Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Temporary foreign workers are essential to our farmers. Mr. Seppey, you mentioned areas of production that have faced serious challenges, namely, asparagus and mushroom production.
In addition to being on thin ice because of this unprecedented pandemic, like everyone else, farmers in my riding weren't given timely information that would have informed their decision-making around production capacity.
My fellow member Mr. Powlowski wants to close the farm to fork gap, but doing that means people have to want to produce something.
Mistakes were made, and we are here to find solutions. Would you now agree that the $1,500 should have been a lump sum, because it didn't incentivize people to engage in food processing?
Some of the witnesses we heard from said the government should have been responsible for the quarantining of workers. I imagine you agree with that. What else needs to happen to ensure that farmers, be it before, during or after a second wave, receive timely information and can actually get down to the business of farming, so we don't have a food supply problem?