Agriculture Committee on Nov. 7th, 2006

[Clair Gartley]

We have done some communications. Actually there was a mail-out about a month ago in Quebec to all producers and farm families.

You're right, we did estimate there will be about 5,000 eligible participants from Quebec. However, we usually don't get 100% participation in our programs; it's usually some other rate. When we developed the program, we looked at something like a 75% participation level, so we'd be very satisfied if we hit the 4,000 mark. The 5,000 is an estimate of the potential participation, but you do have families there for whom the payment might only be a few hundred dollars, and they may not want to participate because they have to make the commitment to participate in one of the other programs. So it would be great to have all 5,000, but we don't really expect it. We think the participation is quite good at the level it's at, and we expect to get more, so we're quite pleased to see the participation there.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Were any of the 3,260 applicants found to be ineligible for the program?

[Clair Gartley]

This is the number of applications. It's possible that some may not be eligible. Currently in Quebec, we've processed 1,121. Keep in mind too, because of the original October 31 deadline, we did get a lot of applications right at Halloween, thousands of them.

Based on that, we still have about 2,100 more applications to process in Quebec. We've paid out in Quebec almost $8.7 million as of November 5. As I said, we expect more applications and there's still quite a number yet to process.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

When the program was announced, the Quebec Minister of Agriculture said he was disappointed that he was not consulted more on the actual procedure. By his estimate, more than 9,000 Quebec producers would not qualify for the program because their income was too low.

One of the eligibility criteria is a minimum family income of $50,000. Has anything been done for those left behind, for those with family incomes below that level? After assessing the pilot project, will an effort be made to include these marginalized producers or do we not yet know what will be done in this regard?

Minister Vallières estimated that 9,000 producers were excluded from the program. Is his estimate accurate?

[Clair Gartley]

The number sounds quite large, but I'm not sure if we have a number.

You're correct, it is a pilot program, and there will be an advisory committee set up with stakeholders and academia and so on to consider and evaluate the program and see how effectively it helped address the low-income challenges of these farm families.

For the people who did not qualify, perhaps because their levels were below $50,000 for gross farm income, they still can access the other services. Quebec has services that are part of the agricultural policy framework in Quebec. The province actually delivers the farm business assessment service in Quebec, and there has been participation in that. Those services would be available.

It would be a policy decision down the road as to whether or not the $50,000 level was changed. The other thing to consider for farm families that.... There are people operating farms with less than $50,000. On average, there is rarely any positive income, so most of their income now would be coming from off-farm sources. With that size of operation, it's very difficult to make much in the way of net income.

But you're absolutely correct, these are things that would be considered, I'm sure, by an advisory committee. That's part of the commitment to the program, that this committee will be established to look at the results of the program and consider its future. That information would then be provided to the minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Thank you, Mr. Bellavance.

Mr. Gourde, seven minutes, please.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I congratulate the Department officials for putting this program in place as quickly as they did. As we know, last spring, the farm income crisis was raging and some families were in dire straits. The intention of farming families is to feed people and, unfortunately, they even had trouble putting food on their own tables because their income was often insufficient.

Farmers are proud people. In order to survive, they have considered having some family members find employment off the farm. Unfortunately, in several regions of Quebec and Canada, there are no jobs to provide additional short-term income.

Were there more young family farmers among those who qualified for the program? Or were they well-established farming operations that had been around for 20 or 30 years? Generally speaking, is the program open to everyone or is it accessible to a particular category of producer?

[Clair Gartley]

I don't have an assessment or evaluation that I could give you today. That is one of the things, though, that we will certainly be looking at as we evaluate the program--who participated, where they're from, demographics, that kind of thing, what their situation is. That will help us make suggestions for the minister to consider later on.

But we don't have that information available yet on the participants. As soon as we get past the deadline, those are the kinds of things we'll start to look at and assess.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

I am very surprised to see that even in Quebec, where provincial programs are relatively more generous than those in the rest of Canada, more than 4,000 families applied for this program.

I know pork and grain producers. Although in theory their income is guaranteed by stabilization insurance, they still have to register for the program because their circumstances are so dire. That is why our government is proud to have been able to help these families.

Will this program help these families to make a transition, to improve they way they do business or to basically improve their structure to augment their income?

[Clair Gartley]

In a way, the program is designed to help them think about that through the farm business assessment service that's available. How much change will occur in their operations as a result of using these services through the program remains to be seen. But we have testimonials from people who have participated in farm business assessments in the past couple of years—because the program was already available—and the results are interesting. They have learned things about their operation that they could change or improve, or perhaps they were always thinking of doing something different, but they just didn't have time or the professional assistance they needed to crank the numbers and do the assessment and make the decision.

The goal of the program, again, is to improve income. We'd be happy to see it occur. If it's on-farm, again it's the farm family's decision if they want to try to do it that way, or whether it's off-farm. It's to improve their family income.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

Will this professional assistance be available free of charge? How long will the family have access to it?

[Clair Gartley]

Under the farm business assessment, there are five days of professional services, and the program is paying 100% of the cost of that service. Under the Canadian agricultural skills service—and Michèle is an expert in this, so she can correct me if I don't get this correct—the funding is there to pay to have a professional, I think it's 100%, do an individual learning plan, and then there's support for training and even travel to get to the training at 100% level as well. So yes, it's paying all the costs.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC]

I think this initiative will give producers a chance to reflect on their future; it provides them with information and training, while helping them to continue to work on the land and to get through this crisis, which has dealt us such a devastating blow.

Again, I congratulate you for the speed with which you set up this program; it will enable some 3,000 or 4,000 producers in Quebec and approximately 15,000 farm families in Canada to pursue their work in agriculture for a long time to come.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Thank you, Mr. Gourde.

Mr. Atamanenko, seven minutes please.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Thank you very much for being here and for your hard work. Obviously something's better than nothing.

On November 5, there were 13,460 people who had signified their intent. Is that meeting your expectations? Would you have thought there would be more or fewer? Are you happy with that?

[Clair Gartley]

I would have to say we're pretty happy with the numbers that are coming in. We can deal with more applications, and we'd love to see more applications, but this is a pretty good result so far.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

From talking to farmers, I know there are a couple of concerns. One is the idea of a business plan and skills that are compulsory to participate in a program, the assumption being that these people aren't good farmers and that it's almost an insult, for want of a better word.

As a farmer, I'm going through all this; I have this problem and I have to fill in this business plan. In retrospect, could this not have been an option rather than compulsory?

I'd like a couple of comments on that.

[Clair Gartley]

The reason for making the link is again to encourage participation. We had those services available, but the participation wasn't as much as we would have liked, where we were getting good feedback on farm business assessment, CASS. People who used it were maybe very timid at the start, but in the end they were pleased in general with the service.

We needed to have an innovative program that really addressed the low family income issue. I believe the government decision was that we needed this linkage to make sure there was a real result; that this had a deeper, more significant, longer-term impact than just making the income payments alone. There was a move to provide the help the families needed to address the issue, because they really have to find their own way. They make their own decisions on which program to take, what they do with the results, what learning they take, and those kinds of things.

The view was to have an innovative program that would have a longer-term benefit than just the income payments alone.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

But isn't the assumption still that they're not victims of the market or they're not doing something right; that by going through this, they'll do something right and become better farmers? Is that the implication?

[Clair Gartley]

All of us often need outside advice or professional advice on how to manage our finances or businesses, and that kind of thing. It's often very beneficial, when you're deep into it yourself and the pressures are on you, to have some professional from outside, who doesn't know you or the operation, just come in and give you some good advice. I think people are nervous about it at first, but once they've tried this service they realize it's helpful.

Even our larger farms that are doing well and are more profitable are saying that in the next generation they would like to have these services available to them. They think the skills thing is something that should go on for a lifetime, and assessment by a professional of your business from time to time is a really beneficial thing.

So there seems to be quite a lot of interest in the programs.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

The other feedback I'm getting is on this whole idea of off-farm income being included in the cap of $25,000. It's no secret that a lot of farmers have negative incomes, and the only way they're able to survive is because somebody's working somewhere else. The feeling is that it's really not fair that some people miss the program by a couple of thousand dollars because somebody in their family has worked as a waitress or something in town.

I'm just wondering what your feedback has been on this and when that will happen. Are you going to take that into consideration and maybe exclude off-farm income when setting caps?

[Clair Gartley]

I imagine all these things will be raised in the evaluation when the committee is set up. We hope to be working on that in 2007 and get the evaluation under way. Right now we're running the program, getting the applications in and processed, and letting people have some time to decide which service they're going to use, and that kind of thing. So we need to let some time go by before we have a lot to evaluate, but we'll certainly start next year.

On the issue of off-farm income, the goal of the program is the family income. How do we improve the overall family income situation? That's why off-farm income is included. That's the policy decision that was made. I can't comment at this time on what may happen in the future on that.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Regarding the $550 million--and probably there'll be some unused money that won't be going out--do you have any specific plans for that?

[Clair Gartley]

I assume you're probably talking about the income payment money, what we'll do if we don't need the $190 million that will be available this year, although that remains to be seen because we're not at the deadline. It certainly would be up to the minister and the government to decide what they might do with that money. There are no plans at this point.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

I probably don't have much time, but just in a general sense, what is the feeling you're getting? You talked about this a bit in your presentation. What's the general feeling you're getting about the program?