John Barlow

Madam Speaker, what are the available resources, when 72% of the cuts in Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada are in science and innovation? As a result of this, we are losing research farms in every single province across the country. Instead of investing in food research here at home, the Liberals spent $22 million on beans for Women of Empowerment in Congo and $8 million on gender-neutral rice in [more]

Madam Speaker, it is a sad day for Canadian agriculture. The historic beef herd at the Nappan research farm is being shipped to auction today. The Liberals are sacrificing 140 years of irreplaceable research and shutting down one of Canada's oldest experimental farms. More than 70% of the cuts at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada are in science and research. As a result, research farms in [more]

Prime Minister Mr. Speaker, thetold Canadians he should be judged by their experience at the grocery store. For Becky, her experience has been a nightmare. She said she works hard, but she still cannot afford to put food on the table for her and her son. She is not alone. There have been more than 2.3 million visits to food banks in Canada in one month. The number of Canadian families forced to [more]

Mr. Speaker, the member said to not politicize a food affordability crisis, a crisis that lies clearly at the feet of the Liberal government. In its 10 years, food prices are up 30%. The number of Canadians being forced to a food bank has doubled. In my riding, in Okotoks, in one quarter, the food bank served 26,000 people. Shockingly, 30% of those people had full-time jobs, but they still were [more]

That doesn't stop me from asking the minister. What's the point of order here?

Thanks, Minister. I know the answer to the question. The answer is that this is going to stay. You talk about the EU, but this isn't impossible. Your government exempted tariffs on other commodities like airplane parts and cobalt from Russia. For some reason, your government is picking winners and losers and, once again, when it comes to decisions by your government, farmers are losing. You [more]

I'll move to another topic. We had you here a few weeks ago, and we asked you about the closure of the research centres. Again, this certainly relates to food security and food sovereignty. In answer to a question from a colleague, you said that those closures were worthwhile. Do you still believe that the closure of seven experimental farms and research centres is a worthwhile decision?

It is very concerning. You can blame Alto, but this is your project, your government's project, so I don't think you can just put this on Alto. To me, the fact that you do not know how many farms are potentially going to be impacted by this rail means that you have not been part of the consultation or part of the process within your cabinet, and it concerns me that you have not had some [more]

His conscience is getting the best of him. I understand.

I'd like a recorded vote, please. See Minutes of Proceedings (Motion negatived: nays 6; yeas 5 [])

We have agreed to a deadline. We're going to stick to the deadline of June. If they want to miss the deadline and not submit recommendations, I think that's up to them. I don't see any reason why we need to delay this to the fall.

Thank you, Minister. That's an interesting answer, as 54% of the workforce cuts and 75% of the spending cuts in your department are coming from the science and innovation research branch. I think your answer to this committee is a little misleading. My last question is about your conversations around the country. The Federation of Canadian Municipalities voted 98% in opposition to the closures [more]

Okay.

We've heard all the witness testimony. We're not going to be talking to other witnesses through the summer, as part of this study. I'm sorry, Ms. Chatel. You were the one who, this winter, said that this was so important and that we had to finish this before we rose this spring because of the BRM discussions as part of the FTP meetings. Now you're saying that we should put this off until later [more]

As Mr. Lemire said, we're going to have a motion to reopen the debate on the Alto motion, which we will vote on, and I will request a recorded vote on that motion. Before that, though, I think it's very clear from the questions that were asked today that this is a question of food security and food sovereignty, and I'm actually really quite concerned that the minister, in his—

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Minister. You talked about the importance of food security. We had Jeff Harrison, the chair of the board of the Grain Farmers of Ontario, here last week, and he said that you can't have food affordability if farmers can't afford to farm. One key thing that you could have done as part of your announcement last week was remove the 35% tariff on [more]

Just to rephrase the question then, how much food production will be removed as a result of the Alto high-speed rail? That certainly would impact Canada's food sovereignty and food security. How many acres in yield production will be removed from use as a result of the high-speed rail? Do you know the answer to that?