Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Rosemont--Petite-Patrie for his questions and his kind remarks. I was not aware of the Cousineau report on bio-pesticides, but let me make a couple of points.
First, under the Pest Management Regulatory Agency I think that in general we have been far too slow in this country in terms of dealing with minor use products. The numbers are quite startling when we contrast them with those in the United States. It seems to be able to move much more quickly than our regulatory agency can in order to get some of these minor use approvals through in a narrow timeframe. Members will realize that when crops are at certain stages it is extremely important that the application be applied then or it is wasted, the money is lost and the product just does not work. Generally speaking there is a concern.
However, to specifically answer the member's question about using bio-pesticides to reduce our involvement with the more harmful products, this is something that I think is extremely important. In my speech I tried to contrast the differences we see in this country in terms of money available for biotechnology from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the very minuscule amounts of money that are available on the organic side including, in this case, the bio-pesticides. I think there needs to be a balancing.
The organic industry is growing extremely quickly in this country. I know it is only 1% or 2% of the overall farms, but it is surging ahead and I think those farms need some additional assistance. Something in this area like Quebec is apparently doing on bio-pesticides would certainly be a step in the right direction.