International Trade committee  Good morning, everybody. Thank you very much for being here. Madam Chair, honourable members, thank you for the opportunity to appear today. My name is Andre Harpe, and I am the chair of the Grain Growers of Canada. GGC is the national voice for Canada's 65,000 grain farmers. D

International Trade committee  Go ahead, Erin. You might be more up to date on that situation.

International Trade committee  With the new administration, we're still trying to get a feel for how they act and where they're going in the future. We're looking forward to hopefully some positive outcomes, especially with the WTO and the appellate group. I guess we're still waiting to see exactly what they

International Trade committee  I've been listening during the morning, and the interesting thing is the connection between trade and the environment. As a producer myself.... Basically, the agricultural industry in Canada—

International Trade committee  Is this better?

International Trade committee  Okay, thank you. As producers, we are so connected to the environment. I believe trade will have to be connected to the environment, as with our connection to the newly formed carbon alliance. The reason we formed the alliance was to show everybody else, including the world, ho

International Trade committee  Go ahead, Erin.

Finance committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and honourable members, for the opportunity to be here with you today. My name is Andre Harpe and I am the chair of the Grain Growers of Canada. Grain Growers is the national voice for Canada's 65,000 grain, pulse and oil seed farmers across all of

Finance committee  Thank you very much. I think one of the issues with farming in this day is that it always has been a complicated business but it has become even more so, quite often because of the inability to find qualified labour, just because of the technologies. I rely on my family to be ab

Finance committee  I'll use my farm as an example. When I took over the farm, I had two sisters. Basically it goes back to how many of your children are going to want to farm. Quite often it might be all, and sometimes it might be just one. In my case, I was the only one who had an interest in the

Finance committee  I think the biggest issue we're looking at, as I alluded to in my remarks, is basically corporate farms. If we don't make it fair or equitable for you to pass your farm on to the children, all of a sudden you do get big farms, and all of a sudden you get real corporations running

Finance committee  Yes, that's correct.

Finance committee  No, having looked at the bill, I think the way it is written is good. Of course, the devil is always in the details, but right now it looks good, and we support it.

Finance committee  Thank you, Branden. I think the big thing—and I've talked about it—is that this isn't a cure. This is not going to solve all our problems. Number one, not every child wants to go farming or wants to continue with a greenhouse, so it's not going to stop all our issues. I think

Finance committee  That's where the issue is. I've seen examples where you may get $250,000 more, say, on a $2-million farm. You might get up to $250,000 more by selling it to your neighbour rather than your kid. Or you might actually owe that money. It's not so much about “Do I make the choice of