Agriculture Committee on April 21st, 2009

[Kim Sytsma, Director, Ontario Cattlemen's Association]

It has made us uncompetitive with the Americans. Cattle are going south to be processed and then coming back into Ontario.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I know in Manitoba we've had a lot of questions and interest in expanding slaughterhouse capacity. You're speaking for Ontario, but I think in Manitoba we are looking forward to that.

[Gord Hardy]

Yes.

[Kim Sytsma]

I think there are areas in the country where we may need to increase some of our slaughter capacity. I know that in northern Ontario they don't have any place where they can locally process their cattle. Maybe we need some small abattoirs there. I don't live in Manitoba, so I can't really talk about Manitoba.

[Candice Bergen, Conservative, Portage—Lisgar, MB]

I know. I'm asking you to comment on a different province, but it's something where I thought there may be some overall similarities.

The other area is obviously expanding trade. If we can do that for our producers, that's something this government is committed to. Minister Ritz is in north Africa right now, working in Morocco, looking at some expansion.

How do you see the creation of the market access secretariat? What role do you see that playing, and how can it assist the industry?

[Gord Hardy]

A lot of that came out of the beef round table we have nationally, the request for that. It's great. We appreciate the government moving as quickly as it did on it and moving someone into place. The need to get market access is huge in our business. We're working with a beef industry that is working with two-thirds of its market. A lot of people figure BSE has gone away and we are in a fair market. We are not operating in a fair market. We're in a whole different market situation right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Your time has expired, Ms. Hoeppner.

Mr. Easter, you have five minutes.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

John, I'll go to you first. I've looked at your case for a long while as well. Certainly an individual caught in the domino effect of a situation where you've basically lost your economic livelihood in terms of the livestock industry.... You had some other options to help bail yourself out, but you shouldn't have had to do that.

The key question is, where to go from here? I do like your suggestion on an ombudsman kind of thing. Regardless of the party, we all deal with these situations. In Prince Edward Island we had the same agency, but PVYn in 1991; it was settled in 1996. New Brunswick still has it before the courts. The theory is that you can go before the courts to gain justice, as you could do in your case, but there's no way an individual could afford to take on the Government of Canada.

I think the ombudsman is maybe a possibility for us to at least suggest, but what can we do to deal with your specific situation? I have the letter from the minister here. He is saying that “...the Government of Canada could not make an ex gratia payment because settlements had already been made in the United States and that Canada had provided compensation as afforded by the Health of Animals Act.”

In fairness to the minister, that doesn't leave us anywhere to go, so I wonder what you could suggest.

Second, while you're thinking about that answer, I want to come to the Cattlemen's Association. We have a dilemma here in the livestock and hog industry on what to do. Gord, I think your key point in the last answer was that we're not operating in a fair market. I've raised the question with others, including the Cattlemen's Association. Why don't we establish...? We always hear from the heads of a lot of organizations, saying we have to be competitive, get rid of a few regulations, let's be competitive, but competitive against what? I don't know why Canadians theorize that there's such a free market out there. It isn't free. It isn't free anywhere. So what's our bottom line?

You're right on the Alberta program. I'm not criticizing the Alberta government for doing what it did. I understand that. It's under pressure. Cargill is big in Alberta. It wants to keep that feeder lot operating and that plant. When you pay $100 in Alberta and $60 in Saskatchewan, what about producers in the rest of the country? We have a patchwork quilt of programming that is driving us out of business in Atlantic Canada, you out of business in Ontario, and what it comes down to is a lack of a federal vision for the country.

How can we get to that fair market you're talking about? Do we have to match the United States dollar for dollar, or what? Those are two questions.

[Gord Hardy]

Do you want me to go first?

We're not in a fair market within our country. We need to have balance. We need to have more balance across the provinces. We have beef in every province except for Newfoundland and the Northwest Territories, I believe. We need to have a market. We in Ontario have the population. We have the capacity to grow. We have land, water. We have infrastructure in place.

You mentioned Cargill in Alberta. Cargill is in Ontario, and it's our biggest packing plant. We cannot see our numbers fall any lower than they are today, or they'll be out of there. If they're out of there, our only market is the United States. With all our animals, that's a lot of jobs going across with every truck.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

We don't have a processing plant in P.E.I. and we've already lost over 70% of our hog industry and over 40% of our beef industry. We're a deficit area for beef and hog production. It makes no sense.

John.

[John Vancise]

In our case, our reputation was completely destroyed, and it was because of negligence on the part of CFIA. There was no full disclosure on any level, and according to the College of Veterinarians of Ontario, licensed veterinarians are due for full disclosure. Having said that, I don't know how the Government of Canada can compensate me, but I know we deserve it because we knew we did nothing wrong here. We did everything we possibly could according to the rules and regulations, and they didn't follow their own rules and regulations.

We couldn't sue them because, number one, we had no income for six months. When our cattle couldn't be sold, our operating line.... The banks wanted any moneys that we had, and everything in loose cash, which was about $80,000, went to the banks. We've never been in a position where we could sue the federal government, and as you mentioned, it is just beyond the capacity of an individual to spend $200,000 or $300,000 to do that. No lawyer would do that for us.

There has to be a political will here to finally do what's right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Your time has expired, Mr. Easter.

Mr. Storseth, for five minutes.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to talk to Mr. Hardy for a couple of minutes. Unfortunately, because of time, we have to keep it brief.

Being an Alberta member of Parliament from an area that has 60% of the cow-calf producers in Alberta, I do take you at your word that you, unlike Mr. Easter, are not attacking the Alberta government for what it has done. You just want a similar program put in place across the country. I take you at your word that you recognize that the Conservative government in Alberta has always recognized the importance of its producers, as our government has always recognized the importance of our producers.

One of the things that is never talked about when this discussion comes up in the context of competitiveness is that the Alberta government attached age verification to that money. They pushed their industry so that it would be more competitive in areas that they identified around the world. That's something I'd like you to comment on. How important do you think it would be if there were a program of this nature, if Ontario recognized its producers the same way as Saskatchewan and Alberta have? Do you think age verification should be attached to that?

There is a second thing I'd like to ask you. I'm sure you know that it is always propositioned or positioned that Alberta is this big rich province that just throws money at problems. We're in a deficit position. The Province of Manitoba is not in a deficit position, yet we are stepping up for our producers more than Manitoba is. So it's not about money, it's about recognizing the importance of the industry.

I'd like you to also talk about the trade premium that we've heard about from other presenters. The Canadian Cattlemen's Association, CAFTA, and everybody recognize that there is a trade premium that we will get if we can sell into some of these other countries, if we can sell into South Korea, if we can sell into some of these other markets, and they recognize the importance of that for Ontario as well.

If you could answer those questions, I have many more.

[Gord Hardy]

Thank you.

To start off on the age verification, I congratulate the Alberta government for taking the stand that age verification is important. We couldn't agree with you more in Ontario. Three or four years ago Ontario took the stand that they would support mandatory age verification. The western provinces would not support any of that. At our past meeting in February, Ontario voted in favour of age verification being mandatory. We believe in it. We've had a program running for about four or five years now in Ontario supporting age verification. It is important to trade.

What was the second question?

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

It was on the importance of opening trade markets with these other countries, as we've been doing. We've been pursuing bilateral trade agreements to open up these markets.

[Gord Hardy]

The trade agreements are necessary. As I said before, we work with a large carcass. We do not eat all of that carcass here in North America. We get added value by shipping some of those parts of the animal. In different parts of the country it's very important, and if we can add value to our carcass, that is one way of doing it. We commend the government for taking those steps.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I agree with you when you talk about high input costs and how it affects our producers. It affects my producers at home; it affects your producers here.

Last year this committee did a study on input costs and some of the disparities in it. I'd like you to talk a little bit about your perceptions, if you agree, that there's a lack of competition with some of our companies that provide the inputs for us. What you would like to see there?

I would also like to clarify one thing. I agree we have a regulatory disparity between the countries and we have to make sure our farmers and our producers are put on the level playing field when it comes to regulatory burden. On things like SRM removal and the enhanced feed ban, albeit what was put in place in 2007 wasn't exactly what the Canadian Cattlemen's Association and other associations like yours were advocating for, it was in that direction. Do you admit this is one of the primary reasons that we were able to get the U.S. market open at that point in time?

[Gord Hardy]

I believe it probably was, but one of the things that we did ask for, as associations, was to harmonize with the United States. It was very important to be the same as the United States. They still do not have a feed ban in place. They're assembling one, but they still do not have it in place. That's why we're at a competitive disadvantage in our slaughter operations here in Canada, compared to there.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Agreed. If we hadn't done it in the first place, we wouldn't have had the market open.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay, your time has expired.

Madame Bonsant.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Good afternoon, Mr. Dungate. I'm going to ask you a question. Feel free to answer in English, because we have some very good interpreters.

In your association, are there any farmers who produce eggs for medicine? Since you test eggs to determine whether or not there are any bad things in them, I was wondering whether there were any farmers, in your association, that focus on egg production to help develop technology and further medical studies.

[Mike Dungate]

No, because there is a national agency that looks after layers. These are egg producers.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

I see. Are the egg producers members of your chicken producer association?

[Mike Dungate]

No, that is a separate association. I do know that this association does have a research program for medicine.

[France Bonsant, Bloc, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

The government cut $160 million from research and technology. Did this cutback have an impact on your association, on the egg producer association? This was, for them, additional revenue. Is that not the same thing?