Agriculture Committee on April 23rd, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Wiseman.

[Mervin Wiseman]

I think with this whole issue of developing ethanol, biodiesel, or biofuel we have to be careful it doesn't become a double-edged sword. We're not going to get rich in Newfoundland and Labrador in developing ethanol, believe me. One would have to think that if it can increase demand it would increase commodity prices, especially in the grains and oilseeds sector. But at the same time, we have to be worried about our partners in the livestock industry.

What's going to happen if the price of livestock feed goes up? It's definitely going to be a balancing act. In terms of what the benefits are going to be, we'll find that we will produce the product, which will be clean for the environment, and so on, but if we want to buy it we'll pay more money for that ethanol than somebody south of the border. We're famous for being able to produce all different kinds of energy. We're the last ones to accrue the benefit directly at the pump.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

At the same time, although I've been concerned about the rising cost of feed grains, even if we didn't do our program here in Canada, it's completely influenced by what's happening south of the border, especially on the corn price. Barley and wheat are tied to corn, and that's what's going through the roof.

One thing was different in what we heard here this morning from what we heard in western Canada. The pork industry, for example, loved the CAIS program. They thought it worked; they thought margin-based was the way to go. I've never been a fan of it, so I throw myself in the camp you guys are in, that a margin-based program doesn't work, especially on mixed farm operations.

We're talking about having regional top-up types of programs. The other issue that came out of western Canada is that they didn't want to see any of that. They didn't want to see having those companion programs at a provincial level because it would affect trade. Trade neutrality has been a big issue.

How do you, especially when you work with your national organizations, balance the issues of trade neutrality and the programming they desire with programming that will work in your area?

Monsieur Boudreau.

[Dennis Boudreau]

Here in Nova Scotia it's past time that this country believes you can have more than just one unified program. It's coming to be that while we're not going to separate from our national organization, we have to start speaking out and saying what the needs of Nova Scotia are. We're starting to do that.

The needs of Nova Scotia are probably that we will agree that we can't support a CAIS margin-based program, but I can easily see that the western producers would still like to see that around, and they're going to be forceful about having it around, because they're worried about trade. Since we're not in a trading area, the Maritimes will not profit from that. We don't trade. It hurts the Maritimes, because we get a national or a North American price. We have no benefit from that. In the last five years, we've never had a huge increase in price, because we have trade in this country.

If we look at pork, if I remember, in my younger years we were exporting about 25% or 30%. It wasn't a huge problem. Now, at over 50%, we're vulnerable to whoever wants to buy our pork as the cheapest in the world. We can't compete worldwide. Brazil can raise pork cheaper than the U.S., so we have all these guys attacking us.

We'll never compete, so we have to be smart with our policies. We only have so much money, and it's about time to really separate the regions of Canada by what their problems are.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. Atamanenko, we have a few minutes left, if you want to have a supplemental question.

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

Thank you.

I have another question about this. The more I hear about trade and how it's affecting our producers, the more...in an ideal world, I'd probably say let's pull agriculture out of the WTO and let's pull out of NAFTA and get our food security straightened away, and let's take it from there. That's in an ideal world. Unfortunately, we're not in one.

This is for the Dairy Farmers of Nova Scotia, or anybody else. Can an agreement be signed at the WTO without weakening supply management? If so, how? If not, then what do we have to do?

In listening to David this morning and also to what we've been talking about here, that seems to be the question. If we sign this, how do we keep it; if not, what do we have to do?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Who wants to go first?

Mr. Whidden.

[Havey Whidden]

Yes, how do we do that? That's a great question. If we're going to have a dairy industry in Canada, we have to maintain those three pillars. How do we do it?

I'm not one of the ones who has the privilege of sitting at the negotiating table, obviously. We have to make sure—I come back to the fundamental question again. It seems to me we have to ask that question and we have to come up with the answer.

If Canada is going to continue to have policies in place that will allow farmers in this country to be competitive and receive a fair return from the marketplace and have the ability to produce food to feed our people—if when we answer that question we as a country decide we're going to do this, okay, let's put the policy in place to do it. If we're not, let the government tell me it is not going to stand behind us as farmers and I'll go and do something else. But don't let them keep doing what they're doing now. They're telling us one thing on one hand, and on the other hand they're telling us that if push comes to shove, too bad.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Go ahead, Mr. Wiseman.

[Mervin Wiseman]

I think it's going to come down to a relative amount of resolve, as you say, and some negotiating skill. I think it's going to lie in the area of sensitive products and how we treat that, and how smart we are at rationalizing what sensitive products are going to be. I think we can easily rationalize it on that basis. I don't think we've fully explored—

I know you need to have some resolve when it comes to standing your ground on sensitive products. If you tie sensitive products into the idea of food sovereignty and even food safety and so on, and what supply management can offer, I think that's where we need to go. If we can't get it there, I don't know where we're going to go to get it, to be honest with you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Does anyone want to comment? Mr. Boudreau?

Go ahead, Mr. Whidden.

[Havey Whidden]

May I just add to what the previous speaker just said? As I understand it, the way negotiations are going right now within the WTO, there is not enough room within the sensitive product category to protect all of supply management.

I really hope we don't get into a situation at some point in which we have the supply management people at a table and we have to make decisions about who is going to bear the brunt of not having all the commodities within supply management being recognized under the sensitive product category. If there is not enough there, then someone is going to take a lot of hurt, and I don't think it's fair that we have to sit around a table and decide who is going to do that--who is going to take the hit and who isn't.

[Mervin Wiseman]

Mr. Chair, we're looking at protecting a domestic industry; we're not trying to infringe on what's happening south of the border or in other countries. We want to protect our domestic industry, and I don't think you have to stretch very far to rationalize that.

Moving away from that a little bit, if we could satisfy the domestic industry in Newfoundland and Labrador, we will have created a multi-million-dollar industry that we just simply don't have. If you rationalize it along that basis and build designs around the kinds of programs that will allow you to expand, at least in the short term, to do that kind of thing, I don't see how we could be faulted internationally, especially through the WTO.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Since Mr. Wiseman mentioned the Easter report, and nothing makes Wayne happier than having somebody talk about his report, to make the last comment we'll have the happy Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I will say it makes sense, Mr. Chair.

Havey is right. Is there enough room in the sensitive product category? The problem right now is that Canada's position on sensitive products is not on the table any more. That left with Andy Mitchell, and that's a huge problem.

Looking at the overall structure of how we do agriculture policy, I sometimes wonder if we're trapped, to a certain extent, by our history. I do think the Canadian farm bill proposed by the Canadian Federation of Agriculture makes a lot of sense. I quite honestly don't know how we can structure that in Canada, because of the way we're structured as governments, federally and provincially and everything else. It's a complicated way to go.

Whether we can or whether we can't, would it not be better if we learned some lessons from the United States? They're much more strategic in how they do their farm policy. They've got all kinds of programming in green programs that, for whatever reason, we don't want to even consider. I mean, CFIA costs could be paid for by the Government of Canada, and they're green. Environmental programming we could have coming out our ears, and it would be green; it wouldn't be considered a subsidy, and we wouldn't be seeing headlines in The Globe and Mail about farmers being subsidized again. Re-think this thing out of the box somewhat and see what we can do at those ends. Lots could be done there, rather than on specific commodity support as such. Maybe we have to look at those areas.

The bottom line is that we've got to support our Canadian farmers. Our main competition is the United States, and if they're supporting them dollar for dollar, we've got to meet them dollar for dollar. I don't see any question about that.

And how are we going to convince not only their party but our own party and the others as well? When we talk assistance for farmers, it's not necessarily partisan politics; it's our own centres, in terms of how do we get there, dollar for dollar?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I would ask everybody to keep their comments brief, because we have run out of time.

[Mervin Wiseman]

If I can just say, Mr. Chair, in terms of looking at some of the things you can put back on the table, including the Easter report, there was an APF review, chaired by Ed Tyrchniewicz, that every producer in this country sat at the table with, along with government. I wonder, did somebody blow that up? I haven't heard of it anytime since we finished it off. There's a lot of good stuff in there, so let's learn from that.

I agree with you on being able to maybe take the CFA farm bill and move it forward, but I think if we could achieve the goals of getting the main principles into what we're trying to achieve, we will have achieved a lot. So we may have to focus on the principles.

But let there be no doubt about it; there were lots of examples out there and lots of examples south of the border that we can take if we only have the political will to do it. We're too goddamn afraid to do it. What's wrong with us? Let's have some backbone. And yes, we're going to have a bit of countervail. Maybe we have to take a little bit of a risk.

You know, right away, in talking about CFA, I want to maintain as much solidarity with CFA as I can, but at the same time I see some paranoia there. They're afraid to talk about protecting COP, because if you mention COP, it resembles supply management somehow and they're afraid of countervail.

[Dennis Boudreau]

I think it's very important that this Government of Canada starts to look at paying, as I call it, through the back door—like environmental stuff, like the U.S. and other countries are doing. I think after these consultations, at least here in the Maritimes, it's pretty clear that's the path to use.

Maybe as exporters out west they think that's still too risky, but I think it's time we are heard, and I think the message should come right from the minister and right to his staff that now is the time for his staff to start working on how we go about it, because his staff are not going to do it by themselves. I think the word has to come from the top, and we have to get there; we have a short timeframe.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Gordon.

[Robert Gordon]

Just to follow up on Mr. Easter's comment, certainly I fully support the focus of linking environmental management and food safety and quality into grain programs, but the other important issue is that those costs are going to continue to get higher and higher as we have more emerging issues regarding environmental management, but also food safety and human health. So I think it's going to be paramount to continue to make that push for having those identified in that context.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Whidden.

[Havey Whidden]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I fully agree with Mr. Easter's comments, and in fact we've been asking the government why they aren't putting money into these programs for a number of years now.

We always seem to be, again, the good guy in Canada. We know that some of the other countries that are at the table, or will be at the table, negotiating the next round of the WTO are doing things right now, putting moneys into grain programs to prepare themselves for whatever the eventuality is of the next WTO agreement, but here in Canada we just sit pat and we don't do anything. We wait until the hurt is already done.

The Canadian quality milk program is a good example. The Canadian dairy farmers are putting a lot of money into an on-farm food safety program to make sure that we have a safe, wholesome product to supply to our consumers, and yet we as farmers are footing the bill for that entire program. We've been asking for assistance for that program, but there just seems to be no money available.

That's just one example of something that government could do to help us in that regard.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I want to thank all the witnesses from this morning for participating in our hearings today. It will help us formulate our report, which we'll table back to the House of Commons later this spring.

We've certainly enjoyed our time here in Nova Scotia. Next we'll be catching a plane to Charlottetown.

With that, the meeting is adjourned.