This afternoon, I will be sharing my time with the MPP from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston and the Minister of Agriculture.

This will be the first time that I address the assembly as the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture. As I said this morning, I don’t think we take enough opportunities in the assembly to recognize the talents of the members who serve here. So, before I start off, I would like to recognize the Minister of Agriculture. She’s a graduate of the University of Guelph, an alumnus of the Advanced Agricultural Leadership Program, an alumnus of the George Morris executive leadership program, a former chair of the Ontario 4-H Foundation, a former vice-chair of Ontario Agri-Food Education Inc., and a former general manager of the Ontario Dairy Goat Co-operative. Based on these achievements in agriculture and based on her former role as the general manager of the Ontario Dairy Goat Co-operative, you might say she’s the greatest of all time.

I want to take this moment now to recognize the contributions of the two previous parliamentary assistants to myself in this role. First, my neighbour here, the member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington—not only my close seatmate, but also my geographical neighbour—is a former OPP officer, a former agricultural executive, a former town councillor, and a model father and husband. I’m proud to call him my friend.

I’d also like to recognize the MPP from Elgin–Middlesex–London, now the Associate Minister of Housing, who started his career at Masterfeeds. He worked his way up and became the president and CEO in 1993. He won the golden award from the Animal Nutrition Association of Canada. He served with the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair board and the Canadian Hereford Association, and he’s the owner and operator of Flack Farms. I’m proud to call him my friend.

And I’m lucky to share my responsibilities with another parliamentary assistant in the Ministry of Agriculture. He’s the honourable member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston, born and raised in Lanark county, where he and his family still own and operate a small farm in the beautiful Montague township. I’m happy to call him my friend.

What you’ve noticed, after hearing about all of these individuals, is that they all seem to be a natural fit in agriculture, these folks: the members from Chatham-Kent–Leamington and Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston and the gentleman who owns Flack Farms and the Minister of Agriculture. You might be asking yourself, well, they seem to be a natural fit, but the member from Essex, who has a background in 24 years of law and previous to that being a teacher, doesn’t seem to be a natural fit, so how did the member from Essex find himself to become the parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Agriculture? Well, this is how it happens, and it all started on the second concession of Anderton township, where I grew up.

My parents owned a big one-acre lot on the second concession, and at the back of that one-acre lot, we had an old shed that my dad had built with his own hands. Every springtime, my dad would go into the shed and pull out the old rototiller. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a rototiller; it has wheels on the back and a mechanism on the front, like a pair of claws, that grabs the dirt and tills the dirt, turns up the dirt. And that old rototiller was as big as a dinosaur and was probably that old, too. My dad would put gas into that rototiller, and then he would start it up and it would roar to life. He would take the rototiller to the back of the lot and he would turn up the soil—I think about a sixth of the lot.

My parents would plant a huge garden, and my parents’ garden had everything in it. It had corn and tomatoes and peppers and onions and garlic, but mostly we grew tomatoes. But my dad always reserved a spot for me and my pumpkin patch. As a child, I would take my little pack of seeds which I had saved from the previous year, and I would dig a hole just like my dad taught me and I would put the seeds in a circle, just like my dad taught me, and I would cover it up and water it, and then I would wait for the miracle to happen. I didn’t understand it fully back then, but I think I understand it better now: that if a seed does not fall to the ground and die, then it remains a seed, but if a seed falls to the ground and dies, it brings new life.

Over the course of the summertime, my pumpkin plants would sprout, grow and bear fruit. And the pumpkins would appear. They would be green and then they would ripen and ripen into orange, and the oranger they got, the happier I would be until the end of the summertime when I would find my little wooden wagon, pull it out of its storage and take my little wooden wagon and bring it to the back of our lot. I would pick up my pumpkins and put them into my little wooden wagon and then carry the pumpkins to the front lawn where I hosed them off with a garden hose. And then I arranged them from the largest to the smallest and put them up for sale. I would call my friends and relatives to come to buy my pumpkins for harvest and for Halloween. And that, Speaker, was a child’s introduction to the business of agriculture, and that brings me to the importance of today’s bill.

You see, the bill that’s before us today is Bill 155, the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario Amendment Act. That’s a mouthful, and given that it’s a bill about agriculture, it should be a mouthful.

The function of this bill is to update the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario, which it does, update what it does, because agriculture isn’t what it was 50 years ago or even just a short while ago, when I was a child. It’s very impressive, the amount of research and the innovation that goes into agriculture in Ontario today. I’m going to illustrate my point by talking about one incredible and impressive operation that’s located right in my riding, the riding of Essex.

You might know a few things about the riding of Essex: We have 20 wineries. We produce great wine. We have craft breweries. We produce great brew. We have craft whisky. We produce tons and tons of cucumbers and tomatoes. We produce grains: corn, soybean, wheat. We have a great organization called Upper Canada Growers. Upper Canada Growers is owned and operated by the Haynes family. The Haynes family came to Upper Canada in 1784—and I could tell a long story about that, but today, I’m just going to stick with agriculture.

The Haynes family started growing fruit and grapes, and they’ve been in agriculture and production for over 200 years. Today, the operation is run by Robert Haynes, his daughter Megan Haynes and his son Jason Haynes.

Upper Canada Growers doesn’t just produce fruit; they do much more than that. They actually grow 80%, or approximately 80%, of all of the fruit trees that are in Canada. You have to visit their operation to really appreciate what they do. If you’re lucky, you’ll get to see the laboratory. Inside this climate-controlled, highly protected area, they are producing disease-free and disease-resistant fruit trees. The product of Upper Canada Growers is in high demand because they are recognized for their excellent product, produced right here in Ontario.

But of course, they cannot rely merely on one stock of trees, because diseases mutate, and a disease will mutate and find a new way of attacking fruit and fruit trees. So Upper Canada Growers has to stay on top of all this. They’re supplying 80% of all of the fruit trees in Canada, and they have a reputation to uphold. So this is a highly scientific and technical operation.

They bring in scientific talent from all over the world. When I visited their operation, I met one scientist from Iran, another scientist from India, another scientist from Egypt. These people came from all over the world, and they’re all working on a quiet, rural back road in Essex county, Ontario, and helping supply Canada and the world with the most nutritious and safest food in all the world.

And that’s what we’re known for, Madam Speaker: Good things grow in Ontario. We live in Foodland Ontario, and Foodland Ontario means the most nutritious food in the world and the safest food supply chain in the world. That’s why, when you go to a grocery store and you see the Foodland Ontario label, you know it’s nutritious and you know it’s safe. You don’t have to think twice about where your food is coming from or whether it’s good for your family. You know it’s good for your family if it comes from Ontario. You know it’s good for your family if it bears the Foodland Ontario symbol, because Ontario produces the best.

And that’s why we need the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario. That’s why we need to keep researching and innovating and experimenting and sharing our knowledge with fruit producers and food producers in the province of Ontario: because when we do that, we continue to guarantee that people in Ontario and in all of Canada and even in the rest of the world will continue receiving the most nutritious food and the safest food in all the world.

Let me give you another example from my riding. We have marvellous greenhouse growers in Essex county. One of those greenhouse growers is Cielo Vista Farms. At Cielo Vista Farms, they are inventing new ways of harvesting high-quality and highly nutritious plant products. In partnership with Nature Fresh Farms, they’re now getting into the strawberry business.

Now, you might think, “Isn’t the strawberry business dominated by California? Doesn’t California produce just about everything that’s consumed in North America when it comes to berries?” Well, you know what? You might think that nobody can compete with California, but now, Ontario is competing with California for the strawberry business.

Let me read the latest news about strawberries in Ontario. I promise you, this is going to be a “berry” interesting story. I don’t know if other members of the House will be able to judge this the way my excellent colleague the member from Chatham-Kent–Leamington could do so because of his remarkable experience in the industry. But if anybody has any doubts, I encourage them to please ask my colleague from Chatham-Kent–Leamington about the remarkable strawberry growth happening in Ontario. He’ll be happy to share it with you.

Here’s the latest news: “Nature Fresh Farms is moving forward in expanding its commodities into the berry category with more acreage dedicated to a strawberry program. With help from its long-standing growing partner Cielo Vista, the greenhouse grower will be expanding its strawberry farm from one to 16 acres, planned to be completed this fall.

“With strawberries being one of the top fruit imports in Canada, the expansion would help reduce food miles through increased local production, shortening transportation routes and offering quality product. This is an opportunity to drive this rapidly expanding category by delivering consistently flavourful, high-quality berries to North American markets that were previously out of reach due to lengthy food mile barriers.

“Nature Fresh Farms continues to focus on research and development, discovering new products and opportunities that support its commitment to sustainability while delivering quality produce to customers throughout the year. Its main objective of all its trial programs, including the strawberry program, is to learn how to grow more consistent and flavorful product.”

That is great news for all of us. It’s great news for us in Foodland Ontario. So I say: Let’s keep innovating. Let’s keep researching. Let’s keep producing nutritious food from the safest supply chain in the entire world. That is what this bill is all about. It’s all happening now. It’s happening now here in Ontario. It’s happening in Foodland Ontario, the place where we produce the most nutritious food in the world with the safest food supply chain in the world.