Good morning.
I'd like to personally thank Mr. Merv Tweed and his staff for the invitation and the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food for the opportunity to present today.
My name is Cal Vandaele. I'm a co-owner of Vandaele Seeds in Medora, Manitoba. Our family business is active in the purchasing, processing, and exporting of cereals, oilseeds, and pulse crops. In addition to the seed- and grain-cleaning operations, we also have our own trucking company, Vandaele Logistics, which services our own customers and also does custom hauling. We also operate a 10,000-acre grain farm. We currently employ 40 full-time and four part-time employees in addition to our family members.
In relation to the supply chain for grains and oilseeds, I'd like to present three main areas of concern, or three subjects, to you today. One of them is a concern that's more related to our company, and two of them I believe are becoming bigger industry issues.
On the first subject, our business is located just a few kilometres from the U.S. border. Up until about two years ago, we were able to transport export shipments to the western U.S.A. through the closest border crossing. In particular, that's the Westhope, North Dakota, or Coulter, Manitoba, crossing located on Highway 83.
We recently had the renewal of our permits denied by U.S. customs, as our shipments through this local crossing were not considered local deliveries. This has resulted in our having to reroute truck traffic to the port of Dunseith or the Boissevain, Manitoba, crossing. The other option is to move over to the Portal, North Dakota, or North Portal, Saskatchewan, crossing, which results in a lot of extra kilometres per trip and excessive trucking costs.
During load restriction season, which is coming up, it is even worse, as the trucks have to travel much further south before moving back north, only to turn around and head south again, all in an attempt to find unrestricted highways. We also cannot find an acceptable route within Canada, again due to extra mileage and road restrictions in season.
If we could have the privilege of using the port of Westhope or Coulter, Manitoba, it would result in the savings of thousands of dollars and provide our drivers with more hours in their logbooks, resulting in higher productivity.
Highway 83 is a major trade corridor, an unrestricted highway running from Manitoba to Texas, yet we are hamstrung by a local border crossing with limited hours of service and no ability to put commercial truck traffic through that port, although the oil industry is using that port regularly.
In addition to that, there is a relatively new intermodal and ocean container service available at Minot, North Dakota. There is a good supply of empty ocean containers available at the facility, containers that have brought oil field supplies in and are being used to export grains and oilseeds back out, primarily from North Dakota companies.
Our company has been strongly considering the use of this terminal for two reasons. The first one is that the ocean freight rates from the terminal in Minot to overseas terminals are quite competitive. The second reason is that the terminal in Minot is only 150 kilometres from our business, as compared with our nearest Canadian terminal at Winnipeg, which is 330 kilometres.
Obviously this can be a huge savings or business advantage, but we have the same problem with using the terminal at Minot, the issue again being the port of Westhope, North Dakota, or Coulter, Manitoba. We can only bring empty ocean containers back through the Canadian crossing; once the container is loaded at our plant and has to go back to the terminal at Minot, it has to be rerouted over through Dunseith, North Dakota, or to Portal, again resulting in a lot of extra truck traffic and costs.
I believe that in the best interests of economic development—not just agriculture, but economic development in general in western Manitoba—it would be beneficial to explore the idea of transforming the Westhope-Coulter border crossing into a commercial port.
The second subject is this. Our company has been very active in the processing and exporting of flaxseed to Europe for many years. When a GMO event, CDC Triffid, was discovered in Canadian flax shipments a few years ago, it brought that line of business to a grinding halt.
The acceptable level for GMO in Europe is essentially zero, although there is an extremely small tolerance, as the labs cannot test to exactly zero. Zero is an unforgiving number, and nearly unobtainable for any exporter.
The Canadian flax industry has suffered a serious setback since the Triffid event. Normal trade has not yet been restored, and perhaps never will be, as eastern European production has taken Canada's place.
GMO crops are everywhere in our supply chain system, and we believe that moving to a low-level presence system is absolutely necessary. Even the most stringent Identity Preserved programs and testing programs, such as the certified container sampling program introduced by the Canadian Grain Commission, can't mitigate the risk and the liability involved.
Our company has worked diligently to bring back our European flax business with a small degree of success by using the Canadian Grain Commission certified container sampling program. I believe the government plays an important role in negotiating policy on low-level presence for the future.
Number three, my final subject, is availability of employees and labour to the agriculture industry. As the baby boomers ease into retirement, I believe this is one of the biggest issues facing our industry. Nearly every business owner or farmer I talk to is indicating that this is their biggest challenge right now. Even the most efficient business models and supply chains don't run themselves. It takes quality people to run every business and every organization.
I consider our family business to be very fortunate to have such a fine staff. However, as our business continues to grow and requires more staff, we find it increasingly difficult to recruit people, especially in rural areas with low populations. We've had some great people join our staff from overseas and we believe that recruiting more people from these countries will be required. However, in saying that, we find the LMO process, the labour market opinion process with Service Canada, to be very time-consuming and not very user-friendly. As a small company, we don't have the resources to spend as much time on this as is required, and I suspect that most small business owners would agree.
I'm unaware if such a thing exists or not, but I would like to see recruiting agencies specific to smaller agribusiness, to help seek out quality people and assist in getting them to work in western Canadian agribusiness. This would include taking business owners to these countries on labour missions to help set up interviews and assist with the LMO process with Service Canada and help get immigrants settled in Canada, including details such as health care, driver's licences, day care, housing, etc.
In closing, I'd like to make a personal comment. In my personal opinion, the move to a dual market for wheat and barley has been one of the single biggest advances for farmers of my generation. I believe that it will ultimately prove to be a very positive change and give young farmers the choice in marketing that has been long overdue. As I suspected, the flow of grain has not really changed, and my neighbours are not lined up at North Dakota elevators to sell their wheat. They are marketing at home, with price transparency and freedom to make their own choices in a supply and demand market. I commend Mr. Ritz for his perseverance on the issue.
Thank you kindly for your time and the opportunity to speak.