Mr. Chair, thank you. I'd like to thank the officials for attending.
I'd like to begin with you, Mr. Forbes. I want to talk a little about the agriculture sector in B.C. I've attended a few forums at Kwantlen Polytechnic by Kent Mullinix, the head of their sustainable program. He discusses place-based agriculture.
I want to talk a bit about a couple of farms in my area, a larger one and a smaller one. There's Sweet Digz Farm. It's 20 acres, run by younger farmers. It's leased. They produce organic products. Then there is Richmond Country Farms, owned by the Hogler family for over 50 years. Actually, Minister MacAulay visited it a couple of years ago. It's 300 acres, but it's all locally grown, organic. They also create a surplus and they export.
The question I have for you is this: What role can the federal government play in having standards for the organic sector? I believe it's about $5-billion industry in Canada. What can the federal government do, and what has it done, to expand that sector?