I too grew up on a farm where I saw miracles grow before my eyes and learned the appreciation for new life. I grew pumpkins as well. I grew cucumbers and flowers. I think that the member for Essex painted us a very nice picture in that regard. That’s why we should be most proud of those who work the fields every day, in various weather, various storms, to produce the very best food for us—the very best food in the world.

I do support this bill, modernizing ARIO to reflect the current agri-food research environment as well as the research and innovation needs of the agri-food sector. My question, however, is to the minister. I just would like to know how Bill 155 will ensure farmers are recognized and included as key participants and not merely as stakeholders.

The dining room. Where better to have a reception for Farm Fresh Ontario than in the dining room?

I brought this up earlier, right? When you don’t consult—again, when this government proposed to allow the division of farms into up to three without any consultation, they didn’t know, didn’t realize the havoc they were going to cause because they never asked anybody, or they just decided to help out one group. So many members on the government side came over to me and said, “You know, John, we were about to stop that.” No, no, no; it never would have become public if that had been the case.

But this is an example that it can be done well, and you have done it well on this bill, and we commend you for it. As a result, this bill’s going to pass this afternoon, I hope.

So with that, I’m going to leave a minute on the clock, because I could see people—even the Speaker’s eyes are starting to—I’m getting a bit worried.

Interjections.

I have said this publicly: I have family in Oxford county. If I could trade my land acre for acre for land in Oxford county, for its productive capacity, I would do it in a minute—or even two to one.

But having said that, there is incredible opportunity in northern Ontario—tile drainage, specifically, from the heritage fund. The minister may not know, but the original application for tile drainage to the heritage fund—I wrote it before I was a politician. Anyway, without tile drainage, agriculture will never truly flourish in Ontario. It is one of the best infrastructure investments that can be made. It’s long-term. My dad tiled a farm in 1971 in Earlton with cement tiles—

It’s not canola; canola has always done very well in the Clay Belt, because canola is actually a cool-weather crop. It’s soybeans. We’re starting to be able to grow soybeans—or we grow a lot of soybeans, not starting. And grain corn: I’ve always grown silage corn to feed cattle, but grain corn is starting to be profitable.

But our weather—and again, I’m not a climatologist—is becoming a bit more extreme, less predictable. Overall, likely, in the Clay Belt, in northern Ontario, we will be winners in the climate change draw, but we’re a very small place compared to the rest of the world.

Actually, when ARIO and the University of Guelph were thinking about shutting our research station down, we struck a committee, and one of the first places we went to look at was Vineland, to see how they were structured, because they’re structured slightly differently than many of the other sites. It was very informative, and many of the ideas that we got to try to save our research station, although our conditions are completely different—completely, totally different. But the way they look at the situation—we were very impressed. And I agree with everything that was in that statement.