Thank you.
A special thanks to Joe; you worked really hard to organize a lot of the witnesses. I know our clerk was really thankful for your efforts, so I'd just like to thank you on her behalf.
I guess I'm like a broken record, but I'm going to say this again. I'm just going to take off on what you said there, Joe. You talked about the United States Farm Bill and their institutional procurement programs and all of those things they do, whether it's coupons for seniors to buy food at local markets or school programs. Yet I recall that a couple of years ago, some of us on the committee had a recommendation, which all on the committee agreed to, that the federal government encourage local procurement when buying for federal government institutions. We all agreed to that and thought it was a great idea. Yet the response we're getting is that we have to be careful because of trade obligations.
I don't think it's fair to criticize one government on this. I think we've all kind of slipped into this over the years--until we all of a sudden wake up and say, “Wait a minute.”
You know, if you come from another planet and you see what's going on, and see all of this productive land and of these qualified people with the excellent fruit and vegetables and produce, and yet people aren't making money, we're doing something wrong.
We can fix the tax system, we can fix the subsidies here and we can give money there, but the bottom line is that we have to somehow collectively start standing up for something national, whether it's a food policy or it's some program that recognizes our producers and gives them a chance to make money.
You mentioned expanding the list of sensitive products. I'd like you to maybe comment on that.
I'd also like to get Mr. Butler to comment on one thing that I've been told, that before NAFTA we had something like 1,000 onion producers in B.C. and now you can count them on the fingers of your right hand.
I'll stop there, and hopefully we can get a couple of comments.
Joe, maybe you wouldn't mind starting.