Evidence of meeting #7 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was canola.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Vice-President, Government and Industry Relations, Canadian Canola Growers Association
I think it's really impressive to see what the United States does when it decides there's a supply chain issue. They move mountains to make sure they continue to trade.
At a more granular level I might go to my colleague Steve. We have not been contacted by the government regarding high-level transportation issues, with the exception of the recent transportation summit.
Manager, Policy Development, Canadian Canola Growers Association
One of the 2015 recommendations was to establish, under the leadership of the ministers of transport and international trade, a long-term advisory panel that advises on a variety of issues. One could imagine that a transportation commissioner, as was discussed at the previous panel, could potentially.... Using a vehicle like that and having that person as a chair, again, would enable a long view to tackling these issues in a tangible way and discussing them with a plan of attack.
Conservative
John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB
I have one last quick question for you.
When the Conservatives were in government, we had the value chain round table. This was always being discussed, and you had a group that was overseeing this. That has been eliminated and split into a bunch of other small groups.
Has that had an impact in terms of not having either a commissioner or even a minister, which we talked about, who is in charge of looking at this specifically and able to enact some of those recommendations quickly, enabling us to be more agile now that we have been? Have you seen a change in our ability to adjust and react?
Vice-President, Government and Industry Relations, Canadian Canola Growers Association
There have been some growing pains with the revamping of the “value chain round table” approach. I would say, like the previous panel, that we like to be permissive as opposed to prescriptive, but we have seen value—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Kody Blois
Mr. Carey, I apologize. We'll have to keep it there.
Finally, we will go to Ms. Taylor Roy for two and a half minutes, and then we'll finish up.
February 28th, 2022 / 1:10 p.m.
Liberal
Leah Taylor Roy Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.
I just want to say thank you to all the witnesses for being here. We've had incredibly interesting panels today. I wish I had more than two and a half minutes to ask questions; but given that I do not, I would like to direct my question to Monsieur Thériault.
I noticed a couple of times when you were speaking that you said that given the system we have put in place, or given the system we have built.... You also referred to the fact that you felt the government should do more in terms of education. From hearing all of the testimony, it seems to me that it's both consumers and perhaps the workforce in terms of agriculture.
Could you just comment specifically if you have any recommendations for our study on what role the government could play in addressing some of these areas of understanding the components of agriculture and consumption, and how we can better educate people around this?
Agricultural Economist and Director, Farm Management and Technology, McGill University
That's a big, loaded question to answer in such an amount of time.
Actually, what I think we should promote is the science that is in agriculture. I think a lot of things that we hear and see are strictly based on beliefs. Reinforcing the fact that agriculture is a science, and that science-based agriculture is the way, will allow us to keep farming under all of those climate change problems that we have.
Fertilizer prices going up can in part be solved with more precision agriculture—spot applications and aspects like that. We never really talk about it out in the open. People in the agri-food sector hear about it, but out in the open it's not being discussed. I think there's some attraction aspect to it to make [Technical difficulty—Editor] all that technology can be applied to feed us.
Liberal
Leah Taylor Roy Liberal Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON
Thank you.
One of the witnesses earlier talked about agriculture 2.0, and when you look at any investment sites on different industries, agriculture is often shouted out as one of the least advanced, with only perhaps construction behind it. I think the science behind it is very important.
How do we make those switches? We were talking earlier, for example, about the supply chain implications of—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Kody Blois
Ms. Taylor Roy, I apologize. Two and a half minutes is a short time, but we were happy to get your question into the record.
Thank you, Mr. Thériault.
Colleagues, thank you for your patience on our technical issues today.
Witnesses, thank you for your testimony and all that you provide to the sector.
Translators, we know that there was a challenge here today. Thank you for all your work.
We will adjourn, and we will see you back here on Thursday.
Thank you so much.