Finance committee  Yes, you're correct, Mr. Chair. I appeared before the HUMA committee in May on the temporary foreign worker program, and we made a submission to that committee. We stressed the importance of agriculture continuing to serve its role as a gateway into Canada. I speak from experie

Finance committee  Sure. Very briefly, I think I understand your question. It's essentially getting to an understanding of the potential of agriculture in Canada, and I think that potential is tremendous. Half of what we produce in this country, we export. Canada is one of only five major net exp

Finance committee  Thanks for the question, Ms. O'Connell. In our brief, we point out a number of areas of rural infrastructure that we should be looking at, not just roads and bridges but things like rail infrastructure. For our sector, border infrastructure is a big one. Live cattle move back an

Finance committee  I'll speak to that question and to the one that Mr. MacKinnon asked earlier about how things are working. We simply use the county of Lethbridge, and I'll use that example simply because I'm quite aware of their financial situation. I've done a lot of research on their financia

Finance committee  I didn't bring up Western in my comments because I had a sneaking suspicion someone else would, and that indeed is the case. Western Feedlots, just a little background, is one of Canada's oldest cattle feeding operations, established in 1958. The whole business of feeding cattle

Finance committee  Yes, Western Feedlots.

Finance committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and good morning. I'm Casey Vander Ploeg. I'm the manager of research and policy with the National Cattle Feeders' Association. I'd like to thank the committee for this opportunity to share our perspectives on budget 2017. In our submission to the committ

Human Resources committee  It's good to see you too.

Human Resources committee  I'm not going to diminish the optics of it, because the optics seem at first glance to be so odd. You have, in the case of Alberta, a dramatic crash in oil and gas, and that is a key part of the provincial economy, so you have a rising provincial unemployment rate. At the same ti

Human Resources committee  Maybe it's a little bit simpler than that to some extent. Here I would refer more to what's going on in meat-packing facilities. It is simply work that many Canadians will not do or do not want to do. You can lead that horse to water, but I'm not strong enough to pull his neck do

Human Resources committee  We've used numerous strategies, from the traditional newspaper and that's giving way to social media. I'll give you a very interesting example. Lyle Miller, who owns Highway 21 Feeders in Acme, Alberta, now says he gets most of his Canadian workers through Facebook. He starts a c

Human Resources committee  On the youth side of things, that's actually a big concern for all of agriculture given the aging workforce in Canadian agriculture. We're reaching out to younger Canadians to be sure. A good part of our recruitment strategy is getting into the schools at the secondary level and

Human Resources committee  The starting wage for an entry level position in a feedlot can range anywhere between $18 and $24 a hour depending on what you're doing. There's a reason for that too. The work is special. You're dealing with a huge investment. The owners of these operations want to train people.

Human Resources committee  That I don't know.

Human Resources committee  I can't comment on that. I could certainly find that out for you and distribute it to the chairman.