International Trade committee  Absolutely. As my colleague, Chris Davison, said, we're always hopeful of avoiding it ever getting to a dispute resolution, a formal process. It's time-consuming, and it often leads to a deterioration in bilateral or multilateral relationships. That being said, the threat of it

International Trade committee  Absolutely. Oftentimes, in the canola sector specifically, there are portions of regulations that should be under CETA. It says the EU “may”, and the interpretive EU “shall”, so they really take some liberties with some of the language choices there. It is incumbent upon Canada,

International Trade committee  There are a number of different dispute resolution mechanisms. I think the one we see that is fairly lacking right now is the World Trade Organization and the reform that needs to be done there. The United States has not appointed judges to the appellate body, so the internationa

International Trade committee  Thank you for the opportunity to appear as part of this important study. I was with you not too long ago, wearing a different hat, but today I'm joined virtually by my colleague, Janelle Whitley, senior manager, trade and marketing policy, and we will be sharing our time for open

Agriculture committee  Yes. That's accurate. All our interactions to date with the government, including with Minister Bibeau—today we had her at our board meeting—indicate that it is still a voluntary target. We haven't seen any change in that. We do know that things change, but right now there is no

Agriculture committee  The canola plant is one of the best fuel crops for sequestering carbon. For canola, it's water and then nitrogen. Canola cannot produce its own nitrogen; it needs nitrogen. Nitrogen is the key thing that gets yield. Thirty-five years ago, say, canola yields in Alberta were 20 bus

Agriculture committee  I'll come at it from two perspectives, the farm perspective and the competitiveness perspective. Health Canada has released its guidance around gene editing for food, but it also requires the CFIA to release the guidance for biosafety and for feed. Typically, food is what we ac

Agriculture committee  Ninety-five per cent of Canadian farms are family-run businesses. Farms do get bigger, because you need scalability. It's very expensive to buy this. You can't have a bunch of 100-acre farms with a combine in each one. On the intensity in agriculture emissions, we've been at ab

Agriculture committee  Thanks for the question. We represent Canada's 43,000 canola farmers who rely on PMRA. PMRA has been under-resourced and understaffed for years. Part of our calls have been on that. The concern we have.... In direct response to your question, we look at their workload increasin

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. There's just no question about it. The amount of organic matter that's allowed to be built up in soil because we're not tilling it, because we're not having to get rid of all of those weeds, because we have genetically modified crops that are herbicide-tolerant, beca

Agriculture committee  Yes, it's about incentivizing farmers to do the things on farm, and if we're going to roll out money, farmers need to actually be able to utilize and deploy that money. The programs need to be operationalizable on farm.

Agriculture committee  I don't have the exact numbers, Mr. Perron, but on-farm debt is at an all-time high. Farmers are over-leveraged, certainly, and I think farmers' liquidity is also a big concern. Farmers tend to be cash-poor. They have a lot of money tied up in acres and equipment, but when it com

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. I think farmers are also looking for credit for the things they've done. If you look at other jurisdictions around the world, say the United States, our level of conservation, no-till acres, is far higher than in the United States. I think what we need to look at is

Agriculture committee  Absolutely, even if you look back two generations, when it came to weed control, you plowed the land, you tilled the land, you plowed the land. Any time you had a drought, you had soil and dust flying everywhere. I think when it comes to the realities, we need to make smart, se

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the invitation to appear. I'm filling in for our farmer chair, Mike Ammeter, who is down the road presiding over a board meeting as we speak. Global food insecurity is a complex, multi-faceted issue. It involves geopolitics, socio-economic factors and armed confli