Agriculture committee  Don't forget as well that if you extend the payment period, farmers are paying interest on that money as well. If they had the payment, they wouldn't have to pay that extra interest. The solution is to make sure they sell the grain when it's due to be sold.

Agriculture committee  I have just one point to add. We're talking about the rail system right now, but if we're going to be going after export markets, that will include the regulatory systems, the docking systems, the rail systems—a whole number of things. It's about value-added processing. There has

Agriculture committee  The initial reaction is that I think we got their attention. The frustrating thing is that it's taken a lot of pressure from government officials, individual MPs, and farm organizations, as well as an almost crisis situation that developed in February, when Manitoba didn't have a

Agriculture committee  The cash flow is just one point. I was a little disappointed when I listened to some of the railroad presentations. The one thing that gets missed in there is about getting the planning in place so that you can deal with the issues. Everybody knew back in October that there was

Agriculture committee  I think our issue is very similar. We know we have a problem with grain transportation. Frankly, it's not our job to fix it; it's the government's role to figure out the best way to fix it. I think what you've heard from the presentations is the urgency that's required, and I thi

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and the committee, for inviting me to talk about rail transportation and how Bill C-49 can help to prevent the same chaotic situation from happening again. Right now demurrage costs for vessels waiting at port are escalating, farmers are experiencing signifi

Agriculture committee  Yes, there is a funding.... There are two things. First of all, I think, there's identifying what the research priorities are and fitting that into a climate-smart, agriculture-smart agenda identifying the priorities. We need to take a look as well commodity by commodity, because

Agriculture committee  At the federal level, I think you'd likely have to leave some of the discussion and decision-making to the provincial level as to where the priorities might be. For instance, the prairie shelterbelt program might be one that works well, whereas in other areas of the country it mi

Agriculture committee  I just have a brief comment on the idea of disaster. One of the things we've got to watch is that we don't necessarily always have to look at a disaster as a one-time event, whether it be a massive flood or a fire or something like that; sometimes it's a progression of events. Li

Agriculture committee  I could give you several examples. It almost ties into Mr. MacGregor's question about how we adapt to where we're going. The first thing we have to remember is that everything is local. What works in western Canada would not necessarily work where I am. Their issue may be drough

Agriculture committee  We did too.

Agriculture committee  Yes, he's also with me.

Agriculture committee  It is, and apparently cabs aren't running that quickly. We decided we better go walking.

Agriculture committee  That sounds good. Thanks again for the opportunity to present. It's good that I got my exercise before I came here. First of all, I think looking into some of the challenges of climate change is very important. We have a written presentation that will be circulated to people, bu

Finance committee  I have a quick comment. I hear the word “loopholes” a lot, but it's really using tax-planning tools. One of the things that gets lost in this discussion is the fact that businesses and farmers need certainty in their business and tax planning. I think that's one of the things tha