Evidence of meeting #13 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was agriculture.
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
Thank you.
Thanks to all of you for coming here. I know some of you have travelled long distances and made an effort, and I really appreciate that.
I would just like clarification, Margo. I wasn't sure what you meant when you talked about my Bill C-474 and whether you were supportive of it or not in your comments.
As an Individual
I'm absolutely supportive of it.
The problem I'm having is that every time we try to make some progress in agriculture we have to fight like hell for it. As with Bill C-474, we have to fight, fight, fight to do something so simple as what I did in my raspberry patch to have a second income on the farm. Before I even decided to plant in I did a market survey to find out what was out there. This is just common business practice. And then you put your Bill C-474 out there and you are opposed, and opposed, and opposed on it. This is common business sense. We're supposed to be running our farms like businesses, and this is a common business move. And where is the mentality in the government to oppose that? It doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.
We know people are having a very hard time globally with genetically modified products; they're rejecting it. Would it not make sense to do a business analysis before we automatically start growing it?
I know that in the case of canola it's very difficult to find non-genetically-modified canola seeds, because as they keep introducing their variety from Monsanto they're deregulating the stuff that they're not going to get paid on. And the world is saying we don't want genetically modified food; we don't know what the long-term implication of it is. So your bill made total sense. Why was it so adamantly opposed? It's annoying.
NDP
As an Individual
No. And I was nervous reading this out, so I'm....
And with the BSE, we have to fight, fight, fight. There is a class action lawsuit that's happening. It's been seven years since that class action lawsuit was launched. Nothing is going on with it, and now we're launching a Canada-wide petition to wake the government up by saying now we have to push you to mediation because everyone is ignoring us.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
Thanks, Margo.
I'm just going to move on to Doug, Darrell, and Ken.
Throughout our swing we're going to see people who would like to maintain the Wheat Board. We're going to see those who would like us to modify it. Rather than getting into a large political debate, which we often have, on the ground to you folks, to farmers, in your opinion what would be the difference between the way things are done today with the Wheat Board as a single desk and if there was not a single desk? So just practically speaking, how would that affect you and your operations? That's what we would like to hear.
Director, National Executive, Alberta, National Farmers Union
I'll address the other question.
In regard to the Canadian Wheat Board, what we have developed as Canadian farmers is basically an IP market for quality milling wheat and also malt barley, throughout the world. We have repeat customers. India, China, Japan, and England all depend upon our IP market for wheat. The collective marketing of our wheat and barley, primarily our wheat and the malt barley, has given us an IP market that returns a premium to farmers. If we were to get rid of the Wheat Board then that market would be lost.
Now, under the Canadian Wheat Board, when I go to the elevator and I open the hopper in my trailer and dump my 35 tonnes of grain, I own that grain until it hits the cargo of the ship and it's paid for. Without the Wheat Board and in the American system, when you open the chute on your trailer and let the grain go, you've lost control of it right then. It's no longer your grain; it belongs to the multinational or the line company that's bought that grain. You basically have no control of it from there on in. The U.S. is so different from us. Over a thousand different varieties of wheat are grown in the United States. It's absolutely impossible for them to do any type of IP segregation of grains.
Essentially, if we were to get rid of the Wheat Board today, we wouldn't even know which way our transportation system would work. Would grain continue to be exported through the gulf? Would it continue to be exported through Vancouver or Churchill? Perhaps it would just head down the Mississippi on a barge and go out through New Orleans.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
But others say if we didn't have this constraint, we could get a better price, because look at the prices that are there and look at the prices that are here. How do you—
Director, National Executive, Alberta, National Farmers Union
Well, you have to understand that the exchanges in the U.S. are prices for U.S. wheat. By and large, the Americans don't want our wheat. They would like our IP market and that type of wheat. There's a price that's given on the Minneapolis or Chicago or Kansas City exchanges. That's a price for American wheat in America.
You've got to understand that in Canada, in the prairie regions, between here and the port of Vancouver is a mountain range that rises to 10,000 feet. All of the grain that we export has to be moved over that mountain range going to the west. To the east it's somewhat easier. Now, if the Wheat Board's gone and the multinationals pick up all of our supply of grain, why would they want to haul it over the top of the mountain and send it out in a ship, when they can take it down to Chicago and put it on a barge much cheaper?
So, really, the American price of wheat is for American wheat. It's not for Canadian wheat, and it's not really a true reflection of the price of wheat.
NDP
Director, National Executive, Alberta, National Farmers Union
I'm actually really concerned about the current direction of our federal minister in regard to what he thinks he's doing with the Canadian Wheat Board.
NDP
Ken Larsen As an Individual
If I may, Mr. Chairman, thank you.
The point Doug made very well, I think, is that we market our grain on the international market, not the North American market. Seventy percent of our grain goes overseas, and without the Wheat Board we simply cannot access those markets as individual farmers. The folks who market U.S. grain, of course, are margin traders, so they don't really add much value to it. We add value to ours.
Doug mentioned IP, “identify preserved”. This is a reputation we've had for 60 years because of the Canada Grain Commission and the Canadian Wheat Board. This is not something the private companies in the States want to be bothered with. So our niche market on the global grain market scale has been high-quality, identity preserved milling wheats and barleys. Without the board, we don't have that.
The other part about the board that's really critical is transportation. Doug mentioned we have to move grain over several mountain ranges. Roughly 350 railcars a year go out with Wheat Board grain, and the Wheat Board bargains with the railways on our behalf on freight rates, handling charges, and logistical questions as well. Without the Wheat Board, we have no agents acting on behalf of farmers in our interest.
And we mustn't cry too much for the railway companies. I just heard this morning that CN Rail has made an increase of 21% profits this year, and I suspect half of that's on grain. So you can imagine what their profit levels would be without the Wheat Board bargaining on our behalf.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you, Mr. Larsen. And we did read that this morning, or at least I did.
Mr. Richards, seven minutes.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Thank you.
Thank you all for being here today.
We were pretty well versed on the policy positions of the National Farmers Union this morning, not that there weren't some good points among the points you made.
Mr. Stokes, I believe it was you who talked about consumer education, and obviously the fact that people in the city.... We're here in farming country right now, but not too far away is the city of Calgary, and if you asked many of the people on the street there where they got their food, well, it's from the grocery store. They have no idea what the farmer goes through. And there's a big gap between what the farmer makes and what they pay at the grocery store. So it certainly was a good point.
Ms. Staniforth, talking about over-regulation is something I hear quite often as one of the big problems we have.
I was a little disappointed that we didn't have a few more folks here as individuals today. I was probably even more disappointed that the group here chose to use this as a platform to promote the Wheat Board monopoly. I know many farmers in Alberta want to have that choice. Certainly there's nothing wrong with your stating your position and wanting to be able to use the Wheat Board; that's certainly perfectly legitimate. But for someone to argue that it would take the same rights away from their neighbours to choose what they would like to do for marketing is very unfortunate.
Also, I want to thank Mr. Butler for being here. He certainly brought up some of the issues I hear quite commonly when I talk to the farmers throughout my riding, things like property rights. Of course that extends to the gun registry and what that restriction does to our law-abiding gun owners, our farmers who need that tool for their work.
Navigable waters is something I hear quite often. Some issues you've dealt with I hear quite often from farmers here in Alberta. As you stated, it seems to make no sense at all that we have that issue here in Alberta. Obviously you discussed regulations again and the fact that this in particular has driven your daughter away from wanting to be part of the family farm. Certainly over-regulation is the thing I hear most often, and CFIA is certainly top of the list when it comes to that.
I'd like to focus my questions on Wyatt Hanson, who has come here today as someone who has an interest in becoming a young farmer and is really struggling with whether that's possible. Certainly that to me is the gist of what we're looking to discuss in this study on the future of farming, so I'd like to focus my questions on him.
Certainly if there is a future for the family farm, it's going to be because individuals like you, young people like you, are getting involved and staying involved in farming, someone who comes at it from the point of view of understanding that agriculture needs to be approached like a business, and we have to make it so someone like you can see that as a profitable business. I know we're not there right now; we're a long way from it, and we need to find a way to get to that point. Certainly I know your family and I know you and I know you'd be the third generation on the farm.
I'm just wondering if you can share with us a little bit as to how you might see things being different now as compared to when your grandpa started farming, when your dad got into farming, and now you're looking at farming. What differences do you see in the industry and what suggestions might you have to make the changes that would allow you, as someone who wants to be a young farmer and who has the business sense to do it, to find a way to make it profitable? What can be done to make farming more attractive for you?
Farmer, As an Individual
I didn't really get to see my grandfather as much as I would have liked to, but I know they had larger buying power than what we have today. What I proposed in my speech, buying power being $8 a pound, would bring us back to the same buying power my grandparents had when my dad was younger, which was 1970.
I know they had a stronger buying power, and when they took their cattle to market they would make enough money to buy about 20 vehicles. Now, if we were to do the same, we could maybe make a down payment on one. So I've noticed we aren't making any money. That's the biggest issue.
I've also noticed that people are starting to tire. My dad talks about when he went into it there was enthusiasm and people were excited to do it. But now you talk to all the 4-H members and probably one is interested in farming. I think that's the biggest difference: perhaps the biggest problem is because there is no motivation for us to be farmers.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
You're a 4-H member, and obviously you're with a lot of other kids who you've grown up with who are involved with 4-H as well, obviously coming from the farm and at the point where you are now, where they're looking at their future and what they're going to do when they're finished with school. Among the group that you would talk to at 4-H, what's the percentage or how many are looking at actually staying on the farm when they have that opportunity to do so themselves? Is there much interest among any of your friends to be a part of the farm? What kind of discussion have you had with others in your 4-H?
Farmer, As an Individual
There's really not that much. From 4-H, you maybe get 5% of the people who want to go back to the farm. What's more shocking is at junior cattle shows, people who are all from farms, there's probably 10%. Those are the best farmers who are there because they're showing their cattle, have the genetics, and only 10% or less want to go back to the family farm. That's pretty shocking.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Wyatt, on your comment about your dad and your grandpa being able to buy so many vehicles, of the buying power, it reminds me that I bought my first cattle in the fall of 1972, when I was 16, sold them in 1973, and made enough to buy a brand-new, top-of-the-line Ford pickup. I thought, wow, farming's for me. I haven't made that much money on cattle since. So it's a good example.
Just before we move on, Mr. Butler, you mentioned navigable waterways and what have you. I used to think it was just an issue in Ontario, but I found out through some groups from Saskatchewan and Alberta that it was happening right across the way. There were some changes made to the Navigable Waterways Protection Act. It was fought by the bureaucracy and it was fought by environmental groups. But basically they were intermittent water streams that only ran in the spring in ditches that had been created as either on-farm drainage or as municipal drains. They would only run water in the spring and fall of the year, but because at some time a small minnow or something would go up there or somebody could put a canoe in it for a week in the spring, they became navigable waterways. That has been changed. I'm not going to say that it's perfect, but at least there has been some change there.
We'd like to hear some more comments on that, because obviously a lot of it was that the problems were created by over-zealous Department of Fisheries and Oceans employees. I urge any of you, with those kinds of things, pass them on to your MPs. Change is always slow, but it's the only way that government ever can deal with them.
I'll move on. We are just coming down to the end of our time.
Frank, I'll ask you to keep it to one question and we'll do that. We just have a few minutes. One question. I'm sorry, but we have another group coming in at 9:30.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
I'll make a comment. You have to have a pretty hardened heart to be able to sit around this table and not feel the grief that's being expressed here and not feel compelled to either do something significant to help you or do nothing at all.
It's clear to me that the programs that we have right now are not working. Whether it's respect to the producer car-loading sites and the $511 million that CN made the first quarter of this year, whether it's business risk management, whether it's the regulations you're talking about, Mr. Butler, about being over-regulated.... SRMs are a huge concern to me.
What is really confounding is that attention can be diverted away from all of those issues by simply bringing attention to this matter of the gun registry. I'm bothered by that, frankly. I think it's unfair and unnecessary to get into that kind of discussion.
I want to focus on you and your needs. I have ten questions here, and I get to ask one. I'm sorry that I can't ask the others.
Mr. Butler, you mentioned $80 a head because of regulations. How much of that is related to SRMs? Is $30.70 of that...?
As an Individual
That would be very close. I'm not in the packing house industry, but that's on the large packing houses. On the small provincial packing houses, because they don't handle as much, it becomes as high as $70 a head—just the removal of the SRMs, because they don't have the volume.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
What was it that your father was trying to do with Eugene Whelan? You talked about a marketing board for beef.
As an Individual
Eugene Whelan tried to get it in, and they fought it.
I'll try to answer your question and the other question at the same time.
The ranching industry was built on the free market, and that's what it survives on. I'm not afraid of the U.S. food bill. If it were handled right, we could go and compete with them, no problem.
We have Canadian back bacon that outsells down there, as well as Canadian cheese and Canadian Club whisky. I have no fear of competing with them in an open market. Granted, it has to be handled in a different way from what it was.
I'll go back right to the start of the BSE. I'll have to do a little history there. I was invited by a group in 1999 to go to China to look at grazing and to improve their grazing in the upper highlands of Tibet. I couldn't help them, but I did make a lot of contacts there. I have been invited into the Chinese council several times for supper. Since then, BSE hit, and I saw an opportunity as a businessman: they have lots of people and we have cheap food. So we sat down and negotiated a tentative sale of 2,000 head of cattle to go to China in beef.
I couldn't get to square one because the Canadian Food Inspection Agency would not allow me to test for market access. I didn't ask them for money. I didn't ask them to test. All I wanted was permission: If I find somebody who wants to buy some cattle that are tested, can I have permission to sell them? I couldn't get to square one.
That's where our problem is. It's market access, but it's taking away the freedom of entrepreneurs in this country.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you. We'll leave it to a lawyer to get two questions in there.
Mr. Lemieux, we have two minutes left for the question and the answer.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for being here today. I want to percolate it down into a question to maybe Mr. Butler and Mr. Hanson. I'll start with Mr. Butler.
You've been in the industry a long time. You had a daughter who was interested and then wasn't interested. Obviously one of the key considerations is that there is no money in this. There's lots of hard work, and it's hard to make a living at the end of the year on the net revenue. As I heard Mr. Hanson saying as well, you work hard and like the work, but the bottom line at the end of the year is that there's not very much money left over; so you say to yourself, “If I have to get a job, why don't I just get a job and leave it at that.”
Between the two of you, it's difficult for the government, because you don't want more regulation and it's very hard to have the government saying this is the price per pound or this is the price per bushel, or whatever it happens to be. So what do you see as an argument?
Mr. Butler, what would be a key argument that you would use to your daughter? What change would you like to see that you think might persuade your daughter to say “Okay, I'm going to make a go of this”, or Mr. Hanson to say “All right, I'm in now”?