Agriculture Committee on May 29th, 2007

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Yes, and they become the priority or the first items on the table following that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Do you want to add that we deal with the motions from Mr. Easter and Mr. Atamanenko before we deal with the APF report, at which time...?

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

That's my....

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

That's what you'd prefer? Okay.

So it is moved that we stand the first two motions and then deal with the report and then set aside all other motions.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We have the motion from Mr. Easter, which again has to be put back on the floor.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

It doesn't carry on from previously? I don't know how many times I've read this motion, Mr. Chair.

I move:

that the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food recommend that the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food immediately rescind the changes announced to the Canadian Farm Families Options Program on April 20, 2007, and restore the provisions of the program as originally announced; and

that this motion be made a report to the House.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Okay.

Is there discussion?

Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's good to be back at this point after an hour of discussion about whether we could have moved on to the APF report.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We did two motions in an hour, I should point out.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

There you go. Unfortunately, we're not going to be getting to the report, I don't think, for some time. We have a couple of motions that are going to take a fair amount of debate.

I want to come back once again to the fact that virtually every member on this committee has spoken out against the family farm option program at some time. It's been a while since I read some of these statements into the record. I just want to remind members opposite of the position they took themselves on this program.

Mr. Steckle said:

I'm hearing from a number of farmers who have called me about the program, and they...draw their conclusion that this is an exit program from farming—getting out of agriculture. It's a welfare program. Once farmers in the business, if they call themselves truly farmers, realize that their incomes are at that level, then they're basically not farming anymore. So this is an exit program.

That's one of the statements Mr. Steckle made.

Mr. Bellavance said when this program was created that of course the Bloc Québécois said it was not enough to solve the farm income crisis.

Mr. Atamanenko took major exception to the fact that there was a business plan required in the program. He said:

One is the idea of a business plan and skills that are compulsory to participate in a program, the assumption being that these people aren't good farmers and that it's almost an insult, for want of a better word.

So Mr. Atamanenko was clear that he did not support the program. He actually said: “...isn't the assumption [of the program] still that they're not victims of the market or they're not doing something right...?” So again he was clearly not supportive of the program and did not appreciate it.

Mr. Easter had a number of things to say about it. I remember him talking quite a bit about how it was making victims of people. In reality, the minister was trying to bring a positive solution for farmers and those who've been on the farm.

One of the statements that I thought was revealing was Mr. Easter's statement that, “My concern also is that you see the low uptake.” He's concerned, Mr. Chair, about the fact that farmers weren't participating at a reasonable level. He goes on to say:

You see exactly the same questions coming from at least three of the four parties, saying that they've heard from people that it isn't working and it's still in its pilot stage. Can't we be flexible enough...to say, okay, with a 10% uptake, clearly it's not working?

The minister listened to the members opposite, and it may have been his mistake, because once he listened to them and acted on some of the recommendations they made, they made a decision that they were going to turn on him and didn't like what he was doing with the program after all.

I think most of the people on this committee were aware that the program had some of these issues from the beginning, and I think we need to commend the minister for making the changes he made to it.

I'm going to come back to that in a bit, but I want to talk a little about some of the accomplishments of this government, because of their importance. Family farm options is one of those programs, and I think it's important—

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, while the parliamentary secretary is going on about the minister's decision, would he be so kind as to inform us what studies the minister did prior to dropping the program, and could he give us the numbers of how many intended to participate this time around? By the letters I'm receiving, I believe there are thousands.

We know the figure is $246 million taken out of their pockets, but I would like to know what he did in terms of statistical analysis of how many people, given the fact that they knew it was coming forward at the end of the tax year, had done actual planning towards utilizing that program, which now is not available.

Would the parliamentary secretary give us that information on what studies the minister has done? I wouldn't think a government would, just because the opposition said something.... They didn't jump when we talked about the Wheat Board. It seems funny that we're getting the words back on this one.

But those words are accurate: it was a bad program, poorly designed. The problem is, the minister made it worse by the actions he took, cancelling it retroactively and virtually taking money out of farmers' pockets. So could we get a little more detail, while he's talking substantively?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I don't know that this was a point of order, but there were good questions.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I'm pretty sure it wasn't a point of order, Mr. Chair.

It's interesting, because he wanted to bring up the issue of the Wheat Board and the fact that we haven't paid attention to the opposition on that issue. I think there are a couple of major differences; that is, one, in terms of the Wheat Board and the changes we've made, farmers have clearly been supportive of the changes the government has moved ahead with. We have two-thirds of farmers on the prairies who grow barley who wanted change and they've come forward and said they'd like the option to be able to market their own barley, and it actually looks like, going into the new crop year, that they're probably going to be able to do well marketing their own barley. I think that has a lot of people anticipating better things for the future.

The other aspect of support for this, as contrasted with the Wheat Board, is again that there were no major farm organizations that came out in favour of the farm families options program that I'm aware of. I know there are a lot of farm organizations out there, particularly the ones in western Canada where the Wheat Board exists, who want changes to the Wheat Board and who were very supportive of the policies that we've brought forward.

Those are a couple of the differences between the farm families options program and the position we've taken with the Canadian Wheat Board. I thought it was enlightening that the opposition was very aggressively criticizing this program, and then when we made the choice to actually make changes to it, they were ready to jump on those changes as well. But the farm families options program is just one program in a whole number of things that this government has done.

As you're aware, and I think most people in the room would be aware, right off the bat, as soon as we were elected, one of the things we did was deliver $755 million to our grains and oilseeds producers. That was quite a contrast to what happened under the Liberals, who promised the money but never delivered it. We had the election, and one of the first things that happened, of course, is that farmers got the money delivered by the Conservative government, Canada's new government, and more than 120,000 farmers have received a payment from that program. I know it's been well received, and it is an indication of the fact that we keep our promises. We made the commitment during the campaign and kept our promise, even though that money had been in place for quite some time.

As another example of what we've done--we've gone the extra mile for agriculture--we made an extra $1 billion commitment in Budget 2006. We had in the campaign promised a half billion dollars, and we were excited to be able to promise another $1 billion, Mr. Chair, to farmers so that we have $1.5 billion in commitments through Budget 2006. Once again, not only did we keep our promise, we actually exceeded it and tripled it. I think farmers are aware of that, and they're excited about the fact that we're dealing with agriculture. I know that's probably one of the reasons why they would have liked to have us dealing with the APF report today and getting it ready, so that its recommendations can go out and begin to make even more of a difference in their lives.

We've committed actually a pile of money to CAIS. We made some changes to CAIS that the previous government did not seem to want to make. We were able to get in and listen to the farm organizations when they said we needed to change the inventory valuations, cover some negative margins, so we did that. Farmers told us they wanted those changes. We said we're going to move to do that for you. They said they wanted a bit more money. In the election campaign we said we were more than willing to do that. Also they said they wanted those negative margins covered, so we committed another $50 million to covering those as well.

It's been an interesting and I think a good time for farmers in the last year and a half, to have the Conservative government in place, bringing these promises forward and keeping their promises to our Canadian agriculture.

Another thing that happened, of course, was that the CAIS deposit was eliminated and replaced with a fee so that farmers were able to get away from that. That's something that was asked for for years. Any of us who are on this committee know that was a request that was made for a number of years as well.

Then the farm families options program was introduced as well, and immediately the opposition, as we've heard today, came forward and said this is not a good program. Farm organizations were not stepping up to say it's a good program, so the minister made a decision that he wanted to move away from that program. Actually, Mr. Easter brought up the $240 million. That's going to be reallocated to other programs, and I think farmers are going to be excited about the fact that it's going to go to a wide range of producers so that people are going to have an ability to access that money as well.

As Mr. Easter said earlier, we did improve the cash advance program, and that was—

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

I have Mr. Bellavance on a point of order.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Mr. Chairman, I will give the parliamentary secretary the opportunity to have a sip of water and I will take advantage of that to remind him that CAIS wasn't working any more and we often spoke out against it. We never stopped saying that the program did not work. Agricultural producers said so as well, but the program still exists, as a decision was made not to withdraw it without any warning. It was said that it had to be modified. We are therefore all working together to change and improve it. However, that is not at all what was done in the case of the options program.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Atamanenko, on a point of order.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

I would like to say that maybe the parliamentary secretary could let us know if he's getting hoarse or tired of speaking. We can kind of have a break and take over, and this would show the spirit of cooperation, as we move on in the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

That's not a point of order.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Steckle, is this a point of order?

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

In the spirit of cooperation, I would like to commend the parliamentary secretary for at least recognizing that they delivered the $755 million, but basically this money was committed by a previous government.

It should be on the record as such, because Canadians ought to know where that commitment was made. They lived true to their commitment to deliver, but it's pretty easy to deliver someone else's money.

I want Canadians to know that this money was committed by a previous minister. I believe it was Mr. Mitchell.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Anderson, that wasn't a point of order, so you have the floor.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's interesting, and I think even Mr. Steckle knows there's a difference between a promise and a commitment. Of course, as everyone is aware, there were lots of promises made prior to the election, particularly by the previous Liberal government. This commitment was kept by Canada's new government, and farmers thank us for that. They know where it came from.

I want to talk about the cooperation, as Mr. Easter said, we had with the cash advance program. It was good to be able to work with members of the committee to make sure this passed through quickly, so that farmers could have access to the improved cash advance system that was so important to them. That has proven to be a good change for farmers, and it gives them access to some credit, which they wouldn't have had otherwise.

One of the things that's important to many of us is that production insurance needs to be solid. Some of the provinces seem to have very good programs right now; others don't have programs that are as steady. Alberta is a neighbour of ours, and when I talk to farmers there, they're very happy with the crop insurance program with the enhancements the provincial government brought forward.

Manitoba seems to be happy with their program as well, for the most part. It's frustrating to be in the middle of the two provinces with a program that just does not work. We hear this constantly from farmers.

Most of us on the agriculture committee would like to see production insurance programs that work for farmers, because so many of them are directly affected.

The Farm Improvement and Marketing Cooperatives Loans Act was a program the Liberals were going to shut down a couple of years ago, and there was enough of an outcry about it. It wasn't a big program, but there were a number of people accessing it.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

A point of order, Mr. Bellavance.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I have a point of order. I would like to make a suggestion to the parliamentary secretary. From now until 5:30, he could read us the report entitled "Fact-Finding Mission on the New Agricultural Policy Framework in Eastern and Central Canada". In doing so, we the members of the committee could interrupt him during his reading of it. As I was saying earlier on, I have taken notes. I would therefore have something to say on the subject.

This would mean that we would save some time. Mr. Anderson could continue his filibustering on Mr. Easter's motion, and we could do the work that he said he wanted to do, that is to work on the report. That is a suggestion. We could begin the work.