International Trade committee  In fairness, if you compare us to the United States, there are a lot of American agricultural associations coming to the USDA and having the USDA do their promotion for them. In Canada, it tends more to be each of the groups. Pulse Canada, for instance, has a big push. As well,

International Trade committee  I guess the big problem is that money from the government isn't free: it's got to come from me.

International Trade committee  I think it's similar to the reason the EU is looking to do a free trade agreement with Canada, only in reverse. They're looking to see whether they can make it work with somebody who is very similar to the U.S. They really want to get into the United States. It's rather the same

International Trade committee  No, that's what the tariff is, it's a 5% to 10% tariff level now. That would be eliminated under the free trade agreement.

International Trade committee  Thanks, Richard. I'm a farmer from Carstairs, Alberta, and at present the president of the Grain Growers of Canada, as Richard said. We represent approximately 80,000 farmers across western Canada and the Maritimes. Our primary belief is that Canadian farmers are efficient, comp

Agriculture committee  The whole “food for fuel” thing really became a red herring in the media a year ago. Science is galloping ahead, especially on biofuels, and we'll be at a point pretty soon when it won't be economical to do anything except on a cellulosic basis anyway. The cellulosic bacteria are

Agriculture committee  The key is not necessarily expanding the GROU program. It is remembering that the GROU program is a step towards harmonization. We have to stop fighting. We have to stop saying that USDA-approved science is better than our science, or no, it's not. We have to come to a standard

Agriculture committee  Maybe I'll just touch a little bit on that, as we're getting into land use and stuff like that. That really needs to be something that municipalities look at. Be very careful. We get the same thing out west with how the Hutterites are going to eat up all the land and eventually t

Agriculture committee  Mr. Ritz indicated that the Auditor General indicated to him she couldn't do anything for two years. That's certainly not acceptable. If there is no way she can do it, I'm sure he could find an independent group to look at it. It's also been indicated that the Wheat Board was wil

Agriculture committee  For one thing, one of the problems we have right now is that these programs have a tendency to go on for three years on funding, whereas most of these research projects...for instance, to develop a variety, we're looking at ten to twelve years. It needs to be on an ongoing basis.

Agriculture committee  Wayne, we're in favour of having a costing review done, but we would like to see the service review finished first. We're very afraid that if the service review is not finished first, things will get tangled up between the two. So if we can get the service review done first, we

Agriculture committee  Good morning, Mr. Chairperson, members of Parliament, and fellow guests. My name is Doug Robertson. I'm the president of the Grain Growers of Canada. With me today is our executive director, Richard Phillips. First, I'd like to thank you for the opportunity to be here today t