Agriculture Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2009

[Derek Jansen, Canada's Outstanding Young Farmers Program]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and committee members.

My name is Derek Jansen. I'm a poultry producer from British Columbia in the Fraser Valley, and I'd prefer that all Canadians eat Canadian chicken.

I'm a second-generation farmer. I've been involved in supply management my entire life. It's a system that's worked very well for us. I'm very fortunate to be involved in such a system.

We do have our challenges, but I will say that the one bright spot in our industry is the number of youth getting involved in the five commodities--dairy, poultry, and so on. It's very encouraging. I'm 39 years old, and I see a lot who are younger than I am either taking over their parents' business or somehow getting into the business on their own. I see that as a very bright spot.

Again, thank you for having us here today. It's a real pleasure.

[Glen Van Dijken, Canada's Outstanding Young Farmers Program]

I'm Glen Van Dijken, and I farm with my wife Barb, north of Edmonton, in Brian's riding of Westlock.

Alberta is a good place to come from. We're all competitive here. It's been good to be in the farming industry. I think this is my 28th year. I started into farming right out of high school. It's been my passion all my life. I was in a hog operation and also had a grain operation. We decided to wind down the hog operation a year and a half ago and stepped away from that.

Over the years, I've reflected many times on why we were doing this socialist farming in Canada and whether that was the route to go. It's really hard to get the balance. I see that the government has to do quite a balancing act in trying to figure out if they want to be involved in agricultural welfare. Over the years I haven't been able to come to a clear conclusion. I used to be really hard-nosed that the government had no business being involved in the red meat sector. But then we were dealing with other countries that were subsidizing production, and we had to do it. It's a really tough balancing act for you people, trying to keep free enterprise going within a socialist economic climate globally. There are no easy answers, but we really appreciate the effort.

There are pros and cons to all programs. Some guys fall through the cracks in programs. It's really quite difficult. I think you should continue to listen to your constituents, continue to hear their concerns, and continue to allow them to voice their concerns so that you can make informed decisions.

[Steven Snider, Canada's Outstanding Young Farmers Program]

My name is Steven Snider. I'm an organic grain farmer from Alberta. We have a family company, Little Red Hen Mill, and we've just completed our 23rd year of certified organic production. We've been involved in the grain industry for a number of years and have seen a lot of changes.

I'm in Kevin Sorensen's riding. You probably know him. My colleagues are probably thinking I'm going to talk about the Wheat Board or organic and genetically modified grains, but there's one thing in its economic policy that's always frustrated me as a young farmer that I want to address specifically. Every year I get my tax notice, and they would give me this exemption for an RRSP donation. It has always frustrated me that they want me to put money into a fund over here, and meanwhile I have to pay down my land. I have this capital cost of land. I always question the wisdom of not being able to take that exemption and use it to pay down my land as a tax shelter, to stabilize my farm more quickly. I don't know how it could be done. I'm not a tax lawyer. I don't have any ideas on how that could be regulated.

Instead of putting money into an investment bond, I want to put it into something that I view as my retirement. A farmer's land is his retirement. We all view it that way, especially as grain farmers. To accelerate that paydown without penalty of taxation would be a huge benefit.

You'd have to put a cap on it. We don't want everybody rushing into agriculture and trying to get tax exemptions. Any program is only as good as the rules you create around it.

It's just an idea I wanted to throw on the table for you to possibly consider.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Do any other young farmers have a story?

[John Steele, Canada's Outstanding Young Farmers Program]

I'm John Steele. You just heard from my wife Eadie.

There's just one thing I'd like to say. I was fortunate enough to come to Canada 20 years ago now. I spent a time off the farm until I was able to generate sufficient income, so both Eadie and myself are both full-time on the farm, which is probably unusual in many cases.

One of the things that surprised me when I came here, and the more I look—I came to Canada, and it's a great country--is that the barriers to trade within our country seem more severe than some of the barriers of trade between countries. This has some significant issues, particularly in food processing and in access to our own domestic markets.

I will go back to the sheep industry, where I'm involved. Much of the lamb is killed in provincial plants, and it restricts access to the multiple chains to get our good Canadian lamb into the major grocery stores for our Canadian consumers to eat. That is another reason we're being serviced by offshore product. That's a terrible shame, because we have safe food in all our provinces, through our provincial regulations, and I understand there are export requirements controlled by CFIA, but it's a terrible shame that we can't move our own food that's safely produced across all our country.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

Is that it? One more.

[Marianne Van Burck, Canada's Outstanding Young Farmers Program]

Thank you, first of all, for being here.

My name is Marianne Van Burck, and together with my husband Hans we are farming in the Melfort area in Saskatchewan. We have three children. One of our children attends the University of Guelph and another one is at Cornell.

It's very interesting. An article in The Western Producer last week stated that 40% of our farmers are over 50 and 10% of our farmers are under 39. There is a big gap. We have to do something. With our Canadian Outstanding Young Farmers Program, with our recognition program, we try to encourage the younger generation to come up. This is a huge problem, for young farmers to start. They hear of programs that are in place, but they also don't know how to activate those programs, how to get to them. It would be very helpful if the government made the programs more available to the young farmers starting out.

Thank you for the opportunity.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you.

[Nathan Stamp, Canada's Outstanding Young Farmers Program]

My name is Nathan Stamp and I'm in my first year of college. I'm taking agriculture technology. I'm from Alberta. I'm a son to Richard.

I think it's a good opportunity to be here with you, to talk. I think it's really important to have more young people involved in agriculture. There need to be incentives for more young people to get involved, as Ms. Van Burck was saying. The majority of the farmers right now are over the age of 50, so who's going to grow the food in the future? There needs to be an initiative for young farmers to come into the industry so that they can make a living for their families and provide food for this country.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Is that it for your farmers? Okay. Thank you very much.

What a cross-section of different commodities. Many times at this committee we listen to the bureaucracy, or representatives from different commodity groups and organizations. To have this kind of group in here is quite a breath of fresh air for us, to say the least.

On the way I'm going to run this, I think we'll go for five minutes, but I might go a little longer if one of the witnesses has something really important to say that pulls it together.

We'll start off with the Liberals and Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Chair.

Congratulations to all of you for taking up the challenge of farming, because it is indeed a challenge. I was struck by what the hog industry representative, Mr. Koelen, said.

One of your groups said you'd like to create some solutions. In all seriousness, I really think the government has missed some opportunities to create some solutions in the current budget year, especially in the hog and beef industries. There has been $961,400,000 not spent compared to last year, under business risk management. That's money that could have gone out to the hog and beef industries, which are in financial trouble, with a re-profiling of the program.

For two years the beef and hog sectors have been asking us to change the reference margins or the viability test, as you suggested. The government has failed to do that. So that money could have gone out under business risk management to assist the industry with hard cash rather than loans. That would have made some difference, and it wouldn't have been in violation of the various trade agreements. So I think there was a missed opportunity there. I just want to lay that on the table, because I think the government has failed miserably in that regard. It has also lapsed about $150 million in other programs.

Somebody over there talked about socialist farming, but I believe one of our problems in Canada--and it's under both political stripes--is that we talk about competitiveness, but what we need is competitive policy vis-à-vis the United States, the European community, Australia, and New Zealand. We don't have competitive policy, and I don't know why we're afraid to have it. I think Treasury Board and the Department of Finance run this town.

What do you propose that would get you in this farming game so you could survive?

[Leony Koelen]

Well, that's really simple.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Leony Koelen]

It is.

We're not looking for money. I don't think that's the answer. We need to have the same import rules as export rules. There's so much pork coming from the U.S. year after year, and we're losing our share here. There are hardly any rules for their pork. That pork is not produced under the same standards as what we produce, so that should be changed as soon as possible.

Label Canadian food products. The U.S. is doing it, so why can't we? Are we afraid of a steel reaction? If the U.S. can put COOL on, we should be able to put it on. Let Canadian consumers choose if they want to eat Canadian food.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I think that's a good point. One of the reasons why the government won't put COOL on--and I understand their argument--is because we've challenged COOL at the WTO. So we would shoot ourselves in the foot if we implemented a country of origin labelling system here. But I don't see why you couldn't put an interim labelling system on until such time as the WTO was over. Or maybe this is one area where we need to use bilingual labelling. If it's not labelled bilingually it doesn't come in. There are other things we should be doing.

I agree 100% with you that one of the problems Canadian farmers have is that imports don't have to meet the same standards we do.

[Leony Koelen]

And there is the competition between the provinces. It's so unfair. We have to compete against Quebec. We're one country. Maybe it can't be the same everywhere, but the differences are so big between Ontario and Quebec that it really could put us out of business.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Try being in P.E.I. and competing against Alberta.

[Leony Koelen]

Do you see where we're coming from? It's just as somebody said, that we have more barriers within the country than between countries.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

There's no question about that.

Does anybody else have any other proposals? I've made note of yours.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

There's just one minute left, so anybody who wants to make a short one can.

[John Côté]

With regard to your first comment, about whether or not treasury should be spending more money and sending cash out to farmers, I would suggest that it's almost like trying to close the door on the chicken coop after all your chickens are outside. Often I think to subsidize farmers is to spend money very poorly. Unless you can really see where the money's going to go and it is going to get that farmer through to where he's going to be profitable, you're just throwing good money after bad. I think somebody has to eventually look at the subsidy programs and say some of these things just aren't a good investment any more, so let's put money into research, let's put it into better policy, let's put it into whatever. Just because it buys you votes back at home doesn't mean it's a good move.

[Leony Koelen]

You need to fix the problem first, before you put money into it, right?

[John Côté]

Exactly. I think the investment should be at the beginning to prevent the problems, not to try to fix stuff that you're not going to fix anyway.

That's just my two cents' worth.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you very much.

We're going to move on to the Bloc now. I understand they're going to split the time, so maybe around three minutes each would be fine.

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

I have no knowledge of agriculture. However, since being elected, I have been around and I am trying to understand what you do. You have all my admiration. I can see that it is quite a job. I am trying to understand, I am not in your shoes, but you have my admiration.

You spoke often of the program in Quebec, of this inequality between provinces. What are the programs of Quebec that you envy and that could help you, provincially, to be more competitive vis-à-vis the other provinces?