Evidence of meeting #21 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was farmers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Mr. Richards, the time is up. Maybe there's another round. There is going to be another Conservative to ask questions. We have to go back to the Liberals.
Mr. Valeriote.
May 14th, 2009 / 12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
Mr. White, you indicated you were planning a meeting with the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. Has that meeting been scheduled? Have you already met with him? Can you give some clarity on that?
12:40 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Wheat Board
There have been attempts to meet. I think there have been some scheduling issues in recent times. We are now looking for a further time to meet, but we haven't had one at this stage.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
Okay. Would you advise us as to when you are able to set up a meeting with the minister?
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
All right.
I am curious now. Mr. Anderson had asked you a number of questions about the contingency fund, but I don't think he allowed you the opportunity to respond. Would you like that opportunity now to explain?
12:40 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Wheat Board
I think I've explained it fairly well so far. There is no question that there were some issues associated with that particular market circumstance and they were addressed.
On the question of Gibson Capital, we took an honest view that we needed to find an expert firm in this field. Irrespective of the prior employment of some of these people, we felt that this was far enough away and that the work they had done in other fields in risk management gave them a great body of work and credentials.
Personally, I have to say I saw no bias associated with this at all. It was very independent in terms of what they did.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
At the risk of being challenged, I don't think you need to learn any lessons about transparency or bias from the fellows across the desk from here.
I would like to ask you this. How many farmers are a part of the Wheat Board? Do you know?
12:40 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Wheat Board
It's in permit book holders, and this is probably one of the points of contention. It's in the order of around 55,000 to 60,000 farmers.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
Right, and I understand that Mr. Rutter and Mr. Bender's organization represents 600. So it is a very, very small percentage. Would that be accurate?
12:45 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Wheat Board
With respect, I think it is a different question. Permit book holders for the Wheat Board are compelled to supply their wheat and barley to the Wheat Board, so it is not a voluntary choice by them. But there are a large number of those.
I have to say that in terms of the survey results that the Wheat Board does regularly, which we will provide to the government and to the committee, as we did last year, the current results, which we don't have, which our board hasn't seen yet, show the following. As Mr. Hill said, on the question of whether the farmers support the Wheat Board, in a fairly extensive survey 70% of farmers are saying they do.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
Okay.
Can you answer this? I have to admit I'm puzzled. Mr. Bender feels that if he is allowed to be outside the Wheat Board and compete on his own, he's likely to get a better price. That's the bottom line. I am wondering what the strategies are that Mr. Bender has available to him to get a better price. If that's true, what are the strategies available to him to get a better price? Does he have better access to markets? Does he have better negotiating skills? What is it that would cause him to say that?
12:45 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Wheat Board
Maybe you should ask him.
12:45 p.m.
President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Wheat Board
I think the issue is that in a deregulated environment certain farmers who are close to domestic markets or who have particular qualities of grain may be able to get a better premium or a better price than the collective.
The system that we have in western Canada of a single-desk system is one where all of the grain is sold together, and we hope to attract overall value associated with that. The criticism of this is that people can't price their own grain. What the Wheat Board attempts to do is allow farmers to price their grain basically emulating the futures markets.But I think you have to recognize that that isn't the same as their going and trying to make a deal themselves. By making a deal themselves, of course, there would be all those other farmers trying to make the same sort of deal.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
I have just one small question, and that is of Richard Phillips.
Richard, you were talking about research. Other than pouring more money into research, is there a particular model you have in mind, and has there been a reduction in research funds that have been offered and given by the government, or an increase? Do you know the trend?
12:45 p.m.
Executive Director, Grain Growers of Canada
We're talking primarily about the A-base, the core research dollars, and it's our understanding that it's been frozen for a number of years, going back even maybe to the previous government. Simply inflation alone means a reduction of them. That's why you see a drop from 28 down to 5. Part of that is simply that there's no new money going in there. That's what we're talking about.
Since we're out of time, maybe we could put something to this committee on what we'd like to see for a model.
12:45 p.m.
Executive Director, Grain Growers of Canada
I'm sorry, Mr. Wilton, could I have a copy of your presentation today? Thank you.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Thank you very much.
It's time to bring it back to the Conservatives now and Mr. Dreeshen.
12:45 p.m.
Conservative
Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer, AB
Thank you very much.
I am a grain producer and I deliver grain through the Canadian Wheat Board. I see no great clamour from producers outside of the Prairies to join up with the Canadian Wheat Board. I just wanted to put that into context so you recognize that.
I would like to talk about the Auditor General and the potential for her to discuss some of the areas and look into some of the things that are happening.
Mr. Chair, could I have you remind me when I have about 30 seconds left?