Okay, no problem.
Evidence of meeting #39 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #39 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:50 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Thanks, Chair.
What I'll say is that Mr. Bellavance and all members of the committee know that the committee is fully capable of acting independently of the government and should be acting independently of the government. There are many motions where the government already has a position on something but this committee chooses to study it anyway.
In fact, look at some of the motions coming up today. Mr. Easter has a motion on prison farm operations. The government has studied this. The government has done consultation on this, but there's a motion here for the committee to look at this. There's something on business risk management being part of AgriFlexibility. There are all sorts of things the government has studied as the government, but this committee chooses to conduct its own study. If it's important to the committee, the committee should study it. And I think that's where Mr. Shipley's coming from, and that's where I'm coming from on this amendment.
The future of farming is very important to this committee. This is what I'm certainly hearing when I speak to farmers. They are very concerned that the youth are not getting involved. So as farmers get older, what happens to that family farm when the present farmer is no longer able to farm, for whatever reason? I think it's very important and I think this committee should study that.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Thank you, Mr. Lemieux.
Before we go to Mr. Easter and Mr. Hoback, who just came in, I guess it's December 3 that the young farmers are going to be on the Hill. So unless you're implying that maybe we should have the minister in at the same time to give us an update.... Is that what you're suggesting, Mr. Bellavance? Maybe later?
Go ahead, Mr. Easter.
3:50 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
I know Mr. Blackburn is doing his travels, but one of the problems with this government is the secrecy it operates in. If I recall correctly—and maybe the parliamentary secretary or somebody on the government side can tell us what happened to it—the previous parliamentary secretary, Guy Lauzon, went across the country and did some kind of a study on farmers. I know he met with the producers in my area and some other areas across the country. I understand, according to the media, it cost a fair bit of money. But I haven't seen a copy of that study. I'm wondering if maybe the parliamentary secretary could make that available to us.
As well, at the last meeting the parliamentary secretary mentioned some kind of advisory committee that was being set up—I believe it was the beef industry groups that were here—and yet the parliamentary secretary refused to tell us the names. So I wonder if he's willing today to table the names of the advisory committee on beef that the government has set up, whose names they want to keep secret—I don't know why.
But maybe he can answer those two questions, Mr. Chair. Information that taxpayers paid for in terms of Guy Lauzon travelling across the country would be valuable, I would think, in terms of the young farmers program.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
We need to be practising the rules of relevance. The motion itself is talking about a study on young farmers. Mr. Easter is going on at length about a number of other studies the government has participated in. I think we should get back to the matter at hand, which is this motion and the amendment on the motion, and have a vote.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
James Bezan Conservative Selkirk—Interlake, MB
It is a point of order, right out of Marleau and Montpetit.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
The Guy Lauzon study was on farming, which would be inclusive of young farmers. So I would expect we should be provided with that information—actually, taxpayers paid for it.
On the new grouping, I would expect they want young farmers in the beef industry, hopefully. I would like to see the names to see if there are any young farmers on this so-called secret advisory committee to the minister on beef, which the parliamentary secretary mentioned a couple of weeks ago.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
On Mr. Bezan's point of order, he hasn't been in committee for some time and he wouldn't necessarily realize that we've given Mr. Easter some leeway because he has really struggled when Mr. Valeriote has not been here to help him.
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
3:55 p.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
I'm glad to see everybody's having fun here this afternoon.
In relation to Mr. Bellavance's concern, I think if the Outstanding Young Farmers happen to be here in December, as they're down for three or four days, if that could be arranged, that would be good. The intent, though, is that we're finishing off the competition, and the report on competitiveness in agriculture is to come forward by the end of the year. We agreed as a committee that that's how the schedule would be laid out.
I'm looking at this, and from our past discussions, we would come back towards the end of January, when we return after the Christmas break. If we can put something in on a day when the Outstanding Young Farmers are here, that would be wonderful. But the whole intent is to move this on.
As my colleague Mr. Lemieux has said, this committee has an opportunity to work with the minister in terms of what his consultations are. But it doesn't take away at all from what has been brought to us by other witnesses who have come forward in the discussions that we've had around competitiveness in agriculture. It has been a natural lead-in, which is what brought me to bring the motion forward. If there's a concern about the sustainability of agriculture and concern about that sustainability in different sectors of the industry, I think we need to investigate all those sectors to find out what is working and what isn't working, what is good within an industry, and the government programs that would support that.
I think we have an opportunity to spend a few weeks at this, but give it a timeline so we know we have a starting point and an end point. I'm suggesting again that we would look at it for six or seven weeks.
I think unless there's more discussion, we could bring it to a vote, Mr. Chair.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
This is the amendment, of course. Let's bring the amendment to a vote.
(Amendment agreed to)
3:55 p.m.
The Chair
Now we're going to go to the main motion.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
The clerk will read out the main motion, and we'll go from there.
3:55 p.m.
The Clerk
The motion as amended reads:
That the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food study government and industry initiatives around the future of farming, primarily focusing on young farmers and their involvement in agriculture.
3:55 p.m.
Liberal
3:55 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
I made some comments earlier, and it was not just idle talk on my part. This is a real concern for me; I feel very strongly about this. No one could possibly oppose the idea of the Committee studying an issue like the future of young farmers. However, I repeat: on November 9, Mr. Blackburn, the Minister of State for Agriculture, began a cross-country tour to look at that very issue.
Mr. Lemieux says that we are independent of government and that we can carry out any study we like. That may be so, but reflecting on the examples he cited, I must say I do not recall seeing any press releases or major announcements on SRMs or on prison farms. Here, though, we are talking about a study that will undoubtedly yield specific proposals to government by young farmers. The government will probably want to respond to those concerns—at least, I hope so.
Once we have seen what the government has in mind in terms of helping young farmers, it would be very appropriate at that time for the Committee to conduct a study. That is what I am suggesting. When Mr. Blackburn has completed his tour and we know what came of it, why not ask the steering committee of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food to consider that and bring it back to the Committee? That would give us a chance to see what the government intends to do. We will already have a good idea of its plans, assuming that the government is transparent. If it passes on the information collected from young farmers, we will have a good idea of what their concerns are and what they are proposing. We could then hear from the Minister who will have met personally with young farmers and other young people. We could then bring in a lot of valuable and interested witnesses. That would be a lot more efficient than doing our work at the same time as the Minister, who will be making stops across the country and meeting with people.
I agree with Wayne. We don't even know whether the results of this exercise will be made public. I have no idea. If the Minister has nothing to say after holding these roundtables, if he has nothing to offer and does not intend to do anything, the issue will just become a dead letter. If that happens, it would then be very appropriate for us to take up this matter. Even if he proposes solutions or government measures to help young farmers, nothing would prevent us from looking at them and carrying out our own review.
However, I believe it would be premature to do that now, given that the Minister has begun this tour. If he had not decided to do that, I would not even be discussing this. I would immediately have said that this is a very good topic for the Committee to look at. Unfortunately, however, I feel we would just be duplicating the work that is now ongoing, when we could actually be looking at other issues. We know how the Conservatives operate. They will be bringing forward suggestions before we have even submitted our report to government. Before we have even made recommendations, they will come along and suggest a whole series of measures that do not necessarily jibe with what we were going to propose, at a point where we have not even completed our work.
I have been through this once before. To do the same thing again would be highly regrettable, in my opinion. Why not wait for Minister Blackburn to complete his cross-country tour and see the results? I invite Mr. Shipley to ask the steering committee to put that on its agenda. I will be the first one to defend the idea of talking about young farmers.
4 p.m.
Liberal
The Vice-Chair Liberal Mark Eyking
Thank you, Mr. Bellavance.
Mr. Easter, did you say you had a comment?
4 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Yes, I did, and it will take a little while.
We support a study of young farmers coming into the industry. We support that unequivocally. The key to bringing young farmers into the industry is to have a healthy agricultural industry and a government that supports the industry. This government has a record of absolute failure on a number of issues.
I'll go through some of them again today. The key question for young farmers coming into the industry is the state of the industry and the Canadian government's support for it, as compared to the support of other governments around the world. Sadly, this government has failed to support the agricultural industry. As some will know, I raised a question in the House today—
4 p.m.
An hon. member
No one was paying any attention.