Evidence of meeting #35 for Public Safety and National Security in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was farmers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Ujjal Dosanjh Liberal Vancouver South, BC
By “other issues” you mean a general reduction in the use of tobacco, and a general reduction in international sales.
Chair, Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board
Yes.
Importing is a big issue. As the vice-chair has explained, if the companies didn't have to go to a cheaper use of tobacco and the price of cigarettes wasn't so high, you wouldn't have contraband. People would be buying it legally if it were at a price they wanted. But the demand is still there, so unfortunately people are using the illegal tobacco.
Liberal
Ujjal Dosanjh Liberal Vancouver South, BC
You must have an opinion on why you think the RCMP has not been able to enforce the law against contraband. Do you want to share that with us candidly?
Chair, Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board
In my opinion--and it is just an opinion--I think they were short-staffed, and are short-staffed, in terms of following up on a lot of these leads. And the border control is significant. It's not just one thing; it's many things.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
Thank you.
We'll go over to the Bloc Québécois. Monsieur Ménard, are you going to lead off?
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Thank you.
I don't know whether you understand French, but I have a good understanding of English.
Chair, Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board
I speak some French, but not a lot.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Can you hear the interpretation? I hope I'll be granted the three lost minutes.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Garry Breitkreuz
I will take it into account. I've always been fair with you.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
I know.
As we have little time, I'm going to take it for granted, from what you've just said, that the decline in demand for your product is far greater than what would be justified by the drop in tobacco consumption in Canada. Is that correct?
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
Then you have all our sympathy, and we too would like the RCMP to do more to enforce the law. If smokers get into the habit of smoking foreign or contraband tobacco, that could last a long time yet.
We've known for years that tobacco use is dangerous. For years as well, the government has been applying a policy to reduce tobacco use. How is it that, after all this time, you haven't implemented a policy to transform your agriculture, to grow something else besides tobacco?
Chair, Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board
Thank you for the question.
Tobacco is still a legal product. It has been part and parcel of southwestern Ontario for many years. There has always been a demand for the crop, and we produce it. But we grow other crops as well. We grow beans, and we have ginseng. So farmers have other crops as well, but their mainstay has always been in this particular area of tobacco.
The land is made up of very sensitive soil. It cannot sustain some particular crops. It is a light soil, and it requires a significant amount of irrigation. We couldn't spend the input cost on irrigation of a corn crop in comparison with the return on a tobacco crop.
No one anticipated the decline to occur so quickly. Our farmers are resourceful. They have been working hard to make a transition. But you have to understand that in 2001-02 we made a conversion of our kilns from direct fire to indirect fire, which cost significant dollars. At that particular time, we were growing 36% of our crop allotment in quota. We were feeling that we were still within the ball game to continue, and farmers took on significant debt. With significant debt you have to continue to farm the crop that pays the bills. At that particular time it was tobacco.
No one anticipated that coming up in 2008 we would be looking at a 7% growable. No one could have realized that this decline could happen that quickly. We are resourceful, but we want to have a managed exit. We want to have a program that would make sure that we could pay off debt and move forward. We cannot take on further debt.
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
I understand, but you know we all hope, even though it may be illusory, that no one will smoke tobacco in Canada.
Are you prepared to consider the fact that you will eventually have to switch to other crops on your lands?
Vice-Chair, Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board
Yes, absolutely. To add to what Linda was saying, and in answer to your question, we do want to move forward. We do want to exit tobacco production. But we cannot do it alone, and that is why we have approached the Government of Canada and the Government of Ontario to assist us.
Our request is not unique. On two other occasions in Ontario there was a partnership between both levels of government that saw quota surrendered and farmers leave tobacco production to go into other endeavours. It happened in the mid-1980s and it happened again in the spring of 2005.
We've been requesting that the job be completed and that a program be put in place, over whatever remaining life this industry has, to exit all tobacco farmers out of tobacco eventually.
Bloc
Chair, Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board
There isn't at the moment.
Vice-Chair, Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board
There is not.
Chair, Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board
At this moment, no.
Bloc
Chair, Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board
Yes, there have been programs in the past. As we indicated, the TAAP program was the last program we had for the Ontario grower. That was in 2005. Approximately 232 farmers were able to exit. More than 700 bid and applied to try to get out, but there was only enough money to cover those 232 farmers. All the remaining growers in Quebec were allowed to exit, and they got an exit program. Many years ago Prince Edward Isand received an exit program.
So there was one in Ontario in the past, and we are just trying to move forward in a transition outwards.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
I'm a city boy—I was nearly born on the sidewalk—but I don't like to watch agricultural programs. I think it's an occupation that requires a considerable degree of versatility. However, we often hear it said that it's bad for the land always to grow the same thing and that ultimately it's good to change crops.
Isn't that true about tobacco as well?
Chair, Ontario Flue-Cured Tobacco Growers' Marketing Board
The agricultural practice of growing tobacco is on a rotation. There is no way we grow tobacco on that sandy soil every year. We will rotate to rye, always to a grain crop, and straw, because we have to put that nutrient back into the ground. So we rotate. Sometimes we'll grow it every other year or every third year.
We are very good stewards of that sandy soil. We as tobacco producers are extremely responsible to our sensitive soils.
Bloc
Serge Ménard Bloc Marc-Aurèle-Fortin, QC
I imagine you need investment in order to switch from one crop to another. I understand that. So I won't ask you to explain that to me in detail; that could take more than the afternoon.
That said, I do want to understand the nature of your requests. You're prepared to rotate crops, but the investment it would take to completely get out of tobacco growing is too high to main the current transformation rate.
Did I understand correctly?