Thank you, Madam Chairperson, and good afternoon, members of Parliament and guests.
You'll be happy to know that I walked here from the market, so I didn't spend any money on your budget.
My wife Sally and I are originally from a farm at Tisdale, Saskatchewan, where we raised four sons. Currently I am the executive director of the Grain Growers of Canada, and I would like to thank you for the opportunity to be here to speak on this legislation.
With me today and sharing my time in well under seven minutes is Kristin, who is with the Canadian Young Farmers Forum, a member organization of the Grain Growers of Canada.
The Grain Growers represent approximately 80,000 grain, oilseed, and pulse producers from across the country. I would like to share some quick statistics with you and then comment on compassionate leave, while Kristin will talk about young farmers.
Of all farms in Canada, 70% have some off-farm income. There are over 200,000 farms in Canada today. If even 10% of those farms were to take advantage of increased benefits through this bill, that could help encourage another 20,000 young families to stay on the land.
Another reality of life for all farmers is that we are a rapidly aging demographic. In fact, the average Canadian farmer is well over 50 years of age. For many farm families today, caring for our parents is an increasing responsibility. But in many rural communities there may not be access to home care or long-term care. If there is any kind of crisis, we are often called upon to provide short-term care, either in our homes, or we have to go to our parents' homes. In many cases, they're not in our community. Some farms are located quite some distance from a reasonably sized town. This can be very taxing to a family farm, as with one partner away the other has to carry the workload of the farm and provide care for the children.
At this time Kristin will share her thoughts from the perspective of a young farmer.