Agriculture Committee on Feb. 22nd, 2007

[Grant Robertson]

I don't know anybody who wants to farm the mailbox, but in the short term you have to deal with the reality of the U.S. Farm Bill. It's been decimating the grains and oilseeds sector, particularly in Ontario, over the last few years. Now that we're seeing some increase in prices in corn, the next place it's going to decimate is the livestock sector. We're already seeing it in pork.

In the short term, government is going to have to have a two-pronged approach to make sure that we have farmers on the land. Farming is a lifelong apprenticeship, and we're losing our master craftsmen; they are not there. If we're going to get those young apprentices coming in, a next generation, we're going to have to do something.

While I don't want to be farming the mailbox, I would like to be paid for some of the societal benefits I create. When I fence off land, or I act as a carbon sink, or I do a number of the things I do on my farm that have a broad societal benefit, I'm doing that at my own cost, and I don't get that money back out of the marketplace. There is a role for government, as we see in Europe, to actually provide some income tax credit, whatever it might be, for farmers who are providing that societal benefit.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you, Mr. Devolin.

Mr. Atamanenko, you have seven minutes, please.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Thank you very much for being here.

I have a lot of questions, and I'm not sure if I'll have enough time. I'll fire away. Maybe if we don't finish them up, we could chat after the session.

The first one is on food security. We touched upon cucumbers and the fact that they're coming from outside the country. In B.C., for example, it's my understanding that before NAFTA we had in-season tariffs. We had over 2,000 onion producers; now there are six or seven. We've seen in Ontario that 60% of the apples are coming from outside of Ontario.

Does NAFTA not work for our food security? If that's the case, what can we do? Should we have some rapid response tariffs for when these products come in so that our producers can continue producing vegetables and feed our nation, and we get away from all those pesticides from Chile or Mexico or wherever?

The other one is on subsidies.

Mr. Smolik, I really enjoyed your presentation. I understand that specifically in the grains and oilseeds sector we'd like to have fewer subsidies from the Americans and the European Union. If we were to really push that, and I guess we have, it doesn't seem that there's any response from our neighbours. Also, how would that then affect our supply management? We're going to be invoking article XXVIII to protect our dairy farmers. We want to ensure we have a strong supply management system. How do you see that in the global context?

The other thing is...I had a very interesting discussion today with Senator Hugh Segal about some of his programs. We were talking about the idea of a working income tax benefit.

Would it be an immediate help to farmers if there was an income below which, if you didn't make that income, you got it topped up at income tax time? Say it was $30,000 and you didn't pay any income tax until you made over $30,000. If you only made $23,000, come income tax time the government cuts a cheque for $7,000. It's a guaranteed income, but it works at income tax time. I wonder if that could be an immediate help to farming families.

Grant, do you feel that the bureaucracy really is hindering the whole APF process, regardless of the political party in power? Is that one of the major stumbling blocks?

I'll stop. Let's see how many answers we can get. Whoever wants to start....

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Robertson.

[Grant Robertson]

I'd like to start on the first one, particularly because I've been doing some work on this for the NFU. The reality is that we have the ability, as do other nations, to stop some of these things coming to our border. If they do not meet our phytosanitary standards, we have the ability to say no. Yet we don't do that, and I am at a loss to understand why.

I believe if we're going to impose regulations and rules on farmers, we'd better darn well make sure we're not then asking them to compete with people and nations that don't--and that includes environmental and labour standards, all sorts of things. We need to develop a system in Canada for that.

To go to your other question about the APF II, I quoted my grandmother earlier, and I'll quote her again. It's an old phrase. My grandmother said that the problem with elections is that it doesn't matter who you vote for or what party wins, government always gets back in.

I see this through this process. The more I'm involved and the more I see what's happening, the more deeply cynical I become about the entire APF II process. The fix is already in; the direction is already decided. The consultation process is merely an opportunity for when things go south.... And they will. With the U.S. Farm Bill and all the other things that are happening, we're going to see other sectors that are going to be hit and hit hard. But when things go south, there will be the ability to say that we consulted with you. I think that's part of the problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Smolik.

[Jim Smolik]

Thank you.

I'll touch on the trade issue. I raised it from the point of view of how it would affect grains and oilseeds. I understand fully that whatever the negotiations are, it's much broader than grains and oilseeds. It's on supply management, vegetables, and non-agricultural market access. It's cars from Korea. It's the total global trade. I was trying to identify it from our perspective. I'll give you an example.

Before the last U.S. Farm Bill, flax and pulses were not included in the bill. When they were included in the U.S. Farm Bill, they were traditionally just a few thousand acres of flax grown in the United States. Last year alone they had just about one million acres of flax seeded in the United States. Clearly the market is not demanding that yet. There is increasing demand for flax, omega-3, and things like that, but the market is not demanding it yet.

I'll go back again to the study from 1995 to 2000 in which they felt that approximately five million acres per year in the United States alone were planted just to trigger government payments. So five million acres of production is being put on the world market, and that continually depresses our prices.

Last year before the Hong Kong ministerial I looked at the mid-November loan deficiency payments. If I could have received those same loan deficiency payments on my production from the 2005 crop year at the mid-November price, I could have picked up a cheque for just under $56,000 U.S. That's how it affects us. I'm just raising those issues for grains and oilseeds.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Ms. Desmarais.

[Annette Aurélie Desmarais]

Dealing with the first question about NAFTA, certainly the data demonstrates that all of our agricultural exports are climbing and continue to do so, and that has not benefited farmers. The net realized income for farmers has not improved, so that should tell us something.

If we put what's happening in Canada in the much larger context of what's happening to farmers internationally, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development and the FAO have done studies on what has happened since 1994 when the agreement on agriculture was put in place. They've noted that in numerous countries there is an increased concentration of land ownership. Larger producers are owning larger pieces of land. There is increased impoverishment of farmers. Combined with that, there's increased corporate concentration in the food systems everywhere, and tied to that is the diminishing power of farmers in the marketplace.

We have always thought of ourselves as being concerned about social justice here in Canada and elsewhere, but we should be thinking very carefully about what's going on here, not only with our farmers but internationally. Political decisions we are making are allowing this to happen.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Barnabé.

[Claude Barnabé]

I'd like to respond to the question concerning the North American Free Trade Agreement as it affects agriculture. There was an article in the newspaper that appeared in January. It stated that tortilla prices had gone up by 30% and it explained why. It explained that since the signing of the NAFTA, the Americans had sent a lot of corn—subsidized, of course—to Mexico, which pulled the rug from under the Mexican producers' feet.

Since then, gas prices have increased and Americans have decided to keep their corn in order to make ethanol. The Mexican industry was severely strained because of the subsidized corn, but all of a sudden, there was no more. Therefore, the price went up. The tortilla is a basic staple for lower-class Mexicans, and there is panic. There's either a shortage, or the price is too high for them.

In my opinion, before opening our borders to all products from abroad, we should first of all think of food sovereignty. We will of course never be able to grow bananas here, but we could still negotiate on imports. We will also negotiate on exports with the aim of exporting those with which we are competitive.

Let us think of food sovereignty first of all. Depending on others to feed ourselves is dangerous. We are not talking about cars or planes here, we are talking about food. We must be careful.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Go ahead, Mr. Van Tassel.

[William Van Tassel]

Yes, it's the same question about NATO, and I've also talked about the WTO. It's a question almost within a question. Is it working? Well, on January 8 Canada started consultations with the U.S. on U.S. subsidies on corn to see if they started a WTO challenge. Does it show so far that it worked? Well, probably not, because what they're saying in Canada right now is that the United States is not following what they're supposed to be doing in the WTO. Are the Americans going to? Well, I'm not certain either.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Okay. Sorry, Alex, but you're out of time.

Before we leave, I have a quick question for Ms. Smith. I'm a farmer myself from Manitoba, and I know there have been times that the phone stress lines have been used quite extensively. Can you give us an idea of what the volumes were? I know that after the BSE crisis they went right through the roof. Where are we at today, and how is that flowing through in the last few months?

[Janet Smith]

Thank you.

I actually provided some information from our annual reports that includes a lot more statistics, so I welcome you to pick up packages at the back.

Our biggest year in terms of call volume was 2004, at the height of BSE. We had 2,175 calls at that time during that year. In terms of BSE now, the comment of one of our callers was that BSE has to some extent gone out of the media, but I still have the BSE hangover. We're seeing the repercussions of that crisis, and it is one of many crises that I think are just around the corner. They last a very long time.

What I wanted to say about some of the farm stress support programs is that they are extremely cost-effective. They're not very expensive to run, a telemental health or other kind of program such as Au coeur des familles, and the benefits are extremely well researched. In terms of cost-benefit analysis, I would really encourage you to support those kinds of endeavours.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I want to thank all of you for coming in today. We are out of time. I know there are questions around the table and I just don't have any--

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

I don't have a question, Mr. Chairman. I just have a comment.

I'm a farmer as well, as the chairman is. My wife and I have raised our family, and I know a lot about the problems that are out there in agriculture, but I don't know it all.

I have a suggestion, and please take this in the context that I mean it. Your presentations took up close to 90 minutes of the two hours today, and that's fine--there was a lot of good stuff in there--but I, like some others around the room, would have liked to have asked some questions. You had some great answers.

Maybe in the future you could bring your presentations more in a paper form. I do read mine and I presume everyone else does, and then more time could be left for questions. That's just a suggestion.

[Janet Smith]

We need more than three days to prepare.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Yes, and I liked the comment about walking a mile with manure on your boots. I have done that.

[Janet Smith]

We would be more than willing to stay afterwards if anybody wants us to.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Actually, we do have some committee business, so we are going to go in camera. We'll suspend right now and allow the room to clear out so we can do our committee business.

Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]