Good afternoon. My name is Peter Maurice. Although I have an English name, I work in Quebec. I am Director General of the Association des Marchands de Machines Aratoires de la Province de Québec. The association, which is a non-profit organization, was founded in 1949. Its mission is to compile statistics and information on agricultural equipment in Quebec, to secure the greatest possible cooperation of the dealers in the various regions of the province and to promote the sale and use of agricultural machinery in Quebec.
Our association was founded in order to bring together all agricultural equipment dealers in the province. We are a source of information, and we offer our members services such as group insurance programs, general insurance and the legal forms the dealers need.
In all, there are approximately 160 agricultural equipment dealers in Quebec. Slightly more than 3,000 employees work for those dealers. The dealers vary in size, and the number of employees per dealer varies accordingly, from five to 125. In the shops, in 2006, the average hourly rate charged to farmers was $60 an hour. In some regions, it was $66 an hour. In Quebec, the average hourly rate wage paid to mechanics is approximately $16. The language used is French, and our customers are all Francophones. All the documents and information that we forward to our members are therefore in French.
On behalf of the agricultural dealer members of Canada, we are pleased to be making this presentation to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food so that the government can become acquainted with it.
I'm now going to talk about Canada's place in the competitive world.
The members of our association sell equipment mainly intended for agricultural use. They are sensitive to the changing needs and demographics of farmers, and have seen many technological advances in the equipment offered for sale. As members of the committee know, farming today is vastly different than 30, 20 and even 10 years ago.
However, we believe that government policy affecting our industry has not moved as fast. Therefore, in our presentation to the standing committee today, we would like to provide a state of the industry report and at the conclusion provide some recommendations for the committee's consideration.
Thank you.