I'd like to thank the committee for allowing me to speak here today.
I will give a bit of background on who Marcel Hacault is. I'm starting to feel long in the tooth now. I was a hog farmer until 2004, so I've experienced all the ups and downs in the industry. I was also involved with Keystone Ag Producers in 1996 during the flood. They had tasked me to work with some of the groups there. I've had some personal, one-on-one experience with stressors in agriculture, in terms of both how they impact people and how they impact me and my family.
I'm currently the executive director of the Canadian Agricultural Safety Association. CASA's vision is to have a Canada where no one is hurt farming. Our mission is to make agriculture a safe and healthy environment to work and live in by helping producers and community partners see and manage risk. The mission is very much acknowledging that farmers work and live in the same place, and also that agriculture is more than just the producers. There's the community around them and all the people they interact with.
CASA has been around for a while. When I first came on in 2004, we commissioned a survey that was one of the first ones out there. At that time, it was a stress survey just to try to understand what the levels were, what the primary causes were, and whom farmers would turn to in times of stress. I have the link to it in the notes.
At that time, one in five described themselves as very stressed, and half said they were somewhat stressed. It almost mirrors what Dr. Andria Jones-Bitton has reported. In 2004, the primary causes were poor harvest and production, government policies and farm finances. Fourteen years later, I think those three are still pretty well at the top of the list. The farmers preferred to meet one-on-one, as opposed to group sessions or using telephone help.
In 2006, La Coop fédérée had a survey among its members. It showed that 50% of ag producers had a high level of stress. Again, that was very similar. The highest levels were for the pork producers, at 66%, with 48% for dairy and 36% for poultry. That's in comparison to 20% of Quebeckers who felt stress in general, so the ag population was definitely feeling higher levels of stress in 2006.
Just last year, we commissioned a study about the types of insurance, because employees often have access to employee assistance programs where they can access specialists and stuff. We thought, wouldn't it be nice if farmers had the same level of support through some type of insurance plan? We found that most farmers have access, if they want, to the health portion. Where there's a real deficiency is in terms of proper disability coverage, and there is an almost non-existent ability to access mental health insurance.
Having said all that, what has changed from 2004 to 2018? I think we've always known that farmers.... It's different from other industries. Most farmers see it as a vocation. There are long hours and unpredictable weather and crops, but they've always believed that the general public acknowledged and respected the industry. I think that has changed. The farmers feel scrutinized and attacked by the public—in essence, devaluing the profession.
We always talk about those bad apples. One of the things that have come up is that sometimes we see in the news husbandry issues where farmers are mistreating their animals. Dr. Andria Jones-Bitton would probably make a link there because it's often stress-related. As an industry—and I may be guilty of this, too—we often say that it's just a bad apple, when we should be saying that this farmer needs help. Where are we helping him through this time? The symptom is what everybody sees, but I think the underlying cause is probably that he needed help.
What's changed? Compared to 15 years ago, farmers today seem to be much more willing to talk about stressors and discuss the impact of those stressors on their mental health. That's why I'm pleased to be here today.
In 2005, we made some recommendations to the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology regarding mental health. As a result of that, the Mental Health Commission of Canada was formed. The first mandate focused on how best to help people who are homeless and living with mental problems. I would suggest that there might be room to expand that mandate so they could focus a little on rural, remote and farmers.
One thing we would like to see is the development of a national strategy that would focus on farmer and rancher mental health so that we could coordinate and share resources and know what's happening across Canada.
There should be support for a national stress and suicide prevention service. We used to talk about a stress line, but I think we should have a service.
There should be mental health research support, trying to get research linking mental health and wellness to human health and safety, and animal welfare outcomes. There are some technicalities there with ICD-10 codes that could be mandated so we could track some of them more easily.
There should also be evidence-based mental health resources tailored to meet the needs of farmers in terms of both content and delivery.
I think the Government of Canada has a critical role in supporting farmers and ranchers with its messaging. I often hear the message that farmers grow so much and that we're going to be exporting, exporting, exporting. Very seldom do you hear that we value the work that farmers, their families and their workers do every day.
