International Trade committee  Thank you for the opportunity for the Canadian Canola Growers Association to appear on your study on trade opportunities for Canadian businesses in the Indo-Pacific. I'm joined virtually today by my colleague, Janelle Whitley, senior manager, trade and marketing policy. CCG repr

Agriculture committee  Sure, Mike. In response to biofuels, it's a big opportunity for Canadian farmers, but I want to predicate that the announcements we've heard from Federated Co-operatives and others is that there are not yet shovels in the ground. They are predicated on getting the clean fuel reg

Agriculture committee  Thanks for the question. We don't know the exact number, but it would be quite high, Mr. Drouin and Mr. Chair, given that canola is one of the most expensive crops to grow. It does require a significant investment from farmers, both for planting equipment and for the costs of s

Agriculture committee  I will just say that there's no silver bullet. The key things are crop protection and the products. Herbicides and pesticides actually have an environmental benefit, because using a small amount of herbicide allows for no till. The latest and greatest seed innovation may be canol

Agriculture committee  Go ahead, Mike.

Transport committee  I believe that would probably be better for Mr. Lemaire. The labour issues we alluded to were more around the union dynamics with the rail, but I think Ron spoke more to labour issues and maybe the foreign worker side. I can speak to there just generally being a problem filling

Transport committee  Guy, do you want to answer that?

Transport committee  We can certainly provide data. The data for imports and exports of canola is publicly available. It's all done through harmonized sales codes. We have all of that. The data we really track—which Steve does—is on the performance of the railways. We have grain-shipping data and r

Transport committee  Do you want to start, Steve?

Transport committee  I believe the risks have always been there. That certainly has been compounded by things like COVID and the other things we've discussed. I think, too, that as an industry, the concern is that these are issues that we're having with our current capacity. As an industry, the cano

Transport committee  I can begin and then let Steve speak to the details of that particular one. Steve can correct me if I'm wrong, but we've had almost a labour issue a year with one of the national railroads, if we go back about 10 years. That does not include blockades, natural disasters or the s

Transport committee  I can start. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair. I think there's certainly optimism going into the planting season, but there's also significant concern generally. These disruptions have a knock-on effect. Steve alluded to the outage around the B.C. Fraser Canyon area. We'

Transport committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair, for inviting the Canadian Canola Growers Association to speak about your study in response to the state of Canada's supply chains. I'm joined today by my colleague, Steve Pratte, senior manager, transportation and biofuel policy. He will be sharing my openin

Agriculture committee  I think it's really impressive to see what the United States does when it decides there's a supply chain issue. They move mountains to make sure they continue to trade. At a more granular level I might go to my colleague Steve. We have not been contacted by the government regard

Agriculture committee  There have been some growing pains with the revamping of the “value chain round table” approach. I would say, like the previous panel, that we like to be permissive as opposed to prescriptive, but we have seen value—