Agriculture committee  I don't have any numbers, but I can speak in general terms. The Richardson's ground squirrels are a problem, especially where I grew up in eastern Alberta. They take the crop away, and it's going to have a huge impact, especially if the Richardson's ground squirrel populations ar

Agriculture committee  I haven't received a lot of feedback from the farmers per se, but I'm involved with the Alberta Wheat Commission through my leadership program. They're one of the commissions that offer the advance payments program, and I believe there has been more uptake of the program. The c

Agriculture committee  I agree. It would definitely complement. It would get money in the hands of producers when they were going through tough times or there were crises of weather, trade, getting products to market and so on. It would definitely supplement the other programs.

Agriculture committee  We need to work—

Agriculture committee  Yes. In my opinion, lots of things can be done to improve the program. First of all, there's lots and lots of paperwork. We need to make the paperwork similar to and work more in conjunction with the income tax. Also, we need to simplify the calculations. We need to have the form

Agriculture committee  Yes, I would agree with your comment. A lot of producers have opted out of the program because they didn't see the benefits and it was costing them more to do the paperwork than it was worth. It wasn't worth it, plus the paperwork is very time- consuming and it just hasn't been w

Agriculture committee  Mr. Chairman, members and guests, my name is Candace Roberts. I'm a chartered professional accountant at Catalyst in Calgary. I work with many primary agricultural producers. In addition, I'm a fourth generation farmer in east-central Alberta. I am also in the 2019-20 Advancing