Thank you very much.
Of course there is a difference between privilege and rights. But when a privilege is enacted and specifically provided for, as in Bill C-18, it looks as if it gets teeth to bite with. To that extent, I'm not losing sleep over whether we choose “privilege” or “right”, because under the international treaty, governments or nation states have the liberty to determine how to legislate on farmers' rights. If a country such as Canada decides to call it a “privilege”, I have no problem with that.
The main issue I want us to pay attention to is in proposed section 5, which does not, in its spirit and letter, accommodate the ability of smallholder farmers to sell their harvest. It completely forecloses that. I think this can be improved upon; we can accommodate that.
If I plant something in my garden and use it to teach my kids how stuff grows, and eventually we take it back in and eat it, it's entirely different. We don't have any ambition to sell that. But there are still people in rural communities who do not have the technical know-how to begin to process licensing an agreement. These are traditional people, smallholder farmers. They can do accidental innovation in a process. We want to accommodate those people.