Thank you.
Thank you, gentlemen, for being here, and thanks to those from Charlottetown.
A couple of years ago we did a study on competitiveness in the agricultural industry. It was really an enlightening project, and I think that we determined then still applies. The way to help us to be more competitive is to develop more harmony between the regulations in the States and ours here, and to perhaps make our anti-competitive legislation a little stronger, so that processors, retailers, and input suppliers who sometimes exhibit some anti-competitive behaviour might be brought into check in some ways. You know about the study and you know all the other issues associated with it.
In the last month, we've heard about tweaking our BRM programs, only with respect to the speed with which the payments are made and the Olympic model or other models that might be used. You know all of that as well. Only one person said “AgriInvest and forget the rest”. It was a comment made, I think, on Tuesday, by a farmer from Ontario. I don't know that anybody on this panel shares that view. I don't hear Travis saying that we should get rid of it. I think he's saying that we have to focus on innovation, too, if we're going to remain competitive and help those people who aren't deriving income as much off farm and more on farm, to help them lift themselves up.
I have two questions, though. One is about something I heard a couple of years ago. I wonder if it still applies. Is there a disparity between what the provincial ministers of agriculture offer farmers in the form of income stabilization and other programs, a disparity that maybe makes the experience of an Ontario farmer different from that of a farmer in Alberta or Quebec? I'd like to know more about that.
Travis, maybe you can answer that first question.
My second question is for Humphrey, Kevin, or Allan, and it is with respect to the definition of a natural disaster. You know what? We're into global warming and its effects already. I'm hoping that most of us at this table recognize that. As we're not really dealing with the adjustment to global warming, I'm wondering if we should be looking more closely at the definition of a natural disaster, given that the effects of climate change are upon us.
Travis, could you go with the first question? You're welcome to address the second as well if there's time. Then the others can address them as well.