Evidence of meeting #60 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 programs.
President, Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association
There were a lot of questions in there. I'm not quite sure what I should.... Which one was specifically to me?
Vice-Chair, Ontario Apple Growers
We're supportive of the B.C. program recommendation about a minimum price. Washington State produces almost as many apples as the rest of North America put together. They're huge. They have huge market clout, and some years they just wipe us off the face of the map; 2004 was one of those years. That's why B.C. has done this. So, yes, we're supportive of something to protect us.
Coordinator, Ontario Region, National Farmers Union
If you look at the U.S. Farm Bill, that is a national policy around food and around agriculture and around rural communities, for good or ill. There are lots of problems with the U.S. Farm Bill, but it's actually a policy. We don't have a policy around these issues in Canada, and I think that's where we see some of these debates over the Wheat Board, for example.
I did one of those things that's unheard of. The first time I was in Saskatoon--being an Ontario boy, I knew very little about it--I rented a car when all my meetings were over and I just started driving around Saskatoon, saying I was this kid from Ontario wanting to know about the Wheat Board. I found that by and large--now I was in southern Saskatchewan--the farmers supported it because they understood that in the lean years they could work together. Now, there are always going to be those who want to crack heads for management, and those people have been around for a long time.
So I think, as we move forward as a country, we need to be working more together, more collectively, and those are the kinds of solutions we're going to have. We can't win the race to the bottom. We can't possibly win it when we look at our labour standards and our environmental standards. I don't want the kinds of standards for my family I see in many of our so-called competition nations, and I doubt anybody here does. So we need to start winning the race to the top, and that's where we need to be focusing.
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
First of all, looking at CAIS payments, I think we're being told that if you have difficulty in 2004, you file your CAIS report, and you get a payment maybe in 2005 and it may even be 2006. It goes that far.
So are we being told that you have to put that as part of your income in the year that you receive your payment from CAIS? Is that because of income tax regulations? You can't file a readjustment of income for that particular year? Is that what you're saying, Ian?
President, Ontario Cattlemen's Association
When you receive your CAIS cheque, that has to be income in the year that you receive it. It cannot be put back into the year in which you actually had the claim. That is a problem. You could be receiving your CAIS cheque in a year that's substantially better, in which case you don't need the funds that year and it puts you into a tax situation to potentially give some of it back.
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
Has anyone ever filed a complaint with Revenue Canada to seek redress on that? It affects not only your income for the following year, it also affects your business in terms of readjustments with CAIS in the future. Has anyone challenged Revenue Canada's position on that, that you know of?
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
It seems, Mr. Chair, very significant. It should really be a very significant part of this report. It seems very unfair, because you can ask for readjustments and I know in other industries they do have readjustment, but for agriculture there isn't.
Looking at the business of our product getting into the supermarket, I think we heard that American producers are buying.... They put these fancy flyers out. You buy a corner, so many inches by so many inches, in order to promote your product, and the person who's selling it is the person who is billed for that part of the flyer.
We're saying, then, that the American groups are buying advertising in the supermarket flyers to encourage the sale of their product in Canada?
President, Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association
That's correct, and the produce section is what I'm talking about. Let's say California wants to move a whole lot of peaches and right in our time. They may come in and offer a deal to a major chain, and if they talk to somebody like National Grocers, you're talking 50% of the market—50% of the market.
They can come in and they can tie that up with a deal. It would be a package for a certain amount of volume for a certain amount of time, and there would be rewards. They may buy the flyers; they buy the space in the papers; they may buy the shelf space. There's all kinds of wheeling and dealing going on. This is business we're talking about, and there's no end to innovation when you're looking to steal somebody else's market. They're very good at it.
If one of those chains comes in and successfully ties up one of our markets... Remember, I'm talking peaches. I have eight weeks to sell my crop. If they come in and they buy a market for two, three, or four weeks and half the Canadian market is tied up by that deal, where am I supposed to go? And wherever I go, I have to go cheap, because I'm in trouble right now; I've just lost half my market.
This is just the way business is done. It's part of the consolidation problem, and it's the way the Americans are doing business. I'm not beating up on the Americans. If they're smart enough to do a deal, good for them, but they're killing us and it's being allowed, and nobody seems to think there's anything wrong with that.
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
With the tree planting, I'm a bit confused about this program, because you say that each province must have negotiated with the federal government for a program, and Ontario has not been successful in negotiating. Is this what we're hearing, or is it simply that the Province of Ontario has no money to do it?
Vice-Chair, Ontario Apple Growers
The Canadian Horticultural Council, working with the grape industry, has made a presentation to the federal government with all the provinces on board. Each individual province also has negotiated with their provincial government for a replant program separately. B.C. has had one for 16 years plus, and it is on sort of an annual renewal now. I'm not quite sure whether they've extended the term.
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
Whose problem is this, then? We hear so many cases of the feds being here, the provinces being there, and no one can agree. Who do you see as the culprit in terms of not making an arrangement that would be satisfactory for your sector?
Vice-Chair, Ontario Apple Growers
At this moment in time, it's the federal government. We need Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's support for a national program, at which point every major apple-producing province will have federal support and provincial support, because the Ontario government--
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
To go back, you say that some provinces have had it--B.C., for instance.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Mr. Troup wants to comment on this. This will be the last comment; all your time has expired.
President, Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association
All the programs that are in place are provincial only. The federal government has never participated. We want them to, but they've never been willing.
We have worked across the country. We have agreement among all the provinces on a national program, because the federal government always said it had to be national, okay? We're ready to go national, and now the feds are telling us they don't want to do it--boo hoo. We have the province playing the game. Ontario comes to the plate now and says it's in if the feds will come in, and the feds say they are not getting in bed with those guys. They're probably the wrong colour or something. I don't know how these things work politically.
It's a political game. The federal government refuses to play in the game at all. The provinces are all in, except Ontario; Ontario farmers are left with nothing.
Conservative
Barry Devolin Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thanks for being here.
I want to bring up another issue. I was listening to Brian and Len talk about some of the challenges the apple and tender fruit industries are facing. When I think of those products, I think of the Niagara area, maybe Northumberland County up in the Meaford or Collingwood area. We're talking about business risk management, and I would think one of the risks--or one of the threats, actually--to your industry has to be property values. If someone is an apple producer and is going out of business, the apple producer down the road is competing to buy that land with somebody who wants to build a golf course. In Northumberland there is a lot of pressure.
I'm from the Lindsay area, and I know it is an issue there. As property values go up, you're competing with the lawyer from Toronto who wants to buy a weekend home with a nice old Ontario farmhouse on it. That's a challenge.
I'd like to throw this open to whoever wants to comment. First, just in terms of staying in the farm business, staying in agriculture, is increasing land value in southern Ontario a significant threat, and do you have any ideas in terms of what we can do at a policy level to try to keep acres in production, so that a lot of this valuable farmland doesn't become more and more subdivisions, which is what we've seen?
