Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
The testimony this morning has been interesting.
First of all, I'll talk to Mr. Guest and Mr. Johnson.
I am a farmer, and many of my neighbours are farming in wheelchairs. I know that one of our neighbours had lost his hand in the Korean War. However, as my dad always used to say, he could do more with one hand than most men could do with two, because it had to do with determination and the things that are so important to people.
We listened to some of the experts, from the universities and so on, and there were a number of things mentioned that were negatives: the climate change, the shift towards mega-farms, the toxic notion of masculinity, and the large multinationals as being problems.
To those of us who farm, there is a certain amount of reality to the situations that occur, but what we've heard in testimony over the last few weeks is that the connotation that comes from the stressors that were just mentioned is as much of a problem to the farmers as anything else. When people are saying it's the big mega-farms that are causing the problems, or when they say it is the new technology that people have to deal with, these are certainly not factors on the farm. It might look that way from 10,000 feet, but the most expensive seed is the first seed that is bought, because that is the one that is going to give you the most potential.
Those are things we've looked at, issues and concerns that many of us have. I just want to put that on the table because farmers get attacked in so many different ways. We've heard the social media attacks, the PETA groups, and we have the others who don't wish to have hormone injections into beef because they say it's going to be so disastrous, when there is more estrogen in the bun than there is in the meat. These are the kinds of things that farmers have to sort through, and they realize that there are issues.
As far as costs are concerned, when we speak about climate change, I have a chart as to how much it is going to cost the average farm just for the carbon tax alone. In Alberta, where we have a carbon tax, on my farm alone it's nearly $20,000.
When we look at it from that 10,000 feet and say this would be a good idea and that would be a good idea, it doesn't hit the realities on the farm.
Mr. Guest, now that I've taken up half of my time, I'll ask, how is your organization trying to deal with both the mental and physical aspects of the disabilities?