Agriculture committee  There doesn't appear to be any other takers, so I'll jump in. I was in Mali in 2007, when the first international food sovereignty forum was held in a place called Sélingué, about three hours outside of Bamako. I was a part of that forum and I was on the drafting committee for t

Agriculture committee  I'm a Guelph grad also. I studied animal science, and that was my forte. I took a bit of crop science while I was there, and it is a real concern. I graduated in the early 1980s. I'm pretty old. That wasn't the case when I was there. For students, there was more public funding, a

Agriculture committee  I don't understand what you mean by “compete”. How are we limiting our ability to compete? We've been competing since we signed on to NAFTA and the free trade agreements and WTO. We've been competing rabidly for decades, but are we any better off? Are we any healthier as a societ

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to be here today. I want to thank you very much for the opportunity. I'd like also to acknowledge my colleagues at the table. It was wonderful to hear France talk about the organic industry, because I have chosen to be an organic farmer. I a

Agriculture committee  This is trying to deal with people whose job security depends on their not understanding us.

Agriculture committee  I've actually mentioned the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute. I guess I have a personal disdain for them. It costs—

Agriculture committee  Look at their website and check out their board of directors.

Agriculture committee  To be honest, I'm glad Samy Watson is gone. I think he was extremely damaging. He left a trail of destruction. I know people who worked within Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada who were thrilled when he left.

Agriculture committee  I'm not going to get into that right now, but what we're dealing with—

Agriculture committee  Well, Suzanne Vinet—

Agriculture committee  Okay, you want me to name some names. Well, somebody here asked me if the NFU was partisan to the NDP. It's absolutely, positively not, but when we asked Gerry Ritz very kindly to come as a guest to our convention, he refused. We asked him to send a guest as a second, and he also

Agriculture committee  You've asked me about my favourite subject.

Agriculture committee  Okay. I've been invited to meetings with the Quebec UPA, the UPA DI also. The National Farmers Union are members of la Via Campesina, which is an international farm organization that represents hundreds of millions of farmers and fisherfolk all around the world. It's the alterna

Agriculture committee  It's a very good thing.

Agriculture committee  Yes.