Industry committee  Mr. Chair and committee members, my name is Jamie Pegg and I have the privilege of representing 180 employees and nine area communities as general manager of Honey Bee Manufacturing. I have with me Mr. Scott Smith, our CSI manager. Greetings are offered by Ms. Donna Boyd and the

International Trade committee  May I add to that?

International Trade committee  It is really important that we understand when we talk about that—because the competition question has been brought up—that they recognize there is a problem there. They recognize that not only are we going to have a problem, but that all these other short-line industry people ar

International Trade committee  That's a great question. I worked on that intimately, and our solution at that time was to go overseas to bring future Canadians into our workplace. That was done very successfully. We want to highlight that. We have a lot of people who have come. The dynamic of our community has

International Trade committee  The best way to describe how big Frontier is would be the example we use so that we have some recognition of this. The nearest stop light, the nearest Tim Hortons, the nearest Starbucks or McDonald's is 160 kilometres away. There are people who really enjoy the freedoms that are

International Trade committee  Scott, go ahead.

International Trade committee  The United States is the largest, at 33%. We have a large contingent that goes into Australia. We also have European markets, Kazakhstan, a little bit into Russia, Ukraine, some markets that we're developing there. We've had a strong focus in the European Union as well.

International Trade committee  It's very important for us. Four years ago we made a company effort, a company strategy, to be able to grow the United States market, grow it through the grain belts and those areas, as we had more factory space to be able to produce our product. That's one of the key markets we'

International Trade committee  Our market is not limited to the Americans. We know that in the agricultural industry with the different impacts that can take place politically, weather-wise, otherwise, that we need to diversify the markets that we're involved in. I've just highlighted that we've focused on the

International Trade committee  I think one thing we need to highlight is the power unit that we put our equipment on. The majority of the combines that are built are manufactured out of the United States, or manufactured out of the U.S. and then transported to different parts of the world. That is critically i

International Trade committee  Yes. Engineering, as you're hearing, is the primary thing. Development is what we need to focus on. A few years ago, as the company grew, it outgrew the footprint we had so we've added a complete R and D building to that, to be able to work through that, understanding that innova

International Trade committee  Thanks.

International Trade committee  You start, Scott, and I'll finish it up.

International Trade committee  I want to add to that a little bit, Scott. When we were given the opportunity to speak to a lot of the various associations that we're members of, and also some that we're not members of, quite honestly this was the information that fed back from them: “We don't know. We would

International Trade committee  Yes, it's not just us, and I think that's one of the things. It's an opportunity for us, as a country, to be proactive in what we're doing. Technology is driving this, allowing for this to happen. I think we can get in front of it instead of behind it, because the cost of being b