Evidence of meeting #20 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was farmers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Member of the Board, Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities
I'm wrong, then.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Anyway, I want to thank all the witnesses for appearing. We are running out of time.
There's one thing that we as a committee need to discuss quickly. We have the KAP study and we have the data book, which is going to be circulated to everybody, from Ag Canada. They used Thompson Corporation, the University of Guelph, and Ridgetown College to put together that information, a comparison of input prices.
Do we want to do this as a study ourselves to get a snapshot of where we are today? It's going to cost some money to do something like that, and we'd have to set the wheels in motion. Or do we want to call in the particular companies and universities that did this study to appear as witnesses, though they would just be commenting upon the data from 2007?
Mr. Easter.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
I think if we can get somebody who's independent, with a good economic research background, who could review this and bring it up to date, that would be the best approach. We always have the option open of inviting some of those folks if we want to.
Conservative
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
We may want to do it the opposite way and have these people in, and then after we had them in, if we thought it was necessary, have this independent study—either/or.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
If we're going to decide to move down the road of doing a study, we have to set the wheels in motion to get money freed up through the liaison committee so that we can undertake a study. There are guidelines that would be used. We'd have to develop terms of reference for the study.
I'm open to suggestions. If we need to do it, we have a motion ready to go here to start the process.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
The motion reads that the committee ask its analysts to submit potential names and a term of reference in order to provide the committee with a study of the most recent prices of inputs in Canada versus the United States, and that it be reported back to the committee.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Thank you very much again to all witnesses.
The meeting is adjourned.