Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, members of the committee. It's my pleasure to present to you our views on this subject today. The Ontario greenhouse vegetable sector is a significant part of the rural economy, accounting for over 12,000 jobs annually. The Ontario Greenh

Agriculture committee  Perhaps I could add something from my perspective. As you heard from some of the statistics I gave, the greenhouse vegetable sector is a real bright light for Canadian agriculture. Our members are investing anywhere from $800,000 to $1 million an acre to put up a greenhouse. We

Agriculture committee  I might make one additional comment. That alludes to a question asked in the previous testimony about what options might work. You're looking at what is the path forward. I think we have to look at the narrowness of what options may be acceptable to our largest trading partner

Agriculture committee  It's a good question. This is only my interpretation so it's quite anecdotal, but the banks have taken a position of principle on this and they aren't going to defer to anyone if they don't have to. Their position is one that's very simple to understand. Who is the biggest benef

Agriculture committee  I'm not sure we'll get an answer from the banks on that, but I think we have to bring it back to the principles of good commerce, and that's ensuring that growers get paid for what they do. If we're deferring to the banks in their position on the backs of the growers who aren't g

International Trade committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's nice to see a lot of old friends in the room. My name is George Gilvesy, and as chair of the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, I'd like to express my appreciation for the opportunity to address you today. Many people are surprised to learn tha

International Trade committee  One example of a current trade irritant would be the lack of reciprocity between the Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act in the United States and its requirement for a similar level of protection in Canada for their exporters. This ongoing irritant unnecessarily threatens our

International Trade committee  In those agreements you have to establish fail-safe positions sometimes. I would digress a bit to the U.S. one, because you've touched on our growth success in the U.S. Our most recent growth took place with a dollar at par. One would question how that could have happened. I wou

International Trade committee  Yes: very well.

International Trade committee  We already have some members who are shipping tomatoes into Japan right now, so it is happening. It is all air-freighted in, of course, because tomatoes have a two-week life. You have to get the product there immediately. Right now product is being shipped direct from North Ameri

International Trade committee  Yes. What's affecting the scale on it, though, is the amount of products that can go in. Currently our peppers cannot go into Japan because of a phytosanitary issue on tobacco blue mould. Those are the types of protocols we have to establish with Japan to allow Ontario greenhouse

International Trade committee  Pardon me?

International Trade committee  Absolutely. I mean, the packaging is different there. As the OGVG, we've done exploratory work in the pan-Pacific, and we see that package sizes and product sizes in fact are different over there as compared with what's normal in North America.

International Trade committee  Until you see it, you don't believe it. It's an untold story, and that's our fault, I guess. Our guys just want to do the work and keep the volume.

International Trade committee  I can't speak to the ones particular to the TPP, but I can speak to what we did see out of the Regulatory Cooperation Council with America. There were four main issues with regard to harmonization, which are critical to ongoing success. PACA was in that, as far as harmonization w