Evidence of meeting #21 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was program.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Rob Lipsett  President, Beef Farmers of Ontario
Paul Glenn  Past Chair, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum
Julie Bissonnette  Regional Representative, Ontario-Quebec, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum
Michel Daigle  Chair of the Board of Directors, National Cattle Feeders' Association
Janice Tranberg  President and Chief Executive Officer, National Cattle Feeders' Association
Richard Horne  Executive Director, Beef Farmers of Ontario

3:45 p.m.

Regional Representative, Ontario-Quebec, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum

Julie Bissonnette

Mr. Glenn spoke about this earlier. We agree on this as well.

3:45 p.m.

Bloc

Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Okay.

With regard to the insurability and security of the production, you spoke about supply management. I presume that you would be very much in favour of legislation to protect supply management in the upcoming trade negotiations. Is that correct?

3:45 p.m.

Regional Representative, Ontario-Quebec, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum

Julie Bissonnette

I'll go back to what I said earlier. When we start a business, supply management ensures that we can sell our milk at a given price anywhere in the area and that we can transport the milk. This collective approach is perfect. The approach has its flaws, but for young people starting their business, it's ideal. The supply management system must certainly be fully maintained.

3:45 p.m.

Bloc

Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

In a crisis such as the COVID-19 crisis this year, several witnesses have told us that the supply management system has been particularly successful in terms of stabilization.

Do you agree with this statement?

3:45 p.m.

Regional Representative, Ontario-Quebec, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum

Julie Bissonnette

Yes, I agree.

It has really been a collective effort. A month ago, we experienced some turmoil, and everyone pulled together and did their part. Everyone tried to reduce their production. The next month, we were already in a better position. The efforts were successful.

3:45 p.m.

Bloc

Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Would you be open to the idea of exploring other ways to support agriculture? I'm thinking in particular of more proactive support that would take into account land use and environmental protection.

Do you think that it's time to start thinking of other ways to support farmers without forcing them to absorb losses?

3:45 p.m.

Regional Representative, Ontario-Quebec, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum

Julie Bissonnette

We're talking about a policy that affects the next generation of farmers or the farming community in general. Land use and the environment are key issues for us because they're part of our daily lives. That's why we're farmers. All the visions and action plans that can be developed are certainly good for us.

3:45 p.m.

Bloc

Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

That's fine. Thank you. Your comments are very useful.

I'll now turn to Mr. Lipsett.

Mr. Lipsett, you said that the margin, the insurability of the program, must be set at 85%, because 70% brings us very close to bankruptcy. I believe that there's also the matter of the time frame involved in running the program.

Is there any way to improve the program's administration and to reduce the paperwork in order to speed up the compensation process?

3:45 p.m.

President, Beef Farmers of Ontario

Rob Lipsett

I'll turn that over to Mr. Horne. He can make a comment on the administrative side of things. I'm not familiar enough with overhead expenses at the administrative level to comment on that properly.

3:45 p.m.

Executive Director, Beef Farmers of Ontario

Richard Horne

One of the concerns is the delay in the program payments that go out. The government has done a good job of increasing the percentage of interim payments that go out, and I think that's an excellent move, but when we're still processing AgriStability claims from 2018, it really signals there's a problem with the timeliness of that program. It's not a program designed to handle a situation like COVID, because support is needed immediately, not down the road. My only comment on that is that there are ways.

3:45 p.m.

Bloc

Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC

Okay.

I have a question for Mr. Daigle regarding the creation of an emergency fund.

3:45 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Mr. Perron, your time is up.

Now we'll have Mr. MacGregor for six minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. MacGregor.

3:45 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Thank you so much, Chair.

Welcome to our witnesses. Thank you for your testimony and helping us compile a report to deliver some recommendations to the federal government later this year.

I'd like to start with the Canadian Young Farmers' Forum.

Mr. Glenn, you mentioned in your opening remarks that nothing is more important to young farmers than having a stable suite of programs under business risk management. When we look at the demographics of those involved in farming and agriculture, we see that they tend to skew slightly to the older side. There will be a real need to have a lot of farmers step in and fill the gap when we start seeing large-scale retirement.

When young farmers are looking at the landscape and all of the risk that's present, are they really looking at the suite of business risk management programs? Is that a real item for them to look at in their consideration on whether they're going to make farming a profitable business venture? I'd like you to elaborate on that a bit.

July 8th, 2020 / 3:50 p.m.

Past Chair, Canadian Young Farmers' Forum

Paul Glenn

There's no doubt that some of the programs are a bit confusing, and I think there should almost be a marketing push to show that there are programs out there for young farmers. A lot of farmers I talked to in gathering information for this meeting aren't aware of the programs. That's unfortunate because as diverse as agriculture is, having these programs.... We're very thankful, obviously, for these programs from the government, but because agriculture is so diverse, supporting beef farmers and crop farmers at the same time under one program is very complicated. That's why one year one's working and one year it's not. When you're a young farmer trying to mitigate your own risk by doing multiple things, you're almost penalized for doing multiple things to mitigate your risk, rather than just doing cattle or crops.

3:50 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Yes, for sure. Thank you for those comments.

I'll turn now to the National Cattle Feeders' Association.

The forecasts that are in place for prices and the backlogs that you talked about, especially in your exchange with Mr. Barlow, are all very concerning. Given your conversations with the processing facilities we have in Canada and the measures that they've put in place, will we have enough processing to get through this backlog? What's the forecast, especially with the cow-calf season coming up?

3:50 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, National Cattle Feeders' Association

Janice Tranberg

Again, Michel, if that's okay with you, I can start on this and then you can take over where I have left off.

As you've said, the processing sector has put a lot of measures in place to ensure that they can move the cattle through as quickly as possible. They've done a lot of work and right now things are moving quite well. They've put measures in place like opening up extra shifts to try to pull the backlog through, so they're certainly not running at 100%, but they're certainly getting close to 85% to 90%. That's positive.

Of course, everyone is concerned that there could be a second wave of COVID, that we're still not completely out of the woods yet. There is still a possibility that more measures will be needed, but if everything runs as smoothly as it is, we hope to get through the backlog, probably by some time in October.

3:50 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Okay.

Moving on to a specific question on the suite of programs, you talked about the price cap under AgriStability not being sufficient, especially given the losses you predict will occur.

Given that AgriStability has that specific federal-provincial formula in place to make amendments to it—and the federal minister is not going to meet with her provincial and territorial counterparts until October—it seems to me the only viable program right now to continue offering assistance is AgriRecovery.

Can you provide us with some recommendations on how we can make that a better program? I know the Pork Council has definitely made some recommendations on that and have said that the program doesn't live up to its name. Given that it was a vehicle to transfer cash to producers to help them with the crisis, are there any ways we can make that a better program in the short term while we wait for amendments to AgriStability? This may take some time, unfortunately.

3:50 p.m.

President and Chief Executive Officer, National Cattle Feeders' Association

Janice Tranberg

Under AgriStability the $6.5 million in losses have already been incurred, so if it goes forward, we're looking at more increases. You're right, AgriRecovery certainly is the way we need to manage this.

There has not been a lot of flexibility under AgriRecovery, and we have said that the biggest part of the issue is the price drop. The prices dropped because of an excess supply. As a processor, they have tons of supply and don't have to pay the price they need, so they can pay a lower price. Already we've had to hold back cattle. We've had to pay feed costs, all of these extraordinary costs, and then on top of that you're dealing with this price drop. AgriRecovery can't cover that price drop; it can only cover the feed costs. So yes, that's a help for sure, but it's not where the biggest losses are being incurred.

Being able to have more flexibility around that would certainly be helpful under AgriRecovery.

3:55 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

That's great. Thank you for underlining that point.

Mr. Chair, I think that's my time.

3:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

That's about it, so thank you.

That's about all the time we have for this round.

I want to thank all of our witnesses who took the time to be with us today: from the Beef Farmers of Ontario, Mr. Lipsett and Mr. Horne; from the Canadian Young Farmers' Forum, Mr. Glenn and Madame Bissonnette; and from the National Cattle Feeders' Association, Janice Tranberg and Michel Daigle.

I'm sure it will help us when we do our report.

We will have to break for about 15 minutes, but as we move in camera, I'll remind the members and their staff that they have to log off this meeting and then use the credential provided in the separate email that was sent earlier today to log back in. I remind you that it may take up to 15 minutes to set up the new virtual meeting space, so to all the members, come back in 15 minutes at the maximum. You can come before, but it could take up to that time before we are ready to go.

I'll suspend the meeting, and we'll see you in 15 minutes. Thank you.