Agriculture Committee on Feb. 27th, 2020

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Further to that, perhaps you could expand on some of the ways your programs currently, and maybe in future iterations, will promote innovation?

[Paul Samson]

We have several innovation programs, as I mentioned. One in particular is called the AgriInnovate program—$128 million over five years. It accelerates commercialization, adoption and/or demonstration of innovative agri-based products, technologies and processes and services. It's the entire spectrum of innovation and the whole range of agricultural activities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Lawrence.

Mr. Blois, you have five minutes.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I only have five minutes, so I'm going to try to move quickly, if you can be succinct in your answers.

What is an advance payments program?

[Paul Samson]

The advance payments program is a legislated program. It provides agricultural producers with access to low-interest cash advances to help provide marketing flexibility to allow producers to sell their commodity at the most opportune time. This is an important fact in selling agricultural commodities. It's available for over 500 different crop and livestock products, and we manage it in association with 36 different industry associations located on the ground across Canada.

The maximum was recently increased to a limit of $1 million. The Government of Canada pays interest on the first $100,000 of the advance. For the 2019 program, there was an additional benefit of $400,000 interest free for canola producers.

I can get more into the description, but if that suffices now that may be enough.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Can you tell me what an APP administrator is?

[Paul Samson]

As we mentioned, there are 36 APP administrators. They vary quite a bit in terms of who they are and in size and profile, but they tend to be associations of either specific commodities or specific regions. They administer the bridge financing, the loan, with the producer directly, with our backstop behind it for loans that cannot be repaid.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

The reason I'm asking this question is that we've heard about this a lot in the House of Commons. The Conservatives have asked the Minister of Agriculture to extend the advance payments program. I understand that some work has already been done on that.

What is a stay of default, very quickly, if you could?

[Paul Samson]

In the simplest explanation, it would be simply giving the farmer more time to repay that financing.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Has that already been done for some of the farmers, particularly in western Canada, who have been impacted, as we've talked about?

[Paul Samson]

Yes, a stay of default was given in 2019.

[Francesco Del Bianco]

Yes, in August 2019 the minister announced a stay of default, at the request of an administrator.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

At the request of the administrator, so the APP. So the minister has the discretion to be able grant them, but it has to come from the APP first. Am I correct in saying that?

[Francesco Del Bianco]

Yes, that is correct.

And it must be done within four months, within the end of that program year.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

When is the end of the program year, for this year particularly?

[Francesco Del Bianco]

For 2019 advances, September 2020 would be when they'd have to be repaid. The request from an administrator would have to come by May of 2020 in order to seek a stay of default to extend the repayments past September.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

As I understand it, the minister actually has to receive a request from the APP in order to be able to use her ministerial discretion to provide these stays of default.

Is that correct?

[Francesco Del Bianco]

Mr. Chair, yes, that is correct.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Now, to the witness here, to the best of your knowledge, in any of the provinces and particularly in western Canada, has the APP actually requested the minister or put that forward at this point?

[Paul Samson]

I think I'll answer that, Mr. Chair.

There are many different producers and associations here, so I would not want to say definitively whether or not such a request has been received by the department. I just cannot confirm that.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Just so that I'm sure, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food cannot provide a stay of default for any type of advance payments program where there could have been an impact, without receiving a request from the APP, correct?

[Francesco Del Bianco]

The administrators of the program would receive the information from the producers. They would be able, through the administration of the program, to make an assessment and then ultimately to make a recommendation to the minister.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I don't know to what extent that information can be tabled, but I would certainly be interested to know whether or not the APP has actually asked the minister at this point. I ask because we've had a lot of discussion and dialogue in the House on that. My concern is that some of those questions don't reflect the nuance that the minister can't actually evaluate those programs if the APP hasn't put it forward. So if that could be tabled, or if we could at least see what's happened on that front, that would be wonderful.

I want to move to just one more piece. Obviously, we've talked about the fact that the BRM programs were cut under the Harper government. They went from 85% down to 70%.

What about private insurance? Some of the farmers have had private insurance to try to cover that 85% to 100%. Do we allow that to be considered as part of revenue?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Again, Mr. Blois, I won't be able to—

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

I got my points across. Thank you.