Thank you, Chair.
I want to thank the witnesses for coming out this afternoon.
I must say I'm really shocked at the testimony today, because I'm hearing some very good testimony from Mr. Keller and a lot of hearsay and unproven comments from the other two colleagues.
When I listen to what you are proposing, the only cure you have is for the world population because you're going to starve the rest of the people. If you take this world and go straight to organics and do what you are suggesting, basically you might as well let the Prairies blow into grass. Basically you might as well take all the farmers on the Prairies and let them evaporate, because they won't make a living.
You're talking in anti-trade terms, but if we don't trade we'll never have an economy out west that's actually based on agriculture. You might have your nice farm in P.E.I. that you can look at across the valley, but you will not have a thriving agricultural sector coming out of western Canada. You will not feed the world with your policies, and that is where I am very disappointed here today, because we're looking forward to Growing Forward 2 and what policies we need to put in place. We have been talking with the organic sector to see what we can do to work with them on their concerns about co-existence, but you're not even talking about that. You're talking about the total opposite. You don't even want commercial agriculture to exist.
You think everybody is in the bag of big corporations. I have about 100 neighbours who would take you to task on that. I don't think you've been to a farm in western Canada. I don't think you've been to a farm in Saskatchewan. The way you are talking, you really don't understand how agriculture works.
Then I am confused. How did you get invited to this committee? You talked about agrifood as far as fish and fish eggs go. Again, the fisheries committee might be an appropriate place those points to come forward, but here in the agriculture committee where we are talking about the next generation of agricultural policy, no, it is not the appropriate place. I am really disappointed and frustrated to see that happen here today in the agriculture committee. I'd like to think we vet our witnesses a bit better.
So I am going to go to Mr. Keller, who seems to have the most reasonable approach to where we need to go forward in the next round of agriculture talks.
Mr. Keller, I want to really look at the biotech sector and what we need to do in support of it to see it move forward. What would be the strongest recommendations you would make if you were to prioritize them as one, two, and three?