Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today. We are pleased to see you before the committee again.
I know there has been broad support for restoring access to PACA. In the last legislature we had a Liberal member on committee. I think you will remember Mark Eyking who did work a lot on PACA. He was a strong advocate, and I think there was a lot of support, at least from opposition at that time to gently nudge. We were asking the government to restore PACA. More recently, I think it was on October 7, 2015. I'm just going to read this press release. It says:
Liberal Agriculture critic Mark Eyking stated that a Liberal government would defend Canadian fruit and vegetable producers by resolving the entirely avoidable dispute with the United States over [the] Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act ...
It goes on to say, “Canadian fruit & vegetable growers used to enjoy...PACA, a low-cost dispute resolution system”, and now for the last little bit, over about “a year ago after the Conservatives failed to create a comparable system”, we no longer have it.
It just goes on to say that:
In consultation with industry...including the Canadian Horticultural Council & the Canadian Produce Marketing Association (CPMA), [the] Liberal government would create a...mechanism in Canada and work with the United States to reinstate the access that our fruit and vegetable exporters had under PACA.
So it was a promise. It's great that we are studying this at committee. It's important. We have two meetings. We're not going to overstudy this. Hopefully we can get more action on it.
There was also a motion brought forward in this Parliament, the 42nd Parliament, by my amazing colleague Tracey Ramsey. She put forward a motion asking:
That, in the opinion of the House, the government should: (a) introduce a payment protection program for produce growers like the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act (PACA) in the United States that will allow sellers to maintain an ownership trust until payment has been received; (b) implement this payment protection program for produce growers by September 30, 2016; (c) take immediate steps to negotiate with the United States to restore Canada’s privileged access under PACA, with the aim of restoring access by December 31, 2016.
I imagine you guys support that motion, and maybe this could be an opportunity for the government, or this committee to recommend to the House to adopt this motion. I was wondering if I could maybe just get comments on the urgency, because before there was consensus on the urgency to restore access to PACA. It's something that does not cost anything, and you guys did amazing work. I want to thank you for the work you have done, and also the work that Mr. Cuming did with the bill that he brought forward on January 22, 2015.
I also understand there have been some modifications to the bill. If you could maybe speak briefly to those, I'll give you the floor. Thank you.