Agriculture Committee on Dec. 8th, 2016

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

That's fine. That's very good and it's quite clear.

If I understand correctly, you are emphasizing the need for education first, and, given the extremely high cost for new farmers, you are also suggesting ways to facilitate access to land.

Your testimony included the following recommendation:Name new farmers as one of the main pillars of the next policy framework.

I think that is very clear. However, you also want us to move away from an export-dominated model. I'd like you to provide more detail on that aspect, in light of the fact that the vast majority of farmers who testified here over the past weeks and months have said that they wanted tools that would allow them to export more, and increase their income as well as their operations.

[Amanda Wildeman]

Could you answer that question, Mr. Wiggans?

[Ted Wiggans]

I don't think we're advocating that we get rid of the export model. The export model is very important. In New Brunswick, potatoes are a huge industry. Blueberries are an export product. But, especially for new farmers to get into farming, there is a huge amount of smaller production in terms of certain types of livestock, vegetables, fruits, and so on that we import right now. We import as much as we export, probably. There is a lot of this that can be replaced and give us greater food security and give young people an opportunity to get their foot in the door.

The export market is still important, but we can't sacrifice local protection for local consumption to the export market as well. I don't know if I'm making it clear, but we value export still.

If you look at a commodity like milk, for example, some people are going to say it's a commodity board that's protected, but it is one of the more prosperous parts of the Canadian agriculture industry. It brings stability. It brings a tremendous number of jobs, especially in rural Canada. A lot of, we'll say, part-time farmers or smaller farmers end up buying equipment from the larger milk producers and so on. It's the whole basis of rural Canada, really.

There's a place for a local market, I guess.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Would you like to add something to that, Ms. Wildeman?

[Amanda Wildeman]

I was just thinking about a CBC report that aired this week. They mentioned that the family grocery basket was going to increase by $420 this year. If you consider food sovereignty, you have to look at the entire system. If the consumer can't afford to feed himself, then the circle is broken. This is due to the fact, for instance, that we export potatoes, and also import some from the United States.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Wildeman.

Ms. Brosseau, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for their presentations today on the next agricultural framework.

Mr. Vandervalk and Madam Hansen, you were talking about the importance of trade agreements. Canada exports a lot. Recently we had the Minister of Agriculture before the committee, and we were all tasked to study the supplementary estimates. I'm sure you're well aware that we have the market access secretariat, and that does an extraordinary job of coordination. It works with CFIA and Global Affairs. Their priorities are to reopen, maintain, and expand international markets, use the Canadian brand to market food products, fill market intelligence needs, and leverage the agriculture and agri-food trade commissioner service. The secretariat does a really important job, but we found out that the government is cutting money to the market access secretariat by $22.9 million in the next year.

Could you talk to us about the importance of the work that is done by the federal government internationally, and the importance of revisiting funding to make sure they're getting the funds necessary to do the job, to support Canadian agriculture?

[Stephen Vandervalk]

Yes, definitely. In western Canada, numbers change, but probably 80% to 85% of our product is exported. It's all-important. When it comes down to what you were talking about, the work the federal government does through CIGI, who do trade missions around the world, and some of the commissions that are farmer-run.... We were all down in South America a couple of weeks ago, and some throughout Asia. They usually try to bring a farmer along to explain the story.

We're trying to sell our brand, sell our product. We have the highest quality food in the world and produce the most environmentally sustainable product as any place in the world. That's how we need to brand it. We definitely need to make sure those markets stay open, because without exports.... We have some of the biggest land bases in the world, and the population isn't there, so we need to export. We need to keep those markets open through trade deals and through organic growth, increasing demand in these countries.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Also making sure we have a transportation system that works.

Can I get some brief comments on transportation because I know it's very important. Bev and I were on the committee when we had the transportation crisis. We dealt with Bill C-30. The new government prolonged some of the provisions in Bill C-30, which we're happy about. There's the importance of transportation in Canada, and then I'm going to ask a quick question of the NFU.

[Stephen Vandervalk]

Sure, that's every bit as important. Sometimes I'm on trade missions, and I always bug my farmer colleagues who I go along with. I ask what they are doing going on a trade mission when we can't even get this product to port. There's no doubt that is a huge bottleneck.

A new terminal is being built, G3, that's all-important. There are very many bottlenecks in the system, from the tunnel going into Vancouver to having roundabout tracks in Vancouver so they can unload faster. If we could just fix about six things, we could easily increase the hopper car fleet; we could increase exports or enhance export transportation to the coast by as much as 30% or 40%. It's definitely going to be needed because these crops are just getting bigger. We've seen record crops in two of the last three years, and that's going to keep going and going, so the problem will get worse.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

It doesn't matter how many trade deals we have if we don't have a transportation system to get our product out or across the country.

A private member's bill is currently before the House of Commons. My colleague Guy Caron has presented it. It's a bill to change unfair tax practices. Right now it is more advantageous to sell your farm to somebody else instead of selling it to a member of your family. I was just wondering if I can get some comments on the importance of changing this unfair tax practice right now. I don't have this bill before me, but maybe you've heard of it before, and I could give you more information on it.

Talk about the importance of making sure that the government has tax rules in place to encourage transfers of farms between parents and children. We have an aging population. It's important that we look at ways to help support farmers, young farmers, and encourage the transfer of family farms but also fishing businesses, businesses in general, among family members.

[Amanda Wildeman]

I attended a presentation when Guy came to Fredericton to share about his private member's bill. One of the things that goes along with everything we're saying is that our lack of knowledge of new farmers is our current.... For example, the regulatory framework we have around farm taxation policy is not reflective of today's world. If someone has a family farm and it's not incorporated, there are different tax laws.

Guy's legislation is focusing on farms that are incorporated because they have a different set-up. If the farm is not incorporated and it's just Amanda's farm and it's my personal business, historically, I have always had a different tax relationship if I want to pass it on to my children. If I incorporate, which is more of the business climate now, and more and more farms are choosing that, that's where we need legislation that is updated to today's farm reality.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Wildeman.

Now we'll move on to Mrs. Lockhart, for six minutes.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have had an opportunity to collaborate with my colleague, Mr. DeCourcey, and I'd like him to ask a question, please.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

Thank you very much and thank you to all our presenters for your presentations this morning.

I'll focus on an area important to our region of the country and the idea of new farmers, which is well articulated in your presentation, Amanda. I want to ask you what interface you may be having with government agencies, community groups, and organizations around helping newcomers enter the agricultural field.

In Atlantic Canada, we have fewer young people, but we've seen an influx of newcomers, whether they're refugees eager to get to work.... You have a government initiative to help bring upwards of 2,000 skilled immigrants, newcomers and their families, to the region over the next number of years, and local pilot projects seeking to connect newcomers with business opportunities. The local Fredericton Chamber of Commerce has such a pilot project on the go right now.

I wonder if you have any interface with any of those initiatives, ongoing trends, and if so, what that might look like.

[Ted Wiggans]

I'll make one comment to start with. The provincial government has individuals who have been tasked with liaison with new farmers, immigrant farmers, or whatever from Europe or other parts of Canada, partly because we have such low cost land in the Maritimes. They've also put together fairly comprehensive literature to help new farmers, especially people from other countries who may have farming experience but are not be familiar with the rules and regulations and the programs, etc., that exist in, say, the province of New Brunswick. There is some work being done in that area.

[Amanda Wildeman]

That's a great question. We, again, at the provincial level—and this is something that can be replicated elsewhere—like Ted said, our provincial government recently targeted new farmers as an economic growth opportunity for the province. We still are waiting to see what exactly that means, so we're collaborating on that.

There was also the recent announcement of bringing over more immigrants and a trade mission to attract more immigrant farmers to New Brunswick, which are both needed. It's definitely going to be a multipronged approach to attracting and rebuilding our farmer base. Once people are in Canada and in New Brunswick, the programs that are available to them are a lot less than for people who are coming in.

There's more support for someone who's coming in from a different province or a different country to establish in New Brunswick than there is for me or any of you. If you want to leave politics to start a farm, it's easier if you are coming from another country. They're going to be more interested in drawing you in, at the provincial level at least. There's a big space for a renewed immigration policy and programs for helping Canadians who are interested in farming get into farming, rather than always seeking elsewhere for people to come in and save New Brunswick in particular.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

My understanding is that, at least with this pilot initiative in our community, there is a survey being done of people who are in the region, in the area, and have been around for some time.

Are you involved in that conversation at all with those leading this succession connect program? Are there lessons to learn from that that we can apply to other people in the region who have been here their whole lives, for generations—

[Amanda Wildeman]

About the succession connect program that the chamber of commerce is leading, I haven't spoken to them directly about it, but in the Campbellton area they were doing a similar program a few years ago that was mostly for grocery stores, corner stores, etc., connecting people, future entrepreneurs, with business owners who were looking at retiring. I spoke to them at length about how we might be able to adapt a similar model to agriculture, where farm businesses would be included. At least in that conversation, they weren't even going there, but there is definitely a lot of opportunity. I haven't gone to the Fredericton Chamber of Commerce yet to explore that, no.

[Matt DeCourcey, Liberal, Fredericton, NB]

One last thing, what sort of conversation is ongoing with your organization or your member groups with post-secondary institutions and the way that they might, through the myriad of programs that young people are taking at universities, help or better advise people as to opportunities in the industry?

[Ted Wiggans]

One of the issues that arose last year is that for people under a certain income, their tuition was free. That applies to all kinds of programs in the province, but if you want to get an education in agriculture, you have to leave the province. We've raised this with the provincial government because right now there's no consideration for people going out of the province to get their education, especially when there's no education in agriculture available in the province.

[Amanda Wildeman]

I found interesting a comment from the previous presentation. One of the questions was about agriculture grads, how excited they are to be working, and whether there were jobs in their field. One of the positions that was listed off by the witness was law, and none of them were actually farming. They were all support positions for the agriculture industry, which is important, but like we said in our presentation, we should go with the model that Quebec has taken where, if you have an undergraduate degree or college diploma, you get a significant financial grant to start up in agriculture. It's a lot more tempting, if you're paying off student loans, to take a professional career in agriculture and start selling inputs.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Wildeman.

That is all the time we have. We need to go in camera to deal with the business part of our mandate, so I thank you.

We will take two minutes to go in camera. Thank you.

[Proceedings continue in camera]