Agriculture Committee on May 30th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I call this meeting to order.

We are continuing on with committee business. We need first to move Mr. Easter's motion back onto the floor.

Mr. Hubbard.

[Charles Hubbard, Liberal, Miramichi, NB]

The motion reads as follows, Mr. Chair:

That the Standing Committee of Agriculture and Agri-Food recommend that the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food immediately rescind the changes announced to the Canadian farm families options program on April 20, 2007 and restore the provisions of the program as originally announced.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Okay, it's moved by Mr. Hubbard on the floor.

Mr. Devolin.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's good to be back in this nice cozy little room we have here.

Yesterday, before I was interrupted by the bells, I was making an effort to make a case to my committee colleagues that the money that will be freed up by the minister's decision to change the Canadian farm families options program could be better spent elsewhere. I pointed out the fact that when the program was initially announced, there was much criticism of it and people were saying that it was inappropriate or that it wasn't the best way to go about doing things. The minister has responded to that and made some changes, but most importantly, he said that the dollars that had initially been earmarked for the program would remain there for farmers, and that those dollars would be spent on farm programs.

It was in that context that I started to think about some of the alternatives that we might be able to spend those dollars on if we had access to them. Recently both through regular committee hearings as well as in our coast-to-coast consultations, we heard a lot of good ideas. Therefore, I said that it was my goal to present some of those ideas we heard in those meetings and some other ideas that I've heard here and there in my riding and elsewhere, and from some of my more experienced colleagues around this table, and to put those ideas on the table, and in so doing convince a majority of members of this committee that we ought to actually defeat Mr. Easter's motion, and that those dollars could be better spent somewhere else.

I had started to identify a few examples that I had come up with myself really in an attempt to persuade my colleagues to change their point of view. I said that in a quick brainstorm I had come up with a dozen ideas. Yesterday, in the brief time that I had, I had the opportunity to cover three of those and I'd like to move on to the balance of that list today. Before I do that, I just want to briefly recap the three that I did cover yesterday.

The first was that I think we should be investigating some sort of a program to help young farmers buy farms. We heard some interesting ideas and we have some interesting ideas. I suggested that possibly we should look to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and some of the programs they had developed over the years to help young families buy homes. Maybe some of that logic or some of those financial structures could be used with farm purchasing.

The second idea that I put forward was to do with genetics. I pointed out that for many livestock farmers in Canada, in addition, possibly, to their primary source of income--for dairy farmers I was thinking it would be their milk cheque, obviously--that exporting genetics—semen, embryos as well as live animals—was a very important secondary income stream for them.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chair, the member really is off the topic, because as we told him a number of times yesterday, this deals with the provisions of the program as originally announced. The ideas he's talking about are wonderful ideas and we'd love to see the government come forward with moneys in those areas. However, this was a program that low-income farmers had planned on. They had planned on it. Their tax advisors advised them how to utilize it. He is off the topic in talking about farm purchases and so on. That's not what this program was designed for. It was designed to put over $18,000 into the pockets of farm families who met low-income criteria. Thousands met those low-income criteria. The government retroactively stopped the program, which threw everybody into a lurch.

If he's going to propose plans that he thinks we could support, then tell us how those plans are specifically going to target the low-income families who would have benefited from this particular program, now that they knew what it was going to do. The critique we outlined last year was because the program was after the fact and it was at the end of the tax year. The tax year was long over. They couldn't meet the criteria at that time.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Breitkreuz, on a point of order.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Conservative, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Chair, as I'm listening to this member, it's pretty obvious that the points he's making relate directly to what the issue is here, which is helping farmers get established, helping them make their farming operations more viable to the point where we wouldn't even require a farm family options program.

So with all due respect, I really dispute what the member opposite is trying to say. I think this directly relates to what the topic is here. I object strongly to what he's trying to say.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Miller, if you're on the same point.

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

A point of order here again.

As I pointed out yesterday, Mr. Easter is inferring that farmers planned on this; basically, you planned to cook the books or whatever. Again, the farmers I know don't do that. To say they planned that, you don't plan hard times in agriculture. It just happens, whether it's weather or whatever. I don't have to tell anybody that, and I shouldn't have to remind Mr. Easter.

To infer that farmers are cooking their books is wrong, and I think—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

You know, I'm going to suggest to all members that if you want to get on the speakers list and participate in the debate, indicate that to me. Let's make the points of order actual points of order.

Mr. Devolin, you have the floor.

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

Thanks.

I appreciate the sentiment that it's important that the things I'm bringing forward do relate directly to keeping families on the farm and keeping farming viable in Canada. This is not a random list of ideas. This is a specific list of ideas that deal directly with that issue of how we can make farming more viable in Canada, how we can get more farmers on the land, and how we can keep them there.

I was talking about genetics assistance. I won't go over everything I said yesterday. The bottom line is that there are a lot of farmers in Canada--I'm thinking primarily of dairy producers, but also sheep breeders, those who raise breeding stock, as well as goat producers and others--who were sideswiped by BSE. I think that possibly we should be looking at ways to help that industry get back on its feet, because it.... A cow that is sold overseas as breeding stock is worth a lot more than one going into a packing plant. And so I think that it's a smaller number of very high-value animals.

The third thing I touched on very briefly yesterday was biofuels and some of the opportunities that exist out there with renewable energy. The government has, over the past year and a half, committed significant amounts of money to biofuel. In my part of central Ontario, there's an ethanol plant going in, and I know that farmers, particularly corn producers, in my area are very excited about that.

But I'd like to move on, because I'd like to get through this list.

Recently when we were in Washington discussing the U.S. Farm Bill, we heard a lot of interesting ideas. If people actually take a look at the U.S. Farm Bill, what's interesting is that there are different sections in that bill that deal with different things.

One of them is conservation and conservation measures. I've heard it many times from farmers that they're in favour of protecting the environment as much as anyone. In fact, as stewards of the land, people who are on the land themselves and have their hands in the earth on a regular basis, they would claim in fact that they are more concerned with clean air, clean water, and clean soil than the average person is.

One of their complaints is that farmers can't bear the full cost of the public good, which is clean water, clean land, and clean air. As an example, here in Ontario the provincial government is barging ahead with the Clean Water Act. It's certainly hard to stand up and say that you're against clean water. It's a lot easier to stand up and say that the cost of ensuring clean groundwater and clean surface water in Ontario should not be the sole responsibility of farmers.

Farmers are required to spend tens of thousands, possibly hundreds of thousands, of dollars on environmental structures on their land. These are improvements that are made to reduce the impact that it makes on the environment but that have no impact on their bottom line. They don't get any more money selling their product simply because they've spent $100,000 on some sort of a structure on their property.

The joke is, you pay people not to farm, but I think there are places where farmers own property that maybe is not ideally suited for agriculture. It may be an area, whether it's a ravine or a wetland or some other natural feature that has a significant natural heritage value, and there is indeed a public interest in preserving that. But the point is that the farmer shouldn't have to bear the whole cost of that.

That's something I think we, as parliamentarians, and the minister and the government should look at--how do we ensure that, on the one hand, we protect the environment and do everything reasonable to protect the quality of our water and our soil, and at the same time not create a situation where a small number of people, namely farmers, are asked to carry the vast bulk of that cost?

The end goal, which is protecting the environment, is laudable and I imagine everybody supports it, but there has to be some discussion about who pays for it. And that's an important measure that I think we could look at.

Another component of the U.S. Farm Bill is rural development. That's potentially a very broad topic. In our federal government as well as in, I expect, most provincial governments, there is a department or ministry dedicated to rural development. As my colleagues know, in a small community sometimes it's some sort of infrastructure or some sort of facility, whether it's an abattoir or whether it's a transportation facility. In the last few years the availability of high-speed Internet has become a major issue; farmers who run multi-million-dollar operations need to have access to the world and the information highway.

When I think of rural development, I think of the importance of quickly developing and implementing a strategy—

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

We're not talking broad policies.

Let me read you what the minister said about this program:

The Canadian Farm Families Options program will help lower-farm-income families explore options to raise their income in the future. Options is a pilot program with a federal commitment of $550 million over two years.

He goes on to talk about business and technical assistance.

That's what we're talking about. It's for low-income farm families. That's what we want reinstated. You're off the topic in terms of why you are voting against this particular motion that would restore the $246 million that this government and this minister have broken their word on--have violated the trust and taken it right out of their pockets.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I'll say it again: that's a point of debate, not a point of order.

Go ahead, Mr. Devolin.

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

I thought I had done a good job of making the connection between the points that I'm making and my general opposition to Mr. Easter's motion, but apparently I haven't, so I'll go back and do it again.

The minister committed a significant amount of money, over $500 million, to help farm families in Canada. There was a particular program put forward, the Canadian Farm Family Options program. I recall that when that program was introduced, it met with widespread criticism; many people thought it was inappropriate and that it was not the way to address the farm income challenge.

Where we're at now, Mr. Chair, is I believe my recommendations are not only somewhat on the mark; I actually believe they're entirely on the mark. The mark is, what do we do? I believe the minister made the right decision when he changed this program. I believe he made the right decision when he said that money was going to stay on the table to help Canadian farm families.

I think we should be moving on; that's why I will be voting against Mr. Easter's motion. I do not think we should rescind the changes; I think we should accept the changes as announced by the minister, and we should endeavour immediately to identify ways that the money that will be available now can be used to address the very problem that was initially identified by the minister, that being an income crisis on family farms.

I would rather see tax dollars spent in Canada figuring out ways to keep people on the farm, rather than spending tax dollars figuring out ways to help people get off the farm. I think this is an opportunity for us, and that's why I said when I started that my goal was to identify a list of ideas that I have had. I admit that there may be others at this table with other ideas and I look forward to hearing them, but these are some ideas that I want to put forward. My goal, as I've always said, is to present an argument that is so sufficiently compelling to other members of this committee as to cause them to change their position and come around to my position, which is that we ought to oppose this motion and that we ought to be thinking about other things to do with this money. That's where I'm at.

I believe I was on point five, which is on rural development. More specifically, I was talking about the need to expand access to high-speed Internet to farm families across Canada as quickly as possible. We all know that this will not be inexpensive. In my own riding there are places where they're laying fibre optic cable—

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I have a question for my colleague. What he is saying is all well and good, but I would like him to tell me what he plans to do with $246 million, given what he has just told us. Farmers will not be getting a lot in each category. There is not a great deal available, given the $246 million that the minister does not want to put back on the table and the plans he has just shared with us. That is my opinion.

You should be very careful about what you say because these proceedings are recorded and your words can come back to haunt you. At some point, these words could be thrown back at you in the House or elsewhere. Someone could claim that Mr. Devolin said this or that. You represent the governing party, so you should choose your words carefully.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Merci. Again, that is a point of debate, not a point of order.

I encourage anyone who wants to speak to the motion to put their names on the list, but right now Mr. Devolin has the floor.

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

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I take the point that with $246 million available, it would not be possible to fully finance all of the ideas I am putting on the table. I'm not presenting these ideas as some sort of strategy with several components. I'm presenting them more as a laundry list of ideas.

My hope, as I said before, is that one or two or three of these ideas will pique the interest of my colleagues and will cause them to get excited enough about them that they actually choose to change their vote.

While I recognize that there is certainly not enough money.... For example, in terms of rural development and infrastructure, absolutely, telecommunications infrastructure is very expensive, and obviously we couldn't do all we need to do for $246 million. But I think $246 million would go a long way towards getting some of the other ideas I've raised off the ground.

Moving along, another chapter that's in the USDA 2007 Farm Bill has to do with nutrition. It's interesting that, when you actually look at the Farm Bill, you see that a large amount is for the nutrition food stamps program. I'm not suggesting we introduce the same thing in Canada, but I do think that one way we can make agricultural issues more relevant to all Canadians—not just rural Canadians who are on the farm, but all Canadians—is to put thbem in a context that's relevant to them.

Just in reading the newspapers and watching TV, you'll see that there's a heightened interest in nutrition in Canada. If we can link what we're doing in agriculture to improve nutrition to this, it is something that actually paves the way for an appetite for more money, for example. If 33 million Canadians thought there were a program that would directly benefit them and their families by improving nutrition and the general quality of the food they eat, I think they would support it. That's another area we could look at to help make the link better from farm issues to food issues.

I'm going to move right along here, Mr. Chair. My seventh idea is this. We've heard a lot of talk about organic farming. There is a customer demand for organic farming.

Last year I was in British Columbia, in Whistler in a grocery. What was interesting is that whereas In most grocery stores you see the mainstream fruit and vegetable section and then over in the corner maybe there's a smaller organic section, in Whistler there was only one section in the supermarket, and it was organic. I had never seen that before. In that community there was a mainstream supermarket that was exclusively selling organic fruits and vegetables.

It was something I hadn't seen before, but as we all know, the west coast of North America is the birthplace of many of our long-term social trends, so maybe this is something that will be coming soon to a town near me. I can tell you, if it does, and if we get to the point where there is a larger number of consumers who want to buy organic produce, I think that's an opportunity for farmers.

In my own riding, for example, I have some organic farmers. I have one organic dairy farmer currently and I know there is a demand for organic milk. I also know that currently there are seven dairy farmers who are in the midst of the transition process to becoming certified organic, and as most of my colleagues would know, typically that's a three-year process.

A farmer has to basically hire a consultant—this has to be a recognized consultant—to come in to write a plan for them, so that over three years or so they get to the point where, if they do all the things that are prescribed, they actually can become certified organic. There are currently seven dairy farms in my riding, which is a significant number, that are in this process right now.

One of the other ideas I'd like to put forward, for which I hope there is broad support and which might generate a little excitement, would be maybe we should be looking at some sort of program that would financially and otherwise assist mainstream farmers in this transition to organic farming. Maybe there's something we can be doing that we recognize in the long run there are opportunities for. It is in the broader public interest to have viable farms and to keep families on the farm, and if in the future there is going to be growth in the consumer demand for organic agricultural products, then maybe we should be assisting farmers to jump over that threshold to get to a place where they want to be but for cashflow reasons are unable to do it on their own.

Mr. Chair, in Ontario an analogy or a comparison I would use is the vineyards down in the Niagara area, where 20 years ago the vast majority of grapes grown in Ontario were--I don't want to call them low-quality grapes--Concord grapes that were used to make low-value products, and government at that time decided that there were great opportunities in Ontario to actually move into a higher-value product. I only speak of Ontario because that's the example I'm most familiar with. You don't tear your vines out one day and have fresh grapes off new vines the next year. It takes a period of time. But the government spends money on some stuff that doesn't seem to make much sense, and other times you look at a program and think it was a good idea. That was something that has paid off big time in the Niagara Peninsula, not only for the wineries but for tourism and other opportunities it has spawned.

Maybe some sort of transitional program to organic farming is something we could look into. We could investigate and possibly recommend to the government that this would be something that might have a long-term impact of keeping families on the farm, and might even, in the very short term, provide some hope.

I said yesterday that when the Canadian farm family options program was first announced it caused me some discomfort. I had some mixed feelings about it. Rationally I understood why it was being done, but on another level I didn't like it, because it wasn't offering hope. It wasn't offering hope on the farm anyway. With the farmers I have met, both before I was elected and since I have been elected, what never ceases to amaze me is the value proposition that they're prepared to offer consumers, which is that they will invest large amounts of money, they will work from dawn until dusk, and all they want is a basic living out of it. Farmers are resilient, and they are financially resilient, and the fact that like Rocky they are still on their feet 13 rounds into this is a real tribute to Canadian farmers. In our committee, even if we came forward with some ideas that offered some hope to those farmers, and said we are thinking about the future and we have some ideas, the government has money on the table and here are some ideas for things we would like to get going, and if you move forward with these maybe they can benefit from them, maybe that's all some farmers might need to stick it out a little longer and hang in there.

We all agree with the fact that most farmers we talk to want to stay farming. It's the oldest joke. When the farmer wins a million dollars and the lottery people ask what is he going to do, he says he'll just keep farming until it's all gone. Coming up with a program like a transitional program to move into organic may be something that's of value.

[An hon. member]

He's sneezing on you.

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

When I ask that you get excited about these proposals, I wasn't thinking that you'd have quite that reaction.

[An hon. member]

I'm allergic to it.

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

Anyway, that's number seven.

Moving along to number eight, one of the concerns that has been raised in a particular part of my riding in central Ontario is that some farmers are in a tight spot and they're being offered payment to put sludge on their land.

In some cases, it's sewage sludge that comes from sewage treatment plants. I'm told by some people that's a good idea. I don't know enough to argue that. There's also paper sludge being used in Brock Township, which is in my riding, and that causes a great deal of concern to farmers, neighbouring farmers, to members of the community, and to me. This paper sludge results when they recycle paper over and over. After a few times you're left with this stuff that you can't even recycle into the lowest quality of paper. This is some of the stuff. Now, there is organic material in it. I recognize that. But there are concerns that spreading that on the land, in the short term, possibly because you could use the money, may not in the long run be the best for the land. As I said, I'm not a farmer myself and I'm not an expert on soil, but I certainly think that identifying potential revenue streams, and the use of this is proof of the tough spot that some farmers are in, and quite frankly, having some regulations around what can or cannot be added to the soil in terms of long-term implications or in terms of run-off is something we should look at.

In that area, most of the run-off goes into Lake Simcoe. Just recently, in fact, the government announced $12 million to look at water quality in the Lake Simcoe basin. I'm pretty sure that one of the issues that's going to get looked at is what's being put on the land upstream a little way, particularly paper sludge and where that might lead. Anyway, I don't want to spend too long on that. That was number eight.

Number nine, something that I've heard in my riding and we've heard different places is it seems impossible for local farmers to get their produce into local supermarkets, into local retailers. I don't know what the answer to that is. I know it's true where I come from. I know my wife and I have tried to be good consumers and support our local farmers and support Canadians, but she has a hard time sometimes. We go to the local grocery store at the end of August or in September and we want to buy corn on the cob and it doesn't look like the stuff that's being grown in the fields that we had to drive past to get to the store. We find out after the fact that it's actually been imported from somewhere else, and the local farmers who produce sweet corn can't figure out how to sell it. So that's another area.

I go back to the point that Roger made, which is that $246 million can't fund all of these ideas or solve all these problems, and I agree with that. But I think that sometimes there are things the government can do that don't necessarily have to cost a lot of money because government has fiscal levers that it can use to influence people's behaviour. We have other regulatory and legislative tools that we can look at, and I can't for the life of me figure out why I can't get local produce in some of our local stores. So I can tell you, if we want to send a signal to a lot of small farmers that we're their friends and we're going to try to do something for them, I think that saying that we're interested in this issue.... I appreciate my colleague Larry, who has raised this issue before, and I know it's an issue in not only his and my riding but across the country. So that's number nine.

Number 10 is related to that--I appreciate that I may be, in this one, wandering a little further from a direct connection than I have up until now, but I still think it's valid--and it is to look at labelling. We've heard this, that you buy a jar of pickles that says “product of Canada”, and then you find out that the cucumbers were grown in China. I'll bet if you went into a supermarket and asked 100 consumers where they thought those cucumbers were from, 99 of them would say that they must be from Canada because it says “product of Canada” on the label.

While I appreciate in the modern economy the importance of value added and what it means and where the value is added, I also suspect that the pickle company probably doesn't want to put “grown in China” on the label. That to me in itself is proof that they know consumers would not want to see that. So they carefully chose their words to say produced in Canada, which is technically true and meets the current legislative and regulatory requirements. But I would say it fails to meet the kind of simple honesty test that I think Canadian consumers expect, not only from food processors and corporate citizens in Canada, but also from government. I think this is a related topic. That's number ten.

Concerning number 11, recently a farmer in my area who is doing a variety of things.... It's a kind of what I'll call a modern mixed farm. This couple do everything from producing maple syrup to doing some logging on their property to running a harvest share program that my wife and I participate in during the summertime, whereby every week we go and get a box full of whatever was harvested that week. It's great, because we always have fresh local food. My kids are actually figuring out that the stuff that shows up on the supper table had to come from somewhere and are getting to see where it's coming from.

This couple wanted to start what you might call agri-tourism or agri-education. The idea was that they use organic farming principles, and they think there's a business opportunity to bring in people from other countries and from other places who would come and stay on their farm and work alongside them for a period of time, almost in an apprenticeship, to learn more about it.

They were well down this road and had launched a website and had developed a program and had marketed a little bit, and at the eleventh hour, right before they were about to start this little program that they had invested in, the insurance company came along and sabotaged it. The insurance company said they would discontinue their insurance if they brought these people onto their property to work there.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I think that's the key point. The key point is, as the member just mentioned, that he's going after the insurance company for cancelling the program at the eleventh hour. This is what this motion is all about. At the eleventh hour and fifty-five minutes, the government cancelled a program that farmers had counted on for $246 million for low-income farm families.

That's what's it's all about. You've just made our point. So I would expect you now to reconsider and support our motion.

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

I appreciate that input. Actually, I appreciate all of these interventions, because it lets me know that people are listening. Sometimes I'm afraid that people aren't paying attention to me, that it's like home, people pretend they're listening, but they're not really. When someone picks up on a small point like that, I know that they are hanging on every word, so I'll be particularly careful.

The bottom line is that there are other barriers out there sometimes to some of our creative farmers who are looking for different ways to generate revenue from their land base and to do things. I think that's another area that we could look at--to try to identify some of these other barriers and approaches. The insurance companies aren't going to probably change their policies in response to a single farmer who's trying to create a new business opportunity, but they might to government, which may come along and encourage them to change the provisions of their policies.

Mr. Chair, that's number 11. I want to move on to my twelfth point. I had these 12 yesterday. Do you know what the crazy thing is? When we were here two days ago--it seems like two days ago, but it was only yesterday--I said I had 12. But do you know what's exciting? And I was thinking about this last night. Actually, there are more than 12 points that could be made. I have saved the big one for last, the one that I feel very passionately about and that I'm going to want to really make a pitch for here to my colleagues.

This really has to do with the whole local food, farm-fresh wave that's building out there. Mr. Chairman, some of my own colleagues, maybe some of my own colleagues right in my own caucus, who are farmers, when I first brought this up thought maybe I was stretching a bit here, that this wasn't necessarily a farm issue or directly an agriculture issue. Some of them pointed out to me the fact that I'm actually not a farmer and that I'm looking at things from a funny point of view. But I persevered and I said the funny point of view that I'm looking at these issues from is a consumer's point of view. I talk about food issues as well as farm issues.

Here's what I believe. I believe when we, as members of this committee or members of Parliament, talk about farm issues or talk about agriculture issues, a large percentage of Canadians, and unfortunately a growing percentage of Canadians, who aren't connected to the farm, who live in urban or suburban areas, tune us out. And that's not fair, but I think it's true.

I think that a lot of people, when they hear about farmers being in trouble, or this or that, roll their eyes and say, “Oh, there go the farmers again; we've heard this before”, and they don't pay any attention because they don't think it connects to them. With respect to many of these issues that are on the table, if we change the language and talk about them as food issues, all of a sudden we have a much larger potential audience. Food is important to everybody. When you start talking about food, even people who live in our largest cities know that it is relevant to them in a sense. Even just from a communications point of view, if the farm and the agricultural community too, when possible or when relevant, cast an issue in the context of food rather than in the context of farm and agriculture, I think we can build and find allies, alliances. If that is old wine in new bottles, then that's fine.

This whole local food movement is growing. Again, I'll go back to our trip to Washington two weeks ago. I found it interesting. I think on three or four occasions, at three or four different meetings, when we were talking about the U.S. Farm Bill and what we were doing there and international trade, somehow the issue of local food popped up.

I think in particular about when we were at the NFU. The executive director said.... I don't remember the exact words, but basically, when we talked about the future and what they saw on the horizon, he said, the next big thing we see is this whole focus on local food and food quality and food safety: where our food comes from, how fresh it is. We're learning more and more all the time that food freshly harvested has health and nutritional benefits that even that same food has that maybe has been sitting in a box or sitting in a box that's sitting in a train or sitting in a ship or in a truck and has been transported hundreds or thousands of kilometres. There are some advantages.

I think this is possibly the greatest opportunity for many Canadian farmers. I recognize that for parts of Canada—for example, out on the prairies and in the grain-producing areas such as where David is from—a stand at the end of your laneway selling wheat by the tractor trailerload maybe isn't something that's practical. If you didn't have to sell it to the Wheat Board, even then you probably still couldn't sell it at the end of your laneway. But where I live, an hour north of Toronto, most of my farmers live an hour—in the middle of the night, and probably two hours in the middle of the day—from four million people. There are great opportunities, I think, for local food.

I've talked to people about this, and farmers are bringing this to me. Some of them are what I'll call the crunchy granola crowd; they're the former hippie types you might expect to hear this from. But I've heard it from some pretty mainstream farmers too: the guy with the two-ton diesel pickup is also talking to me about the opportunities they see—the hard business opportunities they see—through producing local food.

It's not creating a wave; it's riding this wave that consumers are demanding. Consumers are increasingly sophisticated. Consumers are increasingly demanding more and more from the companies and the individuals who supply them with the things they want and need, such as food.

Just recently the problems with wheat gluten imported from China raised a lot of issues. It's some kind of crazy irony that it took the death of a bunch of pets to put food safety on the North American radar screen, but it has happened.

I think there are unbelievable opportunities for lots of farmers in Canada, for young farmers in Canada, to take a farm—where I'm from, possibly a 100-acre farm rather than a 500-acre farm or a 1,000-acre farm—and actually make a living.

There's a growing demand for it. What I say, when I talk to my non-farm constituents, is that I think there are a lot of good reasons why somebody may—

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

On a point of order.

While you check your BlackBerry, sir, I would point out that this is your twelfth and final point. I just wanted to thank you. It means we are finally going to proceed to a vote and discuss the report. I remind committee members that we have received a letter from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture urging us to proceed as quickly as possible to study the report.

As I stated yesterday, I have finished reading the report. In fact, I have read it twice and I have a number of comments to make. I want to thank Barry for making his twelfth point and thereby allowing us to vote on the motion and move on to Alex's motion, and then vote on that motion as well before finally getting down to the real business at hand. Of course, we are doing real work. I would not want to insult anyone by implying otherwise. Regardless, it is time to move on and examine the report.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Breitkreuz has a point of order.