I made some comments earlier, and it was not just idle talk on my part. This is a real concern for me; I feel very strongly about this. No one could possibly oppose the idea of the Committee studying an issue like the future of young farmers. However, I repeat: on November 9, Mr. Blackburn, the Minister of State for Agriculture, began a cross-country tour to look at that very issue.
Mr. Lemieux says that we are independent of government and that we can carry out any study we like. That may be so, but reflecting on the examples he cited, I must say I do not recall seeing any press releases or major announcements on SRMs or on prison farms. Here, though, we are talking about a study that will undoubtedly yield specific proposals to government by young farmers. The government will probably want to respond to those concerns—at least, I hope so.
Once we have seen what the government has in mind in terms of helping young farmers, it would be very appropriate at that time for the Committee to conduct a study. That is what I am suggesting. When Mr. Blackburn has completed his tour and we know what came of it, why not ask the steering committee of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food to consider that and bring it back to the Committee? That would give us a chance to see what the government intends to do. We will already have a good idea of its plans, assuming that the government is transparent. If it passes on the information collected from young farmers, we will have a good idea of what their concerns are and what they are proposing. We could then hear from the Minister who will have met personally with young farmers and other young people. We could then bring in a lot of valuable and interested witnesses. That would be a lot more efficient than doing our work at the same time as the Minister, who will be making stops across the country and meeting with people.
I agree with Wayne. We don't even know whether the results of this exercise will be made public. I have no idea. If the Minister has nothing to say after holding these roundtables, if he has nothing to offer and does not intend to do anything, the issue will just become a dead letter. If that happens, it would then be very appropriate for us to take up this matter. Even if he proposes solutions or government measures to help young farmers, nothing would prevent us from looking at them and carrying out our own review.
However, I believe it would be premature to do that now, given that the Minister has begun this tour. If he had not decided to do that, I would not even be discussing this. I would immediately have said that this is a very good topic for the Committee to look at. Unfortunately, however, I feel we would just be duplicating the work that is now ongoing, when we could actually be looking at other issues. We know how the Conservatives operate. They will be bringing forward suggestions before we have even submitted our report to government. Before we have even made recommendations, they will come along and suggest a whole series of measures that do not necessarily jibe with what we were going to propose, at a point where we have not even completed our work.
I have been through this once before. To do the same thing again would be highly regrettable, in my opinion. Why not wait for Minister Blackburn to complete his cross-country tour and see the results? I invite Mr. Shipley to ask the steering committee to put that on its agenda. I will be the first one to defend the idea of talking about young farmers.