Agriculture Committee on Oct. 18th, 2018

[Maria Labrecque Duchesneau]

I often say that the farm is attached to the main artery of the heart. That is no small thing; it is true.

Before addressing the personal problems of the agricultural entrepreneurs, I ask about their farms, I visit their farms, I walk on their land, I take information, I tell them what a great business it is. After a while, we talk about their problems. We do not address the problem first. We determine the stressors of the farmers. If knee pain is the cause of the stress, since they have to bend their knees twice to milk each cow four times a day, what can be done? They can receive treatment for their knees, but we can find other technical ways to improve the way they work, we can find people who would be happy to help them.

So I created the Maison de répit en agriculture. In order for farmers to be able to take leave, I would find them a replacement. So I worked a lot with the agricultural schools. I asked the teachers whether a young student was willing to work a few hours to milk in order to give the producers some rest. It has always worked.

If there is one thing I am convinced of, it is that farmers are people who, despite everything, want to help each other. That is a fact. When a producer has to deal with a fire, all the farm workers go to his farm to help him out. For example, someone can take the remaining cows and take them home. In short, they are not just people who want to acquire the property of other farmers, as I said earlier, but people who want to help. They may have preconceived ideas, but I don't want to hear about that. What I like most is that they always say yes when I ask them for help. In fact, in the agricultural community, people always say that you never say no to Maria. This helps the process.

To help farmers, anything goes. I can call people to say hello and ask them if they can help me. They may say no, but I will insist. That's how I roll.

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, La Prairie, QC]

That's perfect. Thank you, Ms. Labrecque Duchesneau.

Do other places in the world have field workers?

[Maria Labrecque Duchesneau]

The Japanese came to us to set up something like it in their country. People from France also contacted me and I went there last spring. France has started to have field workers, just like Switzerland. Haiti has some too, but it is more complicated and it would take too long to explain the situation today.

In short, there are a lot of questions. There were many newspaper articles all over the world as a result of what I did. It is a need. I am telling you again and I cannot say it enough: it is a real need.

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Skinner, what motivated you to return to agriculture? You had a very difficult time. What can make a person who has experienced what you have experienced come back to this field?

[Stewart Skinner]

Thank you for the chance to answer that.

One thing is that I was commuting from southwestern Ontario into Toronto a few times a week, and that alone—travelling to Toronto—can crush happiness.

On a more serious note, my wife and I were expecting our first child, and while I talked about the legacy pressures, as I called them, within my introductory statement, I wanted to be at home. I wanted to be doing what previous generations had done in hopes that I could show my children that if they want to take the opportunity, the opportunity is there to take. My family has been farming in Canada longer than Canada has been a country, and the drive to give my children the opportunity—not that they would have to take it, but that it could be there—was something that pulled me back.

I also would be remiss not to say that we felt we had a plan to build a viable financial business. Ultimately, you can have all the warm and touchy-feely things you want, but if you're not making money, it's not going to work. We had an opportunity to grow our business and make room for me, and it fit with our goals as a family.

[Jean-Claude Poissant, Liberal, La Prairie, QC]

Your story is very inspiring and should be more widely known. Many farmers think it's the end if they don't succeed.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Poissant.

Thank you, Mr. Skinner.

Now we go to Mr. MacGregor for six minutes.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Skinner, I'll start with you.

It's pretty hard to listen to this, that you found yourself walking down to the barn with an extension cord in your hand. I know it happens to a lot of farmers. You talked about some of the federal programs that could be there in support.

So many farmers get to that point and we don't reach them before it's too late. Do you think that if those programs had been in place in 2012, their presence would have made a difference in your case—if you had known there were other options; that despite such a terrible year, there are people in the government who could support you with some kinds of programs?

[Stewart Skinner]

I don't think that.... Well, at that point AgriStability hadn't been cut. I think we are very fortunate as Canadian farmers to have the business risk management tools we have. I wouldn't want to appear to be somehow saying that they were inadequate, although I do think they could be improved. For me it was more of an internal...of some of the challenges. When I came home in 2010, I was convinced that I was smarter than I was, and that was my first time facing actual, real defeat. I think it was more of a personal journey rather than a failure of public programming, in my case.

The only counterpoint I would give to that is that it goes back to accessing services. At that point I did try to go to the free therapist in town, but it just didn't work. Because we didn't have any money—my wife was a grad student and I was a pig farmer—we couldn't afford to have me go to a private therapist.

I was joking beforehand that it costs about eight market hogs, in terms of market hog margin, every time I go see my private therapist, and I only have so many market hogs to sell in a year. Most of those are used to pay the feed bill. Access to a service that could have helped was a challenge at the time I needed it.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you for that.

Madam Duchesneau, we had Nancy Langevin give some testimony. You've been following this testimony. I was asking her about the impact of trade agreements on our supply-managed sector. Whether it's the agreement with the European Union, the CPTPP, or the one with the United States, every time, supply-managed farmers, who operate on a system that gives them some certainty, have seen a little bit more of the market share cut off.

You've talked about how those small family farms are really the heart, the artery of so many small communities in Quebec. Is there anything you want to add to her testimony about the kind of stress that's adding for farmers that you know?

[Maria Labrecque Duchesneau]

I listened to the presentations, and it's all true. As soon as there’s a small misstep, producers become concerned. They are really very concerned. Their worry creates stress, and the stress leads to distress. They need to be reassured.

The comments on social networks, on television about all the negotiations allow them to build up an image, which is not positive. They are wondering what will happen to them and how they will cope. The more information comes in, the more they feel they are losing. Payments have to be made. They get up at 5 a.m. and when they milk the animals, they have time to think. They think, and it's not always positive.

Yes, I have seen a producer try to hang himself with a string of Christmas lights. Fortunately, those strings of lights are not strong, and his broke. I understand what Mr. Skinner's going through. I understand the insecurity people experience on a farm.

I'm thinking of a farmer who lives near me and whom I invited for coffee. He's disappointed and angry, and I'm there to ease the pressure. The farmers are not the ones making the decisions. The decisions are being made elsewhere, as you know. So what do we do with all the distress that each farmer experiences in isolation?

Take the example of a son who told his father that the only thing left for him to do was to find a rope. He said it laughing, supposedly. Two weeks ago, his mother called me to ask whether I thought it was true. Can we take such a risk? So I called their house. They are practically my neighbours. In the same family, 10 years ago, the grandfather ran over his grandson. Every year, for the past 10 years, I have been going to the father's house with two beers. That's what I use. I sit with him. We have our beer without saying much, we give each other a kiss, and I go home.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you for your presentation, Ms. Labrecque Duchesneau.

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

Next is Mr. Longfield for six minutes.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

It's breathtaking to hear the stories.

I want to go back to Mr. Skinner.

I've been meeting with a teenager in my riding named Noah Irvine. We've been meeting regularly for several years now. I met with him over the Thanksgiving weekend. He's been researching mental health systems. He's 17 years old now. He might be 18. He told me about the P.E.I. report on farms. The Prince Edward Island Federation of Agriculture is proposing an assistance program for farmers.

You worked with the Ontario Minister of Agriculture. You're proposing policy development around farmer assistance and mental health. Is that something the Province of Ontario has considered?

[Stewart Skinner]

To the best of my knowledge, I'm not aware of any such thing, but that also does not mean there is not something being done by the province.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Some of the frustration for us is in there being the provincial jurisdiction and the federal jurisdiction.

Mr. Smith, I briefly looked up the mental health parity act in Canada that your organization proposed through Saskatchewan this past September, a month ago. The United States has had a parity act since 1996.

When I skimmed through the proposed parity act, one other frustration that emerged was how to measure success. How do we bring together Prince Edward Island's experience, Saskatchewan's experience, possibly Ontario's developing experience? How do we bring the provinces together? How do we measure success? With $5 billion going into the system, how do we know whether any of it is getting to the farm?

[Dr. Patrick Smith]

That's a very good question.

I recently had the opportunity to join the Canadian delegation to the United Nations. There was a side meeting on mental health.

We can look to other jurisdictions that have similar federal, provincial, state...different ways of structuring. The U.K. did their parity of esteem act when the Honourable Norman Lamb was the minister of health. They were able to have legislation that could actually support...so that it wasn't just crossing our fingers and hoping that provinces did the right thing; that it was actually setting a bar, a standard that provinces needed to have to fund mental health commensurate to the burden of illness.

It's important for Canadians to know that even though the Honourable Ginette Petitpas Taylor is leading the global alliance of champions for mental health and well-being, we're still the lowest-spending of all G7 countries. We spend the lowest percentage of our health care budget on mental health of any developed country. That's really important. That's our platform. The U.K., though, recently found themselves in a similar situation and years ago did the parity of esteem act. They can't fix something like that overnight. Years of deferred maintenance on the mental health file isn't going to be fixed by one budget or one sitting government. What it can do, however, is set the standard, because not having those basic services exacts a toll from every Canadian.

It's important to mention that even though the delivery of service on the ground in the provinces and territories falls under provincial and territorial jurisdiction, what we're asking for from the federal government, the Canadian government, is, much to Mr. Skinner's point: Every situation is individual. There may be differing individual solutions, but as a workplace.... The Canadian government has made some investments in workplaces in setting a culture, in setting a standard. We're requesting that $5 million go to a targeted Not Myself Today campaign that can help to set the standard and help shift the culture of the workplace for farmers, ranchers and producers, so that people can reach out more for help and feel more supported as a culture in a workplace.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

In your report you mention that 13% of the health care budget in the U.K. goes towards mental health—

[Dr. Patrick Smith]

That's right.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

—and it's about half that in Canada.

You also mentioned the assertive community treatments whereby groups come together and mentioned, maybe building on other testimony, including farmers or people with farming experience in the ACT teams.

[Dr. Patrick Smith]

Absolutely. What I think we're all saying is that it needs to be by the people for the people. One thing the Canadian Mental Health Association.... It's not hospital units. It's not fly-in teams. It's people in your community on the ground who work that is bedrock.

We're celebrating our 100 years this year, as you may know. That's the foundation for us. It's by the people for the people. It's helping to leverage the strengths of the community and have it be part of the solution. In other workplaces where we have implemented Not Myself Today, it's engaging the farmers themselves, the ranchers, in developing and delivering the service from a specialized peer support perspective.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Terrific. Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Longfield and Mr. Smith.

Mr. Breton, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to each of the experts for being here today.

Ms. Labrecque Duchesneau, the concept of a field worker seems very interesting to me. You said that we must be proactive and focus on prevention. In mental health, I really believe that's where we have to act even though there are always other aspects that we have to deal with.

I want to know in more detail how it works.

You said that there are seven field workers in Quebec.

[Maria Labrecque Duchesneau]

There are six or seven.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Clearly, compared to the number of farms, that’s relatively few.

How does it work?

You said that you do what you call milk runs to go and see farmers. The field workers cover certain areas of Quebec. Are the visits made at random, unannounced? For example, will field workers decide that they are going to visit a certain part of Quebec on a certain day? Are visits done in response to reports? Can people call you to say that they are concerned about a certain person so that you can then respond? How does it work? Can you tell us more about the process?