Thanks, Janice.
I'm Curtis Vander Heyden, chair of the Alberta Cattle Feeders' board. I'm a third-generation farmer in southern Alberta, along with two brothers and one sister. We have a one-time standing livestock capacity of 40,000 animals.
Our first budget recommendation is to continue to protect an unimpeded and tariff-free border between Canada and the U.S. The Canada and U.S. beef industries operate within a deeply integrated market, with cattle often crossing the border more than once in their lifetime. As an example, they can be born in the U.S., be transported and fed in Canada, and then be retransported and processed in the U.S. The limits to transporting live animals over long distances have fostered this integrated market.
Canada exports seven billion dollars' worth of live cattle and beef annually. Of that, $6 billion is direct trade with the U.S. While we support efforts to diversify trading markets, we must continue to work towards a positive outcome for the North American beef sector, including building long-term strategies for supply chain reliability. This includes addressing infrastructure gaps, border crossing challenges and regulatory transportation barriers. To be reliable suppliers to national and global clients, agriculture producers need reliable and trusted supply changes.
Our second recommendation is to modernize agricultural business risk management tools, or BRMs, to reflect current and future realities of risk, risk thresholds, inflation, farm structure and global competition. Specifically, the AgriStability program serves as one of the only support tools for cattle feeders during unforeseen adversities. However, there has been no permanent adjustment to the payments cap within the program in the last 20 years despite profound increases in input costs and risk. The NCFA recommends that the AgriStability cap be increased to $15 million, with the consideration to review the cap every five years.
Our third recommendation is to permanently and profoundly change the approach to labour shortages in agriculture. With the majority of Canadians unwilling to work in rural locations, foreign workers are a necessity to maintain and grow the beef sector. The majority of the foreign workers hired by cattle feeders are for year-round, long-term jobs. They're not seasonal. The foreign worker programs are fraught with delays and red tape, stunting the growth of Canada's beef sector.
Further to this, once good employees are in Canada, it's nearly impossible to transition them to becoming permanent residents. Residents who bring their families reinvigorate our rural communities. We strongly encourage the government to permanently reinstate the agri-food immigration pilot and to build a foreign worker program specific to accessing foreign employees to fill permanent, year-round agricultural jobs and become permanent residents themselves.
We must also invest in upgrading the skills of the existing workforce as technology rapidly advances, including AI, and the skill set required in agriculture shifts dramatically.
Thank you for your attention today. I look forward to a great discussion.