Human Resources committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Where do I start? There's so much to say in a short period of time. Let me begin by thanking you and the committee for allowing us the time today to speak on behalf of the Canadian agriculture industry. I'm the chair of the Canadian Agricultura

Human Resources committee  I appreciate that, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much. Our constituents in the agriculture industry represent about 300,000 farming enterprises across the country. Our enterprises employ another approximately 300,000, for a total of somewhere close to 600,000 people in the workforce

Human Resources committee  No, that's fine.

Human Resources committee  The short answer is yes. I don't know if you want me to qualify that.

Human Resources committee  Well, it's funny.... In terms of issues that we would want to present here today, we had framed up what we thought was a good presentation on a lot of different aspects. Since the announcement on EI last week, we took the trouble to go across the country to our board of directors

Human Resources committee  Oh, no question, because, look, there's one thing about the foreign worker program.... These workers are hard workers, and let me tell you that it's not the choice of Canadian farmers to go out to the foreign worker program. I and others have said that you have to go to bureaucra

Human Resources committee  I'll be very quick. I liked the pun. You know, I wouldn't want to say that we're for or against them. It's too premature. All I would say is that we would want to raise the flag on that, and we would need more consultation. It creates a level of uncertainty. We just simply don

Human Resources committee  I won't exacerbate that. I'll just say it's there. It's an underlying current we need to appreciate and understand within the scope of labour and skills. Other than the fact that I would want to, at this stage, highlight it, I wouldn't want to commit to good, bad, or otherwise.

Human Resources committee  It's 300,000.

Human Resources committee  That's all-encompassing. Our membership...our board of directors is made up of a director from each province of Canada, as well as each territory, as well as various leading commodity groups within Canada. For example, the president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture is act

Human Resources committee  If you want to look at the 10% deficit that I talked about, the jobs and the shortfalls, that would be 600,000, because the total numbers are 300,000 enterprises, approximately. We have the exact numbers. Approximately—

Human Resources committee  Okay, thanks. I thought you were going to mention that I'm talking too fast. I have a tendency to do that sometimes. If I could just recap, there are 300,000, approximately, farming enterprises. Each one of these enterprises has a number of employees, which also totals approxima

Human Resources committee  Yes, the deficit is unemployed, yes.

Human Resources committee  The numbers tell us that.... Let me check here. I think 62% of the workers who are out there across the country are seasonal workers, part-time workers. Not quite 40% would be full-time. Understanding the variation of the seasons, if you're in the horticulture industry, which is

Human Resources committee  I would square it with your comments. If your comments are accurate, praise the Lord, because up to this point I haven't seen it. We have, as agriculture producers, some of it through our organization, CAHRC, been talking about these issues around the bureaucracy that's involved