Agriculture committee  We don't have any official figures yet. They haven't yet been released.

Agriculture committee  That's a good question. In fact, you might want to put it to Agriculture and Agri-food Canada officials. They could explain to you how the $80 million were allocated. As I understand it, the funds were allocated according to need, but I'm not sure how that was defined. They were

Agriculture committee  The mistake may have been made back in 1867 when the Constitution was signed and responsibility for agriculture was shared among the provinces. That's the answer, but we're not looking to blame anyone. We're looking for a solution. And, we believe the solution, quite simply, woul

Agriculture committee  I'll say a few things. We need to make the rules known, make them clear. We need to set a bunch of rules that everybody in the industry across Canada knows. Everybody's working in a vacuum right now. If you could influence the provincial agriculture ministries in your province

Agriculture committee  I think you probably should be asking the agriculture ministry which provinces are farther along in discussions than others. They are the ones that are intimately involved in this, and they know the answers. We hear things, but they have the actual facts. In terms of what's hap

Agriculture committee  We're also asking for these extra funds because there has been such a great delay in this capital money and because we think that all this $80 million and the provincial money is only going to pay for capital improvements, although we don't know because the rules haven't been mad

Agriculture committee  No, they did not put in separate lines at that time.

Agriculture committee  Absolutely.

Agriculture committee  I know that over the past two weeks, a departmental representative has visited each province in Canada to encourage them to sign on, to advance funds and to set out program criteria, so that decisions can be made regarding contracts with firms. Last Friday, we spoke to the mini

Agriculture committee  Some members are just shaking their heads, asking how they're going to make the deadline. As I mentioned in this report, we had been advocating before for the same list the Americans were going to have, because we knew that was going to put us in a very uncompetitive position. Bu

Agriculture committee  We merely want to know, or have someone write to tell us, if we are eligible to have reimbursed some of the expenses that we will incur, so that we can start construction. However, we haven't even received the go-ahead for this. Each province has a responsibility to deliver on f

Agriculture committee  That's our view exactly. It's too bad, because they were in discussions with the provinces well before they made the announcement at the end of June 2006, so they knew it was coming. We would have preferred just one single program where the rules were known. It's not that complic

Agriculture committee  Canada Gazette part I was issued in December 2004, and that's when their proposed regulation was put in place. It was June 2006 when Canada Gazette part II came out, with pretty much the same regulation as proposed in part I. So there was plenty of time in between to decide what

Agriculture committee  Apparently they're all pretty much in the same boat, so that's where the complication lies. It would have been nice if the rules had been made very clear to everyone. Then things would have moved forward.

Agriculture committee  Good afternoon, and thank you very much. My name is Jim Laws, and I'm the executive director of the Canadian Meat Council here in Ottawa. The Meat Council is Canada's national trade association of federally inspected meat packers and processors, established in 1919. The red mea