Human Resources committee  The short answer is yes. I don't know if you want me to qualify that.

Human Resources committee  Well, it's funny.... In terms of issues that we would want to present here today, we had framed up what we thought was a good presentation on a lot of different aspects. Since the announcement on EI last week, we took the trouble to go across the country to our board of directors, who are from all the provinces and territories, and there has been an awful lot of absolute anxiety and stress, and also the belief that there will be a net total loss of the labour pool as well as skills.

Human Resources committee  Oh, no question, because, look, there's one thing about the foreign worker program.... These workers are hard workers, and let me tell you that it's not the choice of Canadian farmers to go out to the foreign worker program. I and others have said that you have to go to bureaucratic hell and back to get a foreign worker into this country.

Human Resources committee  No, that's fine.

Human Resources committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Where do I start? There's so much to say in a short period of time. Let me begin by thanking you and the committee for allowing us the time today to speak on behalf of the Canadian agriculture industry. I'm the chair of the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council.

Human Resources committee  I appreciate that, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much. Our constituents in the agriculture industry represent about 300,000 farming enterprises across the country. Our enterprises employ another approximately 300,000, for a total of somewhere close to 600,000 people in the workforce.