Agriculture committee  I think those are accurate statements. There has been an issue about fairness, especially when it comes to how some get exemptions and others do not. In addition to that, as I mentioned, 40% of what we grow goes to the United States, so there is an international competitiveness issue that we run into as well.

Agriculture committee  I'll let Mike answer that.

Agriculture committee  Perfect. Thanks very much for the invitation to appear today and speak in favour of Bill C-234. My name is Ryan Koeslag, and I am joined today by Mike Medeiros, president of the Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association and a mushroom grower. Our association is a member of the Agriculture Carbon Alliance and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.

Agriculture committee  Yes, it's a very labour-intensive industry. It's probably close to 50% of the costs. Every fresh mushroom that you find in a grocery store is picked by hand.

Agriculture committee  I'll let Janet answer that one, but I would say that we do have major labour issues. We're always in the situation of having high vacancies in the mushroom industry and the temporary foreign workers—

Agriculture committee  Honestly, I can't really speak to that.

Agriculture committee  Definitely there are situations where farms have closed. We know in P.E.I. they've stopped growing. Yes, it's a situation where, if we look at the economies of scale for how these farms are operating, they're determining whether it's best to stay open and keep going during the worst COVID situations or whether they should be shutting down.

Agriculture committee  Essentially, look at the averages that are currently in place, without elimination of that weighted average, or at look at another option entirely. Canada can take a look at that. There are certain situations where it doesn't necessarily work to the benefit of expanding industries such as mushrooms.

Agriculture committee  Yes. We spoke to the minister directly about this as well, identifying the issues with accessing these programs. There are really two major issues for us. One is that there is a cap, and these farm operations are running into the cap for the $3 million. If you think of the scale of operation, when you're capped at a certain amount and you have losses greater than that, this isn't going to be enough to sustain that farming operation.

Agriculture committee  There has been an opportunity, and certainly the Ontario government, too, has provided some funding for doing the online sales and creating portals for that. We have to recognize that there has been a huge burden for these farms in the costs of COVID, and, at the same time, they have not been assisted at all with the loss of production.

Agriculture committee  Yes and no. We probably represent over 90% of the mushrooms that are found in the grocery stores and the exports to the United States.

Agriculture committee  That's through our 52 farms.

Agriculture committee  The average cost is difficult, because there is a wide variety of types of production. Certainly, when they are having costs that high, they are putting in the maximized benefit and prevention methods: the Plexiglass, the masks, the increased housing and increased transportation.

Agriculture committee  I apologize for that.

Agriculture committee  Sir, I was just saying that we have had an increase in production over the last 10 years, in addition to that going to the United States. About 40% of mushroom production in Canada goes to the United States.