Agriculture Committee on April 26th, 2007

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks to you folks for your presentations.

This is the last day of hearings on the road, so to speak. There'll be a few more in Ottawa, especially around the research area.

Looking back at APF 1--and certainly I was involved closely in terms of trying to implement that and the money--I'm worried from the standpoint that, again, the focus this time around will be safety nets, in part because for some reason in Canada we're always in crisis management. There were a lot of other pillars in the last APF that were never funded. They were there; they simply weren't funded. To a great extent, that's what happened in APF 1.

I want to refer a moment to George Brinkman. All of you folks will know of Mr. Brinkman. Yes, we had our differences many times, but I don't dispute his figures. He had this to say about the percentage of farm income from subsidies in Canada and the United States. I'll quote what he said: “As a percentage of income, Canadian government subsidies represent 116% of farm incomes...”. In other words, we're not getting 100% of our money out of the market, or anything out of the market; it has all come from governments over the last number of years. The United States government subsidies represent only 37% of U.S. producers' farm income.

I don't disagree with those figures, but I do disagree with him in that I think U.S. farmers are subsidized in many other ways and we're simply not doing it right. I think in Geri's proposal he, to a great extent, mentioned it, as all of you did.

And as for Arthur's point about a Canada-wide school snack program. Why don't we do it? They have a school milk program in the United States, and I assume you're talking about a similar program. They fund food stamps.

We can do environment and a number of other areas. I don't know why we're paying all the costs on HACCP programs and on-farm food safety on the farms. It's for the consumers that we're doing it, but we sit back and take it and we pay it. The theory in the bureaucracy in Ottawa is, well, you simply transfer that on to the consumer. We all know in this room that doesn't happen; it can't.

What other areas should we be looking at, in terms of supporting farmers, that are GATT-green and not seen as subsidies, but at the same time, we're still going to have a farm safety net program there?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Smith.

[Arthur Smith]

I'm going to speak on behalf of the fruit and vegetable industry. Our situation is considerably different from that of the grains sector, which is more commodity based.

One of the things we need to do in this country is promote our own. We need to be able to differentiate ourselves. Quite frankly, if you go to the store and buy a head of lettuce, do you really know where it's from? Does it look any different? They're the same. What does the consumer do? He buys according to his pocketbook.

We must create the value. Is that value in our environmental stewardship? Is it in a secure food system? What is that value? If we don't do it, we're not going to have a food system in this country, because we cannot, as growers--and I don't give a damn what commodity it is--continue to keep lowering the price for the benefit of the consumer.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

As well, lowering the price based on different labour, environmental, pesticide, and farm safety standards elsewhere in the world. We're going out of business in this country, to a great extent, because of labour and environmental standards elsewhere and what they can utilize in products that we can't.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Quickly, Mr. Smith, because Geri wants in on this as well.

[Arthur Smith]

I have one comment on that.

Wayne, you mentioned that the thought at the bureaucratic level in Ottawa was that you pass the price on to the consumer. We recently had a budget in this province, and they said the minimum wage is going from $8 to $10.25 in a three-year period. I don't know how anyone can live on $8. I don't know how anyone can live on $10.25. But I know that when we have a $1.2 billion to $1.3 billion industry and we add $100 million to our costs, our farmers are in deep, deep trouble.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Kamenz.

[Geri Kamenz]

Thank you.

Just for the record, we need to be clear that George Brinkman's study numbers were referring to net farm income numbers.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Yes, that's right.

[Geri Kamenz]

It is a dismal reflection on Canadian agriculture when 116% of net farm income comes from the treasury. But it also points out, as you're suggesting, that there is a matrix of farm programs in the U.S. that the U.S. Farm Bill is only a part of. U.S. agricultural programming goes into every different department of the United States--the State Department or the White House in Washington. It is reflected in taxes, it is reflected in blending tax credit, etc. The focus is on business risk management because 116% of net farm income comes from the government treasury. And we have to have the business risk management tools in place in order to capitalize on market opportunities that you will develop through a branding initiative, through market differentiation, and through environmental types of initiatives.

Those represent, as you say, the greatest opportunity on a go-forward basis. Canadian producers want to be able to supply the Canadian marketplace, but our product is lost amongst the apples from China and the grapes from Chile and everything else. So that ability to differentiate yourself becomes so important.

But also, as I said earlier, we have to start adding value to all of those peripheral benefits that are also attached to the purchase decision. When a Canadian buys a Canadian food product, it is no longer just a food product they are buying; they're making an investment in the environment, they're making an investment in clean air, clean water, biodiversity, etc. And hopefully through programming, through the second round of the APF, we can start tackling some of those systemic problems.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. Devolin.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I've never had this many questions generated by one session. I have to focus, and I'm going to focus on the risk management program that the grain and oilseeds people have been talking about in Ontario.

I'm sure that Dale and Peter are supportive of it, but I want to ask Geri this. What is the OFA position on that proposal, and how widely do you see that being applied in Ontario?

[Geri Kamenz]

It has consumed probably most of my time through the winter months, because our position is that with 209 commodities in the province, we need sector-specific solutions that don't come at the expense or at the cost of another sector. So Art Smith is here, and horticulture and the tender fruit industry have developed a suite of programs that work for their producers, sector-specific solutions. Supply management is a sector-specific solution. The risk management program is the sector-specific solution for the grains and oilseed sector--totally behind it.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay.

Dale or Peter, yesterday when we were in Quebec, William Van Tassel, one of your colleagues, suggested that he thought that an RMP was coming in Ontario, and sometime this summer. Is that your understanding, that the Ontario government intends to introduce that? And if so, when?

[Peter Tuinema]

They haven't committed to it, but we're having some really positive discussions with the Ontario government over that kind of programming. They certainly haven't committed to it yet, but yes, that would be the flavour we're getting, that they're getting pretty close to announcing some kind of risk management program for Ontario grains and oilseeds.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Okay.

A year or so ago, when we in Ottawa were certainly getting a lot of pressure from grains and oilseeds producers in Ontario to move on this, that's what we were saying, that if this is an Ontario program it would have to come out of Toronto rather than Ottawa. So I'm glad to hear that something is imminent there.

Do I have a minute left?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Yes.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Smith, I have a whole bunch of questions about food and quality food and nutritious food. I know in Ontario there are some different farm fresh initiatives taking place. I know in Durham region there's one, and I think there's another in the Kitchener area.

Getting back to risk management, is building those links within communities to sell more stuff very locally a risk management strategy for your sector?

[Arthur Smith]

Yes. Right now there's a tremendous effort and a lot of enthusiasm about buying local. We're catching this all the time. A few years ago it was organic. The organic made up a very small part of the overall market, and it's a niche market. Buying local brings an entirely different spin to it. There is more consumer awareness about buying local. There's more consumer awareness of the value of freshness. This is big for us, and it does provide us with a good opportunity right now.

As I said earlier, we are different from the grains and oilseeds sector because of that. We're not a commodity per se. It's not a stored product per se, so that does give us some opportunities here. The provincial government is also looking at that right now.

Thank you.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

That's it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

That's all? You still have a minute left.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Well, you said there was a minute a minute ago.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Well, you have two and a half seconds.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Maybe someone else has another comment.

Yes.

[Arthur Smith]

I want to make another comment, if I can.

I talked about the school project, the school snack program. We had lobbied for this for quite some time. Schools currently have sales of pop and candy bars, and this sort of food. A can of pop is what, $1.25, $1.50? A candy bar is $1. We're putting food into the schools, fresh snacks, delivered, at 40¢. The kids love them.

We're currently working up in the Temiskaming area. They don't get fresh vegetables. I had a call from a radio station, and they asked how we were going to get them to eat the broccoli and the cauliflower flowerets, and I said, “No problem”. I was going to say we were going to give them Ontario wine to go with them, but it could have gone on the radio.

It's been hugely successful. They're just tickled pink with it. That's the cost-effectiveness of it. I think that when people come and say it's going to be too expensive, we just need to look at the comparison.