Agriculture committee  It would probably take 30 minutes to talk about it. Labour is a critical issue for the sector. We hear it from primary agriculture and we hear it's particularly acute in the value-added processing side of things. I think there was a lot of use of the temporary foreign worker pr

Agriculture committee  Yes, absolutely, and I think that's one of the things—

Agriculture committee  —that is part of this, but it extends well beyond the next policy framework as well.

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. In terms of measuring impact in the markets and trade, we are investing in helping the sector to improve its export capacity. We have trade commissioners abroad to help facilitate those relationships. I think the ultimate measure of success in that area is how much we

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. I think one of the key things. Our innovation spending and our research agenda in the department, as well as with the provinces, is about ensuring that kind of ongoing productivity, because that leads to competitiveness. Looking even at Ontario over this past summer,

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. I think public trust is another key element of the competitiveness of the sector. I think that will be a critical element going forward.

Agriculture committee  I will take that second part of your question. We're generally very pleased to hear of someone of Dominic Barton's stature talking about the importance of agriculture. I think it's great that someone from that side of things can see the tremendous potential of agriculture contri

Agriculture committee  I think you're correct in saying that transportation infrastructure is critical to the success of the sector from all aspects, and it's a key element of our markets and trade. The challenge is that it really falls outside of the scope of our policy framework and the ability of

Agriculture committee  There are a number of producers of organics. It seems the numbers are starting off quite small in terms of the overall percentage. I don't have the exact numbers, but there certainly seems to be a lot of growth opportunity there. Certainly, from an Agriculture Canada perspective,

Agriculture committee  I think I'd go back to my previous answer: that remains to be seen.

Agriculture committee  That's something we're working on right now, figuring out and looking at our existing programs and how those new priorities map into them. For example, when we look at the AgriInnovation program, there is a lot of support on the science and commercialization sides of things that

Agriculture committee  We've heard those kinds of concerns as well. We've started to look at the overall competitiveness of the food processing sector. We are supporting them through innovation and market development activities currently. As we start to look towards the future, we certainly see address

Agriculture committee  Certainly public trust is a key element. I think the ministers as well as the governments have made it clear that they want to have a broader engagement with indigenous people. We're building that into our planning and engagement activities as well. In terms of the northern food

Agriculture committee  When we had our consultations last week, when we talked about the environment, the participants were concerned about the potential impact of a carbon tax on the competitiveness of the sector, particularly looking at other jurisdictions they compete with that don't have similar pr

Agriculture committee  Those are certainly issues that the sector has raised with us, and I'm sure with the minister. They'll be looking toward seeing how that will fit in with our existing suite of programs, both our innovation-type programming and others, as well as our risk management suite. Again,