Thank you.
Mr. Hubbard, you're batting cleanup.
Evidence of meeting #56 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 pei.
Evidence of meeting #56 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 pei.
9:30 p.m.
Conservative
9:30 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
It's a real conundrum that we're dealing with. It seems that in supply management the producer is a factor in the price that they're going to get for their commodity. Things seem to be going fairly well. If you look at the other areas, then you find that it seems to be price that most people are complaining about. If you look at all the inputs, costs, and returns, everybody concentrates on price as the cause of their problem.
I'd like to ask a question about CAIS's bureaucracy. It's a very expensive program in terms of needing bookkeepers and accountants. I've heard complaints, and maybe we'd like to get something on the record.
Also, regarding the bureaucrats, most recognize that within the public service today, senior departmental managers do not have to have agricultural experience. Maybe the person ran a DFO office and suddenly becomes an assistant deputy minister, because it's simply a case of being a good manager. Maybe he ran a prison down here in Nova Scotia, and then they put him in as an assistant deputy minister. This is happening.
Mr. MacFarlane, you were going to fire one for every farmer who lost his farm.
Also, Mr. Harding, you referred to this. Are you getting good cooperation, good understanding, from our federal bureaucracy when you deal with them? Or is it simply that they know everything and don't seem to understand much about farming, and you can't seem to relate to them?
I think Darlene is ready to answer that.
To me, to give you money and then want it back, this is kind of a....
9:30 p.m.
Conservative
9:30 p.m.
National Women's Vice-President, National Farmers Union
Thanks for the question. I'm going to approach that from a slightly different tack.
There was—I don't think there is any longer—a small bureau inside the policy directorate of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, called the farm women's bureau. I'm a personal friend of one of the people who worked there. She has no connection to agriculture, except that she likes to eat. She wants to make sure that a healthy amount of farmers stay in the business. What that tiny little bureau was able to do for farm women across this country was absolutely fantastic. She was a clearing house for us. She notified us of important meetings coming up. She said, do you want on the agenda, and can we get you on the agenda? She was a real advocate for farm women, and not just women of the National Farmers Union, but women—
9:30 p.m.
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
Don't take all my time. I only have five minutes.
Is this thing gone? Are you talking in the past tense?
April 23rd, 2007 / 9:30 p.m.
National Women's Vice-President, National Farmers Union
Yes.
9:30 p.m.
National Women's Vice-President, National Farmers Union
They received no money, and they've been told that because it's policy driven they don't want to go there anymore, and if it's research driven, they don't want to go there anymore.
9:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Prince Edward Island Pork
Thank you. I'll talk quickly.
All kidding aside, you have a lot of people working for you who are professionals, who do an excellent job, and let's not kid ourselves. We got frustrated when we went through this APF facilitated session a month or so ago, and we're not sure where that's going to go at all. And maybe it's not the people there, but the people we deal with and the people we've developed a relationship with are professional. They do a good job. We don't want to give you the impression.... We get frustrated with them when they know prisons and they know DFO offices and they don't know anything about what we're talking about. Understand that, and maybe that's a little bit of this, but generally speaking, it is important you understand that is the case. They feel very passionate about what they're doing and they think they're right, even though they may not be.
9:35 p.m.
President, Prince Edward Island Cattlemen's Association
As to the lack of understanding, we saw that with BSE when the initial programs were designed and the Canadian Cattlemen's Association was invited to sit around the table. They told the program designers the program would not work the way it was being designed and that the money was going to go straight to the packing plant. Governments went ahead. They insisted they were right and put the programs in place anyway, and you can't blame the packing plants for taking the money or stealing it or anything else when the government gave it to them, because they didn't follow the advice of industry. So there are a lot of people up there who do not understand the basic functioning of agriculture.
There are a lot of professional people up there who are very well-intentioned, but my biggest frustration is when they ask for advice or if they don't understand how an industry like the beef industry works. If they go to the trouble of asking a group like the Canadian Cattlemen's Association to give them advice on a program, why would they not follow that advice?
9:35 p.m.
As an Individual
I think the money that comes from Ottawa should come through the TISP program, and that way the farmers would get the money and they wouldn't have to worry about it being a loan. The federal government spent about the same amount of money tinkering with the CAIS program as they're passing out to us. If it comes through as special events or whatever, then it's only a loan and it has to be repaid anyway.
I'm not a whiner or a crybaby, but with the price of grains and oilseeds and so on, now the people with the feedlots can't pay me as much for my feeders because of the price of the grain, so I'm going to lose out again. And I've already lost money big time for the last four years. If they built a biodiesel fuel plant here, at least I could grow soybeans and I would make some money that way.
I do a lot of off-farm work because my net farm income has been zero for the last four years, and the only help the government has been is to send me a bill for $2,800.
Thank you.
9:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Thank you, Mr. MacCallum.
I want to thank all of you for coming, for taking time out of your busy schedules to make presentations to committee. It will help us to finalize our report that we will present to the House of Commons this spring, which I hope will provide some influence to the government as it moves ahead with its APF discussions with the provinces, which they are going to be doing at the ministers meeting at the end of June.
I appreciate the comments that were made on animal health. I'm a cow-calf producer. I want to make sure the animal health issue is dealt with. We have had a number of comments made on that so far. The Canadian Animal Health Coalition has also presented to committee and brought up some of the issues they had, especially with disaster compensation when it's disease-related, and changes to the Animal Health Act to make that more of a pillar.
Also, one of the reasons for doing these cross-country hearings is the comments you made about the concern of whether ideas and issues from those consultation rounds, which so many commodity groups and so many farmers have attended across the country, will be brought forward to the final report, so this is a reconciliation against that process. This one of course is politically driven, but all parties are represented around this table.
Again, thank you very much.
Thanks, Wayne, for inviting us to P.E.I.
With that, we're adjourned.