Evidence of meeting #115 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 42nd Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was farmers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
There is quite a delay in terms of phase-in. It's starting in three years and going over 15. We have to match the urgency to what we're working on.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Alistair MacGregor
We're going to move to Mr. Shipley for the Conservatives, for six minutes.
Bev Shipley Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, CPC
Thank you very much, Chair, and thank you to all of the witnesses.
As my colleague Mr. Longfield said, we would not have heard about those true, real-life stories a few years ago. We would talk about them generally, but not the details. What we're actually wanting to do, even though I'm not sure we're going to make it.... In the 1980s it was a reactive response to a situation where we had some of those same sorts of issues. We were hoping as a committee now to be proactive on this, yet I think we're in the midst of it, quite honestly.
This is maybe more of a comment, but I know Mr. van den Heuvel, Mr. Phelps and Mr. Johnston said it, and I agree. In terms of social media, it's the add-on stuff. We have now, and you mentioned the CFIA, PMRA and the veterinary drugs directorate, everything that we, the 1.5% in this country, use to produce the food for the other 98.5%. Attacks are made against us for providing the safest food in the world. The frustrating part is that it's not just an attack on you, Chris. It's an attack on your family and it's an attack on our industry.
We had a barn fire in our region where they lost the barn and all the pigs, and there were people out on the road waving signs calling them murderers. You know, it wasn't just about the fire. They'd lost everything they'd put their investment in. Now it's a personal attack against us, and there are no consequences for those folks. We have our hogs in Ontario going to packing plants, and there are people on the road stopping them and giving them water, and we don't know what they're giving them. They could be handing them water with poison in it, but once that happens, that whole truck of hogs is lost.
We've covered a lot of talks. We're trying to get a discussion at our committee where we would bring in the minister and those people to talk about the trade agreements and the impacts on agriculture, because some of it isn't impacted, but some of it is more so. We need to have that discussion. I'm not sure that actually—maybe my colleagues across the way can talk about it—we even got the Canadian tax yet, because everything we're running off up until now has been just using the U.S. tax.
If we're going to help as the federal government.... Mr. Phelps, you talked about 7% of the health care budget going to mental health. One of the last things all of us here want to see is a bureaucracy-loaded system...recognizing the responsibility of the federal and provincial governments and then some of the associations. You may not have the answer now, but you could help us by giving us some recommendations, through your associations, on what we could do to best provide that service. How do we effectively provide it and make it so that you folks on the ground, those of us who are in the industry...?We've been told by people that they hope they are actually people who understand agriculture and have lived a little bit with it. Mr. Poissant and I have talked a bit about the significance of that, and so has your chair, Ron Bonnett.
Could you help us with that? I don't know if you have any comments on that right now.
I see you were nodding, Mr. van den Heuvel.
Director and Past President, Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture
Yes, thank you very much.
Obviously our ask is for more funding going directly to mental health.
On the preventive side, it's having a well-rounded and well-regulated—and by well-regulated, I don't mean over-regulated; I mean efficiently regulated—suite of programs that farmers can access. For example, the business risk management tools allow us, in the face of disasters, drought, floods, pests or whatever, to take advantage of compensation, if you will, in the face of those things and the uncertainty around them.
The unfortunate reality is, in the last three federal funding programs, our agriculture budget has not increased. We've had the same amount of dollars in Growing Forward 1 and Growing Forward 2 and now in this new CAP funding program, yet we're challenged by Dominic Barton in the Barton report, and more recently an even larger increase by Murad Al-Katib in the agri-food strategy round table to increase exports by $30 billion in seven years.
Who is going to take on the risk of planting those crops and growing those animals and processing that food? They're telling us to. They're going to give us the same amount of money to do it, but we have to increase our output by 30%. It's that suck-it-up attitude again, and we have to prevent that.
On the preventive side, having a well-rounded and a well-funded suite of programs would go a long way.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Alistair MacGregor
Thank you, Mr. Shipley.
Ms. Nassif, we have two minutes for you.
Liberal
Eva Nassif Liberal Vimy, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question is for Mr. Johnston.
As a psychologist, could you talk to us about the most urgent priorities in mental health and the tools likely to prevent crises, like those Mr. van den Heuvel described to us, which can sometimes lead to suicide?
Clinical Psychologist, Manager, Addiction and Mental Health, Alberta Health Services
Sure, and I think there are two aspects to that. One is to have timely access to crisis support services right in the community that would be mobile, to hook up the individuals with the type of services they need. If it's suicide risk, there is hospitalization sometimes. The other, with the prevention piece, I think it is to have some of these community psycho-educational type of presentations that talk about wellness, available mental health services, warning signs and so on, similar to what's been discussed here.
I certainly concur that there needs to be more of a national strategy. I think there need to be provincial stamps on how that gets rolled out through the sectors in different areas.
Through these workshops and presentations right in communities there is a building of trust in the relationship that people would be able to access in a time of crisis. Also at those presentations—and I've done many of them myself—people will hang around after and start talking to you about their concerns. That's a very good access point to get people into services as well.
Liberal
Eva Nassif Liberal Vimy, QC
Is there anything that could be suggested to young farmers lacking experience? Could training and education help young farmers who are thinking of getting into agriculture?
Clinical Psychologist, Manager, Addiction and Mental Health, Alberta Health Services
Yes, I think definitely there are a lot of very good programs in these farming communities and a lot of funding going into the education system in schools. That needs to be made applicable to them personally if they're moving into farming. In addition, for instance, we offer agricultural programs in Olds, Alberta, and I'm sure that's the same across the country.
There needs to be a wellness component that includes mental health within some of the training so they are able to look after themselves and be informed about mental health concerns and how to get help as soon as possible.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Alistair MacGregor
Thank you, Mr. Johnston.
Mr. Phelps, Mr. van den Heuvel and Mr. Johnston, thank you for appearing and giving your testimony today.
The committee is going to suspend for a couple of minutes to go in camera.
[Proceedings continue in camera]