Agriculture Committee on April 19th, 2007

[Rob Brunell]

Thank you for your question. Although it's hard to grasp how to build a long-term policy, I think you have to start with the basics. Within your policy there may be changes, depending on markets and conditions. But if we don't have something to bank on that we know will be there as we build our operations....

I'm not a big fan of safety nets and never want to use them, but if I know at the end of the day that for the next ten years, when I'm planning my business, developing markets, and so on, I'll have something that will actually work, prevent drastic losses, and keep the bumps in the road smoother, that's a start.

What else is out there? It's a tough question to answer, but there are probably many things we can look at in the long term that we know will be there so we can develop things around them. They also have to be flexible, because there's no sense developing something that will be non-existent in ten years. It has to be entrenched yet flexible enough that we know what will be there in the future.

I hope that answers your question.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

I have a quick question for Mr. Watts. Have you ever considered other modes of transportation besides rail transportation? I am talking about modes for which the cost would be more or less equivalent.

[Peter Watts]

I think I'll defer the question to my transportation guru.

[Greg Cherewyk]

The pulse industry makes use of marine containers that can be loaded at the plant on the prairies. That requires an effective rail freight system. They go hand in hand. They also make use of intermodal units that move by truck. The bottom line is that more than 99% of our product must move by rail, with the exception of stuff that is trucked to Mexico.

During the strike, for example, we did have to truck some product. It takes 37 trucks to ship 1,500 tonnes of lentils to Vancouver. You can imagine the premium you'd have to pay to truck product to Vancouver, the environmental cost, and the toll that would take on your highways. It's not sustainable, and clearly we require rail freight and a containerized freight system that allows us to move the product effectively and efficiently.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Was Pulse Canada part of the discussion last year on the shippers' rate proposals?

[Greg Cherewyk]

Yes, we're a member of the rail shipper coalition.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Do you support that?

[Greg Cherewyk]

Yes.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Do you see that as an important movement toward dealing with some of the problems we have in the transportation system?

[Greg Cherewyk]

Yes. It's an important step when commercial arrangements and negotiations break down. There needs to be a legislative backstop to support and ensure that shippers' rights are protected. We have been part of that discussion since May 2006.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Does your organization have any position on additional running rates on present rail lines?

[Greg Cherewyk]

Our organization has not developed a position on that. To my knowledge, the rail shipper coalition did not put forward a position on that.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

You talked about regulatory restrictions being an issue and said that Health Canada was one of the problems. Do you find those problems in Agriculture Canada or CFIA? Today we heard about the attempt to license a variety of barley. CFIA is involved in that--and the novel foods issue. Is it primarily Health Canada you're dealing with, or are you dealing with Agriculture Canada as well?

[Peter Watts]

It's both. I guess what I was trying to drive at in the presentation was that we need to take into consideration some of the regulatory issues that fall outside our control as we develop policies—recognizing, for example, that Health Canada is in the midst of developing new policies vis-à-vis food regulations—and make sure we understand them, because increasingly they have an impact on agriculture and on the opportunity for innovation. But certainly CFIA is also a group that we as an industry are dealing with on a regular basis.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I don't have anything more to say, other than that the Canadian Young Farmers Forum was a real highlight for us in Ottawa. I think the others who were there would say that. It was fun to have that visit.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I'll just follow up and use some of the member's time.

Dr. Wittenberg, one thing you didn't really get into is the research component at the University of Manitoba and whether or not there has been enough investment in the agriculture science field that you're in charge of. I know you're now largely involved in the education side of the faculty, but you've also been very involved in a lot of the animal science work that has gone on in the past, and you have a lot of colleagues who have done a lot of great work for the farmers of Manitoba.

Do you see the dollars increasing or decreasing the amount of research you can do moving ahead, or is it impeded? That's a question for you.

[Karin Wittenberg]

Basically, if we're talking about short-term, discipline-oriented research, we can find dollars. In our faculty, we pull in a little over $10 million a year in research money, the majority of it from out of province—or maybe not; about 50% is from out of province.

That would be good for the person doing nutrition research or reproduction research, if it's animal science or, it might be, plant breeding. Where we're really struggling, and where there is need, is in the more long-term effort, where we've tried to develop infrastructure that allows us to look at the relationships between agricultural practices and environment; or in another case, to support a centre that we've built to increase value-added for food going into functional foods and nutriceuticals—the Richardson Centre for Functional Foods and Nutriceuticals.

These efforts to become current and to realign our research expertise in areas that meet the needs of the industry today and tomorrow have two types of investments: short-term investment, which we can only say we need more of; but more importantly, the longer-term investment, which does not exist in any of the granting agencies currently.

That could also come through better linkages. There are many barriers to collaboration still between federal agencies and universities. We have a few research experts across Canada in our various institutions in any one area. To have them more easily work together, to provide resources for them to work together and overcome barriers, is another way by which we support longer-term research.

So I would say there's always a need for more; that's right. But if we were to focus it to provide some support for those long-term initiatives that meet issues that have the industry's and the public good at heart—things such as the agriculture-environment relationship, animal welfare, food safety.... These are all long-term, because what you do to influence one—let's say animal welfare—is going to have an impact on the byproducts of that production system; it's going to have an impact on environment; it has a potential impact on food safety. These complex areas have to have a different type of support from what we have traditionally offered. In my mind, it is multi-disciplinary and it's a longer-term type of support that's required.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. Atamanenko, you get to bat clean-up today.

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

Thank you very much.

I have a question for Pulse Canada, and also Mr. Brunell and Dr. Wittenberg; please feel free to join in.

We've heard over and over again about the problems facing primary producers and farmers, whether it's insurance or CAIS, or being innovative and scrambling here and trying to do something. So a farmer does this, and all of a sudden you want to ship your peas, for example, and you have this horror story that you're talking about, the hurdles. You know, 20% cars allotted if you get them; cars not in condition; they move it when they feel like it; the timeline.

So I have a question, and I know this is controversial in this day and age, but I'm going to ask this question. I was talking to a farmer near Saskatoon, and his son spends the whole day on his cellphone trying to negotiate something for peas. He used the example of peas. So we have peas that are shipped; we have canola that's shipped. And we have wheat and barley that are shipped through the Wheat Board, but canola is not. If we look at these three commodities, does it make a difference when you have one organization, such as the Wheat Board in this case, or does it not make a difference? Is there a difference with canola? Because we haven't heard what the timeline is on canola.

I'd just like to get to the bottom of this, apart from the fact that the rail line isn't doing our business. We know that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Cherewyk.

[Greg Cherewyk]

Peter might have alluded to it. We do know what the transit times are for canola and board grains. For canola, it was an average of nine days from the prairies to port, and for board grains it was an average of 11 days. For pulses and special crops, it was 16 days.

It's not a matter of the organization or the company involved with respect to the timelines. If you speak to members of our organization, which include the Agricore Uniteds, the Cargills, the Sask Wheat Pools, they all have programs that move mustard, canary seed, peas, lentils, and they also move board grains, and canola. So they experience the same problems that the rest of the shippers do.

It's more a matter of something that Peter included in the beginning of his presentation. Peas, for example, are not a commodity that will move in 50- or 100-car unit trains. That's not the nature of the market we deliver to; it's not the nature of the customer we deliver to; it doesn't suit the distribution channels in the country, nor the end-uses. Yet we're developing more and more types of products that are not characterized as bulk commodities.

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

So this move by CN to move 100-car units is obviously detrimental to this commodity.