Agriculture committee  No, I agree with what has been said. It's income. That's it. Profitability or income, it's the same thing. It's supply-managed. We need a method to get a positive number on the income tax return, and then access to capital or access to land. There are a whole bunch of things that

Agriculture committee  No, and I think we need an income program.

Agriculture committee  An income. We need a stabilized income, based on our income tax return, and that's it.

Agriculture committee  Yes. I think farmers have to be treated as civil servants, as a necessity in our society. We need farmers. We have to get something in there, and when I'm talking about pensions, I'm saying there are trade-offs. As I said, I'd gladly trade a pension for a transition of the farm

Agriculture committee  No, not at all. I'm suggesting that the land be available for a next generation or other people. It does not necessarily mean ownership. It may be ownership by the next generation on the farm. My sons would own the farm.

Agriculture committee  Yes.

Agriculture committee  I think it's as I said. I'm certainly willing to give my farm to my kids. When you give it away... I need security and they need security. In exchange for security, are we willing to give something up? Absolutely, some of us are. Some of us may not be. We are definitely willing t

Agriculture committee  Oh, absolutely. I feel that the 24,000-acre farm is still a family farm if it's run by a family. If it's a corporate entity that's owned by family members, it's a family farm. If it's a corporate entity that's owned by corporation X and 27,000 shareholders, it's not a family farm

Agriculture committee  If it was spent well... I don't know the total numbers. We need to see the total numbers. But it would not be expensive to guarantee incomes for agriculture if we looked at all the programs and asked the farmers what to do. A lot of times when you look at panels, there are no far

Agriculture committee  Well, I mean, every program is administered, and we have programs out there that, really, I don't feel they do a lot for us. When a program comes out with 50¢ dollars...50¢ dollars are only good to somebody who has the other 50¢. Agriculture is in trouble. A lot of us do not ha

Agriculture committee  My answer to that is yes, I'm very pleased to hear... Those programs would be great. I'm extremely pleased. When I say if we take it to the poverty level, that's the first step. I think it's very impressive to hear you say to live, not just to survive. That's very important. Th

Agriculture committee  I can start. Concerning research, it has to be regional. There is a lack of understanding between regions, as Patricia said, of how things work. Out west they really do not understand how we make a living off small acreages of anything, or small acreages of a number of things. W

Agriculture committee  Anyway, that's it. As you can see, I have the ability to ramble and probably take up everybody's time here. But thank you for this opportunity to speak. It's something we need to look at very quickly and very seriously. We need to get in there, cut the programs, provide income st

Agriculture committee  That's great. Thank you very much. I was told that the purpose of this was to see how we can keep young farmers in the industry and encourage young farmers. My comment to your assistant who called me was that perhaps I should dye my hair before I get there—

Agriculture committee  —because I exceed the age expectation. But perhaps I have some interest in this because I have four sons. One is on the farm right now, basically because he's between work, but my four sons do not want to do what I've done. They do not want to have the life that we've had the l