Agriculture Committee on April 16th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Does anyone else want to comment?

Mr. Norton.

[Greg Norton]

I do as well appreciate your concerns and your desire to hear what we have to say, but Canada has a cheap-food policy. Canadians spend less than 10% of their income on food. You know, 40 years ago or 20 years ago it was a lot higher than that, and it's going down. We have a cheap-food policy. That's the largest significant problem that we have to overcome.

Beyond that, though, I think the Canadian government can play a role. In my closing remarks about the intangibles, I mentioned that Canadian farmers haven't had the level of respect from the Canadian public that I think we deserve. I think you as individual MPs could give some help along the way. Just saying that we're here representing Canadian farmers, who are good people in a good, honest, clean livelihood, would build up that respect. Then the Canadian public can start looking for Canadian-produced products.

It's a very difficult question to answer, but it's huge. What we've just seen in the last month with the dog food and pets dying all over North America is again cheap-food policy. Chinese wheat that was contaminated is killing our pets. What a great opportunity for the government to say they're going to support Canadian producers--but we didn't hear that, right? I haven't heard that kind of exclamation from my Canadian government, or from any of my MPs. I didn't hear any MPs stand up to say that if we'd had Canadian cellulose, or whatever it is that was in that dog food....

That's what I was talking about in relation to the respect for the farmers, the support from the government. I'm not talking about subsidies; I'm talking about attitudes and the fact that we're now generations away from the farm. To me leadership from my government, and from individuals within that government, would be a simple solution.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

John, did you want to respond?

[John Savage]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

On Roger's question about how to deal with it, I can refer to British Columbia and the potato anti-dump that is now going towards 25 years. We've just won our case again for the province on Washington State and Idaho dumping product into Canada, in this case particularly into the Vancouver market area. It's a countervail action.

In the case of what Greg is talking about, is that a possibility when it comes to cherries? Do we just let this continue? We'll be eaten up sooner or later, no pun intended. It's a huge problem out there.

We ask you, as politicians and panel members, to get this message to your cabinet members or whatever: if they want us as farmers in this country to stay farming--and God knows we're seeing mass changes in the types of operations that are going on--we not only have to be sustainable, but we have to be able to make money at what we're doing. Unfortunately, too many of us are going sideways and, in some cases, out of business. That's not good enough.

You can call it a cheap-food policy, but who's responsible for that? At what point do politicians have to take a position? If you feel agriculture is important to the public in this country, then obviously a priority has to be to make sure the farmer can make a living out of it.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Gaudet.

Mr. Harris is next, for five minutes, please.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for your presentations, gentlemen.

I want to address a question to both of you, John and Greg, in regard to your comments.

I'm really concerned about this “made in Canada” or “product of Canada” issue that was brought up, I think, by one of the other panellists earlier, just while I was having a drink of apple juice made from concentrate.

The example given at that time was that apple concentrate was being brought into Canada from China. It was mixed with 80% water and was then called a product of Canada. I'm looking at the bottle, and even though it says “Brampton, Ontario”, I'm wondering whether there is a Chinese ingredient in the product. This really disturbs me.

I agree that we have to protect our agriculture producers in this country—while protecting consumers from deceitful advertising—from, for lack of better words, having their grass cut by foreign offshore products coming in for a purpose that is not exactly transparent. This being said, I'm kind of getting the idea that there's a lot of this going on. Has any organization in the agriculture industry, such as the fruit growers or whoever, started a database to identify these products that are being put together in this manner?

[John Savage]

Richard, the issue here is how Canada Customs follows up on that when papers are filed. You have to have an entry paper, the same as we do for an export. I think it's a B-13 for export, because I used to export grain.

It's an issue of tracking all the papers that are filed for things that are imported into this country. Our concern, of course, is mainly foodstuffs, but it may well boil down to medications and so on.

You raise a good question, Richard, because somebody has to be able to track what's coming in and where it was produced. Do we have any authority to inspect a farm in China? I don't think so.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

My point is that the business of foodstuffs directly affects you guys. If you're looking for help, I'm just asking if any one of you sitting here within your organizations is just as upset about this. You guys are, and now mostly all of us are. If they've started something to identify these types of products and specific products are being done, we're all kind of busy, so it would be nice to have this handed to us. If we wanted to go scream bloody murder about it in Parliament, we would then have a bunch of data that has already been collected, rather than trying to reinvent the wheel again.

If any of you find out anything like this, I'd sure appreciate it if you could let us know.

[John Savage]

Richard, thank you for that point.

I believe Steve Thomson of the BCAC was here today.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Yes, he was.

[John Savage]

That issue has been raised with them. I don't think it has been clearly determined yet whether they will become the lead agricultural side of the issue.

But you do ask an excellent question. We have to get something in place so that we can track all this.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Probably some consumer groups would be happy to find this stuff out too.

[John Savage]

Sure.

[Dick Harris, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Greg, I had a different subject for you, but you can do them both.

I know there's a labour shortage in many sectors of business in Canada. I can understand the one you have in the ag business, particularly for those who would be termed—not to demean it—pickers and unskilled labourers who are seasonal and have to come in.

You have Canadians coming in from Quebec. In many cases, you're probably running out of Canadians to fill those jobs, or you can't get them. In the slaughter industry, I know they're bringing workers in from Mexico and the south. Is there anything the immigration department can do to alleviate labour shortages for seasonal workers, or is the department doing that already?

[Greg Norton]

To respond to that, first of all, you're going to have to come and pick cherries at my orchard someday, and I can assure you that you'll never use the word “unskilled” again. A person who can pick cherries--and some of my pickers make over $300 a day picking--is not unskilled, let me tell you. That's just a sidebar.

We're in and out. We need temporary workers. We're really at a four- to six-week season, and it's hard to attract a person seeking long-term employment. We are suggesting that rather than bringing in temporary workers, organized from the south or whatever, the immigration department could entertain that with the group of people who are travelling from around the world, the backpacker group. They have that youth hostel system. There are literally thousands of them in the country every summer, but at this moment it's illegal for them to take employment. What we're saying is that we might fit into that. The young groups from Europe or wherever they happen to come from throughout the world are in North America at the time that we need them, but today they can't legally come and work for us. Our suggestion is to have a look at that.

Other jurisdictions, specifically New Zealand and Tasmania, allow that to happen. A lot of my pickers actually travel there in the wintertime because they love picking fruit so much. I probably had a dozen in Australia last winter, and they're allowed to work legally under a temporary permit. We'd like to encourage an examination of that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you, Mr. Harris.

Mr. Atamanenko, you have five minutes.

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

Mr. Butler, I have a question for you initially about Delta. You mentioned some problems with regard to agriculture. Is the land that you're talking about an ALR? Does this tie in with the Tsawwassen and what's happening there with first nations? Could you give us a little enlightenment?

[Bob Butler]

The agricultural land I'm talking about in Delta is land within the ALR, the agricultural land reserve, for those of you who don't know what that is. It's specified land on which all you can do is farm. It's not meant for industry, housing, or anything else. However, that does not stop highways or railways from finding ways, for the good of Canada or the good of the province of B.C., of being erected or constructed, and that is an issue.

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

What's happening in Tsawwassen right now with the first nations? Are you involved in that?

[Bob Butler]

The first nations are getting a large chunk of land. It's going to be about 1,000 acres of land, half of which they're going to apply to have taken out of the ALR for the economic benefit. We know that's going to happen. In addition to that, we're going to lose something close to another 200 to 300 acres because of a new highway going through. We have other smaller things that will take up 50, 60, or 70 acres of land that are in the ALR as well.

There is a lot of pressure on ALR land within Delta, and the more pressure you have, both urban pressure and industrial pressure, the more difficult it becomes. We talked earlier about the noise issues and setting off canons to stop birds or whatever from coming in. They've become prohibited. Hunting is no longer used as a scare tactic in Delta, because as the municipality builds, less and less hunting happens because it is deemed to be unsafe. You have all sorts of things that take away from growing quality crops, unfortunately.

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

It looks as though there's not much hope to keep that land in the ALR then.

[Bob Butler]

When it comes to the first nations issue, no, there is no hope of keeping that in the ALR. In fact, the whole issue of their negotiating was to obtain land for economic benefit, and economic benefit is not deemed to be something you get from agriculture today.

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

Thank you.

Greg, I have a couple of questions for you.

You mentioned a couple of concerns you have: communication at the research station with scientists, unemployment insurance for six weeks, and the backpackers. Have you or your association made any specific recommendations? Have you approached anybody about these, or is this the first time that you're raising these questions?

[Greg Norton]

Specifically on the access to the park, it has just happened in the last six months. We can find our scientists. I know the people that I really have to find, and I know their home phone numbers, to be honest, or I can drive up there and get at them, but the general public has difficulty doing that.

As far as the backpacker program goes, I think I mentioned that seven years ago at the standing committee. It's been around for a long time. We've been at that one for a long time, with little or no activity, it seems. You write letters to Ottawa, and you get the standard answer back, and after a while you think, what the heck--it wasn't a good idea. We've been pounding at it, and that's why I brought it up here.

What was the other one you had?

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

That was the employment insurance.