Agriculture Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2010

[Stuart Person]

Premium-based programs, as long as they're affordable, will drive the right behaviour. Private enterprises are looking at insuring it, and I can give you those examples later.

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

Yes, and I've talked to a few of them.

Last question. In my area, the battle goes back and forth sometimes, and this isn't a political question. I actually want your views on it, and you can use the rest of the time explaining your position on this.

When it comes to your ability to market grain, do you want that freedom to be able to do it yourself as a young farmer and still have the Wheat Board there but have the ability to market yourself, or would you rather the system stay as it is right now?

[Stuart Person]

My opinion on the Wheat Board is it can stay there, but I like the choice. If they're good at what they do, they'll be competitive and I'll sell my grain to them. The problem with the Wheat Board right now is it's not accountable. There are millions of dollars of losses, and no one seems to pay the price other than the producer.

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

I agree with you 100%.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Storseth.

Mr. Lemieux, for five minutes. You have the last round.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to start by commenting on something that Curtiss said regarding opening of foreign markets. Curtiss said that really the minister shouldn't be focusing on that--bilaterals are not what the sector needs--he should be focusing more at home. I think I disagree. The bigger the marketplace that farmers have to sell into, the better. The more places they can sell their product, the better. It's simply a supply and demand equation. If supply stays constant but demand goes up, that's better for farmers, and demand goes up when foreign markets are open. Certainly, this has been one of Minister Ritz's strengths, and I think it's been one of his areas of priority.

The second thing I want to mention is regarding some of the discussion we've had today as to whether the programs are working or not. I think what we're hearing around the table, what we're hearing from you, is that at particular times for particular commodities the programming doesn't always work particularly well. However, I would like to point out that...I don't have the exact number in front of me, but we spend about $8 billion a year on agriculture, and billions of that actually flow to the farm gate through these programs. It's billions and billions of dollars that flow to the farm gate every year in these programs, and that money is reaching farmers.

Part of my experience, simply by being out on farms talking with farmers, is that if a farmer receives support, he doesn't broadcast that. That's his farm operation and he doesn't put a big sign up on his gatepost saying he received this amount of support from the government because he had a difficult year. The inverse is true. When a farmer doesn't necessarily get the support he needs in a particular year, that's broadcast a little more widely.

So I wanted to point out that there are billions of dollars that are flowing through these programs to help farmers every year.

I guess if we look at the pork sector, when a program struggles to support an industry that is in decline for a number of reasons--it might be the high dollar, it might be overproduction, it might be the COOL that went in down in the United States, and there are a number of things that can come into play--then I think the government makes an effort to provide a supplemental program. For example, in the case of hog farmers, there was the HILLRP program put together. This was a program that didn't exist before, and it was put into place with the help of the industry. I think the government tries to plug holes as they present themselves, with additional programs, or they try to provide leniency--for example, on advanced payments--where and when they can to give farmers that extra breathing room.

I'm not saying the programs meet every need under every circumstance, but I'm saying there are a number of tools that are at the government's disposal and are used to help when they can.

I want to go back to...it ties in with the pork. I think the question Mr. Hoback asked is a good one because it's something that we all struggle with. We understand the implications of negative margins over time, but the question becomes.... The federal government tries to provide a level playing field so that all farmers across Canada are treated equally, so that commodities are treated in the same fair manner. This is something producers asked for, right? They want a level playing field; they don't want it tilted in favour of any one commodity or another, or one particular circumstance or another.

If you take pork, I think the industry realized that a year or two ago the supply was too large for demand, so pork prices started to plummet. A lot of our exports to the U.S. dropped at the same time. This was part of too much supply and not enough demand, because of the COOL implementation, which we're fighting. So the herd had to downsize, and that's painful--that's very painful, particularly when it gets personal. A pork farmer has to decide whether he is viable in these circumstances or not. That's a very personal, very difficult, gut-wrenching decision.

I'm not too sure who determines viability. After what period of time does one say it's been in declining margins for such a long period of time now...? At what point, as Mr. Hoback said, does the taxpayer say we should limit the support?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Does somebody want to touch on that one?

Curtiss.

[Curtiss G. Littlejohn]

I have a couple of quick points.

It's the second time, Mr. Chairman, that I've been challenged on my comments around bilaterals, and I'll repeat it. I think bilaterals are good, but I do believe that if we don't look after the industry here at home, we'll have nothing to sell once those bilaterals are accomplished. Minister Ritz is, if anything, an advocate for the agricultural export industry.

Leveling the playing field is a big issue. If we have an industry here.... We get into things and we ask at what point do we stop subsidizing an industry and let it go into decline. We need to be there.

I'll use my own example. I have a cost of production that rivals that in Brazil, because of the way we've chosen to structure ourselves, yet Brazilian product will come into this country and displace the product that I produce because it's coming here at an incredibly low rate, the same as American product, which is dumped into this country.

I'm prepared to go head to head with anybody in the world on cost of production as a viable producer. I'm not prepared to sit back and go out of business because the Government of Canada—and it doesn't matter, sir, whether it's a government of today or a government of tomorrow—is not willing to protect its industries here at home.

I'll finish up on the other comment you made, sir. Under the—

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Could I just jump in for one second?

I want to follow up on what you mean by protecting the industry at home. If you mean setting up tariff barriers, then it doesn't help with the export markets that you were just talking about. What did you have specifically in mind in terms of protecting the industry at home?

[Curtiss G. Littlejohn]

My own thoughts here are that we should be promoting Canadian, and I believe we are starting down that road. Minister Ritz will be helping us with that. At the end of the day, consumers are not aware that two-thirds of the products on their shelves are products of the U.S.A.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

So it's a consumer education thing.

[Curtiss G. Littlejohn]

Partly, but it's also that we have different standards here.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Your time has expired, Mr. Lemieux.

We're out of time. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming here.

As Mr. Person said, I'm sure some may have more questions for you. I think they know how to get a hold of you.

The meeting is adjourned until Thursday.