Evidence of meeting #25 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 farmers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
It's my five minutes, as Mr. Thibault said. If you don't mind, Wayne, I didn't start yapping when you were speaking.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Alberta recently announced $261 million to help their producers. And I give them credit, as I am a farmer myself and I live in a province--Ontario--that has never been very good at helping agriculture. Quebec has a history of helping their agricultural producers.
We have to look at it as a national program, and we can't go and top up provinces. Two that I guess I feel sympathy for are Manitoba and Saskatchewan, right beside Alberta. They don't have that chance. I'm wondering how a federal government can look at that a little bit, because what that does is create a disadvantage for all the provinces around those that top them up. Is there anything we can deal with there without Alberta coming back and saying, hey, you're giving out more money to another province?
Conservative
Chuck Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
One of the ideas of having a federal-provincial framework on all these things is that you are supposed to work together on common policy objectives. You're supposed to adhere to national standards, and you're supposed to play by the rules. When wealthy provinces decide to kick in $200 million or $300 million, other provinces look on and say, well, I just can't match it; I don't have the flexibility and I don't have the surplus. So it makes it difficult, especially when they're neighbouring provinces.
That said, there has always been some provincial programming, whether it's differences in production insurance or the ASRA program in Quebec, that tends to do something a little extra for their specific needs. A certain amount of that goes on. I still think it's in the best interests overall of the agriculture industry to try to coordinate this nationally; otherwise you'll end up with farmers just shopping for the best deal and you'll end up with producers pulling out of one province and going to another. You'll end up with farmers unable to weather the storm--and sometimes literally a storm--because they just don't have the flexibility that a wealthier province has. It seems to me that it's better overall to have national standards and national programming shared federally and provincially than to have all provinces going their own way. We can do that, but it will be a completely ad hoc thing and it will be every man for himself, and I don't think that's in the best interests of Canadian agriculture.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Gerry Ritz
Minister, we're actually just running past 5 o'clock. We did start a little late. Can you bear with us for a few more minutes? I have two more people on the witness list.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
Thank you, Minister.
Very quickly to the point, you mentioned that the provinces were reluctant to back away from CAIS. I know your party made a commitment during the election to get rid of CAIS. Do you see CAIS continuing under perhaps a different name but a similar program with some modifications?
I commend you for a number of the modifications you've made. I think they're positive. But you know and I know that you simply don't back away from this for at least two years. Are there any ongoing discussions in terms of dismantling this program, on the current path?
Conservative
Chuck Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
It's a good question, Paul, and it's not just semantics. I think that unless we have a margin-based program that meets the farmers' needs.... By meeting them, I list a number of things. The program has to be responsive, predictable, and involve less paperwork. It has to include negative margin coverages, changes in inventory valuation, quick payout for advances, and online calculators. If we can do all of these things in a margin-based program, I think farmers may accept it. But it will be completely different from what it started out as, and it will also have separate disaster programming.
So my hope is that if we can replace the current system with a separate disaster component—hopefully with a framework working with the provinces—and a separate margin-based program that deals with what margin-based programs are good at, farmers may find that acceptable. I'm hoping that will be the case.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
I have two quick questions on the risk management side.
You've seen the proposal put forward by Ontario farmers where they would participate in the program. Have you looked at that? Have you considered it? Might there be a possibility of going that way?
Conservative
Chuck Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
I know that farmers in Ontario especially have been hot on the RMP thing. The upside is that it's a farmer participation program. They want to participate in it, and they see a federal-provincial component to it as well.
I did do the costing on that. I've explained that you can't just do an Ontario program, and you can't just do a corn program. You'd have to do grains and oilseeds, and to extend the RMP program just on grains and oilseeds across the country would be close to $4 billion, I think.
Pardon me, I lied. It's $2.6 billion just for that program.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
I was going to say I know it isn't that high, but anyhow, that's fine. I just wanted a comment on that.
On the Wheat Board, for those who choose to go to single-desk selling, we know they're in on the Wheat Board. If for instance there is some semblance of the Wheat Board, we know that single-desk selling.... I don't see your proposal working, because you can't have it both ways.
But if you did have a system where you can be in or out, are you in or are you out? Could you be in for 2006, out for 2007, then back in for 2008? I don't see a system like that working. How do you propose to deal with that?
Conservative
Chuck Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
Let me just say that I disagree that this marketing choice isn't workable.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
No, but you could retain on a year where you couldn't sell your wheat. This is a good year for you guys to make the argument because prices are on the up—I know that—corn as well. But next year prices may be down, and you may not be able to sell a bushel of corn. So you may want to go back in the Wheat Board the next year to unload 2006 or 2007 corn, and I don't think you can have a system.... You're either in or you're out. If you propose something like that, then I can see people making some pretty businesslike decisions and choices.
Conservative
Chuck Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
Again. I think your argument isn't really strong.
Conservative
Chuck Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
You mentioned corn. Corn isn't covered by the Wheat Board.
Liberal
Conservative
Chuck Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
Okay, but you know, it's interesting to me that corn farmers get by very well without the Wheat Board. That said, I think farmers are going to make those business decisions, which will be based on all kinds of personal decisions by farmers.
Liberal
Conservative
Chuck Strahl Conservative Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC
Let me describe. A farmer may decide that he has a crop rotation issue, that he wants to plant whatever crop. He has to plant barley because he has a crop rotation need to plant barley. He may say he wants to have barley on his farm; he may decide to export it or use it for domestic products. He may be a risk-taker or he may not be. All of those decisions are personal, though, and in the end.... We're just going to have a plebiscite, and we'll take up the details following that. But in the end, those are going to be business decisions, where farmers are going to sign up, or not, based on their business decisions.
I think that every year there will be contracts for barley that need to be filled. Some of them are going to be filled at the Wheat Board, and some are going to be individual marketing decisions from the farmers.
This is why I think a marketing choice world will work. The Wheat Board can say it wants to market barley because it thinks it can make a good dollar. It would like to offer a contract for barley, and here's how it will work. I think many farmers are going to say, that's for me. But others will not.
Conservative
Jean-Yves Roy Bloc Haute-Gaspésie—La Mitis—Matane—Matapédia, QC
Once more, Mr. Minister, I'm the last questioner.
Mr. Minister, you have recently met with Quebec grain and cereal producers. They said afterwards they were very disappointed with this meeting because you really left them no hope for any kind of solution.
Let me remind you that Quebec grain producers are presently dumping their grain in front of federal buildings because their situation is indeed critical. Their main problem is that in the United States, this sector is heavily subsidized, as you mentioned it earlier. They have an extremely difficult situation. They are not necessarily asking for a general program. Since the situation in Quebec is special, they want to be treated separately.
They are seeking a specific program that will give them an adequate income. They say that their present situation is extremely difficult, even tragic. It is uncertain whether they will still be able to produce in a few years. For the past five years, these people didn't have access to a real income support program and they have been suffering for years.
Can we have a specific program for Quebec grain producers? As I recall, there are 11,000 producers.
