Mark Eyking

[International Development, November 21st, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, in 2010, the Conservative government announced it would freeze foreign aid for five years to balance its budget. Then in 2012, further spending cuts were announced, padding its surplus. We have now learned that the government has also deliberately underspent Canada's aid budget for poor countries by $125.9 million. Development assistance for people who need it the most is being slashed. These countries overseas have some of the highest infant mortality rates. They need our help.

Why are the Conservatives allowing this to happen to these poor people in the world who need our help?

[Agricultural Growth Act, November 19th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I would agree with my colleague from the NDP that the member is doing a great job as chair of the agriculture committee. Sometimes it is difficult for a government member to be in the chair and to be fair to all.

It was clear during the many presentations, especially by organic and small farmers, that there is a concern. There is a concern that there is not a lot in the bill for them and that some of their rights would be taken away. I am hoping that is not going to be the case.

On that point, I have two questions for the member. Does he recognize that we listened to the small farmers who came forward and does he see merit in the committee in its future business trying to help the smaller growers, who are really a big part of the increase in agriculture in Canada, by our taking seriously their concerns on how we can help them grow, move forward, and be a big part of our production in Canada?

[Agricultural Growth Act, November 19th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague. I do not know him very well. He is not on the agriculture committee, but he seems to be very knowledgeable about the growing of many things. I am sure that he represents a lot of farmers in his riding.

This must be very difficult for the NDP, especially the Quebec members, to vote against this tonight because so many of the representatives from Quebec who came forward are in agreement with this bill. The horticulture people came to us and said that there is a great opportunity with this bill for them to have varieties and new products that we could maybe sell around the world. It was of great interest to me when I heard the member talking about the garlic and tomato varieties that he has in his riding.

I do not agree with the whole bill, but would the member not agree that some of this bill would provide great opportunities to some of his horticultural producers to get those varieties, develop them and sell them all over the world?

[Agricultural Growth Act, November 19th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the member from northern Ontario as he spoke about how much more agriculture there would be in that area and about his interest in agriculture.

He mentioned the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. I think he got mixed up with the farmers' union. However, what are his comments when most of the federations of agriculture across the country are in favour of most of the bill?

I realize what he is saying. There were a lot of amendments put forward by the NDP and by Liberals, and we hoped the Conservatives would do some tweaking, but overall, there is so much in the bill that is also good for farmers.

If we never put the bill forward, does he think we would be missing a great opportunity for our agriculture industry?

[Agricultural Growth Act, November 19th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I have to commend the government for stepping up to the plate to try to get some modern legislation on agriculture. However, I think the member for Timmins—James Bay is also correct. The government has just thrown a whole bunch of things in the bill.

When we started the committee process, the minister said that the government was very open to amendments. The reality is that none of the amendments from either the Liberals or the NDP were accepted.

The minister mentioned witnesses. I have to commend the chair of our committee, too, because he did a great job, and we had a lot of witnesses.

I know that everyone is focused on new crops, and having better varieties is something we need to have in this country. However, the canola growers talked about the advance payments. They said that it is not enough for today's modern farming. They want an increase, so we put an amendment forward. I thought the government, in good faith, would have changed that, because the reality is that it is a loan and it would have worked.

The Canadian Cattlemen's Association brought forward the issue of penalties. The Conservatives have penalties in the bill that are pretty high for farmers. The association said that they want the government to be like a coach, not a referee, in dealing with food safety and helping farmers and food production move forward.

On those two parts I think the government could have listened to some of the opposition amendments, and we could have had a “made in Canada” bill that would have been good for all, especially the small farmers. I think there should have been more in there for small, organic, and start-up farmers, which the government did not do. It could have done a lot more with the bill.

At the end of the day, the Liberals will go with the bill, but I think the government could have done a better job of listening to the opposition and could have added more to the bill.

[Agricultural Growth Act, November 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is always comical to hear the NDP and the Conservatives fighting over what is happening in the House, but the NDP does have some merit with respect to this legislation. Those members came forward with some decent amendments. The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food said he would look at those amendments, but he did not. The government did not accept any of the good amendments put forward by the opposition.

The Liberal Party is going to vote in favour of this legislation because there is too much good in it for farmers not to have it, but it should have been split off.

There is not a lot in this legislation for small farmers. There are a lot of good things in it for commercial farmers and big farmers, but there is not a lot for small farmers and organic farmers, and their farms are important. The government missed the mark here. We could have had a better bill. We should be pushing the government to come forward with better legislation because it would help the small farmers, the new farmers, the young farmers who are just starting up. There is not enough in the bill for them. The government has done a disservice to the parliamentary system by not putting some of our amendments into the bill. This could have been a better bill.

Could the parliamentary secretary tell me why there is nothing in this legislation for small farmers? Why did the government not do what the minister said he was going to do and put some of our amendments in the bill, which would have made it a better bill, a made in Canada bill?

[Agricultural Growth Act, November 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague from the NDP for her presentation. She does a lot of work on our committee. She provides great input and speaks quite a bit, especially in support of the farmers in Quebec.

The leader of the Quebec farmers, Mr. Van Tassel, was quite in favour of the bill in his presentation. He said one of the successes for Quebec farmers is that they have the proper certified seed, the best seed available, and he said they see great merit in this bill. There was a bit of conflict sometimes between some of the smaller growers and the commercial growers, but at the end of the day they represent a big part of Quebec farmers and they are in favour of the bill.

Would she comment on his remarks? Would she tell the House what part of the bill would suit both the bigger farmers and the smaller farmers through the amendment she has put forward?

[Agricultural Growth Act, November 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, that is a good question. That issue was not brought up a lot at our committee but is very important when dealing with the violations. Let us say there is a 100-kilometre stretch and there are two RCMP officers on that 100 kilometres who are dealing with safety and various issues. Say they then decide to have only one RCMP officer for 500 kilometres and have big fines, so that if the one officer catches just one person once in a while, they will just be whacked. There would be is no such thing as helping communities.

What I see this legislation doing is cutting our resources so that officials can just drive through and if they see people doing something wrong, they can just whack them. They will not have resources available to help them with their operations, but rather will go in and hit them with big fines, as if that is going to make things better. However, farmers will go out of business as a result, because some of these farms do not have $5,000 to pay as a penalty. Rather, the CFIA should have the resources to come in and help these farmers move forward, or to help these food processors. That is not what is in place. I think it is just a cop-out from all the cuts the government has made to just adding big fines and it figures that will solve the problem.

[Agricultural Growth Act, November 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is such a great contributor at committee. One of the great things about our committee is that we have farmers on that committee who know what it is all about and know what the expenses or the challenges of growing are. I commend him for his contribution and his question.

Thirty years ago my wife and I borrowed for our vegetable farm. At that time, the maximum that could be borrowed from Nova Scotia Farm Loan Board was $150,000. We cannot buy a tractor for $150,000 now. My point is this: If we are going to do all of this work to put legislation in place we need numbers that would be realistic down the road. If my children were to borrow now for the same farm, it would maybe be $500,000 or $1 million, which would not even touch it if we look at the history and where we are at now. We are not saying that farms will all get bigger, but just that it is inevitable that the costs or inputs and what they would get would increase. That is why I could not figure out why the government would give that more flexibility. We could have certain criteria attached to it, such as how much acreage each farm has, or the like. However, it is just a visionary thing and the government has to see that it is what it is. It will be a more expensive business with more money involved. I think the presenters stated that, and they should have that money available to them.

[Agricultural Growth Act, November 17th, 2014]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise today to speak to the bill. It is very important, whatever we do in the House, that we listen to farmers and food groups, those people who produce food for us. We should not only listen to them in the House or at committee; we should get out there and listen to farmers.

Recently, I had the great pleasure of going with the member for Papineau to an international ploughing match. Yes, he did a great job of turning over the soil. More important, that day we held a round table with farmers from across Ontario. They had concerns about what the Conservative government was or was not doing. It is great sometimes to sit down with farmers, whether it is out there or in committee, and listen to them. Sometimes our bureaucratic system puts things forward that it thinks is good for the people who produce our food, but it is not always.

Overall, this is not a bad bill. I have a kind of love-hate relationship with it. There are parts in it that I think farmers need, and there are parts of it that could have been changed. During committee, we put many amendments forward, but they did not get much recognition from the government side. That being said, our party will vote for the bill because we cannot deny the good stuff in it for the farmers who need it.

The bill has quite a bit in it, as I mentioned before.

One of the most contentious parts of this was UPOV '91. There is no doubt it is an international code that is being used out there. Many other countries, in Europe and elsewhere, are using this system and it has worked well for them. However, just because it has worked well for those other countries and just because it was set up years ago does not mean we could have had more of a made in Canada approach to it. We could have put some things in there that would have helped small farmers and ensured them they could store or reproduce their seed.

I do not think any of the smaller growers that came forward had any intention of reselling the seed. It was not their intention, but they did not want someone to come in, like the big government, and take away their seed that they could reuse on their farm. It all came down to that.

I think the government knew it was wrong and it did not have clarification, but it put in an amendment, which I do not think went as far as the Liberal Party or even the NDP. Our language was stronger. However, it was one of the biggest issues that was brought up quite a bit throughout the committee.

When we look at the bill, there is so much in it. I guess it will be a “wait and see” bill. We will wait and see how farmers will deal with it, especially smaller farms, and their grain. There were so many other people coming forward and recommending UPOV '91. Many people who produced seed said that it could give Canada a big advantage. With this new legislation, we could develop more varieties in Canada and we could sell them to the United States. There is a good side of it, but we could have both.

Imagine, some of the varieties we have developed with spring wheat and canola all came from research in Canada. However, the researchers or whoever was producing that product had to be protected. Part of this bill is there for that.

As we go forward, with climate change and various changes in consumer tastes, we will have to be on the leading edge to ensure we have the right varieties and products out there. It is important, but the government should step up to the plate and do more research. We can say that they will be protected and that we will produce more and better varieties for small and large growers alike, but the problem is the government sometimes does not have the money for the research to do that as we move forward.

We had some amendments because we had some problems with the bill. All we can do is to hope that the smaller producer is not going to be penalized and have to go to lawyers to protect themselves when they have that bit of seed in their bins. We have been reassured of that, but I think we still could have had stronger language for when the time comes.

We listened to the different groups who came forward on what is happening in agriculture, which is that farms are getting bigger, and that for those that may not be getting bigger, they are becoming more intense with higher costs. The costs have doubled for fertilizer, seed, or whatever farmers use. At the end of the day, of course, they are dealing with more money.

Many times we see that the couple of hundreds dollars that used to get a farmer through is just not enough any more. If a farmer has a couple of thousands acres, that farmer needs a minimum of half a million dollars to get through. Therefore, one of the big parts of the bill was the advance payments, and here is where the government could have stepped up to the plate.

It was a nice gesture by the government to increase the advance payments to $400,000, but after hearing many witnesses tell us about the size of their farms, what they were dealing with, and the amount of cash they needed to get through, it is not enough. For instance, we had representatives from the Canadian Canola Growers Association come forward. They said in a letter that there should be an amendment to Bill C-18 aimed at streamlining the program and that it is important the government consider an increase in the maximum advance limit. The letter states that:

Farmers have indicated that an increase to the current limit would better reflect their financing requirements and make the program more valuable to their farming operation. We believe doubling the limit...

Indeed, they even went so far as to say “doubling the limit”. Therefore, I think the government missed the mark on this, and it could have done a little more consultation. I also think that the Conservatives had the opportunity at committee to sit down and listen to the farmers and to the numbers.

This is not free money here; we are not talking about giving farmers money. This is an advance payment. It is a loan. When farmers are putting in their canola, soya beans, or whatever, these are expensive crops, as well as all the inputs. By the time they see a return, it could be a year down the road. They could be seeding in May but they may not get a cheque for that crop until the following May. They are dealing with a lot of money, and it was shown very clearly at committee that the $400,000 was not enough.

Sometimes government has to step back and consider. The Conservatives did not do wrong with the $400,000, but just did not hit the right mark. I think they had an opportunity to increase the amount.

As I said, this is not money that is given to farmers. This is an advance payment that the farmers pay back. It is money in and money out. Therefore, I believe that this was another opportunity where the government could have made some amendments to reflect the amount of acreage that farmers have and the size of farms out there today.

We can look at the amounts that were brought forward and the defaults on these advance payments and consider how Canadian farmers are really good at producing food and at managing their finances. The default was at a very low percentage. The defaults could be due to some catastrophe on the farm or to the weather. However, the Canadian taxpayers are not going to be on the hook here because farmers have such a good track record of paying back those advance payments.

Therefore, it would have been a no-brainer for the government to increase that number even more. Down the road, I think the Conservatives will find out that they will have to do this. They are looking at history, but there is the reality of the amount of money that farmers are dealing with in agriculture now.

My colleague from Manitoba and I went to visit some farms and it is unbelievable what they put into the farms and the size of the tractors. We were all through Manitoba.

My last point is on the penalties. The Canadian Cattlemen's Association is also really concerned about these penalties. For instance, if someone is packing carrots on a farm and did not have a hair net on, which I know is is not right, the farmer could be fined $5,000. I do not know where the Conservatives came up with these penalties.

As the Canadian Cattlemen said, they need the government to be a coach, not a referee, to help them produce better, safer food. They want government to come in and help them, show them how to do it, but not come in with a hammer and say, “Okay, you didn't have a hair net on or you didn't do this, and you're going to be fined $5,000.”

That is a big problem with the bill. I do not know where the government comes up with these big penalties, but the money should be spent helping farmers and operators produce better quality food instead of just coming in with a hammer. The Canadian Cattlemen's Association has stated that in its presentation.

I am open to any questions from members.