Agriculture Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2009

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Your time is up, Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

He's doing that.

I'm going to ignore the chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

I don't know if you have a question. The time is up.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I just want to make a comment.

You guys are the cream of the crop. It is great you're here. I'm glad you came to Ottawa this year to do your awards, because it gives us an opportunity to rub shoulders with you. I'm honoured to be part of your association.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you, Mr. Hoback.

Time is running short here. I'd like to thank all the presenters here today. I think this is almost the start for next year's “future of farming”.

We have clerks here, and I should recognize them. They work with us every day at our committee, the whole crew.

Yours is our first step, or probably our introduction into our report next year on the future of agriculture.

Yes, my wife and I were Outstanding Young Farmers for Nova Scotia in 1990. I found one of the best things about it was just getting off the farm and meeting other progressive farmers and seeing how other people do it. That interaction was really important for us. It is a great organization. We'll probably be drawing on you a little bit in the new year if some of you can come back. We'll work that out.

Enjoy the rest of your evening in Ottawa. There are a couple of minutes, if you want to make some closing comments.

Go ahead.

[Richard Stamp]

If I could, I just think I should be obligated to do that to really thank you for offering this opportunity here today.

I really think the worth of agriculture is in perception. We support it if we think it's valuable. One thing that hits me is when we have 50% of our farm families advising the next generation not to be involved in agriculture, I think we're on the wrong track. That's not saying that every person who grows up on a farm has to run a farm. Those farms keep changing, building, and there are all kinds of dynamics, but you should not advise people against that. Success, in my mind, from my position in the last couple of years, really, and in the future, is that every kitchen table in Canada should have a positive attitude about agriculture and not a negative one.

Mr. Easter had mentioned before, what can you guys can do as a government? I say “government” because everybody has to work together. I would challenge everybody to put differences aside. We do that in our organizations. We're all from every aspect of agriculture and all political views, and we make it work. We go through this whole process—we don't even have elections; we say who the best person is to do something and get it done. I'm pretty proud of this group in how they've done that.

To wrap that up, I'd like to say that Canada's Outstanding Young Farmers Program is getting more organized all the time in what we'd like to offer and what we can do. We have a lot of financial support from our sponsors, and Agriculture Canada is one of them. We're very proud of that and happy with that.

We'd like to offer our services to the government and to Agriculture Canada. Canadian agriculture is really what the word should be to everybody. If there's some way we can help do that, we'd like to do that in the future.

Thanks very much for the time today.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you, and we'll hear from you.

Thank you very much.

[Some hon. members]

Hear, hear.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

We're ready to close the meeting, but Mr. Lemieux, do you have something to say?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I do. I just want to ask the committee members if we could agree to move ahead with our report.

I would like to see the report. I think we all do, because we've all had conversations about finishing our report on competitiveness so that we can publish it.

Chair, this is not a motion, but I'm looking for some sort of agreement that in fact we would focus on the report, for example, next week. We could remove witnesses from our Tuesday schedule so we can focus on the report. We'd have Tuesday and Thursday. I put that in front of the committee.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you, Mr. Lemieux.

I was already talking to our chair and our steering committee, I think it was a couple of months ago. I think we're pretty well on track with GMO people and what not. I think we've come to a bit of an agreement that yes, next week we're not going to have any witnesses and we'll try to focus on the report.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chair, there are two motions that have to be dealt with. I know I have one, but I'm not worried about it, that can wait. But I believe André and Francis have motions that should be dealt with. We should deal with those two and then do nothing else but the report. I would hold my motion back until later.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

I'd like to have unanimous consent as to what we're going to do next week, but if not, we'll have to go with what we have.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Chair, if the committee agrees, we can move ahead with Mr. Valeriote's motion today. I don't see a problem with that. The problem is that the other motions will require much debate, Chair, and it's going to slow down the report process. This is where I'm asking for the help of the committee and my colleagues on the other side.

We're willing to move ahead with Mr. Valeriote's motion today if we need to. It'll be a simple thing to pass. But I'm asking for cooperation from the other side on all other motions, that we simply don't tackle them until we're done the report. Can we put this pressure on ourselves to engage in finalizing the report? I think it's in our best interest and it's in the best interest of organizations that have come in front of us to testify. If the committee agrees to that, then so be it.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

First of all, do we have any kind of unanimous consent that we deal with Mr. Valeriote's?

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Chairman, this is not on the agenda. This requires unanimous consent, and I, for one, refuse.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Okay, we're not going to deal with any more motions today.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

There's cooperation for you, Chair. I just want it noted that I'm trying to seek cooperation and that's the kind of cooperation we get.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

We have an agreement that we're not going to have witnesses next week. I think we all agree that we hope we can get the report done next week. Let's hope that for the last week we're here before Christmas we can work together.

We may have to deal with motions--I don't know--but let's see how it rolls out next week. I don't think there's unanimous consent to deal with any motions.

[An hon. member]

She said no, so there isn't.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Do you have a question, Mr. Atamanenko?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

The witnesses that were scheduled for next week we'll pick up after the break--is that it?

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Yes, we're going to start off with a whole new slate.

The meeting is adjourned.