Evidence of meeting #44 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was corn.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
President, Munro Honey & Munro's Meadery
You're going to lose a lot of equipment. It's the same with crop insurance. Bill called his crop insurance guy this year because he was aware he might have a problem, and he said, “You've had a problem with sprays? You're not eligible for crop insurance this year.”
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Well as I said, the AgriInvest and AgriStability don't concern themselves with that. They're more focused on revenue.
President, Munro Honey & Munro's Meadery
A band-aid is what they are. They're not really—
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
They're not going to solve why the bees are dying. They won't solve that. In the meantime, if you're going through difficult financial times as a result of that, that's what the programs are there for.
President, Munro Honey & Munro's Meadery
But once you draw from them, there's nothing left.
President, Munro Honey & Munro's Meadery
Once you draw from it, there's nothing left for the next year. What happens to the next year?
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
The programs are meant to provide financial assistance to farmers that find themselves in difficult circumstances, due to circumstances that are beyond their control. I'm not saying it's going to fix all of your problems or that it is going to find out exactly why bees are dying. The research will focus on that.
But these types of programs are there to help farmers—
President, Munro Honey & Munro's Meadery
A lot of this research you're talking about has nothing to do with this insecticide poisoning.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
I'm sorry, I disagree. I've been reading through the different projects that have been launched. As I say, some of them are for substantial amounts of money, and they are touching on or they are focused on survivability of bees.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Okay, we're not going to debate this back and forth.
I think to our witnesses, Mr. Lemieux has mentioned some programs and some of them will cover disasters, whether they're tornadoes.... One went through Grey and Bruce county here a couple of summers ago, and that money helped out. It will cover things like flooding or drought. I'm not sure whether this would qualify, but it probably has the potential to qualify under one of those. I think rather than debate it, at least investigate to see if those programs will help in the interim. And I think we need further study into why the bees, themselves, are dying.
Ms. Brosseau, you have five minutes please.
NDP
Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
God bless the Internet and iPads because I did a quick little Google search and I found that on May 25, 2007, the Minister of Agriculture for Canada and the Canadian Wheat Board gave $136,000 to two projects that were supposed to address the unexplained losses of the bee population.
I was just wondering if we could get information to see where those projects or those reports are. That's just an idea.
Mr. Bill Ferguson, if it's possible, could you please table that report to the committee so we could have a chance to read it?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
That report is 100 pages and in order for it to be tabled before the whole committee, it has to be in both languages.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
That's going to be, I'd just say, impossible to do. I'm sure that online someplace that report is probably available in both languages. Would that be fair or not?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
It could be but all I'm saying is that once it comes to the clerk, in order for him to distribute it to all members, it's supposed to be translated, which is a huge cost.
NDP
Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Could we get the information for the link? Then it could be circulated and we could look at it on our computers in the office.
Owner, Ferguson Apiaries
If I get who I am to send the link to, I can do that.
NDP
Ruth Ellen Brosseau NDP Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Thank you, it's the clerk.
I want to thank you for sharing your stories with us. I can't imagine what you're going through. It's heartbreaking. I was almost in tears listening to your story, and I'm really sorry.
What do you want us to do? I'm really thankful that you're here and you're educating us and sharing your difficult time, but what do you advise the federal government to do? What do you want to see happen? What do you want to see come from this meeting?
President, Saugeen Country Honey Inc.
We want to see this chemical banned. I have difficulty saying the name. It's so long—neonicotinoids. We want to see it banned. We really do.