Evidence of meeting #23 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was board.
A recording is available from Parliament.
1:15 p.m.
President, Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association
Yes, I've heard the same comments.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Thank you.
Another question that arises here is that Mr. Wells made the comment that we don't do these kinds of things in Canada. I'm not sure whether he meant giving choice to farmers, or what have you, which this is all about, but when he was talking about this, it had to do with membership lists. In some of the changes that have been made to them, the government has said that you must have sold grain in the last two years. Do any of you think that is an unfair prerequisite to be on the membership list?
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Yes, my apologies. I meant to say voters list.
Jeff.
1:15 p.m.
President, Western Barley Growers Association
Perhaps I could make a comment on that.
You realize that a lot of producers have voted with their seed drills. They're voting to grow barley or canola or pulses that they cannot market themselves and get the best dollar. A lot of those producers might have to grow wheat or barley just for rotational purposes. Should they not be granted a vote?
The 16,000 producers taken off the voters list this year are all getting a mailed-out statutory declaration. What about the other producers who will be producing wheat or barley sometime in the future? Do they get a statutory declaration mailed out to them?
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Horner talked about this yesterday. I know most of you were present for that, and Mr. Wells touched on it today. The Wheat Board surmises or basically goes under the concept that they always get the best price.
It wasn't very many years ago that the honourable member for Malpeque in the previous government put a bunch of farmers in jail who, to my understanding, were basically trying to get their product to a better market. If farmers were getting the best price all the time, would they actually risk going to jail?
1:15 p.m.
Organic Farmer, As an Individual
I think in the past there was a court case in Winnipeg where the Canadian Wheat Board argued very strongly that they didn't have to get the best price for farmers; they only had to get what the act says, which is what the Canadian Wheat Board thinks is reasonable. There's a difference. The best price is not what the board thinks is reasonable. There is very much a differentiation in that.
1:15 p.m.
President, Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association
The board doesn't know what I need to get in order to break even on my farm. They don't know what the break-even point is, what the cost of production is. Therefore, how can they possibly find a price that is best suited for my farm?
Price isn't even always the issue. Proponents of the board say that the Wheat Board gives them a fair price. Fair is not okay with me; I'm trying to get the best price.
In addition to that, as a young farmer, I have cashflow needs that are different from every other farmer out there. Every farmer has different cashflow needs. So I'm forced to make marketing decisions on my off-board grains based on what's happening, getting my cheque from the Wheat Board a year and a half later.
I also have storage needs. I'm spending a dollar or more a bushel on storage needs because I have to store this grain that the Wheat Board isn't selling.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
I have to comment, Ms. Jolly-Nagel, that young farmers like you are the future of our agriculture, our farming. As opposition and government, that's one of the things we have to ensure, that people like you can still farm profitably.
Thank you.
1:15 p.m.
Organic Farmer, As an Individual
Yes, I'd just like to answer that question also. I've been buying back organic grain, but you don't buy it back as organic, you just buy it back as ordinary grain. I've been doing this for seven years, and not from one contract in those seven years have I ever got a cheque from the Canadian Wheat Board. Not once. I've always had to pay the Canadian Wheat Board up to $1 a bushel or $1.50 a bushel over and above their pooling price.
So you don't have to be a brain surgeon to figure out that the price in Canada is always lower than the export price, or else I'd be getting a cheque from the Canadian Wheat Board, wouldn't I?
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerry Ritz
Your time is up, Mr. Miller.
There was a point made by Mr. Boshcoff, and I don't know if you'll address this in your response. It's about trade challenges, that as soon as we did something to the board, automatically we'd face just one trade challenge after another.
Can you folks point out to me how many trade challenges we faced in canola or oats, the non-board situations? The Americans are our biggest market for some of those commodities, as well. If you'd put that into your response to us, I think that would be helpful.
Mr. Atamanenko, five minutes, please.
1:20 p.m.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
Thank you very much for being here. I'll try to be brief and then I'll throw my questions out to you, and hopefully you'll have enough time to answer them.
Mr. Nielsen, you painted a pretty dismal picture of the barley and malt industry. Some of the things you mentioned--Canadian brewers have to get non-Canadian malt, and other things--I made notes of that.
On the other hand, it's my understanding that Canada has experienced the world's greatest increase in malt capacity over the last 15 years, adding over 350,000 tonnes of capacity, for an annual total of 1.2 million tonnes. In the U.S. malting industry, in contrast, the capacity has declined. We malt four times more barley per capita than the U.S. Now, 75% of domestic malting capacity is happening in western Canada. So I'm just wondering, this is happening and we seem to be doing better than our neighbours, and yet the picture, in your opinion, is still not very bright. So that's the first question.
The other one is mainly addressed to Mr. Charles, but perhaps you'd like to answer also. On organic versus CWB grain, is it feasible, do you think, to maintain single-desk selling for wheat and barley in non-organic commodities and completely exclude the organic farmer from the CWB? In other words, can we function as a single desk, so that you can be free and organic, because of the peculiarities of your farming industry that to go ahead...?
Tied in with that, does not the Wheat Board help to maintain a price that in turn benefits you in your farm?
Probably we don't have much time, so I'm just going to leave it at that. That will allow you to offer some other comments.
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
1:20 p.m.
President, Western Barley Growers Association
On the malt side, there is a condition mostly in Manitoba and in some of the northern tier states called fusarium head blight, and the farther you go west, the less chances there are of the disease. So if you look in the northern tier states, and in southern Manitoba, where that condition is very prevalent, the malting industry has moved out due to that fact.
It's a known fact that two plants were built, one in Idaho and one in Montana, that were tentatively scheduled to be built in western Canada. Those companies said they could not handle dealing with a single marketer. They wanted a contract with the producers right around them to get the best attributes and grow the best varieties for their end users. They would not deal with single-desk selling.
1:20 p.m.
Conservative
1:20 p.m.
Organic Farmer, As an Individual
Thank you.
This morning I listened to one of the presentations, and Jeff's not getting money, you heard that, Mr. Nielsen's not getting money, and yet we have the Port of Churchill, we have the Canadian Grain Commission, we have all these groups that are getting Wheat Board funding, Wheat Board money, research, all these things. This is coming out of our pockets.
Certainly there are a lot of different plants that are being built, but we're not getting any more money. We're just paying for the infrastructure of the industry. We're not getting anything out of it. It's out of our pockets, but the producers aren't getting anything.
So I can see why all the groups don't want the Wheat Board to go, because all of a sudden the governments are going to have to start paying for research, but that doesn't help a producer.
1:20 p.m.
Organic Farmer, As an Individual
Yes, one thing that's overlooked here a bit is that the Wheat Board's only mandate is wheat and barley. If they keep on selling that, they're going to go the way of the dodo bird.
In my area, wheat is a crop of last resort. You don't sow it unless you have to work it into the rotation. You sow peas, canola, chickpeas, beans, flax, oats—anything but wheat. Because if it was worth it, and the Wheat Board was doing a job of selling it, as it used to.... The country was gold in the fall. Now you make a trip down the road for 150 miles and you hardly see any gold; it's always yellow and white, because there isn't any wheat left in the province. This is coming from a producer's point of view.
You have to look around and see what's going on in the country. So I think that's a point here, that wheat only makes up about 30% or 40% of the marketing in Canada in the Wheat Board any more. Canola has far superior marketing now than wheat, and canola is just one crop. So if the open market is so bad, why are the open-market crops doing so much better? That's just a point I'm raising to you.
1:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerry Ritz
Your time has actually expired, Mr. Atamanenko, but I'll let Charles finish on that point.
Cherilyn, you want in? Okay, that's it then.
1:25 p.m.
Organic Farmer, As an Individual
I'm definitely for open markets, but in my case they don't work at all.
1:25 p.m.
Conservative
Jacques Gourde Conservative Lotbinière—Chutes-de-la-Chaudière, QC
Mr. Chairman, my colleague from the Bloc Quebecois has not been listening to the witnesses for the past ten minutes. This is an important issue. These people have travelled far and wide to come here.