John Barlow

Mr. Speaker, we are not talking down the economy. The Liberals are bringing down the economy. Prime Minister A recent survey shows that 84% of farmers think theis an epic failure. I am wondering if the Prime Minister could tell me which one of his policies have made farmers so angry. Is it the fact that the Liberals are closing seven research centres and firing hundreds of scientists? Is it [more]

Mr. Speaker, I would like the minister to know that the Liberals' fuel regulations are so complicated and has made it so expensive that three-quarters of the feedstock comes from the United States or used cooking oil from China, not canola farmers in Alberta. It is the clean fuel standard, the industrial carbon tax, the escalator tax and tariffs on fertilizer that are making food unaffordable and [more]

I want to ask a quick question of Ms. Velestuk, since she couldn't answer it in the first round. What is your response to the fact that the government did not run this by the chief science adviser before making a decision that will cost 600 jobs in research and science? If you have time, what is the impact of losing the premium market for Canadian farmers if we don't have these research centres?

You talked earlier about priorities, and you can see that this will be, as I said, an almost 30% cut in funding to AAFC. You can look at the increase in the industrial carbon tax on April 1, and to my colleague's question about fertilizer now getting to more than $1,200 per tonne, there's also a 35% tariff on fertilizer imported to Canada. Canada is the only G7 country that has a tariff on [more]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's an honour to be here. Thank you very much to the witnesses as well. Ms. Oatway, I'm going to start with you and your comment that what you would like to see this committee do is reassess the criteria that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada used in the closure of these facilities. I guess my argument is that there were no criteria at all. My first question for [more]

Thank you, Chair. Although I'm not a regular member of this committee, I think the comments raised by my colleague are very apropos. We went through some of this at the agriculture committee as well. It's very important to hear from farmers in Quebec, Nova Scotia and perhaps Alberta and Manitoba. These research closures are happening in every single province except for British Columbia. The [more]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll go back to Mr. Fransoo. You were answering my colleague's question. Over the last decade, the government, as a whole, has grown by about 40%, so I can certainly see asking for a 15% cut across all departments. However, by contrast, AAFC's spending over the last decade has actually gone down. Making this 15% cut within AAFC actually means that its funding has [more]

I have one last, really quick question. I have about 15 seconds. Ms. Oatway, do universities or the provinces have the resources to take on this lost research themselves without AAFC's support?

Just to put a number to Mr. Pawlik's comment about going from 2% productivity growth in agriculture down to 1%, it's a loss of more than $30 billion in cash receipts in the pockets of farmers. This is a very real number when you see the loss in production of Canadian farmers. I'm hoping that Ms. Oatway's video is not freezing anymore. I want to ask a question regarding the loss of varietal [more]

Thank you very much. Now I'll go to Mr. Pawlik and Mr. Fransoo. Mr. Pawlik, you were talking about the importance of setting priorities in decision-making with the closure of these research centres. I want to read off some numbers to you and get your opinion on whether this is the right priority. Over the last five years, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has spent more than $16 million on [more]

Minister of Agriculture I want to read a quote from the. We asked him in the House of Commons about these research centre closures and whether there was any chance of pausing them. I found his response very interesting. He said: ...research and development...is becoming less diverse. Public investment in agriculture...which includes [research and development], has declined by 15%. [The] private [more]