Mr. Chair, honourable members, thank you very much for the opportunity to make this presentation.
While I'm here as an individual, it's really important that you know I am also here to represent nursery producers in similar circumstances across Canada. I'd like to spend the next 10 minutes having you get to know me by correcting a case of mistaken identity and letting you know how that case of mistaken identity has impacted agricultural producers' competitive ability across Canada.
First and foremost, I am a farmer and I'm here to represent other farming nurseries.
A little historical background is important. In the early 1980s the nursery I now work for won the right to expand its market beyond the production of grafted fruit tree stock for orchardists by providing trees to the Province of B.C. for its reforestation program. In the brief I provided, you'll see an article written in 1981 explaining that under the Forestry Act a number of nurseries were established in 1980, “all by forest companies with one notable exception: World Silviculture Ltd., the province's first fully independent seedling nursery, started last year by Oliver Nurseries (1975) Ltd. in the south Okanagan”. That is a reference to us. While the name of our nursery has changed slightly, the nursery continues to be owned by the same family.
It was a hard-fought battle on the part of the owner, Mr. Ron Powell, to earn the right as an agricultural nursery to gain access to this market. But pursuing this market for seedlings enabled us to become a stable agricultural employer with approximately 60 full-time equivalent employees in the small rural community of Oliver, with a population of approximately 4,000.
There was never any question at the time that pursuing this market meant we had abandoned our status as farmers. In fact, our nursery remains one of only seven agricultural nurseries in all of Canada to have ever earned certification under the Canadian nursery certification program administered by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
We have survived in competition with those forest company nurseries mentioned that are able to write off their losses and expenses against their forestry revenues. We have survived in competition with the privatization of provincial nurseries that, as publicly traded income trusts, are able to minimize taxation and raise capital on the stock market. We've survived the ups and downs of business and have successfully expanded our business into the United States.
The anti-competitive actions being implemented under the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food's stabilization programs discriminate against us, not for the product we grow but because of we sell to. This has negated our long-term success as independent agricultural primary producers operating in this market. We may not survive this.
Over the years some independent nurseries made modest use of NISA, but their eligibility was never questioned. In 2002 and 2003, a series of events put some financial pressure on these agricultural nurseries. Some were awarded payments under CAIS, and some were denied payments under CAIS. But in 2006 we were asked to repay those awards because we were not a farming activity as defined by the Income Tax Act.
We were very quickly able to correct this misconception, and we illustrated that we were distinct from and independent of the forest company nurseries. When we did that, the B.C. provincial Ministry of Agriculture quickly apologized to us and acknowledged that they had simply forgotten the existence of the fully independent agricultural nurseries.
The province changed its position and supported our inclusion in CAIS. But the official answer for our exclusion changed. Recognizing that we had been misidentified as an offshoot of a forest entity, but unwilling to right the wrong created by that misidentification, they now told us that we were excluded because we had pursued a market that was non-agricultural in nature simply because the primary agricultural product that we produced was being sold to someone else who used or might use the product in reforestation. I have provided you a reference from the Minister of Agriculturestating exactly that.
We were also told that if we sold the same product, grown side by side in a greenhouse, to anyone else, we would be eligible. And indeed our competitors, who do sell to a different market, are eligible.
Our professional organization, the Canadian Nursery Landscape Association, and other forum groups who have also provided letters of support in that reference quickly saw the implications for themselves should this precedent-setting action be enacted. Imagine the surprise of oilseed producers in Saskatchewan, and agricultural biomass suppliers in Ontario and other provinces when they discovered that though they had been encouraged to pursue sales to bioenergy markets, a precedent had been set which put at risk their eligibility to participate in farm income stabilization programs, because non-traditional market choices have become fair game in applying farm income stabilization eligibility.
All of the supporting organizations recognize that this precedent contravenes the Farm Income Protection Act, paragraphs 4(2)(a) and 4(2)(b), and is inconsistent with Agriculture Canada policy and principles that establish that agricultural entities shall not be excluded from entitlement under the act based on market choices, but are to be encouraged under the program to diversify market. I have provided references from those pieces of legislation as well.
A reasonable person can see that excluding primary agricultural producers solely and exclusively on the basis of their market is inconsistent, contravenes the principles of the Farm Income Protection Act, and is uncompetitive in its market prejudice.
In addition, as part of the implementation agreements, the Government of Canada and the provinces agreed--and this is stated clearly in the implementation agreements--that no provisions in the agreement are to be put into effect that are inconsistent with federal or provincial legislation unless and until that legislation is amended. There has been no such amendment.
To give you some example of the immediate impact that this legislative breach will have, let me give you the following examples. Two years ago seedling production in B.C. alone was 270 million seedlings. This year it is 185 million seedlings. Next year we expect it to be 139 million seedlings. And while we do expect the business to recover in the next couple of years, the picture is pretty much the same across Canada. Should these demands for repayment and lack of entitlement to income stabilization go ahead at the same time as our businesses are in the most stressful economic situations that we have ever faced, nurseries will fail--nurseries have failed--jobs will be lost, and small agricultural communities will suffer.
And I want to make this perfectly clear: we do not have access to any forest community diversification funds. We have no forestry revenues against which we can write off our losses. We are not a publicly traded income trust. We are farmers, and we file our taxes as farms. We sell our produce at the farm gate. Our businesses reside on agricultural reserve land, not on public or private forest licensee land. No forest entity has any ownership whatsoever in our businesses.
I am appealing to you to help us correct this injustice resulting from this case of mistaken identity and to recognize our legitimate entitlement as farmers. I am appealing to your reason and asking that you move, as a committee, to uphold federal legislative principles and policies and support our access to farm income stabilization programs based on our legitimacy as independent primary producers.
With the greatest of urgency—and I have to stress this—I am asking you to move to have all requests for repayment of these funds stopped immediately. I ask you to imagine how in the world any program that professes to stick up for the agricultural community and farmers can support this unfair, anti-competitive breach of federal legislation, principles, and policy and allow it to carry on as an instrument of our demise.
In my humble opinion as a farmer, this is a matter of trust and honour.
Thank you.