Alistair MacGregor at the Agriculture and Agri-Food Committee

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Forbes, I'm going to continue with my examination of the minister's mandate letter.

There is a mandate here to support food producers who choose alternative pest management approaches. I am going to assume that those are approaches that do not need pest management regulatory agency approval, because we have heard from a lot of producers who are concerned with the backlog at PMRA.

I'm just wondering if you can provide our committee with a bit more information on what those alternative pest management approaches are. What does this support look like? Does this support include some of the fantastic research that's going on in Canada, in places like the University of British Columbia's experimental farm? Please give us any information you can on that particular mandate.