Agriculture committee  Just very quickly, from the supply management side, it's interesting that right now, just because of our trade agreements, we have to buy 20% of our day-old chicks from the U.S. Putting that into perspective, what you've done is taken the hatcheries here in Ontario—or any provinc

Agriculture committee  I just want to follow up on that. It's true. It's almost like a right to farm, where you have people coming in who will buy 50 acres and bid it up because they're in a different industry. If they're coming from London or an urban centre, or they have the funds, it doesn't matte

Agriculture committee  Yes, but we shouldn't have to constantly apologize for what we're doing when somebody encroaches on us. And it only takes one to put a sour taste in your mouth.

Agriculture committee  On the livestock side, a lot of our innovation doesn't come from a formal education at Ridgetown or Guelph or Trenton or wherever. A lot of it comes on the livestock side from veterinarians, who will say “This is what we see” and “This is how you get better production”—those sort

Agriculture committee  In terms of credit availability with supply management versus non-supply management, I retired from banking a few years ago. At that time it was easier to get loans through supply management because there's perceived stability there. We also have the risk of WTO. There's no quest

Agriculture committee  Good afternoon. My name is Brian Lewis. I'll give you a bit of background. I come from a poultry and cash crop operation nearby. I have just a couple of points here. I'll begin with some of the challenges. There are a number of them, but a lot of them circle right back to r