Evidence of meeting #51 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 saskatchewan.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
Thank you very much, gentlemen, for coming here this morning.
My first question is for Mr. Holland and Mr. Mardell. I'd like a very quick crash course in the cervid industry, so I'll just ask some questions to get a better idea.
Why is CFIA no longer involved in this? You mentioned they used to be up until 1998.
President, Western Cervid Ranchers Association
It's been a shift here. I don't know how to explain it. The environment department in Saskatchewan pretty well stayed out of the picture. It had a process in the early 1990s, which was the perfect process. It had all the stakeholders in Saskatchewan at a table. They were, short and briefly, what they called the round-table talks, and they were to educate the government on this industry because it was expanding really fast.
Those talks lasted a year and a half. The environment department called them off. The reason it called them off was because it never won an argument. The cattle association was there. You just name it, every association was there. The cattle guys wanted it to be agriculture with us, because they recognized ownership, and you can't run a livestock sector under the SERM department. Anyway, they called those talks off because they never won one argument.
Everything stayed a little calm until 1998, and then by order in council they threw us in the Wildlife Act. They've been reaching out for controls ever since. At the present time they have 100% of the control of this industry, and that includes your export permits.
I'll give you a little more background of where this industry went really wrong. In 1995 there was a sick animal in Saskatchewan and they didn't exactly know what to do about that. Anyway, in January of 1996 they put that animal down, and that was Agriculture Canada, which is now CFIA. That animal was traced out to the source herd in the province with CWD, and that was in the Hillmond area. That animal was imported from the United States, and Agriculture Canada made a mistake.
I have no problem with anybody making a mistake, but don't shuffle the dirt underneath the carpet and hope it goes away. They should have taken that diseased animal, which they did. It wasn't a designated disease at that time. They can do that within hours, get it done and clean it up. But they left that animal, that trace-out herd, doing business in this province for five and a half years.
In the meantime, there was another outbreak at Cabri, down in that country down there, and it traced back to that same herd. They didn't do anything. They went to the relatives of that animal, and they grabbed 13 animals and they put them down. Virtually, they were all negative.
A few years later, it wasn't that long, and the same farm at Cabri broke out again with CWD, and it was traced back to this Hillmond herd for the third time. Then they quarantined the herd and put it down. That single mistake destroyed this industry, that alone.
The sad part about it is it's a diversification that governments promoted, both federally and provincially. It's an industry that didn't need one dollar from government, never did. The markets are strong and they always have been. In Canada we destroyed this industry ourselves; nobody else did it to us.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
So how many producers are there now in Saskatchewan, and does that include hunt farms also?
President, Western Cervid Ranchers Association
I don't know how to answer that. If you get the statistics out of Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food, it's close to 572 farms. In the records that I have—because I do a lot of talking to producers—there are 100 farms gone, and that includes everybody, deer, fallow deer, hunt farms, everything. We've lost that many in the process so far.
There's a tremendous number of farms that just have a handful of animals left. I know lots of farms that would give you their animals just to get rid of them.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
So this is not only elk, it's deer then, deer and elk.
President, Western Cervid Ranchers Association
Deer and elk are involved in this, but there are different markets. Deer are only raised for the hunt market and elk are raised for all markets.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
When you talk about antlers, that's kind of a reusable resource, right?
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
Cut the antlers off and—So how long would you keep that animal, assuming things were going well?
President, Western Cervid Ranchers Association
Those animals will peak at about eight to ten years; they'll peak in those years, and then they go up and they go down. When they peak you grow them out and put them to the hunt farm.
It's equivalent to a dairy cow, a Holstein cow: when her milk production starts to go down, you market her. When you sell her to the slaughtering plant, whatever dollar she brings is 100% profit, because she doesn't owe you anything. A hunt operates the same way.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
Okay. There is a market for antlers right now, but you can't export them. Is that right? Are you able to export them?
Director, Western Cervid Ranchers Association
You can export them, but we're held hostage by the price. Everybody knows that we can't go into Korea. China has come over here, and they're offering us $15 a pound for it. They export it to Hong Kong, and it then probably goes by boat to China or Korea. They get $100 a pound for it.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
We need the same process that CFIA has in governing exports of other meats.
For example, an inspector could come from China, accompanied by CFIA, make the inspection, and fill out the forms. It would then guarantee us a market. Is that what you're saying?
Director, Western Cervid Ranchers Association
Right now we have Chinese buyers who come right to the farm. I have a Chinese buyer who comes out to our farm.
Different producers will bring their antlers to our place. We weigh them, grade them, and store them in freezer units until we get enough to ship the product out. We have to go through CFIA and an exporting company out of Calgary to get all the documentation and all the documentation from the farms to load this container to ship out. Once it's on the ship, they don't care.
When China gets it back there, the tags are taken off. We're told to package it into smaller boxes so that it's easier for them to carry, and to probably hide it on bicycles, and away they go. They move it to wherever they want.
To get our product out of Canada with the regulations of our own CFIA, even though the products are coming off clean farms, we are still scrutinized with paperwork. That is the biggest problem. No farm can get a clean bill of health from CFIA, because if you want to export antlers, they have to give you an export of antlers declaration. If you somehow don't fill out an inventory form, they'll say you can't ship it. It's a producer's problem, and these things can be looked after.
CFIA is after us more for rules and regulations right now, instead of saying let's go to Korea, we want to open up the borders again, and our animals are clean.
It's what we want CFIA to do, because it's going to be like the bird flu. It's going to be like BSE. CWD is no different. We're going to have a case come up someplace. We have to work with it, and we understand that. We're not saying we want them to tell us we're all disease-free, but we want them to work with us and we will work with them, because it's going to pop up someplace again, just like any other disease.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Mr. Atamanenko, your time has expired. Thank you very much.
I need a clarification. You're talking about the Asian market still being fairly viable. Is that for both antlers and meat?
Director, Western Cervid Ranchers Association
We've tried to set up a European meat market, but we've run into too many CFIA and government regulations in Canada. We'd like to get an EU inspector to come over here, because their regulations are not as tough as ours are, but they won't agree to that.
Conservative
Director, Western Cervid Ranchers Association
They want the CFIA in there first, and then the EU. Our markets have been hampered by that too.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
It's a very interesting topic that both Richard and Roger have addressed this morning.
This committee addressed the CWD issue when we travelled to Manitoba a year or two ago.
Would you not agree there is a lot of outside pressure on your industry both from wildlife and management branches in the provinces and from the beef industry or this industry? There are people within those industries and government agencies who want your industry shut down. I know that. I think you would probably not want to admit it this morning, but I would suggest that you recognize it. There's a lot of pressure from those agencies. They would prefer you weren't in the business.
Having said that, I think it's important to recognize there may be a way, because the product is accessible and the product is allowed outside this country. Can you briefly explain to this committee how we can address this to allow the product to go from $15 a pound to $100 or whatever it was worth before? What can we do to address it?
Given that we allow the product to go out, the problem is getting the right price for it and bypassing agencies that make up the difference. Can you quickly explain to us how we can do it?
President, Western Cervid Ranchers Association
I'll tell you a little bit of what I know about it.
In the five and a half years when that farm was allowed to operate, we actually exported a diseased animal right to South Korea, and that's what slammed the door, right there.
Another thing that has been explained to me is when you go to the world trade talks and all countries are there—Well, let's talk about the BSE issue. There is a platform that all countries agreed upon and a policy that is on paper. I think it is something like if your country has fewer than 15 cases of BSE a year, you can still export into markets. Now, when you talk about CWD, there is absolutely nothing on paper. They have no guidelines to follow at all, and that's what the federal government has told us. That is somewhat of a problem.
I know there are people who don't like our industry here. There are people who don't like us raising cattle too. That is the way of life in this world. It's always going to be there. You're never going to eliminate that. But this industry is based on sound markets, and it always has been. In North America, we have New Zealand selling venison in our backyard, and they are experts over there and their government is behind it. If there is a problem anywhere in their industry, their government is in an airplane and they're over in that country. In our country, we have had CFIA in South Korea over there, but CFIA shouldn't be heading that commission. It should be our trade minister. CFIA should also be there, but let's do it properly.
Those are the kinds of things I know we have to get done to do that. It's not going to be the easiest step, but I have also been told that this summer, in August, our Canadian government is close to signing a free trade agreement with South Korea. I haven't heard anything on that since, on whether it's getting close or not.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
Okay. I want to go to Kenton, and perhaps to Wayne.
There is this discrepancy in terms of how provinces deal with programming, particularly on the crop insurance side. My argument, as we've travelled across the country for a long time, has been that we perhaps need to start looking at a directed program from one level of government. I believe that is the federal government, but maybe we need one department of agriculture for Canada. Manitoba shouldn't have to compete with the treasury of Alberta, or Ontario with Quebec. We're not enemies of one another; we're part of the same confederate family. But we need to work and harmonize our programs so that we don't find interprovincial barriers. We have enough barriers in the business of agriculture today without having to compete against provinces. A farmer shouldn't have to compete against another farmer.
If we had that kind of directive, at least we would know where we would go to get it changed. While you may change a federal program, you might not be able to convince provincial governments to necessarily accept those mandated programs in the same way.
I'm just wondering how you would feel about having one department of agriculture for Canada.