Agriculture committee  I really don't believe subsidies should be based on pounds per animal or bushels per acre. I think we need to get away from that system. It doesn't encourage sustainable healthy production. It's a “much wants more” attitude. I think we need to pay people for goods and services and look at other ways of keeping farmers on the farm.

Agriculture committee  I can say that for the last two years at the Ontario Cattlemen's Association, resolutions have come forth to try to ban captive supply and packer ownership of cattle. I don't know what's going through the farmers' minds, but they're not voting in favour of it. They say they want those packers to be able to own those cattle if they choose to, and I don't know how we help guys, if that's their attitude.

Agriculture committee  I think there might be some merit in that, but I also think we need to start off with good policy first. We need to have sound policies and not have these incidents happening all the time whereby we're just continuously taking taxpayers' money and spending it on abattoirs so that somebody can go back to their boss and say “I did something today and there was a non-compliance.”

Agriculture committee  Yes, I think the organic approach to agriculture that we've taken is.... Organic sometimes gets a bad name, but I always say there are two types of organic farmers: organic by neglect and organic by management. We spend a lot of time on the management side of our operation. Our operation really, truly can be a family farm operation.

Agriculture committee  I just wanted to comment on that. We slaughter cattle 52 weeks of the year for our farm store, and the big challenge is proper processing and working with plants that can do that. It costs us over $500 an animal. When you look at the animals running through Cargill and those places for pennies per pound, and we're paying dollars per pound, you see that we're at a huge disadvantage.

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Madam and Gentlemen. Are you a passive or an active food consumer? Are you engaged personally in the production and the processing of the food you consume, or are you totally reliant on the industrial food system to provide and deliver to you what it has chosen on your behalf?