Thank you.
One thing I would like to suggest regarding Mr. Dreeshen's concern is that if there is no risk of additional financial burdens, then there's nothing to fear from this amendment. There's a great deal of statutory interpretation of the word “reasonable” and there are a lot of tests that are applied, but it is guidance for interpretation only.
I would also say to my friend Mr. Lemieux that if in the value chain of food production in Canada we don't decide that in that hierarchy, farmers are the most important, then I don't know what we think we're doing.
I would invite any of my colleagues who are members of this committee and who might wish to preserve some of the language to amend this—I'm not allowed to as a non-committee member—to remove “unreasonable financial burdens” and just include “does not impede their rights to grow...”, etc. If you like that language, we can take out “unreasonable financial burdens” and have it be a friendly amendment, or have it proposed entirely at this table by a member of the official opposition or the Liberal Party.
Thank you.