Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and
Forestry
Issue 1 - Evidence - November 20 meeting
OTTAWA, Thursday, November 20, 1997
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 9:00 a.m. to consider future business of the committee.
Senator Leonard J. Gustafson (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Honourable senators have an agenda before them. One purpose of the meeting is to consider a budget, followed by other business and adjournment.
Let us turn to the budget, first.
Senator Spivak: Mr. Chairman, when did we say the Washington trip was to take place? Was there a time?
The Chairman: There was some discussion about that. I think we were talking about February. No date has been set yet. That subject is very important, especially given the fact that the President was trying to move ahead on the fast track on trade, and was then defeated on it. I am sure there are many things we would like to raise on that whole issue.
Are there any questions with regard to the budget on agriculture?
Senator Whelan: Let us say that one member of the committee is promoting some new entrepreneurial venture in agriculture and bringing in ambassadors and trade people for a dinner. Is there any way the committee would be allowed to pay for that?
Mr. Blair, Armitage, Clerk of the Committee: The committee is the master of its own affairs. If the committee agreed that the event was in keeping with its goals and objectives, it could elect to host a dinner.
Senator Spivak: What do you have in mind?
Senator Whelan: Just prior to getting sick, I had made arrangements with the ostrich and emu people. My secretary told me that it would be taken care of. It never was. We had everything prepared. There were six ambassadors, trade people, MPs and members of the committee. I think the bill was $1,000 for 32 people. When I was back in circulation again I was told, "No, we cannot pay that." I was appalled when I found out that this would not be paid for by the committee.
The Chairman: Will you have to pay this out of your own pocket?
Senator Whelan: Yes, if nobody else pays it. We have been arguing with the parliamentary restaurant.
Senator Spivak: Maybe that could be brought up with Internal Economy.
Senator Whelan: I think they have already turned it down. I am not sure of that, but I think it has gone somewhere. The Speaker, we understand, has funds he can use for different things, too. I understand that some clerks of committees have been sent to Paris for meetings, and that must cost $10,000. We proposed this meeting for $1,000, and you would swear we were going to bring the economic house down.
The Chairman: Can we take action?
Senator Whelan: I can give you a report before you take action.
The Chairman: Are there any questions about the agricultural budget? If not, will someone move that we adopt the budget?
Senator Bryden: I move adoption of the report.
The Chairman: All in favour?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Carried.
Now let us take a look at the forestry budget.
Mr. Armitage: Senator Spivak will notice I did not include anything in there to cover the boreal forest topic. In the steering committee, it was agreed that this topic would be postponed until the new calendar year because of the high activity of all Senate committees. The resources were all being used.
Senator Spivak: That is fine. What is left is to go to Quebec and New Brunswick. Are you saying we will not be able to do that until February or March? Is March better?
Senator Bryden: Not really.
Senator Whelan: I live north of North Bay for part of the summer. There is quite a bit of boreal forest in that area. Some of the old, original forest is still there, and they want to cut it down.
The Chairman: I have one question about hotel accommodations. Does that cover two people and two meetings?
Mr. Armitage: That is right.
The Chairman: Is that adequate?
Mr. Armitage: It is when you consider the activities of this committee in the past. We have been covering off at least two conferences with two people each time.
The Chairman: Do we have a mover?
Senator Whelan: I move that we adopt the budget.
The Chairman: Is it agreed, honourable senators?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator Spivak: I have a question. Does someone go to the agricultural meetings here in Canada? Is that standard? Have we not been doing that? Do we have a presence there?
The Chairman: I go if they are a reasonable distance.
Senator Spivak: Do we have a list of those meetings? I am talking about the important agricultural meetings. I do not even know what the important forestry meetings are in Canada.
The Chairman: I cannot answer that with respect to forestry. Usually the farm groups, the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, the prairie pools or the wheat growers, will send a notice as to when their annual meeting is to occur and extend an invitation.
Senator Spivak: Perhaps we could ask our research people to look at the important upcoming meetings for 1998 in Canada. I know about the meetings abroad because I get the United Nations bulletin.
Senator Whelan: Mr. Chairman, the best forestry station I know is not under forestry. It is under the PFRA at Indian Head. They have done more work on treaties in the Prairies than anyone. They have given a billion trees to farmers and have developed trees for salinization. These are trees that will grow under the worst Siberian conditions. The work they have done on trees has been fantastic, but I understand they are talking about shutting that down.
The Chairman: Let us now move on to "Other Business".
Senator Bryden: On the issue of meetings with the forestry companies, the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association regularly meets during the last week of January in Montreal. That is probably the largest corporate meeting. They talk about their new technologies, right from the woods to paper. We might want to consider having someone audit that meeting. It could be very useful.
I am on the board of directors of Noranda, which I believe is the largest forest products company in Canada. I want members of the committee to be aware of that. I will try to be very careful. If at any time there appears to be a conflict, I will extricate myself from any decision that will be made by that board. If you happen to notice and wonder if I should be participating, I will not object. I want to raise this issue to make sure no one on the committee has any concerns about my serving on the committee.
The Chairman: Are there any questions for the senator?
Senator Spivak: A report on forestry will be published. Will that pose a difficulty for you? You might be part of a report, and there may be conclusions or recommendations with which you do not agree.
Senator Bryden: I would have to assess that at the time, but the chances of that happening are, I think, very remote. I am referred to as an outside director, which means I can act as the conscience of the corporation. I do not have a great problem with that. It is always difficult to put people on these committees who are knowledgeable in these areas and yet not put them in a position where they are in conflict.
On the Banking Committee, we have bank board members as committee members because they know something. I just want to alert the committee so it would not come as a surprise.
The Chairman: If no one has any problems with that, we will continue.
Senator Spivak: I would like to raise another item. In the Energy Committee we had someone from the Department of Agriculture address us briefly on the global warming issue. The issue of carbon sequestration was raised. I am just wondering if senators here might be interested in having such a briefing because it was not strictly speaking only of relevance to global warming. It was also of relevance to sustainable agriculture. I am sure Senator Whelan and the Chairman know everything about this subject but there might be other senators here who would be interested in that briefing. Perhaps it might be a little more extensive and could deal with carbon sequestration and how agriculture could become, rather than a contributor to greenhouse gas forming, a participant in reducing those emissions while also enhancing the practice of agriculture. In other words, it can be a win-win situation.
The Chairman: You are suggesting we bring in a witness?
Senator Spivak: He was from the Department of Agriculture. I was wondering if committee members might be interested in having that briefing.
Senator Stratton: What is carbon sequestration?
Senator Spivak: Carbon sequestration is the fixing of carbon in the soil, and it happens through photosynthesis. You cannot just pour it into the soil. Forage crops, for example, are good for that. I do not know enough about the subject but I found the briefing very interesting. It included a lot of basic scientific information about the processes which go on in agriculture and the soil.
Senator Hays: But the general term would even include making dry ice and burying it somewhere.
Senator Spivak: No.
Senator Hays: Another way of describing it is the development of a carbon sink. A forest is a carbon sink. Forage is a carbon sink. Injected CO2 in the ground, where it is not in the atmosphere, would qualify as well. The oceans also act as a carbon sink. It is a way of encouraging sequestration.
Senator Spivak: You are right, but the point that was made was that we started out somewhere around 1860 with a tremendous amount of carbon in the soil, which has been gradually depleted. That is not good, apparently, and it is good to increase the carbon in the soil. The interesting thing about it is that it also helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions but I did not think that you could inject carbon into the soil. His point was you could not do that.
Senator Hays: Not into the soil but if carbon is a by-product of a chemical process where you are stripping ethane out of natural gas, one of the options is to vent the CO2 into the atmosphere or you could re-inject the CO2 deep into the ground, not into the soil but into one of the producing strata. That is another method of sequestration.
The Chairman: Do honourable senators wish to move on this?
Senator Spivak: The climate change topic is also of interest to agriculture.
The Chairman: I was going to raise that with respect to El Ni<#00F1>o. Farmers are watching everything and reading everything they can on this subject. The American Department of Agriculture has just suggested that farmers in the northern states should buy all the insurance they can possibly buy because there is a prediction of drought. Naturally, Canadian farmers, in the prairies particularly, are watching this with great interest.
To this point, we are having a very unusual season. It is unusually mild. There is no snow. I have talked to people from Edmonton and from Estevan, Saskatchewan, and it appears the whole Palliser triangle is very dry. That is an interesting subject, in terms of moisture and what the future may hold for the summer. I know that farmers are checking with their crop insurance people and more farmers are talking about taking the maximum crop insurance. That is a major concern now. Maybe it is all hype, but it seems that there are very severe weather patterns taking place.
Senator Spivak: One of the predictions that is actually coming to pass on the ground is the violence of the disaster. Perhaps we might examine this topic after the Kyoto conference, to see how it impacts agriculture in Canada. Is anyone else doing this? Is the House committee doing this?
The Chairman: It would be very interesting. There is the doctor from Winnipeg, Dr. Ball, who does some of his own forecasting. He has done a tremendous study. He spoke to the farmers in Estevan. He was interesting. You may not agree with Dr. Ball but we would want to hear both sides of this issue. He has been pretty accurate.
Senator Stratton: He does not believe there has been any warming.
The Chairman: But I would like to hear from him.
Senator Whelan: I want to make a comment on what Senator Spivak was saying. Years ago, when there was all the concern about energy, we in Agriculture Canada worked with the energy people, and if there was anyone who had a good idea on conservation of energy, we would give them funding. I think we had 256 projects going at one time between the two departments, including solar power and wind power.
There is a farmer up near Georgian Bay who is a medical doctor and everything on his farm runs on hydrogen.
Agriculture Canada also did a lot of research on crops, so they must have a bundle of information they could give this committee, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Should we table this for now and bring it up later or should we act on it now?
Senator Bryden: In none of the meetings I have attended have we made any note of the fact that in Atlantic Canada, we are in the third year, I believe, of very dry conditions.
The Chairman: I had a letter on my desk yesterday regarding that problem.
Senator Bryden: Senator Callbeck will know this. For the first time in my memory, they had to stop harvesting potatoes on Prince Edward Island in the fall because it was too dry. Normally they have to stop because it is too wet, but they could not harvest because it was so dry and the top soil was simply disappearing.
Senator Rossiter: The potatoes were cracking, and the question was should we take them out cracked or leave them in and let them freeze?
Senator Bryden: We have had situations where dairy farmers have had to pay exorbitant prices for forage crops, for hay and silage, because where they sometimes would get as many as three crops per year, they were lucky to get one or, rarely, two.
Just as an example, I have gone down to Queen's County every fall for a number of years on a hunting trip. It is an area of hills and valleys and brooks and streams and lakes. In all of the previous years, I have never seen the brooks empty, and this year there was no water. In brooks that used to run a turbine, there was no water. For whatever reason -- it may have nothing to do with the impact of the big storms -- there seems to be a period of time here, and this is the third season, where we have had to function in very dry conditions.
The Chairman: According to information on my desk, it has not been as dry as it was this year for 100 years.
Senator Spivak: Perhaps we could hear from someone from Agriculture Canada. We are talking about doing this in February, unless we have pressing business, but we could also have a meeting and hear him for an hour before Christmas. We could particularly focus on the economic impact that this might have on farming, at least what the conditions are and what that might mean. The Environment Department is doing what they call a Canada Study, and there has been a study done on Eastern Canada. I do not know whether it just includes Quebec. There is a study done on the Prairies, and there is a whole volume of that. We could also hear from the person who did those studies. There are some very specific things we could find out about the impact of climate change on agriculture.
The Chairman: Do you want to make that a motion?
Senator Spivak: I so move.
Senator Whelan: Agriculture and production of crops are big contributors to the overall betterment of our atmosphere. We are a user of solar power, and we make the energy into methanol and so on. We used to have a soils lab that was one of the most advanced in the world. We do not know much about our soil. When you hold a handful of soil, you have a million microbes, and we possibly know something about two of them. We closed that soils lab and the scientists left for jobs all over the world.
In southwestern Ontario, which is the most productive area in all North America, we had a very wet spring this year. Farmers planted soybeans late in June, we had an odd type of summer but an excellent late August and September, and they harvested crops that were phenomenal. They harvested sweet corn until October 22. Soybeans produced 60 bushels to the acre. Corn produced an average of 150 bushels to the acre, but it is a bit high in moisture because they did not have enough heat units to dry it. The cold weather now is helping to dry the corn in the fields because of the freezing and the thawing, and the sun in the daytime is acting as a natural dryer.
The Chairman: Are we all in favour of that motion?
Senator Hays: Could I speak to the motion? The issue of the weather is broad. Quite frankly, I know that we are approaching this on a no-regrets basis in terms of the issue of global warming, but there is very little this committee can do in the short term about the weather -- in fact, probably nothing.
Traditionally, in Canada, we have had a concern about safety nets that give farmers the risk-management tools they need to stay in business, given the vagaries of the weather. An interesting part of this subject is that, in 1997, on a national basis, we are probably back to where we were in the 1950s in terms of that risk-management tool.
It is a matter of a provincial authority. Some provinces, such as my own province of Alberta, are quite rich and have quite rich safety net programs. They have a disaster program and a stabilization program. There is no cost. It is GATT green, they believe. When you look to our neighbour Saskatchewan, which is not as resource-rich, you see a different program, and in British Columbia another program yet, and others in Manitoba and Ontario and so on. Senator Whelan, as a long-time Minister of Agriculture, will have lived through the development of safety net programs, as will Senator Gustafson through the nine years of the Tory government.
This is relevant in terms of hearing about what it is that the federal government is doing to try to bring some uniformity -- in other words, some common approach -- to safety nets which deal with the issue of crop failure due to bad weather. It can be too wet or too dry. There are all sorts of weather problems that can arise. I think it might be good to be briefed on that and perhaps, during the trip to Washington, we can see what the Americans are doing in that same area.
Senator Spivak: I do not disagree with you. My interest is that, instead of always looking at how we can mitigate disaster, we might look at how we could prevent it.There is information, however sketchy, pertaining particularly to agriculture and indicating that perhaps the activities of man are changing the weather patterns. This may result in heat in some places, and cold in others, but it is definitely producing more intense conditions in different parts of the country. The Canada study is examining how this impacts different regions, because it will impact different regions differently. If we have that information, we can then look at what is happening to help farmers deal with it.
The Chairman: I think you had in your motion, Senator Spivak, economic impact, which would cover that area.
On Senator Hays's point, I can give you a firsthand report on what happens in Saskatchewan. We were hailed out. A strip of hail went 10 miles wide and 50 miles long. The crop insurance Saskatchewan has now is very poor. The GRIP program is gone. As Senator Hays said, the Province of Saskatchewan does not have the money. Farmers in that area who were hailed out 100 per cent, with hail six inches deep, might have received a quarter of what their crop would have brought them if they had full hail insurance and full crop insurance.
The universality of the safety net problem is something with which the federal government must deal, because there is no way Saskatchewan's treasury or Manitoba's treasury could ever compete with the Alberta oil money, and they have very good programs there. In addition, if it is a matching program, the federal government puts more money in where it is not needed. It just does not work. As Senator Hays said, we have probably backed up 20 years on this whole subject of giving coverage.
Senator Stratton: I am naive on this topic, and perhaps that is a benefit in this case. Why could this not be done through the private sector? Why must we always turn to government to do it? Why could we not at least explore the potential of talking to the insurance people to see whether or not that is realistic?
The Chairman: I can answer that question for you. The commercial insurance companies, which look at putting out money in order to receive a return, will not invest in agriculture where your return is a few percentage points on your investment. There just is not enough money in agriculture, and the risk is too high. They will not to do it. The cheap food policy we have in Canada -- supplying food at a cheaper cost than any nation in the world -- must be worth something to the Canadian people, and the government should have some responsibility to see that that can be maintained if we cannot get better prices.
Senator Spivak: In addition to that, the insurance companies are losing so much money. I believe they paid out $150 billion last year, which is some unbelievable multiple of what they have been paying out in previous years. They are fans of doing something about global warming. I do not know if they will be interested in throwing more money around.
Senator Whelan: I can remember when the Secretary of Agriculture from the United States of America visited our department to study how our crop insurance program worked. He said that in the United States they have what they call a disaster program, but that it is a disaster. They were amazed at our program.
Our program has changed drastically since 1984, when we shared the program with the farmers and the provinces. We used to pay 50 per cent of the premiums. As the chairman said, it was a good guarantee for our entire society, not just farmers, because it kept them in business. As was said, a three-year drought in Atlantic Canada would be terrible if we did nothing. There is no private insurance, and even if there were, no one could afford it.
The Chairman: Governments have moved to the position of having no ad hoc programs. I chaired the committee on drought in Western Canada during the terrible drought in the mid 1980s. Our government put billions of dollars into agriculture, but it was absolutely necessary because farmers would have gone right down the tube. The grasshoppers did not leave a blade of grass. There was not a leaf on a caragana tree from Estevan, Saskatchewan to Medicine Hat, Alberta and beyond.
It is very important that we examine the programs across the country.
Senator Spivak: I am now a little confused. The motion says that we should get information on carbon sequestration in the soil and some idea of the Canada Study being done by the department. Will we thereafter look at what the safety net is, or are we only looking at information on the safety net at this time?
Senator Hays: My understanding is that you are concerned about changes in the weather that are anthropogenic, and that is fine. However, in the meantime we have another issue that is weather-related, and that is dealing with the weather as it is, not as we would like it to be, without any anthropogenic influence on it. That is the other topic on which we want to become informed. Having become informed about both these issues, the committee would then direct its mind to whether it wished to do more. However, you have raised them and they are good issues.
The Chairman: Is that agreed?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
Senator Spivak: It is for information at this point.
The Chairman: Moving on, I understand that government members have had a briefing on Bill C-4. Senator Hays, do you have anything you want to report as to timing or what the committee can expect?
Senator Hays: Bill C-4 is in its final stages in the House and is expected, I gather, today or tomorrow. If all members of this committee do not have the briefing material, I will leave it with our researcher and our clerk to ensure that it is made available to you. If members of the committee from your caucus want a briefing, you should get one.
Senator Whelan: Many members of the committee on both sides have been making representations about their reservations on the legislation. We told Minister Goodale that we had received calls, letters and faxes.
The Chairman: You have probably all received these printouts from the research department on the witnesses who appeared before the House of Commons committee. Even the Canadian Wheat Board does not support the bill. None of the growers support the bill because of the exclusion. It is a very controversial bill, there is no question about that.
I think it is very important that we call the growers as witnesses. The only winners I can see under this bill are the grain companies, because they will be guaranteed the handling charges.
Senator Hays: At any rate, that is the work of the committee, Mr. Chairman. The point would be to get on with it as quickly as possible and then meet to see what the time frame will be.
The Chairman: The important thing is that we do not get pushed into a time frame where we cannot hear enough witnesses to enable us to make a reasonable decision or to put forward amendments that would improve the bill.
Were you given any indication as to whether the minister would appear?
Senator Hays: I assume the committee will invite the minister and that he will appear.
Mr. Armitage: I spoke to a departmental official last night who indicated that the minister has plans at this time to travel outside of Canada on December 4. Her expectation was that the bill might not clear the House of Commons until mid to late next week. Given the 48-hour notice period in the Senate once the bill is received and read for the first time, if they do not get it to us by adjournment next Thursday, the bill will not be before the Senate until Tuesday of the next week, which means that you cannot debate it at second reading until Thursday, December 4, the day that he is leaving, unless there is an accommodation reached.
Senator Hays: The only way you would hear from him earlier would be through some form of briefing. We will not call it pre-study. I do not know whether the committee wants to consider that. The point is that, in accordance with our normal practice, we cannot start work on the bill until we receive it. I believe that we should start working on it as soon as we get it. In anticipation of that, we could make a list of those witnesses who have either requested an opportunity to appear or whom we may ask to appear, and we should start that work as soon as we have the bill.
Senator Whelan: The minister said that the government would like the bill passed so that they can have the vote this spring. If it is not passed, they would have to have the vote next fall. It would be great to start off that way so they could have the vote at the end of the March, I believe.
Senator Hays: We adjourn some time in December. Is the minister not available until February?
Mr. Armitage: That, I do not know. I was just told that his plans right now included a departure on December 4.
Senator Hays: Yes. He will be at the meeting in Kyoto, Japan.
The Chairman: It is difficult for us to make any decisions on this. The House may entertain amendments; there are some before it now. I listened to the speeches yesterday.
Senator Rossiter: I understand there are over 20 amendments.
Senator Bryden: We do not know what will be the priorities of the government, as far as the Senate's activities between now and the break. We can only handle so much, and if there are other priorities, we may, in fact, not be able to clear this before Christmas.
Senator Hays: This will be given priority. I know the committee will give it priority but it is difficult to say in advance, not knowing when we will get it, whether or not we could complete our work before Christmas.
I do not want to wave any red flags in front of the Chairman, because I know his strong feelings about this bill. We can only do our best. If we can get a sitting schedule for this committee that will allow us to hear witnesses in a short time, that would be helpful. If we cannot, then that would be a hindrance to our dealing with it in as expeditious a manner.
We have other legislation, as Senator Bryden said, and getting rooms and so on to hold the hearings is sometimes a problem as the Christmas break approaches.
Mr. Armitage: I can say something about the schedule. We do have Tuesday afternoons set aside for us in this room. We could ask the Senate to allow us to sit even though it may then be sitting, so you could take full advantage of that time slot. I believe there are rooms available on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings. We do not have one specifically scheduled for ourselves but we can submit a request. I imagine the whips will give legislation some priority.
Senator Hays: I do not know, Mr. Chairman, what you think but we might anticipate quite a few witnesses and we should take advantage of all the time we have.
The Chairman: I have not heard much discussion in the House of Commons about what I think is the real reason behind the bill or why the wheat board wants the changes, which is basically to deal with the free trade situation between Canada and the United States. My understanding is that is why they are changing the name or changing the fact that it is a Crown corporation to a corporation.
I know that many of the farm groups with whom I am in contact do not favour the bill for different reasons, some on the left-hand side and some on the right-hand side.
Senator Whelan: We ought to be prepared to sacrifice our schedules, to come here Sunday and stay all week and meet two, three or four times a day, if necessary, to get it done, although we may have to wait until after Christmas.
The Chairman: The House of Commons has certainly made a habit of dropping these things in our lap and expecting a decision in one week. These are major subjects and major pieces of legislation we are being asked to examine. The Senate should demand the right to have reasonable time to study these bills and to call witnesses.
The young farmers are the ones who are hurting. It is a very serious problem that we are facing.
Senator Spivak: What was the date on which you thought we might get that bill?
Mr. Armitage: December 4. However, there are many variables. It depends on when the House of Commons passes it and when the Senate gets to read it the first time. It is then on the Order Paper for two days.
Senator Spivak: If there are amendments made here, that bill is not going to go through before Christmas.
Are you telling us that the government would like to have that bill back in the House before Christmas?
Senator Hays: They would like that, but I am not saying that is possible or not. It will depend on when we get the bill.
Senator Spivak: If we have the kind of time you are talking about -- Tuesday afternoons, Tuesday evenings, Wednesday evenings and Thursday -- it would not be that difficult to hear from all the witnesses. This is not to say that I am in favour of getting the bill out of here as quickly as possible. Unless we have other legislation which requires an intense schedule, we could do it. We could at least examine the bill before Christmas. I am not sure we want to get it back to the House before Christmas.
The Chairman: I do not see how we can call witnesses in that short a time and get a proper reading of the situation. For instance, I should like to hear a witness from the Ontario Wheat Board as to how it operates and as to why there are so many differences between Ontario and the west.
Senator Hays: They do require a permit from the Wheat Board.
The Chairman: Do they pay the wheat board back as we do in the west?
Senator Whelan: What do you mean "pay them back"?
The Chairman: This will take some time.
Senator Whelan: There are many examples of large discrepancies.
Senator Spivak: Why do the Americans not want an operation like the Wheat Board? Or do they want one?
The Chairman: This is an argument that can go on indefinitely.
Senator Hays: Mr. Chairman, we should deal with the legislation as expeditiously as we can. When we are finished with it will be, to some degree, a function of when we get it. I would suggest that when we get it we go to work immediately and get through the witnesses as quickly as we can.
Senator Callbeck: Mr. Chairman, I am interested in a briefing on trade issues or an update in the field of agriculture. Is that something this committee might be dealing with or should I arrange it myself?
The Chairman: This was discussed at the last meeting. I suggested it would be helpful because of the direction the president of the United States was taking on fast-tracking free trade. He said that the U.S. was watching the movement of grain and cattle from Western Canada into the U.S. The American position is that if they do not get access to the milk and chicken marketing boards of Eastern Canada, tough measures can be expected on wheat and cattle from Western Canada.
Western Canadians see this as a trade-off. We know there are 103 votes in Ontario, 85 votes in Quebec and only 13 votes in Saskatchewan. We cannot win that battle. What many western farmers are saying is that their interests are being traded off against those of Eastern Canada on these trade issues.
When we were in Washington, senators, congressmen and officials we met with told us exactly the same thing. It was made very plain by the president of the United States in his statement on fast-tracking free trade.
I raised this issue in the Senate and I suggested in committee that we should have a briefing on trade. I am not sure that we know exactly how the marketing boards will fare under the NAFTA. I should like to hear from the department on that topic.
Senator Hays: Mr. Chairman, the supply managed sector has been in existence in the dairy industry since 1966 and in the feather industry since 1972. They came into existence not as anything to do with cereals and oil seeds, but rather as ways of dealing with marketing issues and problems in those sectors.
Under the WTO we continue to have the ability to practise that system. There are strong players in the United States who would like to see the system abandoned so that they could market their products into Canada and they will raise any bargaining point they can in an effort to get rid of that system.
It is interesting that in the cereals and oil seeds industry, the supply-managed sector produces roughly the same amount of money for Canadian farmers. The view of most supply-managed producers is that if we abandon that system, we would make much less money. We would find that the Americans really just wanted to get access to the sector and we would still have problems with cereals and oil seeds.
The Chairman: Senator Hays, you also know that B.C., which has 14 per cent of the population of Canada, has less than 3 per cent of the quota, whereas Quebec has 49 per cent of the quota for Canada. There has been a great deal if discussion in B.C. about the issue of quota.
Senator Hays: That is a separate issue from the one you raised before.
The Chairman: It is relevant.
Senator Spivak: That is not addressing the question.
Senator Hays: In certain areas we have ways of interprovincial transfer of quotas which would allow for adjustment of that if producers wished to move the quota from one province to another.
The Chairman: Saskatchewan has 1 per cent of the quota, I believe.
Senator Hays: Regarding Senator Callbeck's question, we should get her a briefing on the trade situation of potato marketing. If other members of the committee wish to sit in on the briefing, that would be fine.
Senator Callbeck: Whom do I contact?
Mr. Armitage: I can arrange that.
The Chairman: All in favour?
Hon. Senators: Agreed.
The Chairman: Carried.
The committee adjourned.