Agriculture committee  Ms. Ventin, your organization and others signed a joint statement asking the government not to proceed with the trucking mandate, but they did proceed with that. Now we're hearing word of a potential interprovincial trucking mandate, when most provinces and other countries around the world are now removing restrictions and mandates.

Agriculture committee  I'm sorry, Ms. Ventin. I only have time for one really quick question. The emergency foreign worker program was put forward by several manufacturing and stakeholder groups, but your group did not sign on to that. Is there a reason why?

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thanks to our witnesses for their testimony and being with us here today. Mr. Innes, I would like to start my questions with you, as you've outlined a pretty stark contrast between how Canada has dealt with the shipping container crisis and the supply chain issues compared to the United States.

Agriculture committee  Will the minister be here on the 21st for two hours, or one hour?

Agriculture committee  Is it for the supplementary estimates (C) and the main estimates?

Agriculture committee  Thanks, Mr. Chair. This is great testimony from our witnesses. We've talked about the Canada Transportation Act review, and I think that's something I'd like to touch on a little more as well, specifically with respect to how the United States has handled these recent supply chain issues by appointing a supply chain czar, putting in very punitive fines.

Agriculture committee  I have one last quick question for you. When the Conservatives were in government, we had the value chain round table. This was always being discussed, and you had a group that was overseeing this. That has been eliminated and split into a bunch of other small groups. Has that had an impact in terms of not having either a commissioner or even a minister, which we talked about, who is in charge of looking at this specifically and able to enact some of those recommendations quickly, enabling us to be more agile now that we have been?

Agriculture committee  Thank you. You also mentioned specifically the north shore of Vancouver and how delicate that situation is with the tunnel and the bridge. We had Mr. Murad Al-Katib from AGT foods here previously. He talked about the importance of a long-range infrastructure plan. One of the comments he also made was that we need to ensure that products that could be moved in a pipeline free up space on rail.

Agriculture committee  I appreciate that. For both, I guess we look back at that 2015 report of a review of the Canadian Transportation Act. I'm assuming we haven't followed up on some of the recommendations that were in there to try to address some of the critical kinks in the supply chain. I look back at the rail blockades of two years ago and certainly the CN strike.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for being here. I'm going to start with Mr. Carey, from the Canola Growers Association, on some of the comments he made in his presentation. You noted that after a very strong crop year in 2020-21, we saw some major disruptions as a result of the flooding in B.C. and some other issues.

Agriculture committee  Mr. Guy, has there been a negative economic impact on your members as a result of the trucking mandate? What would be the impact on an interprovincial trucking mandate if that were to be implemented?

Agriculture committee  Have your members given you any data? I guess my point here is that we have a very fragile supply chain as it is, and when you add these obstacles or burdens upon it, it's certainly going to be damaging—

Agriculture committee  I'm sorry, I don't want to cut you off, but I have limited time. Has the government, the Minister of Transport, Transport Canada or anybody given you an explanation why that hasn't happened?

Agriculture committee  Another issue you brought up was the possibility of a trade commissioner. The United States—more than a year ago and maybe up to two years ago now when we first started to see this and you probably were raising section 49—appointed a trade czar, a supply chain czar, and implemented some very heavy fines to the shipping companies specifically if they were not playing fair with shipping containers, for example.

Agriculture committee  Thanks. I'm going to shift to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. As a result of the United States having the shipping czar and now Canada not being able to get our products to market, we're seeing shipping lanes being diverted from Canada to pick up products in the United States, because we are losing our reputation as a trusted trading partner.