Agriculture committee  In Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, we had the most beautiful federal centre, but it was closed. Imagine: a group of individuals took the centre from the producers and acquired it. It takes money for producers to conduct basic research, and we don't have any. In the case of a technol

Agriculture committee  If we adopt farm succession measures, there really has to be a transfer to family or to other persons. If tax exemptions are granted and people use them to put more money in their pockets, that's worthless. It's better to find measures that will really facilitate transfers. I thi

Agriculture committee  I've always thought it was unfortunate that we are led around by the Americans. If I were the Prime Minister of Canada, I would tell the Americans that that's enough and that we have two things they don't have and that they need, that we're through with crawling around on our han

Agriculture committee  I entirely agree on that. Whatever they say, dairy producers have a form of sovereignty in Canada, and they live quite well. When people ask us not to produce pork for export because we don't need it, I answer that we could do it provided people stop eating bananas, peaches and s

Agriculture committee  With regard to the CAIS program, grain prices are too low. We can't get by. The average of the bad years is still bad. As for the bags, they were designed by our director. They include prospectuses promoting our products. The first condition that we set was that products had to

Agriculture committee  Income security was already guaranteed through income stabilization. That program was developed by and for producers, and it worked quite well. The money was well spent. I understand why the federal government decided to create its own program, but we had a lot of trouble, certai

Agriculture committee  Chemicals are used in the United States, products that the government here does not want to approve because the need is perhaps not as great. It costs money to have them approved in Canada. They spray fruits and vegetables with all kinds of products that we are not allowed to use

Agriculture committee  But—

Agriculture committee  Lamb and sheep producers used to be able to tell consumers to buy fresh lamb because it was better. It's true that fresh meat is better than frozen meat. We also exported our frozen pork, but we have not gotten to the point where we can export fresh pork to other countries as a r

Agriculture committee  With regard to milk, there are quotas and a control; we can't import milk. As for lamb, I don't know of any import restrictions. It's the law of the free market, I believe. Even though Quebec producers are setting up a common marketing agency, that will change nothing with regard

Agriculture committee  The most important sector is the dairy sector. There are more dairy farms than any other type of farm. In the past 30 or 40 years, even though the number of producers has declined, the quota has always increased because we buy from the outside and the farms are growing.

Agriculture committee  I'm talking about the biggest sector in terms of revenue. If we're talking about the number of persons, that would be the maple syrup and grain sector because a lot of farms produce grain, but that isn't the main source of income. There's a lot of maple syrup production here as w

Agriculture committee  I've always considered myself lucky. Where I come from, I'm not an agricultural have-not. I live very close to the shore. I have access to the best of both worlds. There used to be an incentive covering product transportation costs to Montreal. When it was abolished, we were told

Agriculture committee  I think that saves between $300,000 and $500,000 on crop insurance. That insurance doesn't compensate us for all damage. Earlier you asked me how much it cost. The director tells us that it's nearly $1 million. As for the other question, I didn't understand it.

Agriculture committee  I couldn't give you a precise figure. The geese have been here for a very long time; so we are pioneers. We've done a lot of work to feed them, among other things. When we started working with the owners of those geese, the Canadian government, I believe, we were told that what t