Evidence of meeting #124 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 agriculture.
A recording is available from Parliament.
General Manager, Indian Agricultural Program of Ontario
Quite frankly, I haven't considered that side of the equation. Changing long-standing beliefs or misbeliefs could be very difficult. I will note that the agricultural industry in many parts of Canada has been built on foreign workers who have incredible language barriers and all those kinds of issues.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
I'm going to have to cut you off.
Mr. MacGregor, you have six minutes.
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Chief Louis, for reminding this committee, and indeed everyone, that before the arrival of Europeans, there were some great flourishing agricultural civilizations in the western hemisphere. I think it's great to remind us that the tomato, the potato and corn all originated from here. Before the arrival of Columbus, Europeans had no idea that they existed.
In my part of the world, Vancouver Island is home to the Cowichan people. They have an amazing history, of course, that is based on the ocean. There's a popular saying among the Cowichan people that when the tide goes out, the table is set. There are very different experiences about traditional and culturally appropriate foods. The nations in my region are very much dependent on salmon. There is ample evidence of thousand-year-old clam beds and midden heaps. You can see old tools that were used, littering the beaches everywhere. It's amazing.
Going to your part of the world, the Okanagan is one of my favourite parts of British Columbia. If you look at the summertime in the Okanagan, because of how far north it is, you get more hours of sun in the summer than California does, which makes it such an amazing region for growing wine grapes and so on. I know a lot of people have had a lot of success growing ginseng as well.
On the Okanagan Indian Band website, I noticed there was a community agricultural meeting back in 2016, and you invited members to learn about some of the opportunities. I was just wondering if you could inform our committee about how some of those conversations have gone among your members. What has the pickup been, just from your own experience?
Chief, Okanagan Indian Band
I would say it's mixed, because, after a hundred and something years, this is pretty hard to look at. From the perspective of a lot of our members, there was no support. Even with federal programs, we couldn't access those programs. Basically, all of our agriculturalists were self-sufficient and self-supporting. It didn't matter if you were a dryland farmer or if you were going back into vegetables or anything else. You were basically doing that yourself. After that 100 years, when people start looking at it.... You mention agriculture and they say, “My God, that's so tough. Let's make a modular home park. We can take advantage of that, because it has a proven track record.”
However, I really have to say that in other parts they're are saying, “No, we still have an agricultural land base. We need to look at it. How do we expand on that to make a living?”
Our membership, I think, is very progressive. In a community of 2,000, we produce two surgeons, two general practitioners, and we have other people in there. The very first person we educated in 1968 went on to become the first first nations MP, Len Marchand. We're very progressive in that regard, but we need to have people understand that agriculture is still viable. We need to convince those looking at the possibility of a modular home park, as opposed to looking at produce, that it can be value-added. It's still a viable alternative.
The better part of our people, about half the respondents, were very interested. The other part was the ones who didn't show up or the ones we have to convince.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Ultimately, this study is going to result in a report with some recommendations. We want to base that on the testimony we receive at this committee, so it's very important that we hear from witnesses like you.
When you look at the role of the federal and provincial governments, from your point of view, what kind of role do you think the federal government could play?
I think you've had some contact with the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture, but what about the federal government specifically?
Chief, Okanagan Indian Band
The federal government plays a very prominent role in first nations agriculture, when you look at it from local producers all the way up to international trade. We recently had a discussion with Minister Freeland on this whole issue.
As I mentioned when I made the opening statement, one of the things with first nations is that we believe our future isn't in the domestic market; it's in the international market, where we can look at certain niches that will be beneficial. We're not trying to corner the market anywhere, but if we could find a niche....
If you look at the example of India, they have 400 million people and they're middle class. Each year, consumption of imported alcohol or international beer grows at 25%. That's considerable. If we could just get a fraction of a fraction of a percent, we're talking about a considerable opportunity, and this is only one place. The federal government plays a very prominent role in this.
General Manager, Indian Agricultural Program of Ontario
The federal government plays a role internationally, but domestically both the federal and provincial governments really do not provide a lot of direct support for indigenous farmers in Canada.
Speaking to an earlier question about how we can get BMPs out and get the word out to build awareness around agriculture, the Canadian agricultural economy and the economy as a whole were built on a robust agricultural extension service through the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s that provided capacity for development, not only at the farm level through farm extension representatives in every county, but for youth through 4-H and for women through the Women's Institute—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
I have to cut you off. Again, I'm sorry about that.
Mr. Breton, you have the floor.
Liberal
Pierre Breton Liberal Shefford, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chief Louis and Mr. Hall, thank you for your testimony today. Like my colleague Mr. Berthold, my riding also has no indigenous communities and almost no members of your respective communities. However, I'm very interested in this topic and am learning a lot today. Thank you again for your testimony and for accepting our invitation.
As you said, about one-third of the members of indigenous communities are reported to be food insecure. From what I've read, the Government of Canada established the nutrition north Canada program a few years ago. I don't know if you're familiar with it, but I would suppose so. This program is supposed to reduce the cost of food for people living in remote communities.
Could you tell us if this program is working, if it's meeting the objectives of reducing food prices and if it is benefiting communities? And if some aspects of the program are working well or less well, what could the Government of Canada do in that regard?
You can answer in turn. Mr. Hall, do you want to start?
General Manager, Indian Agricultural Program of Ontario
With regard to the nutrition north program, I don't have a lot of experience or expertise with it, and I've never evaluated whether the outcomes are working or what they are achieving. I'm more rooted in southern Ontario.
I would say anecdotally, though, from comments we hear from communities, that there are issues around the affordability and access to food, and they continue to look for means and methods of combining food production with traditional harvests to reduce that food insecurity.
Chief, Okanagan Indian Band
Again, it's location, location, location. There is a certain band out in Manitoba that has actually looked at having a greenhouse for that specific reason. Now these greenhouses are very innovative. Some of them are actually stackable and you don't need a large footprint. They are growing a lot of their produce that otherwise would be shipped in by air or other means of transport, which really increases the cost.
I recently went up to Old Crow, the northernmost first nation community in Yukon. Up there, you're still looking at a bag of rice that's about this big and you're paying $9 just for that bag. A small piece of fish, coho, is going for $26, so you can imagine that's $130 just to put protein on the plate for a family of five.
If you ask me what the success of that is, I think there needs to be more work put into that, because once these people have the diminishment of what's happening—especially in the northern communities, the Northwest Territories and in those Quebec regions—now they have to supplement the cariboo that they used to be able to put on their plates readily any time of the year. The cost of supplementing that meat or that protein is astronomical, and one of the things that were guaranteed by Canada at its inception was that they would have continued and unbroken access to what you described as country foods. As you go farther north, dependence on those country foods is even greater.
So if you ask me about how successful the program is, I'll say it needs more work. It needs to be looked at in terms of how you can actually better utilize what's there, because some of what you mentioned, greenhouses.... Inuit, from my experience, don't like vegetables. But there are possibilities when you're looking at other means—someone mentioned aquatic. Fish farms or possibly other types of ventures may be more successful than trying to introduce vegetables to people who never actually had them.
On the cost of food, a recent study out of Nunavut found that a lot of the produce went to the dump because people couldn't afford it. In a roundabout way, that's where they get it, though. Once it actually enters the dump, they go there to pick through it. That's a pretty sad state.
Liberal
Pierre Breton Liberal Shefford, QC
Thank you for your answers.
There's another program called Indigenous Pathfinder. This program was put in place by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and appears to be in the form of one-on-one support. It doesn't necessarily seem to be for northerners, but more for indigenous people in general.
Are you familiar with this program, and how does it help you?
My question is for Mr. Hall or Chief Louis.
General Manager, Indian Agricultural Program of Ontario
Are you referring to what they call the Pathfinder service?
General Manager, Indian Agricultural Program of Ontario
It's the Pathfinder service.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Mr. Breton, your time is now up, but we will be able to come back to you later.
Mr. Peschisolido, you have six minutes.
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
Thank you.
I'd like to welcome Chief Louis and Mr. Hall to the committee.
Mr. Hall, I'll give you an opportunity to talk about two things. First, can you follow up on Monsieur Berthold's question? Second, I was intrigued by your comment that the federal government does not provide enough support. Can you follow up and elaborate on that, please?
General Manager, Indian Agricultural Program of Ontario
With regard to the Pathfinder service, as I understand it, that service was created in the last year or so. IAPO as an organization has not utilized it, because we actually have very good relationships and contacts within Agriculture Canada. However, the approach looks very promising—reaching out to people seeking information and helping them navigate the myriad of programming. It looks very optimistic. That's the limit of my knowledge on it.
The second one was about my comment...?
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
It was about the federal government not providing enough local support. You outlined what was there in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, and what is not, I'm assuming, there now.
General Manager, Indian Agricultural Program of Ontario
Yes.
Today in Canada, agricultural extension really has been given to the provinces as a duty, a responsibility. Ag Canada obviously focuses on other areas of expertise. Within that context, if we go back to my story about the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s, we had robust farm extension support everywhere. The industry developed. The needs of well-educated operators are very narrow compared with what they would have been in the 1960s. Extension services in some areas have disappeared completely.
If you're a young farmer in southwestern Ontario and you want to get information about beef cattle, you can't pick up the phone and call someone from a government ministry or somebody to come out and help you. You have to go on the Internet and find somebody like IAPO or someone in the industry to help you. That whole agricultural extension piece from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s was promoting agriculture and agricultural awareness. It helped introduce the notion of farming, farm businesses, and best management practices. It delivered all that. That's evaporating in many, many jurisdictions.
