Agriculture committee  Actually, when I entered into this position—two years ago already—I noticed that the leaders or the people representing the different associations were mainly experienced men. As the first female Minister of Agriculture in Canada, I thought I would have a role to play in encourag

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question; actually, there are a lot of questions in it. I would like to start by making the difference between emergency programs to help everyone facing COVID—so, from those who have to go to the food banks.... You know that we have bought, for $50 million, f

Agriculture committee  Yes. I would like to reassure our producers that we're working extremely hard to make sure that all the temporary foreign workers we need will arrive in Canada safely and in a timely manner. We are in advance in terms of numbers now compared to last year, when COVID hadn't starte

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'm pleased to be with you today. I would like to note that Ms. Barnes will soon be leaving us, as she is about to retire. I'd like to take this opportunity, on behalf of all of us, to thank her for her excellent service and to wish her a happy re

Agriculture and Agri-Food  Mr. Speaker, we are very grateful to our farmers, who have overcome great challenges to continue to keep our grocery shelves stocked throughout the pandemic. Canada had a record year in 2020 with $74 billion in agri-food exports. Our government is there to help farmers get throu

Agriculture and Agri-Food  Mr. Speaker, agrirecovery is one of the important business risk management tools that we have to support farmers. The way it works is that the province has to make the request to the federal government and then we will evaluate this request together. I can assure my colleague t

Agriculture and Agri-Food  Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to confirm to my colleague that we have committed to providing $1.75 billion to dairy farmers for the first two agreements with Europe and the trans-Pacific region. We are ahead of schedule on these payments. The vast majority of farmers got their secon

Agriculture and Agri-Food  Mr. Speaker, we are actually supporting the agricultural sector much more than the previous government did. We have reinvested in science and innovation significantly. I have just proposed to my provincial counterparts to improve the AgriStability program by $170 million. We ha

Agriculture and Agri-Food  Mr. Speaker, today, I want to thank and celebrate our Canadian farmers, who stood strong during the pandemic to keep our grocery store shelves and also our food banks stocked with very high-quality products. Today, I want to thank and celebrate our Canadian farmers, who continue

Agriculture and Agri-Food  Mr. Speaker, we will be making compensation payments to dairy producers for the agreements signed with the European Union and the trans-Pacific region over the shorter period of four years. More than 60% of them have already received their second payment, totalling $327 million.

Agriculture and Agri-Food  Madam Speaker, I was very proud, a couple of weeks ago, to put a clear offer on the table to my counterparts from the provinces to improve AgriStability by 50%. The Government of Canada is ready to remove the reference margin limit in the AgriStability program and increase the co

Agriculture and Agri-Food  Madam Speaker, I am well aware of the price on pollution. We analyzed it in great detail. That is why there are exemptions for our farmers, such as exemptions for the fuel used on farms and exemptions for greenhouses. We are working very hard. We have a number of programs to h

Agriculture committee  Well, I think you have said it all. I don't have much to add. You have provided quite an accurate summary of the situation.

Agriculture committee  You will remember that during the summer of 2019 we had announced $1.75 billion for dairy farmers, with the first payment of $345 million. Because of COVID, they didn't have the time to.... We had to put all our resources around emergency programs. We realized that it would take

Agriculture committee  For the dairy farmers, it's a direct transfer. They can use the money the way they want. It will be distributed to them through the Canadian Dairy Commission, the same way it was done last year. Because they know the process, and the commission is more experienced now, it should