Agriculture Committee on Jan. 29th, 2019

[Heather Watson]

Absolutely.

Yes, we'll be holding two workshops in collaboration with Farm Credit Canada at the end of March, just as a start.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you very much, Ms. Watson.

Thank you, Mr. Longfield.

We have Mr. MacGregor for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for appearing on our last day of this study. We've had some fantastic testimony and are looking forward to bringing it altogether into a very comprehensive report on this very important subject.

I will start with Ms. Smith.

When I was listening to your opening statements, you were talking about the challenges for rural youth. You listed three main things. There's the fact that fewer services are available. Getting transportation to services is problematic. But also there's that stigma, because you're in a small community, that people are more likely to find out that you are in fact seeking help.

It struck me that currently western Canada is experiencing problems with Greyhound bus service. Have you had any feedback from your members on the impact?

Going directly to point number two, the transportation to services, with the elimination of Greyhound bus routes, can you provide any feedback on how that's impacted people?

[Erin Smith]

I haven't heard anything specifically on that. I'm sure it is impacting our clubs and our communities and rural youth up in that region.

I would say that it's not just transportation; it's access to broadband and technology. It's really the feeling of being isolated and not being able necessarily to even get to services, if that is something that young people have the courage to speak out about and say they need.

No, I haven't heard anything specifically around that. I would assume it is definitely having an impact.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Hoffort, perhaps I could start with you.

On the $50,000 that was committed by the FCC for the mental health workshops, with respect, $50,000, I think, would be a welcome announcement just for an area the size of my riding, or even Vancouver Island. You can see that there are a 102 applications and that 12 were funded, or 10% of them. Given the level of interest and the demand for these kinds of workshops, I'm just worried that $50,000 for a nationwide program is really just a drop in the bucket for the demand that's out there.

Looking ahead, can you see allocating more resources to these types of workshops given the demand you've seen?

[Michael Hoffort]

Yes, I think the answer to that would be positive.

With the first workshops starting in the weeks ahead, we will see their impact and how they go over. We'll then look at what the next steps will be for the FCC.

Your study will definitely feed into that. Are there opportunities from having speakers and events that we might put on to invest more in partnerships and sponsorships with organizations that have the skill sets to put these workshops on? I would say there's a high likelihood that we'll continue into the next fiscal year, for sure, with that.

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

Fantastic. I also want to offer my congratulations to you for your “Rooted in Strength” document. I know we're not allowed to use props in the House, but at committee we're a little bit lax with the rules, so I just want to hold that up so people can see it, because I think, looking through it, it's got some fantastic recommendations in it. So thanks for doing that.

For the next question, I think I want to open it up, and maybe I'll start with Ms. Watson. We've already seen a series of announcements from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada with respect to mental health in the agriculture community. I think a few of us were taken by surprise with the November 20 announcement. It's a welcome announcement, but our committee has been doing this parallel work on this subject and have been involved in this study for a long time. I just hope that when our committee's hard-worked report comes out with its recommendations, we'll actually have the federal government acting upon them.

Ms. Watson, given what has already been announced and what you see going on into the future, what specifically are you hoping to see in terms of recommendations in our report, given all of the incredible witness testimony we've had so far? What areas do you still see need to be addressed from our committee's report and from the federal Government of Canada?

[Heather Watson]

Thanks, Chair. Thanks for the question. It's a great one.

I obviously can't speak on behalf of the federal government, but I can say that I think the exciting thing about this is that we're just getting started, right? Andria Jones-Bitton's work has really launched us into this good place of saying, “Hey, we're finding out some new information. What else do we need to know, and what do we do with that?”

Reading through the testimony that you guys have received has just been phenomenal, because I think we're even seeing a suggestion of a national effort. As a national organization, I cannot agree more that we really need to do something that gives equal opportunity for success to everyone across Canada, for all of our farmers and future farmers across Canada.

I can hear your concern about putting the cart before the horse and making sure that we have recommendations from the committee, but I think the good news is that we're taking it slowly. We're doing something, because we know something has to happen. Every day we're hearing some pretty scary news out there about how our farmers are feeling and what they're thinking about doing.

I think in one case we do need to act, and we need to act fast. I'm really happy to see that we, FCC, and Do More Ag and groups like that are hitting the ground running, but I think there's lots and lots of room left to hear the committee's recommendations.

I think the fact that the testimony is available.... I think all of us have probably been following it and making sure that our efforts are open and flexible enough to take it in and to continue to evolve as the conversation evolves and as we learn more information, because we can only act on the information that we know. The more we understand, the more we can meet the needs, which is a really exciting thing.

I hear your concern, but I will be really excited to see the committee's report—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you.

[Heather Watson]

—and to see how we can integrate every single piece into what we're doing moving forward. Thank you for that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Watson, and Mr. MacGregor.

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

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to all the witnesses who are here today to take part in this study. Some of you are appearing for a second time. Thank you.

My first question will probably be for Mr. Hoffort. First off, congratulations on this. I'm going to echo the sentiment of Mr. MacGregor. We do get along on Parliament Hill once in a while, and I think we can all get along and rally around this.

I see that you're offering mental health first aid training to some of the managers and employees, and I know that your employees would be the front-line employees working with farmers. I assume that if there is financial stress, they probably have that conversation with some of your employees. In an ideal world, I think and I believe that employees would be able to identify that someone was probably not feeling well. Are you training your employees to identify those stress levels and to offer help?

[Michael Hoffort]

Yes, we have really focused our training on our managers, as I mentioned, and then our front-line staff. We started the mental health first aid training with our group of employees who deal with our customers who are experiencing some financial challenges, our special loans group. For sure, again, they're not experts in the mental health profession, but our goal in this has been to recognize the stresses that a farm family might be experiencing, to really recognize if there's something that might be a bit extraordinary in the circumstance and to be able to suggest some level of service and to point people in the right direction.

In a rare circumstance, we have seen customers who have been under extreme stress and almost despondent, and have intervened with them just to help make sure that their animals get fed or things like that until they can work their way through, but that's quite rare. Normally, people are working their way through it, but with our team, we want to make sure that they can recognize where there could be some extreme concerns, and at least be supportive and proper in their counsel.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

That's great, thank you.

Ms. Smith, I want to congratulate your organizations for doing a good job. I know they're very present in rural Canada and rural Ontario, and I often have chats with them at the local level.

Since I know you have partnerships with FCC and others, I'm wondering if you are building workshops through 4-H to address mental health.

[Erin Smith]

Yes. Our strategy with our healthy living initiative is to create a series of tip sheets and resources not only for our young people but also our volunteer leaders. One of the main pieces we're identifying is that our volunteer leaders who support our club-level programming for our young people need to have training and capacity-building to be able to not only identify, but also support, the youth in their clubs who may be experiencing mental health challenges.

We have webinars and workshops that we're working to develop, as well as hands-on resources, similar to what you have in front of you, that we can hand to our volunteer leaders and to our youth so that they have quick tips and they know exactly where to go or who to call. We're working, again, with Kids Help Phone in developing that.

Absolutely, training and capacity-building is—

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Yes.

[Erin Smith]

—key for the adults who are supporting the young people.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Are you tracking how many 4-H local clubs have been doing their training and whatnot?

[Erin Smith]

We will be, yes.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

You will be soon.

[Erin Smith]

Yes, when it's all rolled out.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

If we invite you a year from now, you'll be able to report on where you are?

[Erin Smith]

Absolutely, you bet. We'd welcome that.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

That's great. Thanks for your input.

Heather, I'm just wondering if you can hear me?