Thank you, Mr. Chair.
And gentlemen, thanks very much for being here today.
I want to talk about the last couple of points Mr. Easter mentioned. He talks about the Americans: shoot, shovel, and bury.
The bottom line is that up here we have a standard. I don't know whether our consumer really expects it or not, but it's there. We're too honest a country—and I don't use that facetiously—compared to some other countries. If you want to cut back on the monitoring that somebody mentioned, the only way is to get rid of half the CFIA. Is that going to be acceptable to the public? Not likely. So it's probably not an option.
But a good point was made. That's why I brought it up.
Another point that was talked about here today is about trying to make it so that young farmers can get in, and Justin and Jens, there's nothing I want to see more. I have three sons, and none of them are going to farm. They are not going to take over the farm, for various reasons. They've all got good jobs. For one of them, it certainly is the money aspect. My youngest son said to me that he doesn't want to work 20 hours a day the way I have. That's a comment I've heard.
There are a number of factors, but getting back to why I bring this up, if government in some way funds and makes it easier for people to get capital, young guys and young ladies like you, the next thing is that every business in the country is going to stand up. The argument for that is that you can say we're doing it for food security, but it is still going to be a hell of a sell to the rest of the public. So if there are any general comments on how we sell that, I'm open to them and I think everybody around this table is.
Another thing that has been fairly prominent in the west, and certainly here yesterday and today, is about one government body dealing with agriculture. The problem there, and I'll use my own province of Ontario, is that there'll be hell to pay. They don't want to let go of it. Danny Williams, I am quite sure, is not going to let go of it without a fight. So that's a problem.
The only way we can achieve this is that, first of all, you have to have a federal government that will say, yes, they will do that. But secondly, we need the industry to fight alongside and say to the provinces, “Look, we've had enough of this dual thing. You can't get it right; it takes too long, too much red tape. We need you to help us.”
My question to you is this. If that is decided at some point, will each one of your commodity groups stand beside the government and lead that fight? If you're going to have 10 provinces dealing with it, then you don't have one plan. The way I see it, unless I'm missing something, it has to be the federal government. So I leave that open for comments.