That's a good question, and a very broad one.
I think there's give-and-take in any policy like this. We know that Canada has about 1% of global emissions and that agriculture represents about 10% of Canada's emissions. However, our producers aren't producing widgets: They're growing food, feed and fuel.
Farmers are on the front lines of climate change for sure. I would say that one of the things is to look at agriculture and farming as a climate solutions provider. Canola, for example, is the best field crop at sequestering carbon because of its deep root system and the fact that it's grown on 20 million acres.
There's a lot that we could be doing as a country to look at what we call “sustainable intensification”, Mr. Chair: producing more food on the same amount of land while using less inputs.
Climate change is real. Farmers feel it: They're harvesting in very wet conditions. However, there has to be give-and-take, because they are producing food.