Agriculture committee  I can see one from here.

Agriculture committee  I have just a comment on the idea of allocating part of our budget to the transition between innovation or research and commercialization. I might even argue that it feels a bit harsh, but if I were you, I might require it; I think that you can't really have a project unless it's there, especially with what you're trying to accomplish with these programs.

Agriculture committee  Do you want a philosophical answer? If you think about the grape industry, in fact, the free trade agreement is what created the very successful industry we have now. The old industry disappeared and died, as it should have. A new one was born that was way better. People are going in to grapes because you can make buckets of money.

Agriculture committee  Go ahead, Sylvain. It's not a question that has an answer.

Agriculture committee  The one thing that comes to mind is to make certain that you don't create entitlements, and that when the next round of investment comes, it's based on the same merit the first round was based on. I think that's very critical, because you want to create some tension. All the scientists underneath, who are doing the projects, you can know their feet are held to the fire.

Agriculture committee  I think it's going to take a long time. It's a generational shift. I look into the suite of crops I have to work with, and I realize, particularly for fruits and vegetables, that there are major barriers. People are concerned. You eat fruits and vegetables because they're good for your health.

Agriculture committee  It seems simple to me. This is a time to invest in innovation to get further ahead--even further ahead. What do we need most? We need more mechanization. We have to drive out costs. We need new products. I think that's the thing that has to be done now, particularly when times are good.

Agriculture committee  I can think of quite a few. I have a canola example. Is that okay?

Agriculture committee  Okay. I was thinking about the marker consortium. There's a consortium to generate molecular markers for use in canola breeding. In fact, all of the companies participate in this consortium, and I believe Agriculture Canada generates the markers.

Agriculture committee  You could almost argue that our feeding diversity efforts are like the early days of canola. You're trying to create crops where they didn't exist before. It's a bit of a discovery effort, but I think everyone would dream about that.

Agriculture committee  The way we plan on doing this is straightforward. Of course, there is not just one kind of mushroom. Even with white mushrooms, in the group of button mushrooms, there are literally tens of thousands of different types. The trick is simply to sort through all of that and find the most nutritious and use it as the base for soup or mushroom products.

Agriculture committee  It may be that the underlying issue is more complex than just trade. Trade is an easy thing to point at, but still, is your production system the most razor-sharp, efficient system in the world? Do you have the right varieties? And when you made that decision about the variety, did you ask any apple consumers what they wanted?

Agriculture committee  Particularly the consumer.

Agriculture committee  Given that you hold the purse strings, it's just a question of the way you structure programs. You need to insist on the connection. It's like insisting on a strategy: If you don't have a strategy, I don't think we can really fund your program; we don't know where you're going to go.

Agriculture committee  I agree.