Agriculture committee  There are lots of different models out there. There are some co-operatives and social enterprises. There are just regular micro, small and medium-sized enterprises that are a part of their local communities. Some of the challenges I've been hearing about recently are in distribu

Agriculture committee  Again, my understanding is that this is definitely a barrier. It's outside the scope of our mandate as a more civil society oriented organization, but from our networks we have learned that access to land and capital is a big barrier for small producers and processors. In terms

Agriculture committee  I've often heard it said that the regulatory aspects can be time-consuming and expensive for small players. I'm no expert on this matter, which goes somewhat beyond my organization's mandate, but I would encourage you to explore it thoroughly…

Agriculture committee  You're right. Rules are made to apply generally to everyone, except the smallest players. These rules, policies and programs were often introduced because certain interests prevailed…

Agriculture committee  That's right. I know that would be a huge change, but I'm aware of other witnesses who spoke about it. For example, there was the National Farmers Union, which mainly represents small farmers…

Agriculture committee  Thank you. I'm also calling in from British Columbia and hugely exciting things are happening here, but also in Quebec and other provinces, even P.E.I. There's already a lot of work under way provincially and also at municipal levels, school boards, to start connecting these do

Agriculture committee  There is a movement to bring that healthy eating strategy into the hospitals and also build up our local economies and the producers and processors, supporting technically small-scale producers and processors as a result.

Agriculture committee  I think the pending nominations, hopefully soon, of the Canadian food policy advisory council will help connect the dots federally. There's a silo approach not just within Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, which is one department where the food policy is small potatoes. The progr

Agriculture committee  Yes. It should also work with the provinces. In addition, as I said earlier, public-sector supply needs to be considered. Even Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada had the idea of supplying its own cafeterias. And the public sector has hospitals and schools. I mentioned healthy scho

Agriculture committee  Yes, but in health it's a matter of prevention, and nutrition is a major factor.

Agriculture committee  Yes, of course. Our position on GMOs is that it's important to do all the required tests before new products that contain them can be marketed. Furthermore, labelling should list everything for consumers. Consumers are entitled to know what they're buying. As for lightly proces

Agriculture committee  Yes. It depends on what we're talking about. What has always intrigued me is the fact that we produce an enormous amount of lentils and legumes, which we export abroad, for bagging, and then we import them back again. These legumes and lentils are certainly healthy. But we could

Agriculture committee  Canada will definitely continue with imports and exports. That's only normal, but…

Agriculture committee  I think nutrition north does need to be looked at one more time in terms of meeting outcomes, as I mentioned in my remarks, broadly defined. We can't think about food as just filling bellies and eating whatever. We have to think about nutrition. We have to think about chronic he

Agriculture committee  Thank you for your question, Mr. Perron. As I mentioned, there are infrastructure issues. There's a lack of infrastructure at the small- and medium-sized levels, which causes many food processing problems. We had them before, but there has been a high level of concentration. I a