I hope you have a brief comment.
Evidence of meeting #17 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 farming.
Evidence of meeting #17 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 farming.
11:55 a.m.
As an Individual
The reason 15% of the farmers are producing 80% of the food is that the policies in place have been discouraging young farmers from starting up, so it has just become bigger and bigger. I think that's the reason we're here today. The title of our meeting today is to help out the young farmers. If policies were in place to encourage young farmers and you were paying less subsidy to these big guys, we wouldn't be in the situation of having 15% of the farmers producing 80% of the food.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
That's not North America, unfortunately; it's a global issue.
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
11:55 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you, Mr. Shipley.
Go ahead, Mr. Valeriote, for three minutes.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
I think the lack of leadership to which Mr. Eby is speaking, and to which I was speaking earlier, is this inability to move out of the box. Our preference is to remain in the defensive mode, defending our existing programs, saying they're working when they're not, moving away from them, fixing them or abandoning them, and perhaps responding to the actual issues that we're hearing here today and over the last week.
One of the issues we've heard about is succession planning and the inability to transfer your farm not just to children but to other related people, such as nephews, nieces, or people who are not related to you at all. I believe we're at the point where we need to look at incentives and allowing those transfers to non-related people, and promoting that kind of transfer by having a match-up program. One of the witnesses spoke about such a program last week: you try to match up retiring farmers with new--young or otherwise--farmers who want to get in but can't find the farm they want.
Could any of you speak to that idea?
11:55 a.m.
Training and Resources Coordinator, As an Individual
That's what FarmLINK is doing.
11:55 a.m.
Liberal
Frank Valeriote Liberal Guelph, ON
Yes. And what I'm saying is, do you need more tools in order to do it effectively at the federal level, tax laws or otherwise?
11:55 a.m.
Training and Resources Coordinator, As an Individual
Yes, but I don't know if I can go into details on that.
We run into a lot of restrictions because of partnership agreements, regulation issues, and the whole liability of training.
11:55 a.m.
Chair, Dairy Farmers of Ontario
Well, I think you've hit on a valid point. One of the problems with the capital escalation that's happened in all of agriculture—land values, and in our case as well, quota values—is that we have created operations that are extremely capital-intensive. And for the next generation, whether it be sons or daughters, and in my particular case it's actually nephews, without some assistance from the older generation—and a tax system would sure help—it is almost impossible that they can actually make the payment. If it's a son or a daughter, you can pass it along at an agreed price. But if it's a niece or a nephew, it will be full market value in the pasture, and there's no way that either the older generation or the new generation can afford that process. So I think there has to be some help.
Noon
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thanks very much.
We have run out of time here, unfortunately. It never seems to be long enough.
There's just one thing I wanted to touch on. We heard quite a bit today about caps, for and against. I've always supported caps. But one thing that is pretty clear as we travel across the country is that overall, there's a lot more opposition to caps than there is support for it. I thought that was fair to bring up.
Sean, you talked about some of the larger corporations, and Doug did as well. I have a private member's bill out that has general support from all parties. The intent of the bill is to exclude large corporations or publicly traded companies from accessing the same government programs that each of you, as farmers, would access. You can go online and get the details of that. I would be interested in any feedback on that, negative or positive, because it's a draft, what have you. But it would do that.
It's not illegal in this country for packers to own cattle or for a feed company to own hogs or chickens or whatever. This is a way around it. But I am quite clear. My intent is focused on those so that they don't access.... The Saskatchewan Wheat Pool took $1.8 million—I believe that was the figure—out of CAIS about three or four years ago, and to me, that's unacceptable. They can get their margins out of the marketplace, whereas the producer on the ground can't always do that.
Thanks very much to all of you again for being here. On a beautiful day like this, I know where you'd sooner be, or should be. But thanks again. We really appreciate having you here.
With that, the meeting is adjourned.