Agriculture Committee on Feb. 7th, 2008

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

It will vary depending on the yields in any particular year. It will depend on the type of soil those products were put into. But the study also went a bit further. In our review of it, to produce the capacities you're talking about would take roughly 2.1 million acres of wheat, 0.9 million acres of corn, and 0.8 million acres of canola in an average year.

When you look at those numbers, they're very small compared to the fact that Saskatchewan alone has 47 million acres of arable land. So it's certainly doable.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

All right.

From an environmental point of view, would it be better to encourage the use of other natural resources, such as cellulosic materials, for the production of biofuels?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

We are calling those the next generation of ethanol. There's certainly a lot of work going on toward that end, making use of byproducts--the straw, and wood chips from the mills. As you know, the logging industry is facing some downturn. We can start to use wood chips for more than just aspenite, which is a hot product every now and then, but then isn't at times. If we can start making use of bark, wood chips, and things like that in a co-generational type of way, it will add to the efficiency and viability of some of these smaller producers.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

You still have two and a half minutes left.

Mr. Asselin.

[Gérard Asselin, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I have a small technical question.

If you look at Bill C-33, in subsection 2(1), it says that the portion of subsection 140(1) of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act (1999) before paragraph (a) is replaced by the following: “The governor in council may, on the recommendation of the minister, make regulations for carrying out the purposes of section 139 [...]”

However, subsection 2(7) of the bill indicates that subsection 140(3) of the act is replaced by the following: “The governor in council may, on the recommendation of the minister, make regulations exempting from the application of subsection 139(1) [...]”

I would like an explanation for this, because section 139 of the existing act is the first section in question. On the one hand, it says “The governor in council may, on the recommendation of the minister, make [...], and on the other hand, it says: “The governor in council may, on the recommendation of the minister, make regulations exempting from the application of subsection 139(1) [...]”, whereas section 139 is the main section of the bill.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

So is your question based on the difference between “may” and “can”?

[Gérard Asselin, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

In the same bill, it says: “The governor in council may, on the recommendation of the minister, make [...]” A little further on, it says: “The governor in council may, on the recommendation of the minister, make regulations exempting from the application of subsection 139(1) [...]”

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

I'll turn the technical question over to Gord.

[Gord Owen]

In response to the question—and I'm not going to answer with regard to the may-can thing—about proposed sections 139 and 140, proposed section 139 deals with giving the Governor in Council the authority to make regulations that deal with the prohibitions of things. In other words, we can prevent imports of certain things or we can stop certain people from doing things. Proposed section 140 has to do with the authority to prescribe certain levels--for example, the percentage of ethanol in it.

On being able to make regulations under proposed sections 139 and 140, it's replicated because one has to do with the prohibition of things and one has to do with setting the standards.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

The most simple response to that, to get it down to terms I understand, is that it's a bit of a safeguard so that small plants aren't overrun by the larger plants. It allows us to set a little different standard for them in their operational capacity than it does for, say, the Husky Oils of the world that are already in production.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Your time has expired.

Ms. Skelton.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Minister, for being here today.

It really disturbs me when I come to this committee and I hear partisan comments. It bothers me, because we are all here on behalf of producers in Canada.

Last year, when our government came out with the announcements, when we were talking about ethanol and biodiesel, it was the first glimmer of hope for Saskatchewan grain farmers that I had seen for a long time, and people were excited about it and really happy with it.

You had mentioned earlier a comment that you would like the newspaper reporters to print about how producers should look at this seriously. Can you expand a little bit further on that?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Well, it's the first time we've had legislation that actually includes producers, in which they're in the driver's seat. It takes producer involvement to make these things viable for the government to step in and help out with the subsidies, and so forth, the program spending that's there.

Producers now have had a good year, and that's fantastic and I welcome that. The problem is that it's very shortsighted for them to say, with one good year, “I don't need to do the ethanol thing; I don't need to do the biodiesel.” It's a little bit disturbing to me as a parliamentarian and as a producer in that they're not looking at the big picture.

Everybody tells me one good year in five doesn't pay the bills, and I couldn't agree with that more. This gives them an opportunity to deliver product locally. Transportation is the largest cost they face. In western Canada, we have that little thing were everything is FOB tidewater. We start to cut off the freight and elevation charges that take a huge chunk out of every grain cheque that you take in. This is their opportunity to get beyond that.

I've heard this directly from producers who were interested in investing in small plants, now saying, “I don't need to do that. The cashflow is there.” But in the next breath, they condemn us for not jumping all over the cost of inputs.

Here's your opportunity, guys, to broaden your scope, to diversify your operation and have a different door to deliver to that you own.

I take Alex's comment on big oil taking this over and I hear that, and I've seen that happen in other jurisdictions, but it's up to producers to get involved to make sure that doesn't happen.

I don't want them coming back in two or three years saying, “Boy, we have to redo that, because I didn't get in.” The window is closing very, very quickly. If we don't have shovels in the ground and plants going up in this particular calendar year, the window closes even more, and it starts to close faster and faster as we back off this.

I guess I'm throwing down the challenge to producers to roll up their sleeves and make this happen. We're here to backstop them, we're here to help, we're here to make this work. We've made some small adjustments to the program to make it even more friendly for them for investment. I don't know what else we can do, other than sit back and wait for producers to take up that challenge.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Are you able to tell me what those adjustments are?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Again, it's going to take some changes, and again, I welcome the opposition's viewpoint that if it's good for producers, they'll pass it in a day. I look forward to tabling those changes. Some I can do by regulation, some NRCan is looking at, some Environment Canada is looking at. We have taken what they've said to heart. We're making these changes to make it more advantageous for producers to get involved. We're trying to give them flows of cash that they can borrow against, different things like that. There's a multitude....

I shouldn't say there's a multitude. There were a number of small changes that they said are a bit of a hurdle, are a bit of a roadblock. If we can remove those, we may get our producers back online.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

You have about a minute left.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Can you go over again for me the number of acres in canola in Saskatchewan alone? Do you have the numbers of canola acres right across Canada? Then do you have a breakdown what grains we will produce—let's say the canola acreages across Canada—how much we would need right now to keep our capacity up with the plants that we have?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

We had those numbers earlier, on what it would take to hit the targets that we have. Andrew can give you the actual numbers that are in production across Canada.

These are on average yields. As you well understand as a producer, the weather is a big factor.

We had said that to hit the targets we needed 2.1 million acres of wheat, 0.9 million acres of corn, and 0.8 million acres of canola. It's a drop in the bucket compared to what's in production across Canada at this point. Paul is a big corn farmer. He could probably do most of that himself.

If you want the countrywide numbers of what's in production, Andrew has them.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Since we're running short on time, could I maybe get Mr. Marsland to submit that information to the committee in written form? I'd appreciate that.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Okay, sure.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We have about three minutes left.

Mr. Steckle.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to defer to my colleague from Rainy River. My question was asked a few moments ago.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I'll give you about two minutes. We're at 9:58 right now.