Agriculture committee  I think the programs that are in place have worked very well. I don't think we have to start from scratch. We have some programs that work very well. What I tried to illustrate in my presentation was that Agriculture Canada has some good programs where they've facilitated industry to take a leadership role in some high-risk areas that also have some high reward.

Agriculture committee  In our production industry we need to have an R and D strategy to create new products. But one thing this committee might want to consider is looking at the level of public research investment in agriculture and benchmarking Canada versus some of our competitors like the U.S. The numbers are quite startling when you see that the level of public investment in agricultural research in Canada has fallen quite substantially.

Agriculture committee  It was probably 25 years ago that U.S. farm support in the wheat sector really drove a lot of farmers in western Canada to look for alternative crops. At that time, pulse crops weren't under the Farm Bill, and this industry developed. This massive subsidization of agriculture has been a long-standing problem in our industry.

Agriculture committee  Pulse Canada has not focused on the Growing Forward component of the business risk management side of things. Our board had decided that this was an area that other farm organizations were covering off and our limited resources wouldn't be focusing on that area. So I'm afraid I don't have a connection to talk about our research and innovation investment and how it links to business risk management, because our organization hasn't focused on that side of the Growing Forward program.

Agriculture committee  I would echo Jeff's comments about how innovation is going to be one of the ways that Canadian farmers can separate themselves from the pack. If I were to speak specifically about the pulse industry, five of the seven board members on the Pulse Canada board are farmers, and it's a question I receive all the time.

Agriculture committee  Good afternoon, everyone. I thank you for the opportunity to appear before the standing committee. Todd Stewart, who is the board member from Manitoba on the Pulse Canada board, as well as the six other board members of Pulse Canada, representing grower groups and processors from across Canada, appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today to give some of our views about government policy framework that will guide programming in this sector for the next five years.

Agriculture committee  Maybe I can help. It's my understanding that it's a privately owned company with two or three owners. It's basically a private corporation.

Agriculture committee  Could I add a comment? I think the task force wanted to see a pilot project under GROU, so out of that pilot project I think the work that's gone on has shown that eight products could be deemed equivalent and could be participants under the GROU pilot project. I think the expectation is that the GROU project would expand; it would include more products.

Agriculture committee  I wonder if I could just add one additional comment, which was alluded to earlier. I think one added benefit of this NAFTA approach is that we are removing potential trade irritants by ensuring that there are not regulatory differences in registration--and MRLs were referred to--and I think this is something we see in our industry increasingly.

Agriculture committee  The organizations that make up Pulse Canada include grower organizations in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba; two in Ontario; and the Canadian Special Crops Association, which has a processor and trading members from B.C. right through to the Maritimes. There isn't a specific grower organization solely focused on bean production in Quebec, so we don't have a Quebec grower organization.

Agriculture committee  I'm sure Mr. Hunter can add some comments to this. Because there's a difference in the regulatory approach in the two countries, there are additional costs to registering products in Canada, or costs that have to be incurred that can't be covered by work they might have done in the United States.

Agriculture committee  Having taken part in the discussions on crop production over a week in Saskatoon, having been out at FarmTech in Alberta, living in Winnipeg, and being part of some of the discussions that occur around Manitoba, I think the big issue here--and I think it addresses the question Mr.

Agriculture committee  I would just emphasize the point with which I started my presentation. It was about timely access to new products and competitive prices. Those are the cornerstones of what the four areas of the task force recommendation addressed. As Karen has just mentioned, it did go beyond just what OUI was trying to address.

Agriculture committee  The cooperation of the registrants has to be there to recognize what we're trying to move to. We're removing regulatory differences between Canada and the U.S. as a basis for price discrimination. You really have to have acceptance that we're moving to a North American pricing basis.

Agriculture committee  Mr. Anderson, I'll make a couple of comments on that. On the side of narrowing the technology gap, if we have products that aren't in Canada right now—and part of this package is to use Project 914 to narrow this technology gap—we basically are going to have to have companies interested in registering products that they haven't previously had an interest in or haven't pursued an interest in registering.