Agriculture Committee on Oct. 23rd, 2018

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Guest and Mr. Johnson, I'd like to start with you. First of all, thank you for coming to the committee today.

Mr. Guest, in your opening statement, you had mentioned the funding that your registry had once received but you're not receiving right now. Can you just provide a few more details about where it's traditionally come from and why there's a bit of a gap right now?

[Bob Guest]

Yes. Basically, we used get funding through CASA. That was where all our funds came from, and they also did all of our administration. When the new farm programs came out, they said you had to have matching funding, and they also cut CASA's funding a great deal, pretty much in half. We were one of the casualties of their funding being cut in half. Of course, then we didn't have any administration either because we were just the farmers who were going and doing the work. We've never really had the ability to go out and campaign to get the companies to support us so that we can get the matching funds because we were never set up that way. We were set up to go and talk to the farmers and do the visitations and that type of thing, and CASA would basically make the contacts and that and then we'd get in touch with them and go that way.

Once the funding was lost, we struggled with what we had left over, but basically, we started to run out of funds because it became such a competitive area campaigning with all the different chemical companies and everything else, bigger groups that had more funds to do it with, so we were never able to really get any funding set up.

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

Okay.

You've identified funding as a key component here. That's good to get into the record.

One of our previous witnesses, actually a couple, came from an organization in Quebec and one of the things they did was that they had mental health workers who understood the nature of the farm, understood the culture of it. They would go to farms on unscheduled visits because we've heard about the culture of stoicism amongst the farming community. They're not often the ones who will go out and seek help for themselves.

They would pay unscheduled visits to farms, understanding the nature of the place, just to check in on a person. How do you feel about that kind of approach?

[Bob Guest]

It's similar to what we do. Where we were getting the physiotherapists and that, we were fairly well known to them, and they would get in contact with us and say that they would get permission for us to go and do a visitation. If, say, it was in Saskatchewan, my area, I would go in and do a visitation with the guy at the farm. We found that the sooner we got in there, the more likely it was that they were going back to the farm. Then we could find out a bit about their family and that, and then try to match them up with another family that had gone through a similar situation.

The mental health part of it is probably a hundred times more once you're trying to deal with a disability as well, because you have so much blame in terms of what you could have done or what you should have done or what you did wrong, that type of thing. We found that when they can talk to somebody who has been through it and has the same.... It's a lot different talking to somebody who has the same disability. It makes a lot of difference.

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

Thank you for that.

Dr. Carleton and Dr. Fletcher, it was very interesting to hear about your research on climate change and its negative impacts on mental health. I think we all know that farmers over the ages have certainly had to deal with adverse weather events. That's just something they do. However, we're now seeing the evidence that these adverse weather events are being compounded. They're happening much more frequently, and if we believe the 6,000-plus scientists who have contributed to the recent IPCC report, we don't have very much time left.

It seems to me that it's very unfortunate that here in this place we're stuck over an argument about whether or not to apply a carbon tax. However, we're missing the big picture that climate change is happening and so far our response to it is completely ineffective. It's going to require some drastic change.

Acknowledging that these increases in adverse weather events are going to be the norm unless we drastically change our course of action, and knowing that this will negatively impact the mental health of farmers, has your research—or any of the research that you're familiar with—identified any possible mitigation strategies that we can employ? We're looking for recommendations, knowing that this may be the new norm in the future.

What strategies can we employ to help farmers deal with these increasing adverse weather effects and the effects that they are going to have on their farms?

[Dr. Amber Fletcher]

My own research focuses much more heavily on adaptation as opposed to mitigation. Although there is a variety of options for climate mitigation, my own research has really focused much more on the effect of climate disasters on farm families.

One of the biggest recommendations I have is one that comes from my interviews with farmers, that there are important social and economic dimensions to adaptation. A lot of what we've seen has been an emphasis on technology. Certainly, technology is important. We've seen, for example, that the farmers in the areas where I do research are quite stressed about divestment from dam infrastructure. There is a lot of concern over, for example, programs that don't allow them to build if a bridge or some kind of infrastructure is damaged by a climate disaster. They often lack the funding to be able to build higher. They're often limited by what existed before. That doesn't consider the impact of future events. I think there should be a lot of emphasis on preparation and planning for disasters that far exceed anything even in intergenerational memory.

Technology is certainly a part of that. Dam infrastructure is important. At the same time, there are social and economic dimensions that we can be thinking about—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Dr. Fletcher, I'm going to have to cut you off. I'm sorry, but we're out of time. I was sleeping on the switch here.

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

Mr. Breton, you have six minutes.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I don't know whether it was Mr. Carleton or Ms. Fletcher who said that farming was a unique profession, as people were fairly isolated and there was little networking in the workplace. With social network being very limited, it may be more difficult to seek help. The time farmers have to seek that help or attend consultations is very limited. That clearly increases stress and all factors related to anxiety, for the many reasons you listed.

A few weeks ago, experts came before us to talk about proactivity and support workers. Those are social workers or psychologists who visit farms sporadically. Their organization is located in Quebec. I don't whether you have heard about this initiative or whether you have something similar at home, in Saskatchewan.

Could you tell me whether you think that initiative could spread throughout Canada? I would like to know what you think about it.

[Prof. Nicholas Carleton]

I haven't heard of that here in Saskatchewan. I think the unscheduled visits are welcomed by the farmers. If they have the capacity to escalate to higher levels of care where necessary, it could certainly be a good idea. I would suggest that a lot of the peer-to-peer support that we heard about this morning from Mr. Guest is also potentially a very good idea. I think there's a lot of room left for us to better understand how we can best support farmers as they endure these kinds of stresses and challenges across the farm industries.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

My next question is simple.

Every one of you has conducted considerable research.

Ms. Fletcher, what can the Government of Canada implement or do to further advance the mental health file involving our Canadian farmers?

[Dr. Amber Fletcher]

Thank you for the question.

One initiative that I think is particularly important is the funding to support farmer-led initiatives for mental health. For example, here in Saskatchewan, we have some groups of farmers who are actively pushing for farmer-to-farmer, peer-to-peer mental health supports.

One of the challenges we see is that often the people providing the support for farmer mental health are not actually farmers. Here in Saskatchewan, for example, the farm stress line is now operated by crisis intervention workers who are usually not farmers. I think it can be very daunting and very difficult for farmers to speak with folks who they see as having little connection or little understanding of agriculture.

In addition to that, as I've mentioned before in my statements, I do think it's very important to address the root causes of the mental health crises, that being, of course, the economic uncertainty, the financial uncertainty that farmers face.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Mr. Guest, if I understood your mission correctly, your organization and you are helping farmers get back to work as quickly as possible after an accident or an illness.

Between people suffering from anxiety- and stress-related illnesses and those who had an accident, can you tell us which group you help the most in your work, in terms of proportion? Are there more people suffering from anxiety or people who have had work related accidents?

[Bob Guest]

I would say probably more after the accident. We're doing a very good job of talking about farm safety and accidents, but due to the nature of agriculture, there are still going to be accidents for some reason or other, and the anxiety seems to be more, to me, when an accident happens to a person. They deal with it fairly well in most cases.

In some cases they need a lot more help, but in a lot of cases the person the accident happened to deals with it. It's the family that really needs the help. They need to be able to talk to somebody who understands what's happened and why it's happened, and not to blame themselves but to get through it. Being able to talk to somebody who's been through it seems to make a world of difference to both sides. It's a real sense of achievement when you can help a family get back onto the farm and become a productive producer.

I think it's so important that we can reach the family after that situation. It's not necessarily an accident. It could be an illness that struck the family farm as well. It has to be dealt with as a family unit. I think that's an important side of it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Guest.

Thank you, Mr. Breton.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Thank you for your answers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. Poissant, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you very much for your testimony.

I was a farmer for more than 40 years. My son took over the farm.

I also worked in the psychological distress field. I was the president of a community organization that came to testify here called Au coeur des familles agricoles. The role of support worker has been created, as well as a respite house for Quebec farmers.

The organization is still working on finding other solutions to help farmers, but I have never heard about your organization, Mr. Guest. I would like to know whether statistics are being kept on farm accidents in the country. Do you have statistics that show how many mutilations or other accidents occur on farms?

[Bob Guest]

I don't know.

Jonas, do you know whether there are statistics?

[Jonas Johnson]

I used to work with CASA, and the limits on the funding that was available restricted the research to fatalities. We don't have the resources available to get an understanding of exactly what the extent is of the injuries and also the illnesses that people would be suffering. That is something we hope to do with the organization moving forward as we rebuild to get a better understanding of the extent of the problem.

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

Okay.

My other question is for the researchers, Mr. Carleton and Ms. Fletcher.

Witnesses have told us that there was a lot of research and that action was now needed. Research has shown that real problems existed. But there are solutions. So we are now being asked to take action.

I wanted to hear your thoughts on that. Why keep doing research when the evidence is clear? What is your take on that?

[Prof. Nicholas Carleton]

I think there are enough data in the literature I was able to review to suggest that there is a significant and a substantial mental health challenge facing our farmers. I think how we would action the solutions to that challenge may warrant additional research. In the interim, however, we can explore opportunities to make sure that there are individual-level solutions—evidence-based care and peer-support care—available to our farmers.

I agree with Dr. Fletcher that another challenge is to provide a system-wide response to increase certainty where possible for farmers, because part of the root challenge they're facing is the level of uncertainty as we go forward.

[Dr. Amber Fletcher]

I would also add that in the interviews I do with farmers—and in contradiction to what was said by the first honourable member—this is not a view from 10,000 feet up. This is a view from my interviews, sitting down with hundreds of farmers across the Prairies. What I hear from them is that agriculture is constantly changing. There are constantly policy changes and environmental changes that are affecting the lives of farmers. For that reason, I think research remains important. We constantly have to keep on top of how new changes and new events are impacting farmers.

However, I think that as researchers we need to do a good job of being responsible in making sure our recommendations are reaching the ears of those they need to reach, and making sure that our recommendations are firmly grounded in the views of the farmers themselves, many of whom I have interviewed.

I would just like to point out that I think ongoing research is important in an ever-changing field like agriculture.

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

Okay.

A woman who came to testify told us that farmers often did business with professionals on the ground. Those may be bankers, agronomists or whatever. When those people issue recommendations, errors often arise that lead to farmers losing their business.

She suggested that an ombudsman be put in charge of those cases. When it comes to farmers, the lack of financial means sometimes prevents them from holding the people who made errors accountable.

What do you think about that?

[Prof. Nicholas Carleton]

I think an ombudsman would help to provide more certainty and more support for farmers. By way of that, I think it sounds like potentially a very good idea.

[Dr. Amber Fletcher]

I would agree. I think this is something that, provided it was made very accessible to farmers, would be an excellent way to give them recourse in dealing with some of the challenges they face.