Agriculture committee  Thank you. Thank you for inviting me here today. For anyone who's unaware, the Conference Board is a non-profit, non-partisan think tank based here in Ottawa. We do research in a variety of areas, including public policy, organizational performance, and economic forecasting and

Agriculture committee  I would point out two things. One is on the international scale. Market access is a very important issue. Food is probably, more than any other industry, subject to various forms of barriers that are in place internationally. Just recently, and I'm sure you're all aware, South Ko

Agriculture committee  I'm not sure I can comment too broadly on that. There is no doubt that when you're talking about the agricultural commodity products, certainly rail is a significant component of the delivered price of the product. I would say, first of all, to ensure there is a competitive envir

Agriculture committee  I think so. Given the growth in demand in Asian markets, I think there are huge opportunities for us to export to those markets. Among the 25 largest products that we export to China, most of them are commodities of one sort or another. Some of them are forest products, some of t

Agriculture committee  Certainly, you're right. The combination of a strong dollar and low interest rates is making it much cheaper for all businesses and industries to take advantage. We have seen significant increases in spending on machinery and equipment across the board, across industries, and foo

Agriculture committee  I guess I would say there are portions that are highly skilled, but large chunks of it are at lower-skilled levels. It isn't necessarily always a lack of skills. It may be just an outright limited number of people willing to do the work. A good example is the meat-packing industr

Agriculture committee  Essentially, you're almost talking about the entrepreneurial spirit. I think you need a champion. Somebody has to see the opportunity, take the lead on it, and drive it. Many of the product developments we've seen over the years have been led by one partner in the value chain.

Agriculture committee  We are on record; we have done a couple of studies on supply management, particularly on dairy. It does provide some benefits in terms of price stability and return on investment for dairy farmers, but it also has a lot of negatives associated with it. Consumers pay more for the

Agriculture committee  In terms of...?

Agriculture committee  Locally you can have shortages, because you have issues around how the quota is managed across provincial barriers, or buying—

Agriculture committee  I don't know about that particular example.

Agriculture committee  Dairy is not a level playing field by any means. The gold standard that is usually held up is New Zealand, when you're talking about an unregulated market. But dairy is a market that is regulated in various ways in most developed countries. You're right, in the sense that the U.

Natural Resources committee  Thank you for inviting us here today. For anyone who is unaware, the Conference Board is a non-profit think tank based here in Ottawa. I was asked the question, “What is our export market diversity when it comes to energy?” before I came here today. The simple answer is “None.”

Natural Resources committee  There's the potential for that even with the Keystone XL, because it will be taking the product all the way to the Gulf of Mexico. We could potentially get it on ships at that point. If we can get it to ports in the U.S., whether it's through Alaska or through Texas.... There's e

Natural Resources committee  From our perspective, if the projects that are on the books are to proceed, we need to have the capacity to move it to market somehow. It's almost as though that transport capacity is a requirement for those developments to take place. So essentially the costs of those developmen