Agriculture committee  Thanks, Chair. I'll just add a few things to Mr. Shipley's comments. For example, in my riding, I've noticed that egg farmers are particularly young, which is a good sign. Why is that? Is that industry targeting young farmers? Is there something that makes egg farming much more attractive to youth?

Agriculture committee  Could you please explain it? Are these witnesses already coming, or are they going to come?

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Chair. Let me start my comments by recognizing that this is an extremely difficult time for the hog industry, but also for hog farmers, which is what we're hearing today. There's the industry, and then there are the farmers themselves. Certainly I can say that one of the challenges the government has, regardless of which government the country happens to have at the time, is trying to find solutions that will address a problem without necessarily resulting in long-term dependence, because I don't think anyone wants a long-term dependence.

Agriculture committee  On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I would encourage our colleagues to not turn this into a partisan attack festival. We had this happen on H1N1. What we are hearing is that the hog sector is in crisis. What everybody wants to hear is that Parliament is working together, not lobbing grenades at one another.

Agriculture committee  --to take a positive approach on this.

Agriculture committee  Wake up, Wayne.

Agriculture committee  Do you see what you have to work with? Count on him—

Agriculture committee  No, I said I would look into it. Thank you for inviting me to meet your schedule, Mr. Easter, but I'll let you do it.

Agriculture committee  And we have the motion.

Agriculture committee  We'll see.

Agriculture committee  I don't have that information here, Mr. Easter, but I'll have a look at it.

Agriculture committee  Yes, at some point in time.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Chair. First of all, I'd like to thank our witnesses for being here. This is an important issue. One thing I would like to draw attention to is that although we're talking about SRM, really we're talking about the competitiveness of our livestock sector. I want to underscore that we're trying to take the initiative as a government to help the livestock sector at many different levels.

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chair, before we get into committee business, I wanted to give a notice of motion. I know we're going to end up talking about motions in a certain order. I have a notice of motion, which I will submit. I would like to advise the committee that I'll be putting forward a motion that states: The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food expresses its support for the abolishment of the long-gun registry, Bill C-391, because the long-gun registry has created significant hardship for farmers and on the farming community; and that this be reported to the House.

Agriculture committee  Yes. Thank you.