Finance committee  I would say that I think in regard to the example you use, where a farm child is actually working on the farm, the discrepancy you note between the two I don't think in reality would actually take place. If someone is legitimately working on a farm, we would hope that even under

Finance committee  Thank you, Ron. I'm going to stress that, due to the timeline, our assessment is not yet complete. We continue to hear of new issues and have come together with other farm groups to commission a more detailed analysis of the farm-specific impacts, but this won't be available unt

Agriculture committee  I would very much echo many of the comments I've already heard. I think education has to be a big focal point of a national food policy. Speaking to the issues that Mr. Adolphe just raised as well as those by Jean-Charles earlier, one area in which we see a significant opportunit

Agriculture committee  Regulatory harmonization is always a key focal point of the industry, and a national food policy, by virtue of the scope and breadth that it must take, really needs to focus on that issue. It's a critical issue for us in terms of the NAFTA discussions, but more broadly around cre

Agriculture committee  I wouldn't say we've done a cross-cutting study on every aspect of it. Certainly we've seen issues over the past few years with some of the railway performance, and there has been a lot of work done on that front. I can certainly share any of the work we've done on that front, if

Agriculture committee  I would echo those comments, I think, around concerns we have with one common definition across Canada of what local is. Where I do think a national food policy has a role to play in this, though, is to focus on looking at what growth opportunities exist in agriculture, generally

Agriculture committee  We held a series of discussions throughout the year bringing together fairly diverse stakeholder groups to start exploring where there is and where there might not be consensus. I have to say, building on the question—you referred to the Conference Board and Jean-Charles—food w

Agriculture committee  We've had a series of meetings on this subject with the department itself and have raised the issue with the minister in previous meetings. I can say that we have had a series of discussions over the past, at this point looking back, years, as we've been advocating for this to va

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to provide a brief overview of CFA's vision for an effective and successful food policy for Canada. As you are likely well aware, we've advocated for a national food strategy for a number of years now, and we're ver

Finance committee  Thank you. Good afternoon, committee members. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you and speak about CFA's recommendations for the 2017 federal budget. The Canadian Federation of Agriculture and its members greatly appreciate the opportunity to highlight how budget

Finance committee  Any compositional standards for dairy are certainly a major issue, and I know there are significant costs associated with that. An analog to that same issue is what I was speaking to earlier with the program on duty release and drawback. This is broader than just dairy. It also a

Finance committee  Right, this is a topical subject for our organization. We're currently getting started on a comprehensive study looking at land use policy, land use planning, and some of the provincial regulations around farmland ownership to try to understand exactly the kind of questions you'

Finance committee  Yes. We see the major drivers of many of the labour gaps in agriculture, the shortages, are the remote locations involved often for many of the operations. There's not a local labour force available to really meet that need regardless of the wage rates offered. There are jobs th

Finance committee  I can't say that we have accurate statistics on that, but from our measure a lot of what you'd characterize as larger grain operations in the west are still owned by farm families. The acreage that they manage is still managed by a farm family. I don't think it's a fair character

Finance committee  Are you suggesting just from the farm, the income they would generate from the farm itself?