Agriculture Committee on May 13th, 2010

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

Right, yes.

[Raymond Loo]

I think we definitely should have on the product when we go to the store where the product was produced, where it's coming from. I've got a blue label, I was just looking at it yesterday, on parmesan cheese. I was looking at the label. There's only a Loblaws address in Toronto. We have no idea whether that cheese came from Canada. It probably was, because it's a protected marketplace. But it's only an example of how hard it is, how really difficult it is. Loblaws and Sobeys don't make any mistakes; they want to build loyalty to themselves. They don't want to build loyalty to the farmers, and they don't want to build loyalty to anywhere else except themselves. So they're not really in favour necessarily of having everything labelled on where it's coming from. But from out perspective, it's extremely important for consumers to be able to choose. We should know when they pick up something where it comes from. I don't think that's going to hurt our international markets for our consumers to know where the product is coming from.

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

Sally, just real quickly, you talked about the domestic fair trade system. We have also heard a consistent message. I was here yesterday and today, but I also talked to other farmers in my own riding. There's a lot of pecking away by retailers. So the price the consumers pay is vastly different from what you receive as profits. Can you just expand on that? Do you think we should legislate some sort of standard, some sort of legislative fair trade system to make sure retailers are returning a certain amount of profit to the agricultural producers? Could you expand on that just a bit? And maybe someone else could comment also.

[Sally Bernard]

Yes, I guess that's the idea.

Randall, you might want to speak a bit further on it.

[Randall Affleck]

Essentially a lot of farmers in the NFU are of the opinion that the current domestic food system is totally broken. So this is an alternative strategy, not a solution for everybody, but a system that's based on fairly traded coffee and bananas. We're used to that on an international basis, as consumers who are interested can purchase food that's produced to a certain standard or in a certain way.

So we would create that organization within the country, within the domestic food system. Essentially, in terms of sustainability, the price negotiations would be for the cost of production plus; and then whatever the consuming public were interested in having as a standard, they would negotiate that within this body.

So it wouldn't be legislation per se against the retailers—although, personally, I have no problem with legislating retailers.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Randall Affleck]

They're nothing but a bunch of bandits.

We're essentially trying to develop, as a group of producers and consumers, a model that's different from what we have now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

I just have two points.

Maria, your comments about country-of-origin labelling and about foods having the same standards deal with two totally different issues. Personally, I can certainly support having the same standards for food that's coming in. I don't want to pre-empt what our report will say, but I will probably be surprised if that isn't one of the recommendations in it. But time will tell.

Also, Raymond, regarding your comment about knowing where our food comes from, we do have “Product of Canada” labelling out there today. I still think there needs to be a lot of education of the consumer out there, and government and industry have a role there in getting that message out. But you can safely assume today that if it does not have “Product of Canada” on it, then it isn't. It's as simple as that.

There are still some misleading labels out there, such as “Processed in Canada”.... Maybe that's not one of the misleading ones, because we do want to protect our food processors here. But there are other labels. On wine, somebody will tell me that it's “Bottled in Canada”. Well, they bring it in from Italy or France, or wherever, and that's sometimes misleading. I think we can probably do some work on that, including with some other products.

But you can only put “Product of Canada” on a label if it is truly a product of Canada. So the consumer has to be educated about that angle. I just wanted to make that point.

We'll now move to Mr. Eyking for five minutes.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank you to the witnesses for coming here this morning.

When you drive through P.E.I. and you see that beautiful soil and the very well-kept farms.... But we're learning this morning there's a dark side to it all in the agriculture industry: how do we maintain farming in P.E.I.?

We've travelled the country. We've seen in the Okanagan Valley where there are big estates, big homes being built on these ten-acre plots, where people have a few horses in the yard, but the reality is they're not producing agriculture for the long term. Is that what's going to happen with P.E.I., where it's just going to be a place for people to come and have a good time, but at the end of the day there'd be no agriculture? I think that would be a tragic thing, especially with such good farmland.

How do we turn this around, assuming that for some reason all the government moneys...? Let's look at this differently. Let's look at P.E.I. differently. Not too long ago I was in New York, where you see a lot of products from Vermont. Vermont seems to be getting a name for itself as pristine, wholesome, and they're selling products in the New England area.

When you see this big market only a one-day drive away, especially with the bridge--100 million people--is there a way maybe P.E.I. can cultivate this wholesome image where we start looking at the way you grow products differently here, where you'd maybe stand out as unique and different?

We often talk about the problem we have with the beef farmers, and you have one plant here. I remember talking to one of the beef processors and asked what if we had this grass-fed beef that was grown here, and instead of saying we're getting less for it, how could we get more for it on the U.S. market by promoting it as a healthier animal with fewer antibiotics? So what I'm thinking is, should we be looking at...? I know some of you are already doing that, but overall, over the long term, should P.E.I. have a certain agriculture concept of maybe more organic, maybe more sustainable agriculture--not just organic where P.E.I. has that label of uniqueness so those 100 million people who are within a day's drive are looking at your product differently, and not just the cheapest potatoes or the cheapest beef or cheapest french fries.... It's a different concept, maybe.

I'm just throwing that out because the market is there. It's just to connect the right product and people, so they know that you're.... I'm kind of thinking along that line: that there should be a different master plan for P.E.I. in the next 50 years, of their food and who their customer is going to be. I think they have an opportunity and a niche, but I don't think it's happened the way it should. So how can that happen? Should it?

[Mike Nabuurs]

I think you're absolutely right, Mark.

I don't want to keep throwing out problems, but the problem is that P.E.I. has been in commodity production for the last 30 years. That is the mindset. That is what producers were encouraged to do when the Canadian dollar was at 60 cents: produce as much as you can, as efficiently as you can, because we're going to export it all to the States and everything will be okay. That reality has changed.

In order to look at those proactive and new and innovative approaches.... My father was a hog farmer, and he used to say he could never get a good litter of pigs from a sick sow. The issue is that if the industry isn't healthy to move forward, then you can't look at these innovative and new....

You're absolutely right. I think we as P.E.I. have to use our smallness and uniqueness to our advantage. We've got some real opportunities there. But those opportunities will be lost if we don't do something to keep in place the infrastructure we have, in order to meet those goals in 20 years, because it will be a 20- or 30-year thing.

To get to your point of the tourists who come to P.E.I., we won't have those beautiful landscapes and those beautiful farms for the tourists to come and look at, which is another mainstay of our economy. We've got to make sure that we can make some real changes fast to keep what we have now, in order to make those new and innovative changes for the future.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

So as the federal government, we should be giving programs that are made-in-P.E.I. solutions instead of these overall programs for the country--solutions made in P.E.I. to give P.E.I. the next 50 years--

[Mike Nabuurs]

Absolutely.

I've got to reference quickly this hog transition program, where farmers were encouraged to bid against each other to get out of the industry because we have an oversupply of hogs in the country, when Atlantic Canada does not contribute to the oversupply. This is a prime example of a BRM program that was announced nationally across the country and we yelled and screamed and said this is going to destroy what's left of our industry, and no one listened.

We have to recognize the differences in the programming across the country so that we can sustain the regional differences unique to B.C., Atlantic Canada, and what not. If that reality is not there, then one size does not fit all for those programs.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

I guess Randall had one short comment.

[Randall Affleck]

We had a commission on the future of agriculture. A lot of what you've talked about came out in that, trying to brand P.E.I., and I'm optimistic that we'll make some progress. But we have to recognize the core problem in agriculture. If you go into a grocery store, there are 50,000 items on offer, but in reality that's simply different combinations of corn, soybeans, wheat, potatoes, and beef, commodities that are sourced from processors at the lowest possible price, wherever they can get them in the world.

When I first started in agriculture in 1987, we were moving into the free trade agreements and agriculture exports went through the roof. The trickle-down economics isn't even a drip at the farm gate. For those whole 20 years, rather than envisioning what they can build, farmers have been trying to save what previous leaders have put in place, such as supply management and orderly marketing. We've lost single-desk selling in the hogs. If you graph it, you can see that it tanked out.

So the core problem, in my view, is not the lack of the quality, or COOL, or regulation; it's the lack of market power for farmers because processors and retailers have been consolidating. I don't envision how you can ever break that up, personally. The solution is to give farmers some marketing power where they can work as a group to develop a national food policy, as has been mentioned. I have no disagreement with any of that.

That's government's role both federally and provincially, to establish the regulatory authority for farmers to implement that and negotiate from a position of strength with these people. That's the core. All this other stuff is really positive potential that could be developed individually as producers, or my preference would be to work with the researching community and the food processors and really develop an industry.

I'm talking too much, am I?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

That's okay, Randall.

Mike, I wanted to add something on the national exit strategy. I mean, no program is ever perfect, and I'm not going to defend that one and say that it's perfect. It was something that was asked for by the Canadian Pork Council. It was sorted out in conjunction with them. I think it's pretty safe to say, and I'm sure you'd agree, that it wasn't targeted to the Maritimes or wherever. Even Ontario, there was a larger number of hog producers in Ontario that got out. So when you have a national program, how do you do it any other way? You put it out there. Nobody had a gun to anybody's head in Ontario, any of my neighbours, or to somebody in P.E.I. to do it. The way it worked out, there were more from those areas. I'm more or less thinking out loud. I don't know how you do that. It was not targeted in any way to get rid of the hog industry in Ontario or the Maritimes.

Do you have any comment on that?

[Mike Nabuurs]

As I understand it, it was done to decrease the oversupply of hogs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Of course.

[Mike Nabuurs]

We had a discussion with CPC and we were aware that they were not supportive of vocally being seen as being supportive of a different strategy in the Atlantic provinces. But we told the Canadian Pork Council, “You recognize that the Atlantic region does not contribute; we are a net importer of pork into our region, so we're not contributing to this oversupply. So if we request some kind of difference or different approach to this program for the Atlantic region, will you oppose us on that?” The answer to that was, “No. We can't advocate for it, but we won't oppose you if you ask for that.”

We did that. The CPC stayed quiet on it, I understand, but there was no willingness to take a look at doing something different for the Atlantic region. There has to be that willingness. I know we're all worried about countervail and around trade issues and all those things, but I think where there's a will there's a way. I don't know if that was really considered in this case.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Shipley, five minutes.

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

Thank you.

An interesting number of comments have come up, so I want to go back, Mike and Ernie, to your comments about the countervail provincial authority. You mentioned in your comments about helping.... I'm trying to get a level playing field for farmers and making programs that are equitable and fair, from my perspective. You talked about needing a significant change of policy, removing the negative margins, increase in the agriculture, reinvest the caps.

Do you know if your province supports those changes?

[Mike Nabuurs]

That's a good question. The province has no extra money for these kinds of things—that's usually the answer that we get. We recognize that everyone is dealing with deficit budgets, but that gets to the willingness to invest in agriculture.

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

I'm just trying to understand. I'm not pointing fingers at anyone, okay? Because what we have is an agricultural policy framework, an agreement between the provinces and the federal government that requires—simplified, shouldn't do this—six or seven other provinces to agree before we make any changes on business risk management programs.

So it's always about—Maria talked about it—“well, it's you; no, it's us”. And you guys are in the middle. That's sort of how it seems to work, and from a political standpoint, if that's what we want to accomplish, I guess that's an accomplishment. From our perspective at this table, about farmers and helping to give a future for farmers, it's not working.

As we've gone across, you would almost think that we need to look at the reorganization of responsibilities of the federal government, provincial governments, and local organizations in terms of does the federal government become responsible for food safety regulations and export markets. We're an export nation. In general, money transfers down and provinces run programs in some sort of respect. I don't know, but I'm just seeing that everywhere we stop, it's a concern. Are there thoughts on that?

And secondly, one of the common themes at every one I've been at—though I haven't been all across Canada—is this whole regulatory issue about.... Sally, you talked about it, and Maria and others talked about it. We have products coming into Canada. They meet our residue standards for food safety. Food safety is not necessarily the issue. But it is about them having access to products to grow these crops or grow the animals. We don't, but it comes and sits in direct competition with us. So I have a motion that is passed by Parliament dealing exactly with this, and I'm hoping that as a committee this type of regulation or motion can be ramped up in a recommendation from this one, because it doesn't matter what province you're in or what you're growing, it affects every one of us. I think that is a simple reliance on how does the federal government help producers at levelling the playing field, and I think that's what we're after.

Help me understand how we can get more profitability from the marketplace. Do we have to take more market risk to be part of the market benefit? How do we do that?

[Gerard Mol]

I have an example of that, about the risk.

We were shipping potatoes this year to Venezuela and quality standards were really met. When the product arrived, Venezuela had changed the standards. Right now the Canadian government--it is being worked on right now--is not willing to trade through Export Development Corporation, to take the risk. I know we know how Export Development works, but there you're passing your customer's name and they look at how credible he is to pay the money.

What happened, then, is Venezuela is a very tricky country, of course, with stability from the government. So then the product arrived there, and of course Venezuela had changed the rules. Also, there was no payment to these exporters. The exporters came good, they paid for this, but who wants to tackle a market that is not ensured? The exporters don't want to bother with this any more. They lost hundreds of thousands of dollars, all because Export Canada didn't want to take the risk.

So I don't know, is there any way we can change that rule a little bit? This market has been in P.E.I. maybe for the last 20, 30 years, and maybe some people can comment on that, too. What I see is, because of political issues that are out of exporters' and farmers' control, we're losing big money and markets, and that is an issue. The potatoes came there. There was an official sent from Canada, to look at the product afterwards. It was all fine; it was all in good shape.

So we have to have Canada also stand up for these issues. These are export problems. They should stand up for this.

But looking at some other stuff, I think it's all great, these programs--CAIS, AgriStability--but it's not the root of the problem. You've got to do something with the imports, food coming across the borders, wherever it comes from, from the United States, or imports. We have to slow that down somehow. I don't know how, but I think that's the only way to do it, I think, for the farmers to survive.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Ernie, I'll give you the last comment.

[Ernie Mutch]

In your comment you were talking about leveling the playing field there. As I understand it, 40% of the food we eat now is imported. I was recently at a meeting in Moncton. There were discussions on trade negotiations and there were a couple of civil servants from Ottawa talking about negotiating with other countries and the importation of food. This question was asked: When these negotiations take place, is food safety one of the primary topics that you talk about when you're talking about these agreements? They said no, and that was really surprising to me.

That's what's killing our industry here. If the government can't regulate the safety of the food that's coming into Canada and we have to adhere to all those regulations that we have now, then the government should be paying us, as farmers, for the costs that we inherit with all those regulations that we have to abide by here. It's killing our industry. With 40% of our food coming in...it's just going to keep increasing, because we're going to be losing more farmers.

If they can't control what Uruguay does to their beef.... As a beef farmer, all the inspection fees that I have to pay, or whatever I have to do on my farm, it's costing me money, and it's killing us.