Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Ladies and gentlemen, thanks for being here. It's good to be in P.E.I.
Ranald, there's one thing I want to say to you: it is definitely not a waste of your time to be here. I'm a farmer too and I can tell you that one of the most frustrating things, which I've always had in view and still have as a politician, is how slow the system works and changes.
But don't ever feel that it's a waste of time. You have people around this table from all parties, and I can tell you, speaking for my colleagues from other parties, that we all have a genuine concern for agriculture. That is a fact.
We have many problems. One I talked about is the slowness of government. One of the biggest problems we have—and Wayne, Paul, and Charlie have been around for a long time—is the bureaucracy. When we go away as a group from these meetings that we're holding, I can tell you, we don't have our minds made up. Hopefully we'll have some good ideas, and we already have some—I've heard a lot of good ones tonight—but sometimes I'm not so convinced that the bureaucracy has.
Another problem we have--and this goes back 35 years and all colours of government, I'm not just picking on one—is that there hasn't been the dedication and what have you to agriculture, or the respect it should have. That has to change. And it isn't just in the federal government; it's in the provincial governments.
We've heard talk today about having one delivery plan. I know Paul believes in that, and I'm beginning to think the same way. But my province of Ontario is one of the worst; they will not give that up. Maybe the federal government is going to have to deal with it in the transfers, as somebody said here. That'll make Danny Williams happy, I'm sure. But that is a problem.
Another problem we have is within the different commodity groups. I've sat on a lot of different farm boards through the years, and every one has their own agenda. It's that “divide and conquer” mentality.
Another problem we have is with the general public themselves. They see farmers driving big fancy tractors. I'm not being critical about this; it's a fact. We need them, whether they're new or older, to do our jobs. But people look at them and ask, what's the big issue? In their minds, they're paying a high price for food.
I don't really have a question. It's more of a comment. But I can tell you I've heard a lot here. The only thing I am convinced of is that we need to find some innovative ways, as the Americans do, to deal with different things.
Somebody earlier tonight had a suggestion about CFIA inspection costs. They were particularly talking about the potato industry, but I think inspection fees are one thing government can look at in all commodities and possibly cover.
I'm probably out of time, or close to it, Mr. Chairman. I'm going to leave it at that and turn it over to the next colleague.