Agriculture Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2016

[Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst]

Yes, you mentioned succession issues and certainly there are pockets of really great practices. There are examples of family farms that have no one from the family who is interested in taking over the farm, working with somebody else outside the family and figuring out a plan, so creative solutions have been tried. We do develop case studies and then support some training around some of those options that exist to bridge those two pieces together.

[Randall Garrison, NDP, Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke, BC]

Is there anybody making those examples or those success stories available to other Canadians?

[Doug Chorney]

I think the Canadian Young Farmers' Forum is an excellent venue to highlight some of these success stories and we have a young farmer committee with Keystone Agricultural Producers of Manitoba. We work very hard to engage the next generation of producers.

I'm on the board of directors of the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corporation and we're designing and tailoring tools for young producers to minimize the amount of capital required for them to access financing to get them started. I see this as a really important national priority.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Chorney and Mr. Garrison.

Mr. Breton, you have six minutes.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for joining us.

My questions are mainly for the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council representatives.

This is an area I am keenly interested in. I was conditioned by my previous career. I spent my whole life working as a director of human resources in various businesses where I had to manage the kind of shortage you're talking about, so I'm well-versed in solutions, a bit like you.

Point three of your presentation focused on training, colleges and universities, and the importance of providing as much training as possible.

From a cultural standpoint, when we wanted young people to take a greater interest in science, we equipped primary schools with microscopes, not waiting until the college or university years to take action. The discussion focused on training earlier, but we should also be talking about education for young children to get them interested in agriculture. Have you explored that possibility?

[Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst]

Yes, you're right, we have to get people interested early in the options. We work with Agriculture in the Classroom nationally and in the different provinces to encourage their programs.

One of the things the council does, aside from labour market intelligence, is analyze the jobs that exist in modern agricultural operations, and pull all that together into a national, agricultural, occupational framework that clarifies job descriptions and what can be expected within the day in the life of somebody in particular, you know, a pen-checker in a cattle feed operation. What is that job? What does it look like? What can you expect?

All of that information we compile and then we make that available to those who are considering careers, and we work with Agriculture in the Classroom nationally and provincially to bring that to those groups, because those associations are the experts in how you translate information to teachers and to students.

We're really worried about that component. I agree 100%, we have to get people interested in food, in food production. It goes back to building public trust, and when we get people excited about how food is produced and get them trusting that, the logical next step is, “This is also a great place to work, and I can grow food myself and be a part of this system.” The growth potential is quite exciting in this industry in terms of the burgeoning world population estimates and where Canada is positioned with the Canada brand, and all of our lands, to be able to feed the world going forward. But it is about ensuring we have a next generation of talent that's interested to support that.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

I have another question, this time about point one of your presentation, diversity. That's another issue I care about.

You talked about getting women to take a greater interest in agriculture. Where I'm from, we looked at labour shortages in various fields, such as the tourism and retail sectors. A very important task force was set up to interest retirees or semi-retired people in the region in working in those fields. They are people who weren't necessarily looking for a full-time job but who had time on their hands and were looking for a new occupation. I think that's an avenue worth exploring. I'm not sure whether you've looked into that.

My second question is about temporary foreign workers. I know they are a resource that many of Canada's producers and processors rely on heavily right now. Do you see areas where the program could be improved?

[Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst]

We are certainly concerned about ensuring that all under-represented groups in the Canadian labour market find their way to agriculture—we are talking about youth, persons with disabilities, indigenous people, and women—to ensure and encourage broad access.

I like your idea about part-time. We are doing some pilot projects to test some theories. It's important that we test little ideas in locales. We work with local agencies to encourage refugees and new Canadians to consider agriculture. It takes time and energy, but these are important projects to pursue.

In terms of temporary foreign workers, that's a big file for us. We work with the national labour task force to better understand the concerns of industry across the value chain as it relates to the 45,000 temporary foreign workers who come into this country and the needs moving forward.

Recommendations were prepared by the parliamentary standing committee for the HUMA report. CAHRC had the opportunity to present as a witness. We presented a lot of the research of the labour task force, and the recommendations reflect that. They are quite supportive of a lot of the recommendations in the workforce action plan, so we'll see how those recommendations get implemented.

As you said, the temporary foreign worker program is a big component of supporting this industry and a part of the short-term solution for addressing the labour challenges, ensuring that we continue to have access to international workers, as required, when Canadians are unavailable for positions in the industry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Dewhirst and Monsieur Breton.

Mrs. Lockhart, go ahead.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Today's conversation is really interesting to me. I have been doing some study on immigration, and my background is actually in human resources.

One of the things we were talking about in immigration, although it certainly applies to human resources as a whole, is retainment. Do you have any data on turnover in agriculture, either in processing or in production, and is that a challenge?

[Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst]

Retention is definitely an issue in the industry.

There are some commodities that are doing really well. The aquaculture industry is able to retain its workers. We are not sure why, but the data bears that out. Perhaps they are doing a really good job selecting the right candidates. Perhaps it's their efforts in on-boarding or training, or the retention practices within their businesses. For the most part, the aquaculture industry is doing well.

There is quite a bit of churn in some of the other industries. More work needs to be done.

We are an organization that doesn't just do research; we also provide tools. We built a cost-of-turnover calculator and a benchmarking tool for turnover for the industry, which is just about to be released, so that those in different regions and in different commodities can compare themselves against their peers to understand where they sit in the turnover for their business and whether they are at the golden standard—and, if not, what they can do about it. We provide some practical tools and training around what can be done to support better retention in the industry, and we do quite a bit of training around that.

It's definitely quite costly for the industry. Part of it is a function of the lower-skilled jobs. People are testing out jobs and deciding whether they are a good fit for them or not, and that can be a challenge for those businesses. I'm thinking about the meat processing plants, etc.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

As we talk about a whole-of-government approach to strengthening the workforce, strengthening rural Canada, and that sort of thing, one of the things.... Lloyd already mentioned broadband Internet; obviously, people want to have access. Another is housing. How does that impact the agriculture human resources?

[Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst]

It is a challenge. It's a challenge for those who bring in temporary foreign workers to provide housing that is affordable under the $30 rule. Rural Canada doesn't have all sorts of housing options, so it is a challenge moving forward. In one of the key pieces of research that we've done with new Canadians, encouraging them to consider working in the agricultural industry, the best approach that has worked has been to take groups to rural communities and have the communities sell themselves to those families. We find that communities need help to do that. So there's a housing component, but there's also a community service component. What's the schooling like, and what activities will children and spouses be able to engage in? There's a whole host of things that have to happen as it relates to supporting this issue. We have a labour challenge, but we have to take not only a strategic approach but a multi-pronged approach to deal with this, and we've talked about some of those ways today.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

You might want to keep an eye on the study that the immigration committee will be doing, I think it will be in the spring, on retention of and attracting newcomers to Atlantic Canada, because it will apply across Canada.

[Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst]

Absolutely. Thank you.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

My next question is on the organic sector. You mentioned in your presentation that there were some real successes in the Maritimes. Being from Atlantic Canada, I was interested in those. I wonder if you could expand on that for us.

[Ashley St Hilaire]

Atlantic Canada has a very strong organic association, the Atlantic Canadian Organic Regional Network. It has a very strong partnership with government that has resulted in provincial regulations being implemented in Nova Scotia, as well as funding for a number of programs for transitioning to organics, and working with government to better understand the needs and challenges faced by organic producers, because it is a big opportunity for the Maritimes to pursue.

Do you have anything you want to add?

[Geneviève Grossenbacher]

The growth across provinces in organic looks very different. In the prairies, it's really the field crops and the grain production; but in the Maritimes, B.C., Quebec, and Ontario, most of the growth is happening in the horticultural sector.

In the Maritimes what we're seeing is a lot of biointensive modes of farming. That goes back to your question in terms of access to capital and access to infrastructure. Often farmers are getting in and need only 10 acres or less to be profitable and to make, sometimes, six-figure incomes. The Maritimes has been really successful in supporting the entry of those farmers, but as you said, what has been key is that there is an organization such as ACORN.

What we're seeing is the need to support the backbone organizations that support farmers across Canada in terms of developing their businesses, and that's currently lacking. So if there could be support in the next agricultural policy framework in terms of knowledge transfer, supporting the organizations that do the work of training the farmers and making sure they access land, that would be critical.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

That really wraps up the time we have with this panel.

I thank the panel for being here. It was very informative and certainly it will be good information as we table our report. Thank you so much for appearing. I'm sure we'll be talking again.

Before we leave, folks, Mr. Anderson would like to bring one point of interest to us.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Chair, I would like to ask the committee to consider requesting a briefing from Ag Canada and Health Canada on the crisis faced by our ranchers in southeast Alberta as a result of the report of the tuberculosis in one animal there. I don't want to politicize this and we're trying not to, but we have dozens of family farms where ranchers are going to be directly impacted by this. If we could hear from the ranchers as well as the departments, I think it would be good for us.

I'm not demanding that we do that right now, but I think we should consider doing that fairly quickly after the break if this issue continues, as it seems to now. Perhaps this is just to give the departments a heads-up that the committee might be asking them to come, so that they can do that on fairly short notice. I think it would be good for us, and it probably is our responsibility to ask for that as well.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Perhaps think it over during the break week, and when we come back, we can decide if we want to do that.

Before we leave, also, we've just heard that the supplementary estimates have been tabled in the House. If we want to spend time on this—and if not, it will be approved—there are two days where we could potentially move things around. November 22 and 24 are days that we could use if we decide to address this.

Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I think we'd love to take a day to look at those. Certainly we'd like to extend an invitation to the minister to be here as well to discuss them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

That would give us a bit more time.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

We agree on that.

That is all I have. Again, thank you to the panel. Have a safe trip back.

The meeting is adjourned.