Agriculture Committee on May 8th, 2007

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

So if I were to go to my Ontario grains and oilseeds boards, they would know exactly what this is about and they would endorse it.

[Justin To]

They're members of ours, and certainly they were very supportive of the business risk management.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I just want to make sure, when I get a call, that I can say, because I think that is a very strong message.

Bob, you mentioned—I may have the title wrong—the agriculture innovation centres across Canada. Could you expand and explain where the funding should come from, how they would get set up? One of the things we don't want to be doing is setting up another bureaucratic level. That happened under the CAIS program. We don't want that to happen. So could you explain a bit about how that might be set up?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. To.

[Justin To]

Traditionally, extension work—and we're taking a broader definition of “extension”, not only about how to grow things better but also about business skills, market information from international and domestic markets, new technologies, all these kinds of things—had been done at the provincial level, and there has been a significant drawback from extension by the provincial governments. We see it primarily as a provincial responsibility. But we truly believe in the federal–provincial partnership, in the federal government's facilitating that happening. Industry groups, of course, would be very willing to participate and partner in implementation.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I'm sorry, Ms. Dewar, I missed your presentation. But in terms of innovation, I've met with a number of agriculture groups across my riding over the last while. One of them said—and I think, Mr. Betker, you mentioned this, or maybe it was Richard—that whatever you do in terms of safety nets is important. Building a foundation for protection when commodity prices are not there is important. But don't take away the money for research and development, because that's the sustainability of agriculture as we move on.

When we talk about agricultural research and development, can you talk to me about the significance of whether you support the private–public research dollars that need to go in? A comment was made that we need to have more public research. Are you talking about stand-alone public or are you talking about more public that will partner with private research? I think that came from you, Bob, or Justin.

[Justin To]

CFA strongly believes in a balance between public and private research. The private sector, of course, does significant good research to make sure Canadian farmers are competitive.

We also believe in stand-alone public research that is probably a more long-term investment, or more public interest research that governments are more suited to do. But there's also a very strong role for producer organizations, producer foundations, under the commodity groups, under the Canadian cattle research, pork research, grain varieties research, pulse research. These organizations have done significant amounts of research in new varieties and in finding niche products for their industries, which flow right through to all producers, possibly not just private.

Certainly private industry research is important, but we also believe in the public supporting and helping out with check-off funds for producer organizations to do commodity-specific research as well as fully stand-alone public research.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you, Mr. Shipley.

Mr. Steckle.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I want to thank you once again for appearing here. For some of us, this is getting to be old hat. I think some of us probably have found that we've made a career out of coming to this table, and we're probably going to outlive most of the farmers who have been waiting for these programs.

I would suggest that unless we're prepared to start thinking outside of the box, we're never going to go anywhere else. We are going to stay exactly where we are, spinning our tires, leaving a lot of rubber on the road, having never left the street corner.

The United States has a farm bill, but they have one farm bill representing 50 states. We, as you say, are proposing a farm bill. We, for the most part, support that view. But how can we have a farm bill in Canada when we have one federal government, 10 provinces, and the territories all competing?

We have various organizations that from time to time come to this table with competing views. We have leadership. We've seen you here, Bob, many times. Denise has been here. Richard's been here, Terry, for the first time here today, talked about management. I think farmers would be offended if they felt that we felt they weren't managing properly. I think they're managing as well as they can within an environment over which they, most of the time, don't have any control.

In your document here, “A Canadian Farm Bill: A New Vision for Canadian Agriculture”, you say we need to create “a stable business and investment environment for all stakeholders”.

Then you say, in bullet four:

The next generation of agricultural policy must identify and strengthen those mechanisms that work to maintain farm incomes and bargaining power in the marketplace including cooperatives, collective marketing, supply management and its three pillars and the Canadian Wheat Board.

What's your position on the Wheat Board, given that there's a government currently attempting to have the Wheat Board become a grain-trading agency? If you believe this, then are you not at odds with the government's position in terms of the Wheat Board?

I guess what farmers are saying to me is—and I have a document right here: “Where has the CFA been, where has the OFA been, in terms of this whole issue of the farm options program? Deathly silent.” They said, “We haven't heard from our farm organizations.”

I think we have a serious problem unless we're willing to address that. And we, as government, have a problem. I'm not suggesting that we're immune from this. I think we've all got to start addressing and moving forward and start thinking outside the box. If food security is important to this country, if we believe that, if government believes that, then we will find a way to do it, and we will find a policy that will surround that mission statement that we have.

Please help me, because I'm on my last legs in this business.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

There are a lot of questions there.

Mr. Friesen.

[Bob Friesen]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Someone at our farm income symposium said as long as we say we should think outside the box, we're still using the old box as a reference; we should just forget about it.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I didn't say “the old box”; I said “outside the box”.

[Bob Friesen]

On the Canadian farm bill, let me say again that if there's competition between the different departments, help us get rid of it. There's no reason why all the departments in charge of agriculture in Ottawa couldn't be working together as a team. There is no reason why the different provincial departments couldn't be working together as a team. They should be able to do that, and help us do it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Phillips wants in on this as well.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

But, Bob, they won't. They won't. How can we ever expect that to happen? You don't know what happened; I don't know what happened. I know this could take us all day, but, please....

[Richard Phillips]

Well, we were just talking about this in our office with the Canola Council of Canada, and they were saying, “What does it take to move on some of these things?” I said, “You know, it takes incredibly strong leadership from your ministers.” You need a strong minister on top of that department, and he has to have a mandate from the Prime Minister. That comes from the caucus. It comes from other people, when policies are developed, when we feed into all the political parties. We feed our ideas into all of them. But that's really what it takes. It takes a Prime Minister and a strong mandate to that minister, and the minister to drive it and make it happen.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Where is CFA on the Wheat Board? I want to have an answer to that before we leave this meeting.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Friesen.

[Bob Friesen]

He's mentioned a few other things that are very important—

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

But don't forget the Wheat Board. I want an answer on that.

[Bob Friesen]

Don't worry.

If we want all the farmers to speak as one voice, we try to work with other organizations as much as possible. But you know, we developed amazing consensus in the national safety net advisory committee, from every organization. Every organization across Canada was invited, and we developed an amazing consensus. It was a great advisory committee for the minister, and we'd like to have it back.

As far as the options program is concerned, there was no consultation before it was implemented. We wanted to make sure that it would work. We had some members who weren't terribly happy with it, but we also think that changing the rules in the middle of a program perhaps isn't the right way to go either. If there's money left over, we would like it to go towards the inventory evaluation. As far as the Wheat Board is concerned, I think it's beyond discussion on the pros and cons of the Wheat Board.

I'll be frank with you. Our members have told us that their members are divided, so we have focused on the process of getting to where farmers can make the decision. That's what we've been focusing on.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Your time has expired, Mr. Steckle.

Mr. Betker.

[Terry Betker]

I have just one quick point on the options program.

In a program like the options program that's going to be developed, as I said before, I would encourage that the department people who are in government, who are designing the program, include the private sector, such as accountants and business advisers. We technically don't get consulted in advance of the program, and then we're asked afterwards to try to deal with it. I think there would be value in including that group of people in some of the design of some of these programs.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

There is a quick question here from Mr. Miller.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Just on the farm options program, Bob, is it not true that the CFA—and I know a number of other farm organizations—came out very strongly opposed to the farm options program when it first came out, or were very critical of it anyway?