Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.
Global food demand is going to rise 50% to 70% in the next 30 years. We'll have 2.4 billion people entering the middle class, which will present a huge opportunity, and 1.8 billion of these people are in Asia, China, and Indonesia. There's great excitement about precision agriculture and the advances being made there. All these things I just mentioned point to the fact that Canada can play a real role as, for lack of a better phrase, the world's breadbasket, or at least, an important breadbasket that can contribute tremendously to the creation of jobs and economic growth in this country.
At the same time, though, there will be a need for traditional help on the farm. The Conference Board of Canada is suggesting that by 2025 we're going to see a huge gap in demand and what's required in terms of support on the farm. By 2025, 114,000 unfilled jobs is the estimate by the Conference Board.
Mr. Wells, with regard to policy, what can be done to help deal with this problem? Are there tools in our immigration policy? We tend to focus our immigration policy on attracting so-called high-skilled workers, but we also have this huge gap. Is there something to be said for making sure we are putting in place policies that will allow us to attract the labour needed by farmers across the country? That means perhaps looking at those who are so-called low-skilled and finding ways to privilege their applications.