Agriculture Committee on Nov. 25th, 2010

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

This question is somewhat more technical. I assume we are going to have some budget hypotheses. The motion does not specify how long the committee would be travelling, or where exactly it would go. In order to draw up a budget, we need to have different scenarios and to know how many committee members would be coming along, and we have no idea.

I agree with the proposed motion, but it does not provide enough details.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Exactly, and of course, you have to start somewhere, Mr. Bellavance. If you feel that a facility or facilities in Quebec should be visited, please get the name or names to the clerk. Today would be better, if possible, but some suggestions, please.

As I said, she can't actually prepare that budget until we hear the names of some of these places. I know that I don't have any problems and I'm sure no other member of the committee does.... As I said, we need to visit all parts of the country, or at least all regions, I'll say that, and what have you. I know that Mr. Easter mentioned to me a facility out on the east coast. I'm not sure which one he means, but he'll let us know. It's important to do that. That's where we're going. This is general. We had to start someplace.

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chair, there's the NRC facility at the University of Prince Edward Island that is looking at agriculture crops used in nutraceuticals, at health components, and at fisheries crops like lobster shells, etc. Pierre's not here, is here? He has been there a couple of times. I think that one is absolutely essential, and I would suggest a second one. This one is a new facility, started within the last seven years, and has over 100 scientists from around the world there, so it's a really forward-looking research centre dedicated to agriculture. That's one.

The second area is in Truro. At NSAC—I'm not sure of the proper name—we have Canada's organic centre. We should talk to them to see if they do research, because it would be the other side of biotech. It would be the natural industry. We could maybe stop there as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

If you or Mark would check into that and get back to the clerk, I think it would help to expedite this.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I think you could put Truro and Charlottetown in at this stage.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay. If you get those contacts and what have you to her, that would be the way.

Alex.

[An hon. member]

When are we going on this...?

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

I'm not sure. At this time, it doesn't seem that we know how long this would take. I'm not convinced of the validity of doing something like this. Often when we travel we go because there are people out there having problems or we want to check out what's happening with young farmers, etc.

I don't think this industry is particularly suffering. I'm just wondering if it would be more cost-effective to invite some people here just to get an update on what's happening rather than spending the time, the energy, and the cost to do this trip to visit research facilities. I don't know. I'm not sure how valid it is for us to do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Eyking.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

I was wondering about the timelines. When are you thinking of this?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Because the budget is more than likely to come down sometime in February, my plan would be that if we do get approval to do this, if we were going west, for example, my suggestion would be that instead of us all flying to Ottawa on Monday morning, we would—

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Is that in February or March?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

In February, and one of the reasons in my mind is that the earlier we do it, when we're back the less chance we have in getting caught up in budget debates. We all know that in a minority situation we're all going to have to be here at budget time. Again, that's going to be up to the direction of the committee.

I think we may want to do this during two or three different weeks. For example, Mr. Valeriote mentioned Guelph, Ontario. My suggestion there would be that we arrive in town on Sunday night and do that on Monday. We can probably all be back in Ottawa Monday night or, at the latest, Tuesday morning. We can make it work. We just need some kind of idea of where we want to go. We can sort out the schedule afterwards. The cost won't change that much.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Just as a clarification, Mr. Atamanenko is suggesting that maybe this is not the best idea for this committee at the present time.

Is that pretty well what you're saying?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

That's what he's saying.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

If I may, Mr. Chair, what do you think we should be doing, Alex?

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

Given the fact that we didn't really start until quite late in getting this committee going and we're going to be off in January and coming back in February, I would say that we could do a short study that would take no more than maybe five or six meetings. We could have people here--maybe some of the folks who should have appeared before but were shut down on my bill, for example. We could get a snapshot of the industry here. Because by that time, there will be other things on the horizon. There's CETA, the agreement—

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

That's fine. Now I know where you're going.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay.

Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

I'm just amazed. Wow: this is the guy who brought in Bill C-474 and said we needed to do all of this study and listen to all these witnesses and now he says we don't need to do that.

All I'm doing is giving him a venue to actually allow some of those people to come forward and explain what the issues are. Not only that, I'm also trying to do it in a balanced way so that everybody can explain what the issues are and so we as a committee can actually move forward into the 21st century on this sector. This sector is huge for agriculture. This sector is probably going to deliver more returns per acre than anything we've ever grown in the past.

So to say we don't need to study this just shows you that you're not in touch with what's going on in western Canada or in the rest of Canada in agriculture. That's absolutely crazy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I'm hoping to finish this very quickly.

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

Larry, that was an accusation that I want to answer. I didn't say we didn't want to study it. I said that we should study it here. We should study--

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

You don't have a clue about what's involved in this--

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

Let me speak. It's my turn.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay. Let's have some order here.