committee  I'm not sure what more we can say other than to point out that 90% of our crop is exported, so trade is everything to us. Making sure that we follow through on agreements that have been reached is critical.

Agriculture committee  I can't comment on lidar, but maybe Brett can. Certainly, the canola industry has been involved in biofuel and has promoted biofuel for many, many years. I referenced the international certification that we got many years ago. That was to access the EU biodiesel market. We've g

Agriculture committee  One of the very important aspects of the TPP for the canola industry was an agreement on the reduction of oil tariffs in Japan. Japan is one of our first customers for canola seed. We don't export any oil there. Our processing in Canada has grown significantly; Chinese consumers

Agriculture committee  Some of the data that I talked about was really focused on the farm community. We have talked about needing to transition through some of the research in investment and innovation, but I think it's important to remember that we can't lose sight of the competitiveness of our indus

Agriculture committee  It's a very good question and a very broad question. I'm not sure how to tackle it. As all three of us have talked about, investment in innovation is really key to growth in our sectors in agriculture. I have referred to agriculture in particular as a high-tech industry, and it t

Agriculture committee  Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is really important to the canola industry. One of the things I'd like to mention is that canola is the only Canadian crop certified under the international sustainability and carbon certification program, and we have been for a number of years.

Agriculture committee  Farm income programs are not something that my organization is involved in. If your question is specific to that, I wouldn't have anything to add.

Agriculture committee  I can go first. We did touch on some of the strengths in terms of the programs where we would like to see continued investment: the agri-science cluster, support for trade and market access, and market development. Those are really critical areas to maintain the competitiveness o

Agriculture committee  Good morning, everyone, and thanks very much for the opportunity to share our recommendations around the agricultural policy framework. I'd like to take just a second to talk about who the Canola Council is. We are a value chain organization. We represent Canadian canola produc

International Trade committee  In the canola industry, we really are focused on yield growth and not land. Canola's expansion throughout the years has been land-based, taking over acreage from other crops. Now our focus is on yield, on getting more out of the land we have and making sure, in that context, that

International Trade committee  The reference to when your father started growing rapeseed is quite interesting. In the matter of basically 50 years, we've taken this crop, canola, from an idea to a multi-billion dollar industry, particularly the processing industry. As Canadians, and particularly the agricult

International Trade committee  Certainly on the environmental standard component, as we touched on before, I think the Canadian industry has a lot of success we can share. Canola was one of the first crops in Canada to be certified as internationally sustainable for canola production in the European market. We

International Trade committee  It's not something that we have looked into, but 60% of our canola exports go into the TPP bloc of countries, which are Japan, Mexico, U.S., Vietnam. We've been trading with those countries for years.