Agriculture committee  Yes. A seasonal tariff is certainly a tool that can work under certain circumstances. From my point of view, the ideal solution would be to convince the population at large to actually buy domestic products. If you can achieve that, you won't have a need for any other tool. If every consumer in Canada asked, before they bought, “Where is this product produced?”

Agriculture committee  No, I would have to object to that. It is a social program, yes, but it is in the interest of the population at large, because really the issue in the long term is securing a food supply for the population. I really cannot overemphasize this. This will become more and more of an important issue as we go along.

Agriculture committee  I assume your question is on whether the government should compensate for land values--is that it?

Agriculture committee  In B.C. we do have an agricultural land resource that is there to protect the production base. In theory, it could work. In practice, there has been a lot of erosion, especially in some of the areas of high population density. If this were a really strict reserve with absolutely no opportunity for exclusion, it would probably work.

Agriculture committee  Being an organic farmer myself, I do think there is still potential for growth in the sector. The problem we are facing is that demand is much bigger than the supply, and there is reluctance from the production side to converge to the organic farming, partly because there is more and more red tape associated with organic farming, but there is certainly more potential in the long run.

Agriculture committee  Thank you. I do see a lot of potential in the future for a program such as ecological goods and services payments. These are programs that have worked really well in other parts of the world, especially in Europe, and have supported the agriculture community to an enormous degree.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for the invitation. I have to apologize ahead of time, since I'm a bit unprepared. I received notice of this meeting only yesterday, so I'm a last minute stand-in. I am a director of the B.C. Grapegrowers Association, and I'm chairing the B.C.