Agriculture Committee on May 13th, 2010

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

We'll move to Ms. Bonsant for five minutes.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Ms. Smith, you said that Quebec has programs. Yes, Quebec does have programs to help farmers. It is a social choice.

I met with your Minister of Agriculture yesterday, and the message was passed on. If we have that in Quebec, you can also have it here in the Maritimes. It is just a political choice. I told him that support was necessary if he wanted agriculture to survive here.

You are the last group we are meeting with. I am not a farmer like half of the people present here. Three years ago, I was not a member of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, which you met with. Could you tell me whether something has changed or not? Has anything been done over the last three years? Do not be shy.

[Mike Nabuurs]

Thank you for your question.

The answer is no. Nothing has changed.

But we have said that for a long time. Farmers continue to lose their equity. The problem is that we say that everyday. No one really listens, or no one wants to listen.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Nothing is changing.

[Mike Nabuurs]

Perhaps it is because farmers have said it for a long time.

Perhaps it is because we seem to have been crying wolf.

Maybe for a long time we've been crying wolf, but the reality is we are all getting to the cliff. In the Atlantic provinces, we are about to go over the cliff. And in terms of national programs that have been put in place to try to help, what has been put in place for the Atlantic region for the hog sector, for the red meat sector, is to encourage our producers to go out of business.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Okay. I do not have a lot of time, but I have a lot of questions to ask you.

Based on what I have seen, I say that you are not cowards. Some may think that farmers are lazy, but they should get smacked over the head—pardon my colourful language.

Personally, I noticed two problems. I think two programs could solve a lot of problems. First, there should be loan guarantees for young farmers who want to start off, and second, there should be decent income guarantees. With those two measures, young people could go into agriculture, and the farmers could have the guarantee of decent income. As a result, we would not need 72,000 programs. You would have cash flow to keep going—not only to survive on your farms, but also to make a living there.

What do you think about having only two well-thought-out programs instead of having 52 piles of useless papers? Do not be shy.

[Sally Bernard]

Yes, I think you're absolutely right. The need to cover the costs of production and some living wages has been mentioned by a few people. Great, we can cover our costs of production, but we all have other living expenses and they need to be covered as well. Absolutely, you're right, we need to improve the existing program.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Mr. Mol, my jaw dropped when you said that Europeans were not buying products from Canada because of tar sands development...

I am sorry, it was you who said that. No matter, this is the first time I have heard about that. So not only is the Canadian dollar up because of political environmental choices, but agriculture is also in trouble.

[Raymond Loo]

I nearly fell off my chair, too. It was brought very clearly to me when I was sitting there, this company I was dealing with, talking to, had agreed to meet with me and when I sat down and started explaining.... I will say it was right before the Copenhagen summit, so environment was very strong at that time. Basically what this company said was that they were worried about their consumers not wanting to buy a product that had a Canadian label on it.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

I think the people who participated in the Copenhagen conference understood that not all Canadians are against measures to combat climate change, but some of them are.

If the labels just indicated “product of the Maritimes“, do you think your products would be received better?

[Raymond Loo]

That's exactly what I immediately did, was show on the map where P.E.I.was, where we were. I talked about our wind power, I talked about our ability to trace everything from P.E.I. to show.... That's the first time I've kind of faced this issue, but it wasn't really surprising to the extent that Canada... In North America we don't do.... They were also worried about GMOs. It wasn't only the tar sands, it was the GMO issue as well.

In many of the areas in the rest of the world the concern is labelling. Consumers can decide if they want to buy GMO or non-GMO. When we go to Japan with our products, they mark “non-GMO” clearly, and in Europe it's clearly marked. So they were worried about that issue too.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thanks very much, Madam Bonsant.

We're now going to the NDP with Mr. Allen for five minutes.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thanks very much.

Thank you all for coming.

I want to pick up on a theme that came from three areas, but with a different sense. I think Ernie and Mike talked about a food policy that needs to be driven not necessarily by politicians, but by the agriculture sector. Sally had mentioned this whole sense of sustainability, and of course Maria had said quite clearly that we need an action plan.

Anyone else can feel free to jump in, but I'd like to pick up on those three themes, because I think they're intertwined in the sense of who writes the policy for farmers, where we go. I'm very interested in sustainability, but ultimately we need to have an action plan. I think it's what Raymond, Gerard, Maria, and others have said: there's been enough jawing, thank you very much; get on with it; let us know whether we're in or out at the end of the day. I think you really need to know that. If we're going to do something, you need to know whether you want to stay in it or get out of it. I think Maria said it quite clearly. You want to get on with your life--and that's fair. We thank you for telling us that, because you're right, you need to get on with your life. We can't be the impediment to the decision you need to make for the rest of your life as to what you do for yourself and your family, as to whether you stay in or get out of the business.

So if you could, give us a sense of where you think we need to go as far as a national food policy is concerned, sustainability, and what that action plan might look like--in broad strokes, obviously, because the chair will give me only five minutes...and a half, perhaps.

[Mike Nabuurs]

I'll start quickly to say that industry feels very strongly that it should be setting the policy for agriculture in this country. It should not be government's job. Industry has to take on that responsibility. I get very frustrated when we sit around a table and point fingers at government and say "Why doesn't government have a strategy for agriculture?", when agriculture doesn't have one itself.

So we have to take responsibility and set the policy for that. Then we need government to listen. I think industry has been trying to do that, somewhat unsuccessfully, but right now there is an initiative going on through the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. They are working very hard to bring in a wide range of industry stakeholders, not just primary producers but processors, retailers, consumers, other farm organizations, not just the CFA. The list goes on. Bring everyone together and say we have a country here that wants to have food security, and as an industry we have to get our ducks in a row, set some long-term goals, a vision, a strategy, and go to government and say this is what we want to have happen and here's the part that we as industry are going to play; now we need government to set the policy to make it happen.

That process is under way, but what we're really going to need, when everyone comes to the table, is to have government say that they really want to work with us to make our strategy happen. We'd really like to see that happen.

[Sally Bernard]

In response to sustainability, I guess everyone understands that sustainability has various pillars. There's financial sustainability and ecological sustainability. I think current policy is pointing firmly in the direction of bigger and better all the time--just increase and get bigger and bigger. And that's what's happening. There is a place for those big farms; as long as we have fuel, we're going to have big farms. But I think there's been a general push to get rid of the small, diverse farms. That is a really backwards move that we've made in terms of sustainability because we need those small farms. The big farms need the small farms. Small farms are what make up rural Canada, and there's probably an argument to be made about ecological sustainability in small farms versus big farms.

So that's where I think one of the problems with the current policy is, that it's really gearing toward bigger, better, and then everything will be solved. I think that's a huge problem.

[Raymond Loo]

I agree with Mike. The farming community has to come up with a vision of how we want to go. The government's job, in my perspective, is to facilitate that happening. Earlier I mentioned the fact that the provincial government was very helpful when I was going to trade in Japan. The federal government has been helpful as well. But for example, the embassy in Tokyo was not set up to answer my questions as a farmer. They were not used to farmers coming directly, just jumping on a plane and flying to Tokyo trying to find a market. They didn't know how to address it. What I was saying was that I wanted to go somewhere, find a market that wants to buy my stuff, and then I'd come back and see if I could grow it. Traditionally, we farmers always grow our stuff, then we wait for the phone to ring. If the phone doesn't ring, we're in big trouble. The system as it is right now makes it very difficult for farmers to go internationally to find markets.

I don't want to take away from the help. I have gotten assistance from the federal people in Charlottetown. They've actually been very helpful, except that the programs aren't necessarily in place to help.

I just wanted to make that point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Armstrong, for five minutes.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

First of all, I want to thank you all for being here this morning and for taking the time out of your busy schedules. I know it's a real difficult time for farmers to take this time, and we definitely appreciate it.

Tim, yesterday at our meetings we had a lot of discussion surrounding the importance of local and regional research. I think this relates to something that Raymond was just talking about here, being able to find new markets and maybe develop and grow products that will meet those new markets. From your background, do you have any opinions on the importance of local research for developing the future of farming in Prince Edward Island?

[Dr. Tim Ogilvie]

Let me tell you a story. Our milk cooperative in Summerside worked with the Atlantic Veterinary College on a project to identify producers who were producing and continue to produce high-quality milk with what would amount to a longer shelf life for their cheese product. We were doing the research from an epidemiological study and were looking at all the farms in the area. The results were so profound and so dramatic in terms of producing quality milk and translating that into a brand that they could market with longer shelf life and more appeal to the consumer that they jumped in before the research program was finished to try to allow themselves to pick up milk from various producers and use it in various ways to brand, identify, and differentiate their product. So it has not only long-term effects, but can be very important for immediate effects for food safety, food quality, and differentiation of products.

So, yes, I think a series of these processes can occur across the country at various institutions, not just veterinary, but agriculture, human health, and public health institutions as well.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Thank you.

Patrick, you spoke of several solutions. Of course the first one we've heard quite regularly is access to capital. Access to capital is an important one. The national young farmers strategy, the national food policy, the regional policy to stop inter-province competition with each other and work together. One of the other ones you talked about strongly is levelling the playing field. You mentioned country-of-origin labelling in the United States. Would a program like that benefit you in Canada to help secure more of the domestic market?

[Patrick Dunphy]

I don't know. It seemed like a real good point at the time. But now that you raise it, we're an exporting country, so what would that do to our exporting relationships? Before we jump on anything, I think we should maybe look at that and how that would impact our food exporters in Canada.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

Does anybody else have any opinions on country-of-origin labelling?

[Maria Smith]

I have a suggestion, something that has the same requirements as our food going out. I don't care if it's COOL or whatever the heck you want to call it. There has to be something in place for food that's coming into this country for Canadians; it has to have the same standards. I don't care if it wrecks our export market, but it has to be the same. So I disagree with Patrick.

Sorry, Patrick.

[Scott Armstrong, Conservative, Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, NS]

That's okay, you're allowed to disagree too. Sometimes we disagree as well.

[Maria Smith]

There definitely has to be something. Because I believe you guys have heard this, probably since you started in B.C. and then came to P.E.I., that it is a problem. Is it a common theme that you hear about food coming into our country not meeting the same standards? Is it the same? Okay, all right, I asked you a question.