Agriculture committee  Yes, absolutely.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  It is a disease that's causing significant challenges in our industry. There's no doubt about it. There are a number of different ways we're working with the producer community to manage it. Number one is the development of clubroot-resistant varieties. Clubroot, as you know, is a soil disease.

Agriculture committee  There are clubroot-resistant varieties, yes.

Agriculture committee  It's hard to pick one single thing, Mr. Hoback. I think it's the combination of investing in a way that ensures farmers can grow the crop profitably, and the market really understands the value of that canola. It's the entire profit cycle. Consumers aren't going to be willing to pay for the crop if they don't truly understand its health benefits or its meal attributes.

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. When you have the entire value chain sitting around the table and making decisions in common and focusing, again, as I referred to before, very scarce resources, it's helping guide not only public resources and public investment, but also industry investment itself.

Agriculture committee  There is significant demand out there. When you look around the world, the challenges there are with cardiovascular disease, with diabetes, and with obesity, are not just a North American issue. Markets in Mexico, China, and Asia are really looking for a healthy oil, and canola fits that bill.

Agriculture committee  Trying to come up with a figure on what's been invested in canola research publicly or privately is a huge challenge. You have life science companies that invest millions and millions of dollars in individual variety development. I certainly know what goes through our organization in terms of project funds.

Agriculture committee  Public research has been critical to our success, but I would look at it more in terms of not only the public research but also the public industry partnership. That's what has really driven canola's growth over the last few years. It is important that the government continue to invest in its own research capacity, but also to work hand in hand with industry as you're establishing the priorities, and as you're looking at where to allocate what are very scarce resources.

Agriculture committee  Thanks. Good afternoon. It's a pleasure to be here to share with you the canola industry's approach to innovation and competitiveness. I really appreciate the invitation to talk with you about something that's so crucial to the sustained profitability of our industry. First, I'd like to remind you of who we are.

Finance committee  That's a really great question. I appreciate the opportunity to talk about it, because, as I said in my presentation, for us the link with innovation, market access, and market demand is critical to our success. The science cluster program had two main areas of focus. One was looking at a number of issues that impact crop production—some of the disease pressures, some of the yield issues.

Finance committee  At a very high level, our key message is that we really want to continue to see investment in innovation and market access and market development. As I said, we're just starting to get the results from this first round. That's the one thing about science—it does take a long time to come to fruition.

Finance committee  Thanks for that one—

Finance committee  The importance of an agreement such as the TPP, with 11 countries around the table, is that you're talking about negotiating in areas where we can secure access and where we have really predictable science-based regulatory environments in which to trade, and it's not only the partners who are participating in TPP now; it's partners who may come in later as well.

Finance committee  Absolutely. There are a number of areas where we look at tariff and non-tariff barriers. Low-level presence of genetically modified crops, sanitary and phytosanitary issues—those are all really important aspects for which, in a trade agreement, we can come up with a secure and predictable environment for our exporters to work in.