Agriculture Committee on May 31st, 2010

[Cherilyn Nagel]

I feel as though I've done all the talking.

[A voice]

I'm not the political type.

[Cherilyn Nagel]

I think a program like that does have some merit.

What I don't like.... We talked a little bit about the image of agriculture right now. And most of the time the stories the media are telling are about the handouts, the BSE crisis, the Triffid flax--all these are really crisis management situations.

So I think there is benefit. Providing that kind of program was entirely voluntary. I would never be opposed to it if there were producers who thought, “This program could benefit me, and I'm not as interested in developing my own.” We've developed our own business risk management, and we believe that's why we're going to be successful in the future at managing our risk, be it on farm or off farm, and we're building a portfolio for ourselves. If there are producers who would feel more comfortable in that kind of program and if it were a voluntary program, I can see that it might have merit.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you. Your time has expired.

Mr. Lemieux, you have seven minutes.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thanks very much, Chair.

I'm just going to be making a few opening comments. First of all, thank you for being here. I'm sorry you were interrupted by a vote.

I just want to make a comment on Mr. Atamanenko's question regarding supply management and opening foreign markets, because I feel quite strongly that it's not either/or. It does not need to be sacrifice supply management for foreign markets or sacrifice foreign markets for supply management.

Our position is that we can do both. And actually, we've done both extremely well. Supply management is doing well here in Canada. And on top of that we've opened an incredible number of foreign markets. So it's not one versus the other.

You said you don't want to pit one commodity against another. I agree 100%, and I think it's a bit shallow of the NDP to pigeonhole it like that and say you have to pick A or B. Well, we're Canadian; we're doing both. We're recognized as having both--wanting to open foreign markets and wanting to have a supply management system--and we've succeeded. We've had many witnesses come in front of us--the cattle producers, the pork producers--who have admitted that openly and have congratulated the government on its good work at opening foreign markets. At the same time we've had Dairy Farmers of Canada and Chicken Farmers of Canada come in and say, “Thank you for your active defence of supply management.” So both are working, and I just don't think one should be pitted against the other.

So I agree with you, and I wanted to put that on the table just to clear up how that last line of questioning went.

[Cherilyn Nagel]

I appreciate your comments. NAFTA certainly has done tremendous things for the Canadian economy. I believe the European negotiations are going to do so for us as well, if not do more.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Right.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Storseth. Thank you.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you all for coming today, and for your excellent presentations. We apologize for the interruption.

I believe some of what you're talking about—a disaster recovery program for times when there's a legitimate disaster in the agriculture industry in the Prairies, as we saw in Manitoba last year, as we saw in Alberta last year—is in place. It's under the new AgriRecovery program.

Mr. Nelsen, which county do you farm in?

[Owen Nelsen]

It's Beaver County.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

And Mr. Sawyer, which county are you in?

[Matt Sawyer]

I'm in Kneehill County.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I'm not sure whether you two gentlemen are aware, but the Government of Canada and the Government of Alberta just today announced the AgriRecovery money, and both counties are covered under it. It's for the drought that we've seen over the last two years in Alberta. Although I think it should have been triggered a bit earlier than it was, it's important that when we have these disasters we have a program in place to look after them. Other than that, the government generally needs to stay out of your way, because all too often government regulation and bureaucracy get in the way and make it harder for our farmers to make a profit and a living, more than they ever end up helping out.

I want to say that we have had outstanding young farmers before the committee. We've been across the country and have heard from young farmers, and it's not all doom and gloom, as we hear on the other side of the table. There's a lot of positive feeling out there. There are a lot of people who are adapting, a lot of people who are growing and who have some legitimate concerns, as you have.

But I would like to hear a comment from you guys, because you are all actually farming. Every day you're out there fixing the fences, you're out there putting in the crops. You're actually living this. What do you see in regard to the Canadian Wheat Board? Is it helpful in western Canada? Is it hurting us? What would you like to see the government do in regard to the Canadian Wheat Board?

We'll start with Mr. Sawyer and then move to others.

[Matt Sawyer]

To start with, we want the option to choose whether or not we want to go through them. To be able to align yourself with a company is what I would like to see as a start, for sure—100% choice. I'm not trying to say that the Wheat Board needs to be completely gone; all we need to have is the choice. That sums it up for me.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

That sounds reasonable.

[David Nagel]

That's also what I'd like to see: to have the choice to market my grain as I see fit and when I see fit to meet cashflow needs.

[Cherilyn Nagel]

I respectfully tend to disagree; we can't have the best of both worlds. I think we can have a system for those who want to use the Canadian Wheat Board. It won't be a system that includes a monopoly or a single desk. But there are a lot of cooperatives out there that are really good examples of how this can work. We're working really hard to find a system that is going to work, for those who want to keep it.

The Canadian Wheat Board is not an institution I want to do business with or would choose to do business with, if I had an option. It's just like any other aspect of our business. We choose who we sell our canola to, and our lentils and our chickpeas. We establish great relationships, and we either agree with their administration or we don't, we agree with their bureaucracy or we don't, and we can shop ourselves around.

This is the issue we have with the Canadian Wheat Board. It just doesn't fit our business, and we don't agree with their practices. We don't necessarily agree with their governance.

I'd like to see it as not being an arm of government. We have an act that governs it; we have a minister who governs it. It's not run and operated by farmers, when it's that close to government. There's got to be a way that we can separate it and have it work for those producers who really want to use it. Who knows? I might eat my words and decide that I want to sell grain to them when it's a voluntary system.

[Owen Nelsen]

I don't market any grain.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Okay.

The other thing I hear often about the Wheat Board.... First of all, I want to say that this is what this study is about, the future of farming. Most young farmers I talk to, the farmers in my area, the Bowers and the Duchesnes, don't want to deal with the Wheat Board, because they want to have the option to market their own. At the end of the day, they're young and they're looking at expanding, like yourselves, and they generally grow to similar sizes, as Mr. Sawyer was saying. But they're on the Internet; they're out there to expand, to grow, and to look at exporting opportunities themselves. I have to say that most of my young farmers agree with you.

Do you feel that the Wheat Board has been inhibitive to secondary growth, as Mr. Sawyer was saying? In Alberta, we led the way in investment opportunities over the last decade in our country, but when it comes to anything related to the Wheat Board, whether pasta plants or anything of that type, we've seen no growth. Is it similar in Saskatchewan as well?

[Cherilyn Nagel]

Yes. I believe that part of the reason we don't have a lot of value-added processing on the Prairies is due to the monopoly. I also believe that the monopoly has played a prohibitive role in research for new varieties of wheat. It's the only commodity we grow that doesn't have a lot of innovation, a lot of new varieties coming about. I believe that has to do with the fact that it's a monopoly. It's a single-desk situation, and we don't have private dollars going into it.

As to the spinoffs, I also believe they're inhibiting some transportation issues that we have and our getting involved in transportation. Their mandate is to market, and yet they're also involved in various other aspects of our business.

So I'm not happy with the way they market and I'm not happy with the other aspects of the business that they've chosen to get into.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

How much time is left, Mr. Chairman?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Your time has expired, Mr. Storseth.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I was just getting started, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You had extra time, believe it or not.

Mr. Easter, you have five minutes.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

He usually does. He needs it, Mr. Chair.

There have been a lot of leading questions on the Wheat Board here.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!