Agriculture Committee on Nov. 25th, 2010

[Greg Meredith]

Well, it was just a long pause, because I'm not as youthful as I used to be.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

No problem. It's my mistake.

[Greg Meredith]

Minister Blackburn has put a very significant emphasis on youth and beginning farmers. Just last week, he held his National Future Farmers Network meeting to bring together youth leaders and beginning farm leaders from across the country. There's a number of issues, and this committee, having done all the work on beginning and young farmers, knows them very well, so I won't go over them.

But on the issue of education, I think it's unfortunate that the Canadian public doesn't recognize just how complex farming is. I think there's a perception that it's a fairly straightforward business. But a farmer has to be an entrepreneur, an accountant, a financial wizard, and a scientist and has to be able to work night and day. To be able do all of those things, education is a really important facet of achieving success, and the youth and beginning farmers have put quite an emphasis on this.

In Growing Forward, there are number of programs that are actually designed to improve agronomic skills and training, as well as business management skills and training. In our consultations leading up to Growing Forward 2, we are getting a significant amount of feedback about the need for these kinds of investments in skills, education, and training.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Storseth.

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

Thank you very much for coming in today. It was very educational.

One of the things I would ask is that since a lot of numbers have been given out today, could you guys summarize some of these numbers and give them to us? Being on the committee, oftentimes we learn about the vast amount of money that's going out and the streams it's going out in. It's important that the committee members have a summary of this, so if you guys could commit to doing that, I'd appreciate it.

The second thing I would like to say is that there are a lot of numbers being used on all sides, and it's very important when we start talking about this that we're accurate and we're not just trying to scare farmers off. Today we heard Mr. Easter talking about 80%, and certainly we would like to get some numbers verifying that. These are huge numbers.

Technology is amazing. I have the blues here from a couple of meetings ago, when Mr. Easter said: “There are several extremely important issues. I'd love to deal with biotech, but biotech is not going to do anything, as I mentioned earlier this morning, for the 30 people who are now going through farm debt review in my particular province. It's not going to do anything for some of the ones who can't cashflow their operations because of the announcement by the minister on emergency advance programs”.

Thirty people in farm debt review in P.E.I. would be a substantial number of farms. Do you guys have the number of producers in farm debt review in P.E.I. at this point in time?

[Jody Aylard]

I do have the numbers. Farm debt mediation is a confidential process, and generally we don't like to talk about numbers less than 10 for any individual province. I can say that for Atlantic Canada there were 15 applications this year, for the four Atlantic provinces, and 12 applications have been completed.

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

Fifteen in Atlantic Canada?

[Jody Aylard]

Yes.

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

Okay. And you don't really want to talk about any province that's under 10. I guess it's one of the things we need to flesh out here: the actual facts and not just fearmongering, trying to scare producers.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I would suggest on this statement that if Mr. Storseth wants to question my numbers we invite the accountant dealing with the Farm Debt Review Board, that we bring him here. He'll tell you he's dealing with 32 accounts.

You know, this committee has a responsibility to fight for farmers, not to try to cover up problems in the industry. Thirty-two cases is the number the man is dealing with. I don't know if they're before the board at the moment, but he's dealing with 32 cases under farm review.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Can I suggest that if you want to submit that as evidence I don't see any reason why the committee couldn't receive it?

Continue, Mr. Storseth.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm not sure what Mr. Easter is so upset about. I'm simply trying to get the facts and deal with the facts here.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

You're questioning my numbers, Mr. Storseth--

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

If there are indeed 32 cases under farm debt review, that's a substantial amount in P.E.I., but we need the numbers. As we've heard here, the numbers we're getting aren't 32. Quite frankly, it's the same as when he talks about the Interlake. I was talking to a farmer from the Interlake the other day who was at the meetings Mr. Easter attended where he claimed he had 50 people at each meeting, and that farmer told me they had fewer than 18 people at the meeting.

Now, I think it's important that we deal with facts. We need to stand up for farmers, and the people on this side of the table stand up for farmers because we are farmers, we know farmers, and we interact with farmers--we don't just plop in once in a while.

To go back to the witnesses. I would like to ask you a question on something that is very important. I know I don't have much time left, but it's very important. It is happening in Manitoba and it has been raised with me by some of our Manitoba colleagues, and that is the avian influenza situation that is currently arising in Manitoba. Can you give us an update on that situation, please?

[Greg Meredith]

Yes. You're quite right. There is a farm under quarantine right now in Manitoba. I must say that my colleagues in CFIA have moved very quickly on this. They have a protocol in place that allows them to act very quickly, which they've done. So the quarantine is contained and they've already started the trace-out and trace-back of animals and equipment that may have entered or left the farm.

There is a lot of collaboration with the Manitoba government and the industry in that kind of case. The initial examination of the strain suggests that it's going to be low pathenogenic, which implies that the infection intensity is relatively low, and we hope that pans out. It will be a day or two before there's a final determination of what strain of H and N it is.

There's a protocol in place with the United States that manages to contain and regionalize any border closure. We've already triggered that. We've informed the OIE, the international animal health organization, as well as all our trading partners, of the situation. We do have an understanding with Europe and we think we'll minimize any trade disruptions. But trade impacts are on a country-by-country basis and what CFIA does is suspend certificates for sensitive food products in some cases, mostly for animals. They'll suspend export certificates so that there's no product moving.

In the past in situations like this, CFIA has managed to reopen all borders within a two- to four-week period, and that's what they will aim for in this case. They've enlisted our missions abroad to have close contact with our trading partners. The level of exports of this particular industry is relatively low, so the short-term economic impact will be relatively contained, we hope.

Once we know the strain and we've done the trace, we'll be able to contain the quarantine period or the quarantine area. Right now, it's three kilometres around the indexed farm. For next steps, they'll be working with the farmer and the Health of Animals Act to look at compensation. A compensation mechanism is built into the act that allows for money to flow relatively quickly to the producer.

That's where we are at this stage. I think my colleagues in CFIA would be able to add considerably more detail.

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

Thank you very much. I'll simply remind you that this is a traumatic experience for this producer as well, and it's important that we have good communications with the local producer on this.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

I want to thank our witnesses for being here today. There were a lots of questions and certainly a lot of good, detailed answers.

Thank you very much. We'll let you go.

I remind members that we have two motions we have to deal with.

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

There were numbers put out on the HILLRP program. I know you can't give us the names, but can you table before the committee the distribution across the country of the HILLRP program?

[Jody Aylard]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

As you know, we have witnesses prepared to come in on Tuesday in regard to agriculture disaster relief programs. In order to have them here, we need to pass a budget. I have a motion that the committee adopt a budget of $9,500 for its study on agriculture disaster relief programs. I would entertain that motion.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

So moved.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

It has been moved by Mr. Easter. Is there any discussion?

(Motion agreed to)

I believe the motion carries.

Also, we have another motion here, but before I read it out, we had some discussion earlier. In fact, the committee has adopted a steering committee report to do a study on the biotech industry, starting at the end of December, or before we break here.

As part of that discussion with a number of you, it was suggested that we travel, so I had the clerk prepare a motion for today, the basic intent of which would allow her to prepare a budget between now and Tuesday so that we could hopefully pass it on Tuesday, if everybody is in agreement. It would allow us to travel and visit some I'll just say research facilities or something related. Of course, I want to hear some input and some suggestions. We'll try to do all regions of the country. That's the long and short of it. I'm going to read it. Then we'll open it up for discussion and questions. It says:

That the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food authorize certain members of the Committee to travel across Canada during the month of February 2011 as part of the Committee’s study on the status of the Canadian biotechnology sector; and that the clerk of the Committee, in consultation with the Chair--

I should add “and members”

--be instructed to prepare a draft budget for consideration by the Committee as soon as possible.

What I meant by “and members” was that I would like suggestions from you for facilities we should visit. Is there any discussion?

Oh, there's one other thing. It would be nice to have this passed by Tuesday. The clerk found out that there will be a Liaison Committee meeting on Thursday, so we could have this considered at that point.

Mr. Valeriote.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Randy and I talked about this, Mr. Chair. At the very least, we should be visiting Saskatoon, the university there, and the University of Guelph. In addition, at the University of Guelph and possibly in Saskatoon, there are other facilities--the Monsantos, the Syngentas, the Bayers, and others--with which we could also arrange meetings. I think there would be value to that.

In addition, I know that I could probably locate some professors at the University of Guelph who would be able to speak to us about issues that Monsanto, Syngenta, and Bayer would also raise with us, so we could have a very full conversation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Bellavance first, then Mr. Easter, and then Mr. Atamanenko.