Public Accounts committee  I would say that we showed, over the course of the pandemic, with a very significant disruption and some programming and other efforts, that obviously we were able to feed ourselves. I will say that the food supply chain is an integrated one, particularly in North America. I th

Public Accounts committee  The programs were developed by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. We would have consulted with stakeholders about potential mechanisms for delivery and issues we might need to address. However, programs that we deliver or fund go through a regular process, which is cabinet appro

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for your question. It is not an issue of sharing within the country, but rather of differences in the way it has been administered by third parties. We propose to improve processes upstream when working with third parties by establishing the rules of the game and the

Public Accounts committee  I would answer by saying that I think we had a lot in place already, though probably not totally prepared for the scale of the COVID pandemic and the cross-country impacts. Again, as I mentioned in my remarks, we were quite able to quickly bring together stakeholders, provinces

Public Accounts committee  I can't speak to the design, obviously, of the fisheries program. What I can say is that in the programming that we put together for the food sector, we wanted to focus on the needed changes to processes, the fact that lines needed to be changed and adjusted. There might be thing

Public Accounts committee  I think the issue for PPE was adequate supply for sure, and making sure that there were ways to get it. I'm not sure it was a financial barrier for companies; you mentioned Cargill in that case. A lot of issues went into shutdowns, slowdowns and then reopening. We tried to addres

Public Accounts committee  I hate to use the word “plan”, but my plan is that we would certainly have actions based on the lessons we've learned over the last two years in our close collaborations with provinces, territories and stakeholders, and the ability to roll out quickly if we were to have another f

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, and congratulations on your election. I am coming to you today from the traditional unceded territory of the Algonquin nation here in Ottawa, and I'm pleased to provide a few opening remarks about Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's response to the recommend

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Blois. I think I'll say that we have a number of existing priorities around the economic strength of the sector, around its environmental sustainability and around public trust and others. Those will certainly I think remain priorities for my provincial colleagues

Agriculture committee  Yes, it's an interesting comment, Ms. Rood, because I would say it's quite the contrary. Our science and research budget has been rising in recent years. We're in the midst of and towards the tail end of a big increase in staffing to hire more research scientists across the cou

Agriculture committee  Thanks for the question, Mr. Blois. I would say that from our level we certainly have heard for a long time about the challenges that processors and others face in terms of attracting year-round labour to support their activities, and certainly the 10% cap has been an issue for

Agriculture committee  I certainly will take that away, Mr. Blois. In fact, as you might imagine, the Canadian Cattlemen's Association and others have raised this with us on a number of occasions. We certainly know that it's a priority for them and for the sector in Atlantic Canada, but also nationally

Agriculture committee  Thanks, Mr. Blois. I have two quick comments. One is that I think the good news is that agriculture and food trade held up pretty well over the course of the pandemic. It was mentioned that we had record exports. Food moved around the globe as part of food security for many peop

Agriculture committee  As well, there's the harvest program they use so that producers can get their grain assessed. They've expanded the range of assessments they do under that, I think, to the benefit of producers.

Agriculture committee  Thanks for the question, Ms. Rood. I was unaware of the U.S. requirement. I think I would simply answer that, to the extent this comes up as part of the consultations or other discussions as part of the Canada Grain Act review, I think certainly we're willing to listen and cons