Thank you. Our presentation will be joint with Ian Wishart from Keystone Agricultural Producers.
On behalf the Delta Waterfowl Foundation and Keystone Agricultural Producers, I would like to thank the standing committee for this opportunity to present the concept of ALUS.
It may seem a bit unusual for a conservation group to be asked to present what is essentially an agricultural policy proposal, but there are some very important environmental challenges on the agricultural landscape, not the least of which is how to design a program that both provides solutions to difficult environmental problems while at the same time respecting the rights of landowners and recognizing the requirement to foster an economically sustainable agriculture.
Canadian farmers face many economic challenges, but they are also facing an emerging environmental agenda. An urban-based electorate is demanding new products, often referred to as ecological goods and services, such as cleaner water, flood control, water storage, clean air, wildlife, and pastoral landscapes from farmers.
The alternative land use services proposal is based on the concept of paying agricultural producers for providing environmental benefits to the public by conserving and enhancing the public environmental resources on private land. ALUS integrates the environmental demands of Canadians into the mainstream of agriculture in a non-regulatory manner. ALUS would deliver environmental benefits. It is non-trade distorting, farmer friendly, and it would be attractive to both rural and urban citizens. After all, whether they realize it or not, most Canadians live in the agricultural regions of Canada.
It must be emphasized that Canada is one of the few industrialized countries without such a program. Canada's main trading partners, most notably the United States and the European Union, have significant EG and S incentive programs for their producers. Indeed the lack of such a program in Canada puts our producers at a competitive disadvantage relative to our trading partners.
ALUS is the first incentive-based national conservation proposal to be developed by the farming and ranching community in Canada. ALUS recognizes the role of producers as good environmental stewards and encourages them to enhance environmental benefits for all Canadians from private farm and ranchlands.
There have been two traditional approaches to environmental conservation on private farmlands, namely regulations and/or land purchase. Neither of these policy options has been particularly effective. Examples of failed regulatory programs include the Species at Risk Act and the increased enforcement of the habitat provisions of the Fisheries Act. Both are costly programs that have failed to deliver environmental results. They have only served to alienate rural communities and impose unnecessary costs on producers. ALUS is an alternative to promulgating environmental regulations beyond reasonable baseline levels.
The assumption behind land purchase programs is that somehow we need to eliminate the private landowner in order to generate environmental benefits. While land purchase may have a place on a small scale, it is evident that widespread land purchase by conservation agencies cannot deliver real results on a large scale. You simply cannot buy enough land.
Land purchase programs also compete with the land requirements of existing producers and their families. The restriction on land purchases by conservation groups that was in place in Saskatchewan for five years is a recent example. ALUS incentives would be provided by the beneficiaries of environmental services and include all Canadians with a stake in a healthy environment.
ALUS is proposed because conservation experience has shown that environmental regulations and land purchase are less effective and more costly over the long term than incentive-based approaches to derive environmental benefits from agricultural landscapes.
Mr. Wishart.