Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry
Issue 8 - Evidence
OTTAWA, Thursday, May 17, 2001.
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 8:33 a.m. to examine international trade in agricultural and agri-food products, and short-term and long-term measures for the health of the agricultural and the agri-food industry in all regions of Canada.
Senator Jack Wiebe (Deputy Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chairman: We have a quorum. Our first witness is Mr. Jack Hayden, member of the National Board of Directors of the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Mr. Hayden hails from Alberta.
Mr. Jack Hayden, Member, National Board of Directors, Federation of Canadian Municipalities: I would like to begin by thanking the committee for giving us this opportunity to come before you and share with you some of our perspectives on the current agricultural crisis that confronts us in this country.
The Federation of Canadian Municipalities represents over one thousand municipalities across Canada. Many of those municipalities have strong links to the agriculture sector. Every one of Canada's municipalities is affected by the crisis in agriculture that we face today. This makes agriculture an important issue to the Federation of Canadian Municipalities.
It is obviously an issue that is dear to my heart, because aside from my role on the board of directors with the FCM, I serve as President of the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties. I am also a locally elected councillor in the County of Stettler, Alberta, and I am a fourth generation farmer.
I have been asked here to talk to you about the municipal perspective on the current agriculture situation, and I must tell you up front that I find the task difficult. The issue is of extreme importance to municipal governments and communities, but it goes beyond that. It is truly a national issue that requires national attention and a national action plan.
Probably more important than that, it is a people issue. It is not just about crops, livestock or statistics, but it is about Canadians.
The problems facing Canada's producers do not just affect the individual producers, although and we must look closely at that issue. They affect rural communities and every community in Canada. Even in our world of modern technology people still need to eat and we must not loose sight of that fact.
You have before you some handout materials so I will not bore you with the statistics tables that show the financial plight of the Canadian farmer. You have received several presentations that outline the situation, and you can find a few more of these figures in our written brief. I do want to drive home the importance of agriculture to the Canadian economy.
The agri-food sector is one of Canada's top five industries. It is Canada's third largest employer, employing some 1.9 million Canadians. It also contributes approximately 8.5 per cent to the country's gross domestic product. As an example of how important it is in Alberta, one out of every three jobs in that province relates directly or indirectly to the agriculture industry. Many people find that fact interesting given our oil industry.
The food and beverage industry is an example of Alberta's largest manufacturing industry, and it employees 18 per cent of the manufacturing workforce.
At the local level, the importance of agriculture can be more pronounced. The majority of residents in most rural municipalities still engage in agricultural pursuits, or they work in fields directly related to agriculture. Most of our towns and villages rely on the agricultural community as their key customer base.
Many urban jobs rely directly on the processing of primary agricultural products. By way of example, the Conference Board of Canada talked about that when commenting on the flooding in Manitoba in 1999.
The spring floods that prevented farmers from seeding large areas led to a large decline in agricultural output. This in turn hammered the manufacturing sector, as sales of farm equipment plummeted.
This has an effect right across our country. In Prince Edward Island, the impact on the local community due to recent restrictions on P.E.I. potatoes, has been similarly severe. Farm receipts hit an eight-year low; the total loss in revenues is estimated at about $30 million. One of my colleagues from Prince Edward Island reports that sales in local businesses are down 80 per cent. One small trucking firm in P.E.I. is reporting losses of $10,000 per month. Even Toronto feels the impact of the agriculture sector; there is approximately $1.3 billion in economic activity in the agriculture industry in the greater Toronto area. The employment level in the agricultural sector is at 1.6 per cent of their total.
It goes, of course, deeper than simply affecting local economies. Canadian farmers have always made, and still make, a crucial contribution to the social health of our rural communities. Strong volunteerism in our farming community is critical to the viability of many of the rural groups in Canada. Rural schools across Canada depend heavily on farm families to help maintain adequate enrolment levels.
As the nature of the farming economy has continued to evolve, Canadian society has become more urban. Many have experienced substantial drops in population, particularly with respect to the younger people. Statistics Canada reported that the provinces saw a drop in population of young people in rural communities, between 1972 and 1996. This figure includes all of the provinces and shows the largest losses in Saskatchewan and the Atlantic Provinces.
In Alberta, where agriculture is more diversified, there are more off-farm job opportunities because of the oil sector. However, we still struggle to try to offer the youngsters a meaningful opportunity to stay and prosper in our rural communities.
As our youth population declines, we see a heart-breaking trend right across the country and that is the closures of rural schools. The loss of a rural school is a devastating loss to the health and spirit of a community.
Beyond that, there are many human impacts on the families and particularly the children that remain behind. I have a personal experience with such a situation. My children leave each morning on school buses. They have to spend over three hours each day in order to get to and from school. We worry about our children and traffic safety and many of the roads that they have to travel on are less than what the majority of Canadians would consider to be good safe roads. There is also the fact of the time that they lose.
Funding for education in rural areas, especially in Alberta, is tied to the number of students, and so school boards compete for the numbers of students. As a result of this competition for students the school boards provided the children with transportation to their schools. As an example, my eldest child began school with 13 students in his grade one class, and by the time he graduated there were three students left. The rest of them had been bussed to many different areas. He took his high school education via long-distance-learning over the telephone lines and off of satellite. He managed to do well and I am happy to say that he succeeded in university. However, it was a difficult process for only three students to be in grade 12 together. In the spirit of volunteerism and camaraderie, however, 285 students showed up for the graduation dance.
That system ended, and so that opportunity is no longer available. Hence, my other two children spent over three hours on the bus each day. That takes away the opportunity for the young people to participate in extracurricular activities. That transportation leaves them very tired. The parents usually work off-farm to try to support the farm, and there is no way that they could pick up the kids. These are real tragic things. Some of these students cannot take advantage of the three-hour bus ride to do homework, because they get sick when they try to read in a moving vehicle. As a result the three hours becomes wasted time.
Canada's natural environment is treasured by rural and urban Canadians alike. It is also heavily dependent upon the wise and responsible stewardship of the people that work the land. Canadian farmers are the day-to-day caretakers of a huge amount of Canada's natural landscape. Because their success as producers is dependent on the health of the land, they have seen themselves as very good stewards of the land and the environment. Whether we talk about maintaining the purity of our precious water supplies, our air or our endangered species, the active support and involvement of Canada's agricultural community is critical in achieving this country's goals.
By and large, Canadian farmers have led the way in responsible management of environmental resources. However, the truth is that stewardship cannot continue if farmers cannot feel financially secure. As we see the growing financial pressures that farmers have faced in the last few decades, we see that these pressures have led to unsustainable practices.
Crop selection that is based on an opportunity to try and to stay viable, using marginal land, is not good for the environment, and it is not good for Canada. These kinds of decisions have to be made because of the situation in which people find themselves. It is very difficult for the industry to focus on the long-term commitment that we know is necessary, when there is the question of the farms' very existence the next spring. That is the situation that most of our producers are facing right across the country.
We need to take a long look at the role of agriculture producers, not just in terms of the economy or socially, but also in terms of the environmental sustainability of Canada.
Just a point of interest: The United Kingdom is now undertaking a debate on this kind of issue in the wake of the foot-and-mouth disease that they have experienced. Their agriculture minister, Nick Brown, has been quoted as endorsing a shift to programs that put more emphasis on land stewardship than on production. They would not reduce the funding, but rather redirect it. He is talking, of course, about maintaining the current funding levels and redirecting them to pay British farmers to act as stewards of the rural landscape.
We do not necessarily endorse this action but, it is interesting that the United States and is looking at the same practice upon which to base some of their funding. We need to find ways to recognize and reward the contributions that Canadian farmers make. We need to make it a paying proposition for a farmer to continue to farm. We will definitely miss the farm community if we let it slip.
As I said, the crisis is not just about commodity prices, drought, economic impact or receipts. It is a people crisis and that is part of what your committee wanted me to address today. It is a personal thing because it is about our neighbours, our brothers, our sisters, our cousins and our friends. It is about people who continue to produce world class products, and who do it with world class efficiency. Yet, they still find themselves losing the fight, not because of what they produce, but because they have to fight the treasuries of the United States and the European Union. That is the bottom line.
They continue to work long hours for little return. It is also difficult for that community to be seen, as it sometimes is, in the minds of the urban press as a parasite. That is quite simply not the case. The farming community is not a parasite. Many in the farming community are being told that they no longer matter.
It seems that politicians and taxpayers are unwilling to support the producers to ensure a level playing field. They are told to diversify by taking off-farm income and employment, and then Revenue Canada turns around and rewards them by saying that they are hobby farmers, which changes their status.
They are told to adapt to the new world of competition and, as a result, farm productivity has increased by 300 per cent over the past 50 years and by 900 per cent over the past century. Each of Canada's approximately 300,000 farmers produces enough food annually, on average, to feed about 120 people. That is an interesting fact because, if anyone else in the food sector were to produce on that level, he would earn a handsome living. However, the person who actually puts the food on the table cannot do it now.
One hundred years ago, each farmer fed only 12 people, so we have come a long way.
It is almost impossible to make a living at farming because our global competition is heavily subsidized. American and European farmers, receive more than two dollars for every dollar that the Canadian government puts in support to our farmers. We need to recognize how important a healthy environmental sector is.
Canadian farmers are proud people. Rural municipalities are proud. We would clearly prefer not to be engaged in a subsidy war with Americans and Europeans. On the other hand, we are sacrificing our farmers on the altar of trade purity. That must not continue.
The FCM recognizes that our agricultural communities are, in many ways, the backbone of our country. Our farm people continue to work hard. They contribute to the economic and social well being of our communities, but they are in serious trouble. They need your help. They need the Government of Canada to recognize the problems they are facing. Our urban neighbours need to be reminded of the critical role that agriculture plays in this country. Most of all, farmers need meaningful financial support, and they need it now.
There are a number of things that the federal government could do to support the farmers and the rural communities. Programs that are already in place should be strengthened and new ones introduced to encourage employment in rural areas. The government should increase funding support for agriculture related research activities, and undertake marketing initiatives that help Canadian farmers sell products more effectively in the international marketplace.
Many people do not know that farmers need access to basic services. The lack of these services is a significant problem in rural areas. I am talking about thing as basic as telephones and yet, in many rural areas they are not available. Rural areas require access to the Internet. We also need adequate health care and education for our families.
Our association, like many others, does much of its' work electronically. It can take me three hours to download while I am at home. Therefore, it is a treat when I get to the city and I am able to take my laptop and plug it in and actually download information. We have to eliminate this problem. Farmers must be able to communicate in the electronic world.
We also need to continue negotiations to end the current subsidy practices of the United States and the European Union. The only effective way to keep our rural communities viable is to stem the tide of rural depopulation. We must keep our young people in our communities. We must make farming a paying proposition. If we do that, young people will stay in rural Canada. The communities will only remain viable if families can contribute earnings to local businesses. We want our communities to survive.
I will close with a quote that I have been provided with by William Jennings Bryant. It sums up my message for today.
Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms, and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country.
I would be happy to take questions.
The Deputy Chairman: You mentioned that for every two dollars that the Europeans give to farmers, the Canadian farmer receives one dollar. Our farmers would be completely overjoyed if that were the case. For every dollar the Europeans get in subsidies the Americans provide 54 cents, and we in Canada provide between 9cents and 13 cents.
Mr. Hayden: For the European countries and the United States, it is two dollars to every dollar.
The Deputy Chairman: Much of what you talked about in your brief is certainly very much the situation in agriculture in Canada today. A good part of that was presented in the report that we made at the end of last year.
There is an article that appeared in the Western Producer. You touched the edge of it. That article said that many politicians and many farm organizations are thinking quietly that we should be finding other uses for our farmland. All the farm organizations and some politicians are thinking about that, but they do not have the political courage to talk about it for fear that there would be an adverse reaction from the general public. I was quite happy to see that definition by the Minister of Agriculture from England. He said:
Farmers will be paid to be custodians of the countryside rather than producers of food under the sweeping reforms being planned. There would be a new Department of Rural Affairs. Commodity price supports and subsidies would be scaled down or phased out.
They are starting to realize that instead of paying farmers to produce surpluses of cheap food farmers they should be rewarded for maintaining the traditional landscape.
Part of that may be a result of the European trend to go into organic farming. It certainly can be done on a smaller scale. What would your organization's response be to our country taking a similar approach?
Mr. Hayden: The FCM is a leader with respect to environmental concerns. We distribute the municipal green funds, and are working on many infrastructures to try to improve the environment. I am sure the FCM would be supportive of someone looking at that kind of farming .
I do not think that the producers would be adverse to that either. We have a reputation for quality agriculture products. When I come to Ottawa I see on menus "Alberta beef." Restaurants advertise that because it means quality. There is quality connected with P.E.I. potatoes. I love it when I come to Ontario in September to have the local corn. It is the best in the world. The grain that we produce on the Prairies is the best pasta making grain in the world.
We have great Canadian quality products and the reason for that is that environmentally friendly methods of farming the land have been employed. The proper use of the land has been made, and the proper things have been done in the industries. The land is suited to it. When we move away from that, we have problems.
The intensive operations to which you referred are a huge concern in this province and in my province. Many international dollars are starting to come into Alberta for huge intensive livestock operations. We already had a big fight over the cattle feeding operations in the southern part of the province. The pork industry has moved into Alberta. Albertans are concerned about the environmental impact of moving to that type of industry. The pollution or depletion of our ground water is of concern. There are a number of things that go with it. It is not a lot of fun to live next to a 5,000 pig operation if the wind is blowing in the wrong direction.
If there were initiatives to look after the environment and be a good steward of the land, and the initiative was enough that a person could make a living working at farming, I feel it would be a solution.
Senator Oliver: I have two questions arising from your remarks, and they are separate and distinct. You made two comments about finances and the farm. First, you said farmers must feel they are financially secure in order to continue to produce. Near the end of your remarks you said we must make farming a paying proposition.
What is it that you would recommend that the government do to ensure that farmers are financially secure? What must we do to make farming a paying proposition?
Our chairman put a challenge to you about the future of farming in this country. The last people to appear before this committee were people from Ducks Unlimited, and they raised critical comments about the effects of farming on the environment. They suggested that technological advances, over the last 50 years, coupled with declining profit margins for agricultural crops, have resulted in agricultural activities that have had a negative impact on water, soil, fish, wildlife and agricultural landscapes. Tillage of marginal or highly erodible soils, wetland drainage, the removal of vegetable buffer zones, overgrazing of native pasture and riparian areas, are all negative effects that are attributed to farming.
What can be done to preserve traditional farming techniques and at the same time protect our environment?
Mr. Hayden: With respect to the paying proposition question, the answer is so simple that I wonder why we in this country continue to trip over it.
Senator Oliver: More money at the farm gate.
Mr. Hayden: That is what it is. In the European Union a grain farmer gets more money in subsidy than a Canadian farmer gets in total for a bushel of grain. That is what the problem is. When you are faced with a situation like that, you cannot produce. They can produce over there because of the subsidies.
We have been the heroes as far as eliminating subsidies go. On the other hand our competitors have not followed suit. That is where the problem lies. The Canadian producers would love to see subsidies end so we can compete in the world on a level playing field. Our country has decided that we need to move ahead and be an example to the rest of the world by eliminating the subsidies. However, these measures are starving our farmers out. That is what the effect has been. Making it a paying proposition means providing the level of support to Canadian producers that our competitors are providing to their producers until such time as we can get rid of subsidies. I will go to bat with anyone to eliminate the subsidies, but it is not right for us to be starving that sector out. That is the paying proposition part of your question.
What has happened to much of the landscape and natural wetland areas and what Ducks Unlimited has said is correct. People are farming marginal lands and making crop selection choices based on economics instead of good environmental practices. That is dangerous to all of us. They are forced into that situation because they must make a living.
The first wave of farms that went under in the bankruptcies in the country was huge. Many people went under the first time around. Some of those people could have been bad business managers, and I am sure some were. Some could have had high debt loads because they were new or young farmers. That was the first wave.
In the second wave that we are seeing now, the numbers have gone down. In the second group we see excellent producers. These people are using the most advanced technology and are producing top quantities. However, they are going under because the technology is eating away at their equity. They have to make the decision to either get out while there is still something to sell or hang in and hope someone steps in and corrects the situation. That is the financial situation, and they are making decisions that are not necessarily good for the land.
I have respect for Ducks Unlimited. I have put money into their benefits, I have gone to their auctions, and I have even used an old 1942 Chevrolet hood to drag bales out on the sloughs so geese have a place to nest. I have not been as big supporter in the last several years as I have been in the past because there are a few truths about what happens here. They are correct about what has happened to the environment, and many things need to be done. However, if you look at where the funds for that organization come from you will see that almost 90 per cent of its funding comes from American sports hunters. We must be realistic when we look at the organization. They do excellent work, and I do not disagree with that, but they are in the industry of producing ducks for American sportsmen. I have cooperated with them. I am supportive of much of what they do, but we must be careful when we look at them. The best scenario for such organizations is for the whole country to be a wetland. I do not think there is anything wrong with that if you are willing to pay for it.
Senator Hubley: I was happy to hear that the Federation of Municipalities was making a presentation to us today. It is an important step. Certainly, your level of government is right in the throes of these problems that we are having in agriculture. I come from Prince Edward Island, in the middle of a farming community. Agriculture is Prince Edward Island. That is our number one industry, and there is not a sector in Prince Edward Island that does not suffer if the agriculture industry fails in some area.
Other than the important step of making a presentation to the Senate Committee on Agriculture, what other strategies do you have to deal with agricultural problems in your communities? Does each municipality take its ideas home and then meet with the business and financial community? I think that the farmers feel that when they get into trouble that they are out in left field by themselves. I wonder if you have other strategies?
Mr. Hayden: The FCM's activities are generated by the resolution process. We are prepared to share with this committee what has come forward from across the country in terms of resolutions for the agricultural community.
I can give you a very good example of how the federal government relates to municipalities. Many of the programs that come out now are partnering programs. These programs are between a province and municipality or between the federal government and the province and municipality. Approximately one-third of my municipalities, are considered needy. This must come as a shock to people in Eastern Canada because they think Alberta is flourishing. The reason that these municipalities are considered needy is because they rely on the agricultural property tax to provide their basic municipal services. Because they are local people and they recognize the difficulty of the situation, they have put off tax increases and tried to keep expenses as low as possibly. I know the situation they are dealing with. The vast majority of that third of my membership has yet to take part in a partnering program with the federal government.
When Ottawa makes an announcement that it is about to put X-number of dollars into a program for the suffering infrastructure, do not assume that those dollars will be used where they are most needed. They will be spent where there is someone who can afford to put up the cash for one-third of the amount.
That is one of the things that we are trying to work toward. We fool ourselves into thinking that we have made these programs available to cure our problems. However, it does not cure the problem if you do not have the money to invest. Maybe we should not make these things conditional.
The average municipal mill rate in Alberta is approximately eight mills for property. I have several members whose properties are rated in the mid-20s right now. Those mill rates are two or three times the average and are being collected from an agricultural community. Even with such a mill rate, they are only able to supply the most basic of services.
Senator Hubley: Organic farming will be an industry that we can look at a little more closely. It will, perhaps, thrive more so in rural communities, because people enjoy those services in a small community. It is interesting that the organic farmers are receiving the price that they need to cover their cost of production. That is not the case in many other areas of agriculture.
Smaller operations are not afforded some of the services that larger farm operations have, and possibly crop insurance might be one of those, although I am unsure. I have heard it said before that if they could have many of the assurances that the larger farm communities have, it would certainly give them a comfort level.
Organic farmers seem committed in their determination to raise products or crops that are environmentally friendly. It seems to be a warm and win-win situation, but they will need support at the municipal level. In our small community, we are always looking for alternatives to the larger potato crops, because the land becomes exhausted after a time. We seem to be producing crops, but we wonder at what expense.
It would be nice to have a balance, and organic farming might be able to provide that. Other community benefits such as market gardens and tourism can result from organic gardening.
I would like to see the federation support organic farming and, perhaps, encourage the membership to support other forms of farming that seem to be successful.
Mr. Hayden: I am not familiar with your area and what steps are being taken by municipalities in respect to organic farming. However, in many areas of the country, it is very much supported by the municipalities. There are bylaws and discretionary uses in place, concerning land development. The municipalities go to great lengths to see that ditches are not sprayed and make sure that chemical activities do not occur within the area of the organic farm.
Organic farming is a good idea and there is definitely a market for those products. However, we need to be realistic about it. It is a limited market because it is a hands-on operation, and therefore, cannot be done on a large scale. Organic farming requires a great many people to work the farm. As a result the product is expensive and there are only so many people willing to pay up to twice the price for products.
In looking at the oilseed and grain producers, we realize that a combine now costs $250,000. That is big business.
Senator Hubley: It is a different business.
Mr. Hayden: Yes, it is a different business.
Senator Tunney: I, too, am a working farmer. I am an old farmer and a new senator. I have a number of items that I want to ask you about. The first item will be the economics of agriculture in your part of Alberta. Secondly, I would like to know your opinion on the usefulness of the Farm Debt Review Board. Third, I would like you to give us a comparison of current fertilizer prices compared with those of the last few years. Fourth, I would like to know how you would deal with that, given the grain prices as they currently stand. Finally, I would like to hear your opinion on crop rotation and "mega-farms".
I will also make a comment on an earlier brief discussion that we had. I am also a subscriber to The Western Producer. I read every page of it. My comment concerns the conditions in England and Wales, more than in Ireland and Scotland, because the former has a larger population concentration. I am aware, from several agricultural trips overseas, that the agricultural land in England is so overused that I do not wonder that they are talking about laying it up and letting it go back into a natural state.
We can compare that situation with Canada. We still have absolutely pristine agricultural-producing land. If we have any foresight, we had better try and keep it that way. I am concerned about mega-farms, which we have in Ontario. There are many proposals for more of them. We also have water problems. These are all long-term matters and now is the time to deal with them, not in another one hundred years after we are all gone. Someone will then blame us for not looking after things appropriately. I am interested in your comments.
Mr. Hayden: I will touch on a couple of things. You may find it interesting that we have had 0.4 inches of rain since last August. Last year we also had a drought. As a cattle producer, I bought the majority of the feed for my cattle this year. The cattle prices that have been good are countered by the cost of having to buy the feed. You, as an Ontario producer in the dairy industry will probably appreciate that.
Many areas in Canada have enough moisture and good soil conditions to make it possible to reap three crops of hay per year. Last year I cut one-half of my crops that produced 30 round bales per 50 acres. The first 50 acres that I cut I got less than one-quarter of what farmers in the rest of the country would expect from 50 acres.
We have a serious drought situation in the Prairies. It is not only Alberta. It is Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Everything must be right for agricultural producers to break even.
The cost of some fertilizers increased by 300 per cent this year. That is due to the increase of the cost of natural gas as many of the fertilizers are by-products of the petrochemical industry.
While we see the commodity prices going the opposite way, the input prices continue to go up. It extends beyond fertilizers. It goes into fuels. The Agriculture minister in Alberta is asking the federal government to look at the fuel tax that agriculture producers are paying federally. There is no fuel tax in Alberta for an agriculture producer, but there is federal tax based on a percentage. As prices go up, that percentage becomes a bigger number also.
I have been quoted as saying, "The industry is looked upon differently from other industries." We are deregulating the electrical industry in Alberta. The people who transmit the power looked at what they felt would be a reasonable return of investment and decided that 9.5 per cent is reasonable in today's world. If you give an agriculture producer 9.5 per cent return on investment, you would hear from him once a year. You would receive a Christmas card with a thank you note!
I know that you have mega-farms in Ontario, and I know that the situation has caused much concern. Big operations in the oil-seed sector or the grain sector do not like to go around trees or sloughs. As a result they clear the land, and environmentally that is not good. Those types of practices occur across the Praries where there are many drought areas.
This spring we saw situations like we saw in the 1930s when the topsoil headed to the United States. The windy conditions are bad for the soil. Many people are doing crop rotation and trying to do the right things, but the equipment that it takes to do crop rotation is expensive. Unless you have a good return on investment, it is difficult to be responsible.
There are many positive things happening across the country. I had a good chat with my counterpart in Ontario. He is in hog production. When he first started hog farming, there were huge concerns about the "nutrients," that is the polite word I will use to refer to what leaves a hog. He had to guarantee that there was land in which to put those nutrients. Initially there were many fears. After that, people asked if they could have some of the nutrients. People are willing to pay for the nutrients because of the cost of fertilizer. It fits into the other question of crop rotation.
That moves towards another question that was regarding crop rotation. You could put the hog nutrients into the soil in southern Ontario plant corn the first year, plant canola the second year and plant wheat the third year then inject nutrients again. In that way, you have replaced the need for expensive petrochemical based fertilizers and supplied the land natural nutrients. That innovation is working.
I am not familiar enough with the Farm Debt Review Board to comment on it. I can comment on farm debt because I have seen many of my friends go off the farm not because they were poor producers but because they could not pay their debts.
A municipal councillor in Alberta talked with me some time ago. It was an emotional conservation. He and his brother farm together. He told me that they produce more than any generation in his family ever has and produces a higher quality product than any other generation before them. They are working harder than any one did before and yet they are two years off losing the farm. That is a difficult situation psychologically.
Mr. Chairman, you have a suicide hot line in your province for farmers.
I think that I have touched on most of your questions. If you want purity of land, these mega-farms are not necessarily the answer.
Senator Tunney: That is most interesting. The sad part of agriculture is that it is the one industry that is ignored by any one who has any authority to change it. Government ignores it. Farmers are sometimes even a nuisance to the Minister of Agriculture.
Mr. Hayden: Farmers make up a small percentage of the Canadian population and that can sometimes cause difficulties.
An interesting point that I should like to make is from a personal experience in Alberta. There are 67 counties,67 municipal directors, in the province of Alberta, which is obviously a rural area. We represent 93 per cent of the land base of the province. We are all, each and every one of us, totally dependent on the agriculture sector to provide the most basic of services.
The Deputy Chairman: Mr. Hayden, thank you for appearing before us this morning.
Senator Sparrow: You talk about the small number of producers, but that is not the agriculture industry as well. It is the agricultural industry itself that produces a great many of the jobs and a great amount of gross national product of this country. Are there other voices representing the other aspects of the agricultural industry that we should be hearing?
As the agriculture industry depletes, so will jobs. In some of the provinces, only 3 per cent or 4 per cent of the population are in the agriculture industry. However, that industry produces25 per cent or 30 per cent the gross national product. We keep forgetting that aspect. Have you a comment on that?
Mr. Hayden: That is a fair comment. I think that those people should come before you. However, before they do, you should ask them to look at a world without the primary producers. A world without the product developed in Canada. They produce or add value to the product that we provide them with. Ask them to think what their world would be like without the homegrown product.
For every true agricultural producer, there is a spin off of a minimum of four jobs. I have my membership look at it when they are doing their budgets. What does Alberta look like after the oil is gone? What does your budget look like? How important has agriculture become at that point?
It would be worthwhile for every one to consider that when you tip the server of your next restaurant meal you will be given him or her more than you have paid given the producer of all the food on your plate. I leave you with that, Mr. Chairman.
The Deputy Chairman: Thank you for appearing this morning. We appreciate it. I want to wish you an excellent week at your conference.
Honourable senators, we will begin the second portion of the hearing.
We have with us at this time Mr. Anthony Chu from the Department of Health Canada. As well, we have Dr. John Wootton, Special Advisor on Rural Health.
Welcome to our committee this morning. I understand that you have a PowerPoint presentation that you would like to make.
Dr. John Wootton, Special Advisor on Rural Health, Department of Health Canada: Mr. Chairman, you have a paper version of a Power Point presentation that I will follow. I will try to be brief in order to leave time for discussion.
I am a rural physician. For the last two and one half years I have been Executive Director of the Office of Rural Health at Health Canada. This office was set up in September of 1998.
I have been in rural practice for almost 17 years. I go by the age of my children, who have all grown up in rural Quebec. I hope to give you an appreciation of what I brought to Health Canada and what I felt the issues were. I hope to relate to you what the Office of Rural Health has tried to do in organizing its thinking around the issue and how they are trying to bring a federal perspective to it. My colleague, Mr. Chu, will be able to speak to you about the technology aspects of some of those solutions.
When we talk about rural Canada we are discussing 30 per cent of the population. There is a lot of debate about that and a lot of experts have ways of interpreting the statistics. In general, if we deal with communities of 10,000 or less, which is generally the size of the communities of rural Canada, we are dealing with an aggregate community of approximately 9 million people. The people in these communities have expressed many concerns about their health and their health services.
The major issue that confronted me when I first came to Health Canada was the issue of jurisdiction. Our federal government provides the provinces with funds so that the provinces have jurisdiction for delivering direct services. However, one of the reasons this issue came up is that in every jurisdiction in every province the issue of delivering services has not been solved anywhere. Our country is too large and our population too scattered for our system to work.
It became evident to me that this is a national issue. Many members of the rural caucus were asked what the federal government was doing about this issue and in what way they could be involved. One of the responses was to set up the Office of Rural Health.
The identification of the issue is, of course, only the beginning. One of the things that we quickly understood is that it is extremely complex and multi-faceted. It is not only an issue in fact about access to services but also an issue about health status. The issue of health status is particularly strong in the North in the Aboriginal communities, where we are learning more about the effects of many factors beyond health care services. Therefore the issue of rural health is very broad and crosscutting. It involves an enormous number of players and provides tremendous opportunities for those of us who care to have a positive impact on the lives of the people in rural areas.
One has to wonder why these issues have come to the fore now. I have some of thoughts in this regard. One is that the situation was beginning to affect larger and larger communities. In particular, the shortage of health human resources had spread beyond rural Canada into cities, some as large as Windsor Ontario. As the number of affected people grew, the issue became more current, and more focus was put on it. It is good that focus was put on the issue because associations, professional organizations and governments began to respond. In this way, the issues that have faced rural Canada for many years have finally been brought out into the open. It is now the time to try to resolve some of these issues.
The second issue is that there has been, over the past 20 years, a consistent and continued improvement in communications. Now, rural communities and their leaders are able to communi cate a great deal more effectively. As a result a much more coherent picture emerges and the players recognize that the issues are shared countrywide.
It becomes a national issue just from the fact that communications have improved. This also allows strategies to be more coherent and enables more voices to be heard while solutions are being drafted. When politicians and others speak of "inclusiveness", and about all Canadians having access wherever they happen to live, they get much broader recognition and as a result become the focus of much more concentrated action.
The third thing that has happened and, this is not simply a Canadian phenomenon but international one is that, following a period of relatively severe financial times, economies around the world have taken the opportunity to reform themselves. Reform is sometimes an unfortunate term because not everything that was there before was necessarily bad and in need of reform, but certainly it is an opportunity to change the way we organize things. In the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, Canada and in all the Canadian provinces, great effort has been put into both understanding the issues and trying to figure out how to resolve them.
Most recently there has been the Fyke commission in Saskatchewan and the Clair commission in Quebec. Many of those commissions and others that had preceded them, are moving in the same direction. In order to preserve what the Canadian public holds dear, that is access to a publicly funded health care service, fundamental reorganization, most commonly called primary care reform, is necessary.
The status and the degree to which reorganization has advanced is different in every province. One of the roles of the Office of Rural Health is to try to articulate how those reforms and how those initiatives could be applied to rural Canada. Furthermore, what is different about rural Canada that would require different kinds of solutions? What can help the players work together in order to come to a reasonable action plan?
The rural file is probably less advanced in Canada than in some other communities. I will not go into detail, but much of what we know about what seems to work comes from Australia and parts of the U.S. We need to learn from those other experiences and make them widely known.
A particular focus of the Office of Rural Health was in areas where jurisdictional issues were a major irritant. This was so clearly a shared problem that there was a consensus that solutions were really quite difficult and challenging. There has been a large amount of collaboration and cooperation between our office and the provincial ministries of health and the territories, to come up with preliminary activities that are supportive of local priorities. We found that to be a fairly successful way to organize our activities.
What did we actually do? As I said, the office was set up in September of 1998. We initially had a small staff and began with a clean slate. The February 1999 federal budget provided a$50-million fund for rural and community innovations. I should mention that other areas of Health Canada are working on some of the broad Canadian health service and health care system issues. The Office of Rural Health works in collaboration with Health Canada. Within that $50-million rural and community health initiative there was an $11-million grant and contribution fund. In collaboration with the provinces, we have completed a process of identifying projects and identifying activity. These projects and activities are now underway and will be reported on within the next 18 months.
Eleven million dollars sounded like a great deal of money. However, by the time we understood the scope of the problem we understood that $11 million was not enough money to tackle the problems that we had. With the number of areas in which we had only preliminary information and the $11 million divided between 13 provinces and territories, we soon recognized that we were at the beginning of a process and by no means near a final response. However, we have made a good start.
We have identified the major issues. Issues concerning health status, by which I mean issues that affect identifiable population groups such as children and the elderly, have been identified. We have also identified ways of keeping people in their communities healthy. We have established activities that identify farm injuries and rural hazards that show a process on which we can have an impact. As well, there are health services issues where we are looking at how the system is put together, what organization would best serve rural communities, and how those communities should interact with the larger communities. Those sorts of questions are complex and rest on a number of fundamental issues of health, human resources, infrastructure and technology.
We were fortunate, I think, in that we entered with this focus at a time when there had been a certain amount of activity which preceded us. Two I have mentioned in particular. One is the Health Transition Fund, which is now starting to report on some of its results. A further 27 of their projects have a direct impact on rural areas. The Canadian Rural Partnership allows Health Canada to be a participant in a government-wide process to address rural issues as a champion for rural health issues.
At the same time that the rural projects were launched, the Office of Health and the Information Highway, was also receiving a report from a committee with many recommendations. While this was going on a parallel technology initiative called CHIPP was also been organized. Those projects are currently being announced.
I will ask Mr. Chu to tell you about them because among the solutions for organizing these services and health and human resources in the rural areas are the technological tools needed to overcome our geographical problems.
Mr. Anthony Chu, Director, Innovation and Investment Division, Office of Health and the Information Highway, Information, Analysis and Connectivity Branch: Mr. Chairman, allow me to present a brief to the committee about two incentive programs the Office of Health and Information Highway is supporting. These two programs, the Canada Health Infostructure Partnership Program, or CHIPP, and the Canada Health Infostructure Support Program, HISP, are having important impacts on rural health.
The Office of Health and Information Highway was created in 1997 in order to co-ordinate the activities of Health Canada in the area of health infomatics. There is increasing evidence that innovative application of modern information technology can improve the accessibility and the quality of health care delivery. It can also enhance the efficiency and long-term viability of our health care system. As a brief example, one of the innovative applications of modern information technology is telehealth-health, that is, providing health services using such electronic devices as long-distance and short-distance telecommunication networks. Telehealth will enable Canadians living in rural and remote areas, including the First Nations and Inuit communities, to receive specialty care and health services such as cardiology, dermatology and radiology without having to travel long distances to hospitals in urban centres.
Furthermore, with a telehealth network, continuing health education can be provided to health care providers and professionals in the rural areas, thereby contributing to the retention and recruitment of health providers and professionals in rural areas.
As you know, CHIPP is a two-year $80-million incentive program. CHIPP will support collaborations, innovations and renewal in health care delivery through the use of modern information technology. One of the major themes of the CHIPP program is indeed the word "partnerships." Through partnerships, we can reduce overlap and duplication and enhance the integration of health care across the continuum of care from family physicians to hospitals to community care centres and so on.
As part of CHIPP, we will support telehealth projects across the country in all provinces and territories. Based on our estimate, we believe that out of the $80 million in CHIPP funding, $48 million will be directed to projects which will have an impact on rural health.
CHIPP is a cost-sharing program, and we are providing50 per cent of the total cost. Therefore, the impact will probably be double the $48 million, that is, close to $100 million. I am not in a position yet to provide you with the specific details of the projects we will support because we are still in the process of negotiating the Memorandum of Understanding, (MOU), with the projects involved.
However, to provide you with an example of the type of projects we are supporting, we are working with the Nunavut government to establish telehealth-health services to the isolated communities across the territory. This telehealth-health network will also be linked to the major hospitals or referral centres in Manitoba, Alberta and the Northwest Territories.
HISP, a predecessor program to CHIPP, is the second program we have been supporting. It is a $10 million program, and it supports pilot and demonstration projects. Given the experimental nature of the HISP program, it is not as focused as the CHIPP program. We estimate that approximately $1.3 million of the$10 million HISP funding went to projects with impacts on rural health.
Let me provide you with a couple of examples. In Prince Edward Island, we worked with the West Prince Health Authority to establish a telehospice project whereby nurses are able provide palliative care to patients who are at home. Patients do not have to travel to community health centres, and nurses do not have to go to the home of the patient to care for them. In this way the nurses are able to provide increased services in terms of numbers to the patients.
Another example is the project we supported in Alberta. In the Keeweetinok health regions of Northern Alberta, we worked with the local regional health authority to establish telehealth health services that provide teleultrasound services to the people in the Northern Alberta regions. Previously, patients would have to travel five or six hours, hundreds of miles, to Edmonton to receive ultrasound services. With the teleultrasound services, they can stay in the local area and receive the special care. These are some examples that the HISP program has supported.
I will stop there. Dr. Wootton has a concluding slide to present.
Dr. Wootton: Technology is a tool. In order to put this technology into perspective we must understand the role of the health human resources that need to support it. The major representation from rural communities is that they want to retain their infrastructure and their health human resources.
The major role of technology is to allow people to access services closer to home and to improve the quality of those services. In no way, however, does it replace the health human resources that need to be in place.In fact, in some cases, it accentuates the need for them.
As a rural physician, being able to keep a sick patient in their community through access to telehealth and speciality distance consultation, I am still there and the sick patient is still there. This creates a secure situation whereby both patient and physician are in contact in the event that complications occur.
There are many activities currently underway. The federal government has announced $1 billion for medical equipment, $500 million for a technology corporation, which is essentially the step after CHIP and $800 million to be provided for primary care reform. All of those investments need to be looked at through a rural lens to see how the services are organized in rural areas and what needs to be different. The major difference is the distances involved. All of the providers, be they physicians, nurses, physiotherapists, or other therapists have a broader scope of practice. They look after sicker patients. They look after them for a wider variety of things than their counterparts in the city.
These health care providers need to be trained for those broader responsibilities. They need to be supported in order to provide that role. Technology is one the big supports that can occur to that, but they must be recognized also for the job they do.
It is recognized that due to manpower shortages in rural areas, teamwork has become the norm. Teamwork is being offered as a solution to the rest of the system. In rural Canada, nurse practitioners have always worked in close collaboration with physicians.
There is no ground swell of opposition from physician groups against nurse practitioners. We would like to have more of them. We recognize that rural areas can demonstrate the success of teamwork and integration to the rest of the country. Rural areas have had to organize themselves in that way. For a number of reasons the health human resources have become so depleted, in some areas, that there is no time to pull the technology solution out of the cupboard. Many of the initiatives that have been well meaning have been non-starters for those sorts of reasons.
It is a positive time for rural Canada. They do have the ear of important structures in Canada. I know that there is another Senate committee that will be listening to the rural perspective. Certainly, at the highest levels of management at Health Canada there is an understanding that rural communities are different. They need to be organized differently. People are looking for feasible answers.
I would be pleased to answer any questions.
The Deputy Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Chu and Dr. Wootton.
Senator LeBreton: We started the Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology at 3:30 p.m. yesterday and sat until after 9:00 p.m. The subject matter was human resource shortages. The impact of these shortages, on rural and remote communities, was interspersed throughout the testimony of the doctors, nurses and the technicians. It would be worthwhile for you to obtain a copy of the meeting. Telehealth and many other innovations were also discussed.
Dr. Wootton, I have a question for you on the mandate of the office of rural health. As we try to assess how to better deliver services to our rural citizens, there is a great deal of attention given to treating illnesses and diagnosing people in the local community and to not bringing patients into the urban centres.
I was raised in rural Canada. I realize some of the dangers. Is sufficient attention being paid to preventive measures? Farm accidents are serious. Other issues include respiratory problems that occur on farms from seeding, fertilizing and the harvesting of crops. Is specific attention being paid to educating the rural population on the prevention of farm hazards? There does not appear to be much money being spent in that area.
Dr. Wootton: Early on at my time at Health Canada, Dr. McMurtry, the assistant deputy minister of our branch, gave a lecture that he entitled, "Medicare and Wellness: The Odd Couple". The way to approach prevention is an important issue for rural Canada. World-wide studies clearly demonstrate that prevention is more cost effective than trying to fix the problem once it has occurred.
One of the challenges for rural Canada, however, is that the health human resource infrastructure is limited. It is hard to imagine a parallel system. That is, a system that is capable of dealing with prevention and also dealing with service delivery. We continue to deal with injuries in the curative sense while working in the important area of prevention.
Rural Canada could be a leader on integrating those two areas. In rural Quebec where I come from, we have a rural hospital, a long-term care facility, and community services, the CLSC that includes prevention programs for youth and mothers, social work and mental health. Those things are integrated services formed under one administration. If the curative folks are seeing a big increase in admissions to hospital for chronic bronchitis, they talk to social workers try to find out what it going wrong in the environment. That is how it must be done.
The artificial division of a preventive mod squad on one side and the people who cure on the other side does not work. It may work in urban areas that have larger populations and greater resources, but they must be integrated in rural communities. If they are not integrated one of them will not be done well. Unfortunately, the prevention aspect of care usually suffers because community interest seems to focus on curative services being the priority.
There needs to be more investment but the investment needs to be integrated with the existing services. Everyone should be talking that way. No one wants to deal with sick patients, let me tell you.
Senator LeBreton: I asked the question with integration in mind.
Senator Hubley: Telehealth is new to many of us.
Two examples of telehealth were presented to us. One example was from West Prince Health Authority on Prince Edward Island where they have Telehospice. The second example was from Alberta where they have Teleultrasound. Do these two activities respond to the needs of the rural community? Can the system that supplies telehospice also supply teleultrasound?
Mr. Chu: We are finding that, for innovative health care delivery methods, such as Telehealth, to be able to sustain itself over the long term, it must meet the community needs. Therefore, in selecting projects and in working with the project that we are supporting, we always emphasize the importance of community needs.
We are increasingly experiencing that with a robust Telehealth network, you can provide more than just one specialty service at a time. The ideal would be to use the same infrastructure to provide many different specialty services to Canadians living in rural areas. That is the rational way of proceeding.
One of the issues in Telehealth is that, in many cases, we find that the volume is not high, and therefore, the cost effectiveness of Telehealth services can sometimes be called into question. However, if we provide more than one service within the same infrastructure, problem of cost effectiveness becomes less of an issue.
Another way to optimize the use of the Telehealth infrastructure is in the area of continuing education for health professionals. As Dr. Wootton mentioned earlier, that can go a long way in reducing the sense of professional isolation that the rural health professionals might feel. Therefore, it would contribute to the retention and recruitment of professionals into the rural areas.
Dr. Wootton: In the travelling that I did for the office of rural health, I visited many installations where there were various kinds of Telehealth in place. Many are based on common technology that can be multi-user. Videoconferencing is probably the best example. If you live in Kirkland Lake and you have to have your hip replaced, you must go to Sudbury. That trip is made by flying first to Toronto and then back to Sudbury. That is another vagary of rural Canada. Kirkland Lake will likely never have the infrastructure or the orthopaedic specialities to do those procedures. The people do not necessarily expect that kind of service.
However, after you have your hip replaced, you most likely will need to return for a 15-minute post-op consultation with your specialist to see if everything is okay. It is possible that you might have to do that flight twice over a couple of months. That travel can become a major issue for you and your family.
A videoconference link takes care of that post-op visit very nicely. In Kirkland Lake they train a nurse to manage the process for the patient. They can be examined over that link. That same link can be used for dermatology, continuing education and mental health. There have been many pilot projects that provide psychiatric services. As well, teenagers are comfortable with televisions and the use of that kind of medium.
There are basic kinds of Telehealth that will be the first ones to gain acceptance. At the other end of the spectrum, the health transition fund supported a successful project in New Brunswick on Telenephrology. That service assists those who require dialysis two or three times per week. I remember being caught in the middle of a snowstorm on Highway 148. I became stuck on when they had to close the road. Also stuck on that road was a fellow travelling to Hull for dialysis. He wondered why he had to make that trip three times per week.
In New Brunswick, they use a telelink to provide satellite nephrology clinics. Sometimes the dialysis produces even better results than a patient might receive from the clinic in Fredericton. There are solutions, it is simply a question of making them widely known and well evaluated.
Senator Hubley: My question follows along the line of Senator LeBreton's comment. There are probably many health concerns and illnesses that are similar across the country. We hear that, in the more rural agricultural parts of the country, there are specific diseases or conditions that people develop. In your travels, Dr. Wootton, have you run into those conditions, or is that something that is no longer a fact?
Dr. Wootton: The most dramatic indicator of that is probably in very remote communities, especially in First Nation communities. We know about the 10-year life span discrepancy amongst Inuit and First Nations. I am a little uncomfortable putting those groups into a rural basket, because I believe it is a whole issue on its own. I have many colleagues at Health Canada who deal with that.
With respect to the resource-based agricultural communities that I have visited, I would say that, although there are pockets of very specific occurrences, probably the most general connector is that those populations are older than the populations of urban communities. That fact probably has a bigger impact on the kinds of concerns that happen as you age, almost more so than any occupation-related occurrences.
When there are occupation-related occurrences, however, they are extremely dramatic. We have excellent statistics on farm injuries and farm fatalities. Those statistics are supported through the Department of Agriculture and the Canadian Agricultural Injury Surveillance Program. When a farm accident occurs, for example, when a tractor rolls over and injures someone, the community really wakes up and wonders what they could have done to prevent the accident and whether the services are in place to deal with the accident. There are some dramatic occupational things, but in general, it is really that rural communities are older.
The Deputy Chairman: The mission, or the job, that you have is just about impossible. Your comment, in respect to recruitment, is important. However, more important is the retention of individuals once they have been recruited.
I have spent my entire life, until retirement, in a small community. Coming from Saskatchewan, I was very much involved in trying to recruit doctors and health staff to our province. We had a very difficult time with that endeavour.
My brother, by the way, happens to be a medical doctor. He had spent a few years practising in a small community but opted to move to the larger centre. I asked him why it is so difficult to attract doctors to our rural areas. His comment was that from a salary perspective doctors are able to earn the same in the small community as they can in the city. From a workload perspective their workload is less in the city than in the rural areas, which demonstrates that there is a need.
The key thing, which he said not only applies to doctors but to others living in rural areas, is that in the cities there are cultural opportunities that are not available in the smaller centres. There is the opera, the symphony, theatres, schools, a higher degree of competition and activity in sports for young people, closer proximity to universities and they are closer to other amenities. Once doctors start raising children they have a tendency to decide to move to the larger centres if they can make the same money and work fewer hours.
Is that trend changing? Are there now more people saying they wish to opt for the rural way of life, even with the challenges and without the same kind of cultural and other opportunities that there are in the cities?
Dr. Wootton: I do not think it is changing. We probably should have gone to rural communities and asked the doctors there. Retention is probably more important than recruitment. When we survey medical people, we find that they enjoy their working environment. It is quite interesting. You can talk to RCMP officers, teachers, any other kind of professional and you get the same litany of issues. All of these professionals feel a sense of isolation, of not being understood by the mother ship. They often feel that they were not properly trained for the environment in which they find themselves. We recognize that by providing a broad scope of practice to our medical personnel we present them with a challenging and rewarding career.
If students do not spend their entire training experience in Toronto but spend some of it in the rural community they have the opportunity to experience what the rural community has to offer. If they stay in Toronto and meet their future spouse and put down roots, well, then yes, it is difficult for them to move to a rural area if it means leaving family etc. However, if a student puts down roots in a rural community it is a natural progression for the student to set up practice there. Rural communities might not have the opera etc. but some people prefer to explore nature rather than live in an urban area.
In order to keep the existing personnel however, we must look at the local organization and decide what can be done to support the health human resources.
I do not think people love gridlock and some of the other things that happen in the large cities. I believe many people want to get away from those city issues. I do not think it is necessarily an issue of social amenities so much as planning ahead and early for nurses. Get them out into the communities so the community knows them and they know the community, and then they will make their own decisions.
I believe that situation is changing. There is much more of an understanding of what is possible.
Senator Hubley: I wish to ask about the delivery of service in different languages. I also have a concern about the percentage of Canadians who might be illiterate even to the usage or to the friendliness of the service.
Dr. Wootton: I went to a meeting in New Brunswick where I met a number of representatives from Alberta's francophone communities. It was brought home to me that there were double barriers. Not only were they facing the issue of health human resource availability, they were also hard put to find someone to speak to in the language of their choice.
We have tried to put an emphasis on that issue in the funding for pilot projects within what we call the Rural and Remote Health Innovations Initiative. Although it is a cumbersome title RRHII is responsible for $11 million in grants and contribution programs. In New Brunswick they have made quite a lot of progress with educational institutions in Quebec to produce an appropriate bilingual or linguistic group. We recognize the barrier and we are trying to resolve the problem.
We must approach literacy from within the community infrastructure. In the rural areas the social workers and the people who deal with families at the local level get to know these things; they get to know the people, they get to know the available programs. If you have that kind of integrated situation you have at least the opportunity to identify the problems. In regards to having, for example, speech pathology program available, well, that kind of program can be difficult to provide. One of our projects in Prince Edward Island is on children and language.
Mr. Chu: If I may just add, we do find that in the Telehealth project we are supporting, the training is extremely important to keep people aware and informed. I agree that it is an extremely important issue.
The Deputy Chairman: Thank you gentlemen. You may have wondered why this committee, which is looking at the future of agriculture in this country, would ask to meet with you. However, you can tell from the many questions that you were asked that your presentation was certainly well received, and it will be looked at sincerely when we write our final report.
The committee adjourned.