Agriculture committee  Has there been any testing done of the inside of the hive to see what chemicals have been found interacting when they bring the pollen back? Bees can't read labels, so they're not going to be looking at the labels and saying, “Oh, we're not going to go there and there.” They're not going to have that same information that you're labelling on products.

Agriculture committee  Could I ask that the information be sent to us?

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much to our witnesses and our neighbours in the States for being here today. There's been a lot of discussion about importing bees to Canada from different countries. I'd actually like to focus on why bee mortality is so high and what's happening. I'd like to address some of my questions to you, Dr.

Agriculture committee  I have 30 seconds. I just want to thank you for the work you're doing on this. I think having some of these facts and some of these numbers around.... We can't make projections without putting assumptions in. I think some of the assumptions have been that behaviour is not going to change among our farmers.

Agriculture committee  That would be great. Thank you. It sounds like you're fairly confident that even though farmers have been doing this for ages, a greater adaptation of these techniques is going to further decrease the greenhouse gas emissions from this sector.

Agriculture committee  You may not have this number either, but I am wondering.... Within the department, have there been any estimates done on the cost of these climate events to the agricultural sector? The droughts we saw across the Prairies, the flooding in B.C., the east coast.... There have been so many things happening.

Agriculture committee  That's great. It would be really interesting to see some of these numbers broken down in terms of the impact on a 5,000-acre farm to see what the costs are of the damage that's happening and what it's costing our government, our agricultural sector and our farmers, as well as the change in behaviour.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you again to our witnesses. Congratulations, Ms. Beck, on your position. I have some questions around the price on pollution, the agricultural climate solutions program and the impact those have had on our farms and the emissions that have been coming from the agricultural sector.

Agriculture committee  Thank you so much. That is exciting. I'm wondering what role the government can play here too. We have the new Canada food guide, which, as you know, has really emphasized plant-based foods and consuming more of those. Hopefully, we're going to have the school lunch program introduced soon.

Agriculture committee  Yes. I agree. I think there's always going to be the demand for animal protein as well, but when you look at the world hunger situation, the amount of water used and the amount of other inputs used to create animal protein, I think having the balance between both will allow us to address a lot of things—environmental sustainability, world hunger and our climate targets.

Agriculture committee  That's fantastic. I'll ask another question. I'm also wondering about this in the numbers. The on-farm climate action stream has of course a great deal of money allocated, more than $87 million. Are there any new directions coming out over the next year in this program, or is there still a lot of pent-up demand for that program in terms of the initiatives under way?

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Minister Bibeau and all of the department officials, for being here today. Thank you for the hard work you're doing at the ministry to support our agricultural sector and to move toward more sustainable agriculture as well. I want to talk about another area where I think there's potential for growth, which is the plant-based food market.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much. I appreciate that you're focusing on higher-value items in the local market. To some of the officials, did you receive any requests from Olymel for assistance or for any programs to help with the situation in Vallée-Jonction? Was there any kind of formal request before they made the decision to close this plant?

Agriculture committee  Thank you. It seems that once they had made the decision to close the plant, they sought assistance in relocating some of the workers, which is excellent. Before they made the decision to close the plant, did they reach out to you, for example, to discuss what supports could be put in place to keep the plant operating?

Agriculture committee  Thank you, sir. It seems the decision was made, obviously, for global reasons, and there wasn't much the government could do to maintain this. We're sitting here at the agriculture and agri-food committee. As we're here discussing this, what role do you see...? Could the government have prevented this somehow?