He is. I want to extend his regrets. He tried to get in from the Soo today and was caught up due to the weather.
I'd first like to introduce the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. We're an umbrella organization comprising provincial farm organizations and national commodity organizations representing over 200,000 farmers from coast to coast to coast. As an industry, Canadian agriculture is at the heart of an agriculture and agrifood sector that contributes over 6.7% to Canada's GDP, one in eight Canadian jobs, and well over $50 billion in wages and salaries across over 200,000 businesses.
I'd like to speak to four key areas today, which we've laid out in the brief which we provided you with in advance. These four areas are key to creating a policy environment conducive to continued success and growth in Canadian agriculture.
The first item I'd like to speak to is the issue of industry succession. With the average age of farmers now over 54 years and many looking to retire in the next decade, we're looking at approximately $70 billion in farm assets changing hands over the next 10 years. Estimates suggest that 75% of Canadian farmers look to retire over this period. This poses a significant potential for disruption to the industry.
At CFA over the past few years, what we have done is to work in collaboration with accounting firms across the country that have agricultural interests on developing a suite of low-cost and cost-neutral proposals that would focus on facilitating the intergenerational transfer of family farms while creating opportunities for new entrants to the industry. Family farms still represent 98% of all Canadian farms, and there are a number of positive aspects to this operating model that we would like to see continued in the agriculture industry.
Our requests can be broadly categorized under two main pillars, the first being broadening the definition of family “member” within the Income Tax Act, recognizing that farm families are comprised of a broad set of relations, more so than just parent and child.
The second point to note is the issue of “anti-avoidance” legislation, which we continue to see causing unintended consequences for agricultural operations due to structural changes in the industry. We have seen an increase in farming corporations—larger farms, due to consolidation and economies of scale, that now support multiple families—and because of this, we continue to see new barriers in place preventing flexible transfers from one generation to the next for family farms.
In particular, subsection 55(2) and section 84.1 of the Income Tax Act pose problems for joint sibling ownership as well as the use of holding companies when farm families look to transfer from one generation to the next. We were encouraged last year to see a private member's bill, Bill C-691, introduced by Emmanuel Dubourg, now the parliamentary secretary for the national treasury. It was looking at this issue of section 84.1 and addressing the use of holding companies for small and medium-sized enterprises. We encourage the reintroduction of that draft legislation.
These measures aren't meant to introduce new benefits or new provisions to the Income Tax Act, but rather to recognize that structural changes in the industry have left existing provisions with reduced utility for farm families looking to transfer from one generation to the next. Farm family children are no longer necessarily expected to stay on the farm. With multiple families supported by larger operations, we continue to see the broader subset of family relations looked at as the potential next best manager for the farm operation in the next generation.
The second issue I'd like to speak to are the chronic labour shortages that continue to plague the agriculture industry. The agriculture industry is full of high-quality job opportunities and career options with competitive wages and benefits. The industry also offers many lifestyle benefits and a flexibility not available in other industries. Agricultural employers expend extensive efforts to recruit and retain Canadian workers; however, the industry continues to identify pervasive and critical labour shortages as a major constraint and one of the biggest risks facing farm businesses.
To address this issue, we've identified three key requests, the first being increased funding for the collection of regional agricultural labour supply and demand information, both through the labour wage survey as well as the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council's ongoing work to develop labour market information forecast models for supply and demand.
The third point is that we would like to see a partnership between industry and government struck to implement CAHRC's agriculture and agrifood workforce action plan by creating a dedicated agriculture and agrifood international worker program and promoting channels to permanent residency for agriculture and agrifood workers.