Finance committee  I think one of the concerns we have is that even if you do have a definition of the reasonableness test, that is subject to interpretation, and when you get to CRA officials, individual CRA people may make different adjustments. I had the same thing happen on an HST case. I had t

Finance committee  I think what I would say is that there are inconsistencies in the tax law. In our presentation, we talked about having a thorough review. I think what's unfortunate is that these proposals came down in July and there wasn't really time to analyze them. That's why we agree with th

Finance committee  I think the question should be about the balance of what a salaried employee gets and what a business owner gets. If you're working for a salary, you'll have benefits and a pension plan. You'll have an employer who takes care of all the risk. If you're a small business owner, you

Finance committee  In our meetings with Finance, the Prime Minister's Office, and the agriculture minister, it was noted that family farms are not a target of these changes, but we are struck by the magnitude of the changes required and the time available to make those corrections. We have two re

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair and committee members, for the opportunity to share our perspectives on the proposed changes on tax planning using private corporations. Through its member organizations, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture represents nearly 200,000 farm families from coa

Agriculture committee  I think that one of the things that gave the market access secretariat weight when it started was the strong support behind it by a minister and the prime minister at the time. It needs that same type of support behind it. At the same time, with the increased export targets that

Agriculture committee  There are 300 priorities. I have that on my farm.

Agriculture committee  I'll be very quick. We can provide you with that information. Bob Friesen is sitting behind me, and I know that he's been working on that file extensively. On both the registration of the primary products and the registration of generics, I think we have to take a look at how

Agriculture committee  Very briefly, on your question about the cost of non-tariff barriers, some studies have been done that suggest they may be even more costly than tariff barriers. There are examples of re-inspection of product going across the border. You have to account for the delays and the tim

Agriculture committee  I would agree with that. I think identifying that mandate is critical. I have a couple of points I want to make on your other comments. The day the President announced he was pulling out of NAFTA, I was in Iowa with some of our staff. Some 100 letters went from farm organizatio

Agriculture committee  It gets into a broad issue when we're talking about labour. I think there are a number of components. Part of it is making sure that there is skills development for Canadian workers. I think there's the whole issue of creating a better image for the jobs in agriculture and agri

Agriculture committee  From their report—and it's their report not our report—I would suspect they were looking at a clear focus on looking at the regulatory and non-tariff barriers and to try to identify.... This is about talking to the Cargills of the world, talking to the processors, talking to the

Agriculture committee  I'm a beef farmer. There's a bunch behind me, so I'm sure I'll get corrected if I'm wrong.

Agriculture committee  As a beef producer, I think I can say this. We have to do a lot better job of aligning the sector right from the genetics we're using to the person who is buying the steak at the end of the day, taking a look at the qualities that are being looked at. How do we align our packers,

Agriculture committee  It's something we can model on, although I must say there were some regulatory issues that were sort of punted off, with a process defined as to how to deal with them. I'm a cattle producer. The hormone use in cattle was an issue. Some of the processing regulations are different