Agriculture Committee on March 4th, 2008

[Nada Semaan]

You could ask Lloyd Rosser to respond to that one, if you don't mind. He is actually the person working on all the details.

[Rosser Lloyd, Director, Income Stabilization, Program Development, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Basically, what we're looking at is a 90-day T-bill rate on the accounts that are left. It's a rate that was provided similarly under the old net income stabilization accounts, so it will be familiar to producers.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much.

My next question is on the agri-recovery. Once again, it's a specific question, so I understand if you don't have the answer. Do you know how much of that $62.6 million has been sent to the province of Alberta and for what kinds of disasters?

[Nada Semaan]

In terms of the province of Alberta, as I mentioned, they can still take up the drought assistance program before the end of March. However, we are currently working with them on the potato cyst nematode on the seed potatoes. The government is very engaged with us. That is an issue we are having to respond to, and that package should be coming out shortly as well.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Excellent. Thank you very much.

I will ask you to continue to work with them. I mean, 73 out of 83 seats, but all 39 of the rural seats won. That's pretty impressive.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Madame Thai Thi Lac.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Good morning, and thank you for being here this morning. A number of questions that I wanted to ask have been asked by my colleagues. So I'm going to ask one that is further to that of my colleague Mr. Bellavance.

You said that the payments weren't necessarily allocated by province, but that they were by production. Can you tell us the allocation of payments by production in the case of the AgriInvest program?

[Nada Semaan]

We will provide you with the breakdown for Agrilnvest, by province. I don't have it with me, but we will provide that to the standing committee.

On the breakdown by commodity, these programs are whole-farm. Because of the trade implications, we stayed very far from doing breakdown by commodities. That makes them extremely trade-sensitive. The reason we designed them in the design of whole-farm is to make sure they weren't countervailable programs.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

The Main Estimates for Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada totalled $2.4 billion. With the Supplementary Estimates (A) and (B), available funding now totals more than $3.6 billion. How do you explain the need to ask for so much supplementary funding?

[Pierre Corriveau]

It's a question of timing. When the Main Estimates are prepared, in January or February, we don't have the information enabling us to determine what will be tabled in the context of the budget. In last year's budget, for example, it was approximately $2.4 billion. One billion dollars was announced in the 2007 budget, that is approximately $400 million for production costs and $600 million for start-up costs. That's why we requested an additional amount of approximately $500 million in the Supplementary Estimates (A) and the rest in the Supplementary Estimates (B). It's simply a question of synchronization in budget preparation.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

I have no further questions. Do you have any more, Mr. Bellavance?

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

In 1991-1992, approximately 4% of the total budget was allocated to agriculture. In 2004-2005, that figure fell to 2.5%, virtually half. Do you have any more up-to-date statistics on what Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada receives out of the overall budget?

[Pierre Corriveau]

As regards the percentage, we don't have the information to hand, but we can forward it to you, if you wish.

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

You know exactly how much it currently is in terms of amounts of money, but you don't know what that represents in percentage terms.

[Pierre Corriveau]

Correct.

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

If you can't give me the percentage, can you tell me how much it represents in terms of money allocated in the context of the budget?

[Pierre Corriveau]

It's approximately $3.7 billion. For the 2008-2009 budget, we're going to come back to the committee shortly to present our Main Estimates. Some elements that were not included in our Main Estimates will be included in the Supplementary Estimates (A) for 2008-2009. So basically it's approximately $2.4 billion, but that's subject to increases, as is currently the case.

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

Can you send us that information as well?

[Pierre Corriveau]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mrs. Skelton.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Your supplementary estimates provide $2 million for the Canadian Cattlemen's Association legacy fund, which we know goes toward developing markets for Canadian beef. What is this additional $2 million specifically intended for?

[Susie Miller]

There's a requirement in the legacy fund that the Canadian Cattlemen's Association provide an annual plan in terms of the money that they want to access. There are three organizations that can access that--the Canadian Beef Export Federation, the Canadian Beef Breeds Council, and the Beef Information Centre.

They have to put together an annual plan. That plan is developed by an advisory committee that is mainly producers but also has some government participation on it. It's also vetted by the Beef Value Chain Roundtable, which includes representatives all the way from the cow-calf producer to the retail sector.

In terms of their overall, I can give you a précis of it. Their activities, particularly for this year, and they do plan to continue for the next several years, are focused on regaining their markets in Asia and Mexico, repositioning the Canadian beef exports as being a superior product, and taking advantage of the unique features of Canada, including the investments they've put into environmental measures, their food safety, traceability, animal identification--that sort of thing.

In terms of the extra $2 million, it's hard to break it out because it's part of the full $7 million, half of which is government money. The other half actually comes from producer check-off.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

It's a check-off that's taken off when livestock is sold.

So basically it's marketing, then, or a little bit of everything thrown together.

[Susie Miller]

No, the activities are solely on marketing, and depending on what you define as marketing, it may include some consumer research, for example, or market research, identification of the positive attributes of beef for their customers.

In essence, it's not for research, for example, or for regulatory activity or anything like that. It's to regain the markets, including working with the producers internationally to enhance the understanding of the Canadian beef production and processing system.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

So we go from there. Does it go into the semen and embryos market?