Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry
Issue 20 - Evidence - Meeting of March 8, 2007 - Afternoon meeting
HUMBOLDT, SASKATCHEWAN, Thursday, March 8, 2007
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 1:01 p.m. to examine and report on rural poverty in Canada.
Senator Joyce Fairbairn (Chairman) in the chair.
[English]
The Chairman: Good afternoon. Welcome to the Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. We will hear first this afternoon from Randy Johns, who is with Keewatin Career Development Corporation.
Randy Johns, Chief Executive Officer, Keewatin Career Development Corporation: Good afternoon, honourable senators. Thank you for the invitation to present and speak to your committee today. I have provided a brief and it is available to everyone.
Keewatin Career Development Corporation is a non-profit organization. We have been around since 1996. We work primarily with information technology in rural communities and most specifically, Aboriginal rural communities. One of the main activities that we have is as regional management organization for Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, the First Nations SchoolNet program. Through that program, we work with 160 First Nation schools on reserve throughout Saskatchewan and Alberta. We support the technology. One recent innovation is the development of a video conference network that goes out to all these schools, through which the schools receive distance learning and educational resources.
Many challenges faced by rural communities relate to a lack of local services. One of the biggest challenges we see is that services for rural communities are generally designed in urban communities from an urban paradigm, and the rural paradigm is not necessarily taken into account. Sometimes these services do not work well for the rural communities.
We believe that information and communication technology, ICT, can be used to enhance the economies and perspectives for rural communities by lessening distance and by making services available to the rural communities. The impact of information technology is even more profound in Aboriginal communities, given that the Aboriginal demographic is different and youth are maybe better adopters of technology.
The impact can be seen in the health sector. Telehealth is the main buzzword and application there. The education sector can benefit with the delivery of distance learning and resources to classrooms that do not necessarily have these resources. Administration can benefit through decreasing travel necessary for meetings. Industry and business can be enhanced through information technology.
We believe there is great future potential for rural communities through IT application. We believe there is even potential for decentralization of business and industry in the long term to more rural communities through the application of information technology.
We have made some policy recommendations. Primarily we would like to see programs that are working, continued, specifically the First Nation SchoolNet program and the Human Resource Development Center Youth Employment Initiative. These programs work well for rural communities. We recommend continued support of research and development of applications for IT in rural communities, and that some research is applied research by rural organizations, not necessarily urban institutions.
Marie Prebushewski, Executive Director, Thickwood Hills Business and Learning Network: Thank you for allowing us to present today. My community was excited about the idea that little Hafford, Saskatchewan, would be presenting. In essence, though, I do not represent only Hafford. I represent the south part of the province, basically from Meadow Lake to the American border, and from Manitoba to Alberta.
The Thickwood Hills Business and Learning Network was formed in 2000. It is a non-profit organization. It was formed in response to growing technology needs and access in our communities. The Community Access Program, CAP, funded by Industry Canada is established in over 400 communities and has been crucial to bridging the digital divide. CAP is set for sunsetting at the end of March. It is also strongly connected to the youth initiative from HRDC. All our CAP youth work in community access sites. Thickwood Hills is comprised of 80 community access sites, with 21 of those sites being First Nations communities located in the northwest of the province.
We need to stop looking at rural First Nation community studies and programs, and non-Native community programs. We need to look at an integrated approach because my Native communities touch my community. When I look for workers because they do not exist in my community, I want to build a relationship with my First Nations communities to bring young workers to experience some of the training that we provide in our learning centres. Currently, I have one young man who is a First Nations youth. He has a family and he is about 28 years old. He participated in the CAP Youth Initiative Program and he is working in a non-Native community and doing well. He went through some time of trepidation, hesitation and anxiety because he did not know how it would work out.
We talk about a boom. I heard on the radio coming here that there is a boom in Saskatchewan and a shortage of labour, and we still have not capitalized on the 50-plus employment rate in our First Nations community. I was in a First Nations Community two days ago and they have more than a 90-per-cent unemployment rate. The 10 per cent who are working are working in the band office. The others lost their jobs because the mill closed down. Now we are trying to set up an artisan cooperative there so they have some sense of future for work, plus we are offering all the other training, jobs and so on.
Let us start talking about integrating our non-Native communities within the concept of access to manpower in the First Nations communities.
Senator Mahovlich: To integrate Aboriginal people, what is the biggest drawback? What is holding us back?
Ms. Prebushewski: I would say the biggest obstacle is lack of mobility and lack of connection with the non-Native communities. It took us three years to build the relationship with the First Nations community and so that when I came to the community, they could see that I was a person that could be respected: that I did not come in for only the one day to give them this big solution to all their problems and then walk away. We need to be there for the duration. The programs must last over a long period of time. I would love to keep this young man employed. The program funding ends at the end of March. We will carry him through April, but that is about all the funding we have. We are non-profit. We depend on youth employment strategies and other strategies to survive. We try our best to photocopy everything there is for the communities surrounding us, but training and work skills need to be developed.
I took a survey of how many people were interested in learning how to create businesses on the reserve so they could capitalize on some of their assets there. I thought I would have 15 people. I have a list of 50 people who are interested. I do not have the manpower. I need to start hiring to meet that need and I do not have the funding. These people wanting training are not mobile. They cannot run to Prince Albert or to North Battleford. Flexibility is needed in the training. A safe environment that is culturally sensitive must be created. We need to invite them to the non-Native communities so these communities are an okay place to go. We have been going back forth. I go there and they come to us. The biggest obstacle is that we are the lone organization in the western part of the province that is involved in making those connections. Those obstacles are some of the major ones.
Senator Mahovlich: I think you are making a great statement. Do you know what one person can do? I do not know if you have ever heard of James Houston. He was a great artist that went up to Baker Lake and introduced different art to those people. In Toronto in the last few months, they honoured James Houston by having Aboriginal people bring their art to the McMichael Gallery. I think that example shows how we have to bring out their culture. I think James Houston is a good example.
What should we do about transportation when we talk about schooling? We cannot have universities in every town so we will need to transport.
Mr. Johns: To some extent we need to develop mobility between the Aboriginal communities and non-Aboriginal communities. Training must start in the Aboriginal communities, and the best way of doing that in a small community, where we do not have a lot of resources and we cannot set up a university or even a training program, is to use information technology and distance learning to bring those courses to the communities where the people live. We deliver an IT training course. Before Christmas, we delivered it to 16 communities across Saskatchewan and Alberta. The instructor never met the students in person, and the students had access to training that they would not have had in their communities. Those 16 people are now certified: They are technicians and they have entry-level qualifications to work in their communities or wherever they choose. The message I want to emphasize is that information technology can be used as a vehicle to deliver the courses, training and skills to the Aboriginal people in the communities where they live.
Senator Mercer: I am trying to relate what you have said to what Dean Desjarlais told us this morning about one of his projects: training young people to work in the tar sands at Fort McMurray. Training was given two weeks at a time and then young people taking the training came back to the community. When we hear a startling number such as 90 per cent unemployment on a reserve, we throw up our hands and say, how do we begin here? However, we must begin. Are the programs you talked about similar to the programs that Mr. Desjarlais talked about this morning, perhaps training people to work in the tar sands? As a Maritimer, I hate to train people to go away because too many of our people have gone away and many of them do not come back. Still, we need to give them some skills. I would rather them work in Fort McMurray than be involved in something that is socially, physically or mentally destructive.
Mr. Johns: We are only at the beginning of a shift in delivery of skilled training programs. I come from the same community as Mr. Desjarlais so I am familiar with the projects of the Northern Development Board Corporation, and so on. A challenge they face now with the traditional delivery system is bringing the courses to the people in the communities or having the people move to the courses in the communities where they want to teach them. I think we are at the beginning of learning how to deliver these courses properly to people in their communities using the information technology that is becoming available in the different communities.
We have found that video conferencing is a great mode of delivery but we must have organizations that can support the technology. The community must be able to support the technology so it works. The primary requirement is that the technology must work for people to be comfortable accessing the training. Once that level of comfort is there, we can bring skill training to the communities. We think we are only at the beginning and there is potential to deliver almost any program using distance learning technologies.
Senator Mercer: Are you doing it now: marrying distance learning and video conferencing, and matching the technology with jobs that may not be in your community or on reserve?
Mr. Johns: We offer the IT training, computer repair training, because that is our area. We are working with delivery agents in the North and in other parts of the province to take a look at things such as safety training, Workplace Hazardous Materials Information System, WHMIS, and essential skills that people need to work in resource industries and so on. We are at the beginning of that process.
Ms. Prebushewski: We always do a community inquiry before we start. We want to respond to the needs of the community. We brought in the same programs. We encourage people to take the programs. For example, two young women in a distant First Nations community are taking their certification program. The training is proving to develop leadership skills and these young people will become mentors to facilitate other training in the community.
We are building the sustainability of the community and the capacity of the community at the same time. It is crucial that this happens because the response to employment sometimes is they need someone yesterday. We need to prepare quickly, but a stigma is still attached to leaving that community. They have many fears about how successful they will be and how they will fit in. We need to create small experiences outside the community so they will build up their confidence to take on jobs. Not many First Nations young people will go to Alberta to work on the rigs or to be welders. If you were to do a study on how many, the number would be minute. There are family responsibilities and so on, but they would like the opportunity. They are most willing to take the courses. The cost sometimes is prohibitive. I had occasion to look at an opportunity to prepare to work on the rigs. Training would cost $10,000 for the group of four or five men to go from the First Nations community to a distant town to take that training. The band could fund this training. Sometimes the costs are prohibitive and so we try to work closely with industry in the hopes that industry would fund some of this training.
Senator Mercer: Some of this training could be done through distance learning and video conferencing. We heard earlier today about problems with the availability of high-speed Internet in parts of Saskatchewan. Is that a problem here?
Mr. Johns: It is a continuing problem for rural communities. Some First Nations in Saskatchewan are not served by high-speed Internet for various reasons. Some are in a valley and they cannot receive the wireless feed. Infrastructure costs money. One policy recommendation we make here is that the Government of Canada continue to look at development programs that can bring the broadband infrastructure to rural communities.
Senator Mercer: One of the first things we should do in places of high unemployment is to make sure those areas have high-speed Internet because, for teleconferencing and distant learning, they must be able to sign on before they can use it.
Mr. Johns: There are gaps now. A lot of communities are served, but some still are not. We need to complete the job of making rural communities accessible by broadband.
Ms. Prebushewski: There is broadband and satellite service. Sometimes there is only one point of access. With the termination of the SchoolNet program, the CAP site will probably be the only point of access in the whole community. In a community of 2,000 residents, one little CAP site will not serve all those households. We are on the fringe of the infrastructure to provide Internet access within the homes. It is not that residents do not want it. A new program called Last Mile uses satellite technology to connect. We have started a test in Nova Scotia in small, isolated rural communities. If we can provide it by the water, inland in Nova Scotia, we can do it in Saskatchewan. Those communities will never be served by the regular providers. There is no money to be made and the infrastructure costs are difficult. Only satellite service will work there. The technology is improving all the time, but we need the funds to initiate that. Most First Nations' families cannot afford the $400 or $500 that it will cost to connect each household. The children only have their little computer lab and one point of access.
Senator Mercer: I think Western Economic Diversification Canada is paying for a study into building a road from northern Saskatchewan to the Fort McMurray area. Is this study a good idea?
Mr. Johns: That question could be answered from a lot of different perspectives, but generally most people in that area, on the Saskatchewan side, think it is a good idea. It has already started to open up the economies in some of the communities there, for example, La Loche, Buffalo Narrows, Île-à-la-Crosse and Beauval. It makes employment easier to access on the Alberta side and the small Saskatchewan communities are seeing some benefit from Alberta people buying recreational property and that kind of thing. A road already goes into La Loche and La Loche is a big community without any employment prospects basically. Personally, I do not think communities can be kept in isolation.
Senator Mercer: I hate to promote going down the road, being from Nova Scotia, but it may be the only solution in some cases.
Senator Peterson: Will transferring the SchoolNet program from Industry Canada to Indian and Northern Affairs Canada, INAC, improve the longevity of the program or make it better?
Mr. Johns: Funding is confirmed for the program until March 31 of this year. INAC is planning to move the program forward, although currently the funds have not been approved through the whole Treasury Board process and so on. We think INAC is waiting for the federal budget to come out this year to ensure that the funds are there. It looks like the funds are there in terms of policy: they want the program to go ahead. They have a good working model. The program has done some great things in the First Nations schools over the last few years. INAC is waiting for the final authorities to move it forward. We hope that once the program is in INAC's program delivery schedule that the program will go from being a year-to-year program to perhaps two to five years where we can have some continuity. It also would be nice not to be on the fiscal year schedule because, of course, schools do not close on March 31 and they cannot afford to lose their connectivity on that date.
Senator Peterson: That would be just before exams. Ms. Prebushewski, you indicate that you live on a farm. What impact do low farm revenues and incomes have on your operations and the ability to transfer the farm to your children?
Ms. Prebushewski: I do live on a farm. I have been a farmer for 45 years as well as an educator. The reason I became an educator was to help pay for the farm and to survive on the farm. We have five sons and none of the sons have chosen to stay on the farm. They want to, but they cannot. In 2000, we had to make a drastic decision whether we would expand the base of land and go into debt or salvage what we had and lease out our land. The family voted and we leased out our land. They all have a good education and they all have good jobs. At one point, we were three people working off the farm to make that farm survive. The jobs we had were not low paying jobs: I was a teacher, my daughter-in-law is a Credit Union manager and my son was a purchase agent for an elevator. The salaries were good, but the bottom line of the farm was terrible.
Yesterday, we received a catalogue of the auction sales that will be held in the northwest part of Saskatchewan. The northwest part of Saskatchewan had relatively good crops last year. Over 50 farms are on the auction block. When I asked the auctioneer, these people were not retiring. They are all people who needed to decide at one point if they wanted to continue working in a situation where they were not home most of the time. Dad was out harvesting or seeding the land, mom was on her second shift at the hospital, and the children were left alone to fend for themselves. Sometimes they cooked macaroni for supper. I have seen all the different scenarios.
I had a little focus group in my community to talk to young farmers and to seniors about farming. There is still a lot of gloom and doom out there. Farmers feel they have sufficiency because they can butcher their own hog, they have their meat and potatoes and they work hard. They are worried about what they will do with aging parents because there are no funds: who will pay? They have no pension funds. Some rules and regulations that are in place for people who are leaving the land are really a burden to poor families. Someone who sells a small piece of land will lose their social security payments if they earn more than $102,000. I verified that situation yesterday with Finance Canada. That money, $102,000, does not go far if they must live in a nursing home and pay $2,500 a month. Their pension is cut off on top of that.
The aftermath of the crisis of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, and so on has been devastating to our young farmers, especially those who had diversified. There are more elk, buffalo and every other kind of animal in our area than I have ever seen in my lifetime. There is no stability in diversifying. One young man said his cost of production has increased so much that he and his wife are both working and the money barely pays the power and the telephone bill every month.
We used to have farmers every couple of miles and now we are alone in our area. People who stay are isolated. The kids have no companions to play with. It is devastating to the school. There needs to be a quick response to this whole issue. It is affecting rural education and literacy levels because oftentimes the kids do not succeed well because they must work just as hard as the parents do. I worry about those little children who are left alone at home to fend for themselves while the parents are out working.
There is a change in demographics, too, in the towns. I read in the preliminary report that people are going from the small rural areas to the cities. A change in demographics in that area is affecting the workers we can find for farms. A lot of homes have become vacant because people have gone to nursing homes and their homes are up for sale. A lot of people who are on assistance are moving from the cities to our small towns. Filling the homes is good for the school because it has brought a lot of children, but the children come with big problems. Most times, the parents are both unemployed and they have been living on assistance for one reason or another for most of their lives. The school then and the community must cope. This year was the first year in the lifetime that I have lived in Hafford, 27 years, that we needed to collect goods for families so that they could have something decent at Christmastime. I never thought I would see that in our area.
The Chairman: Sadly enough, that is happening in a number of areas, certainly in my area of Southwestern Alberta in some of the towns.
Senator Gustafson: Ms. Prebushewski, I want to thank you for being so forthright. I was wondering about helping Native young people to acquire jobs. Right now, it is hard to hire a man for a farm. On the other hand, we cannot expect a Native boy to work for $10 an hour when his neighbour receives $25 an hour. It poses a real problem. Do you have a training program for plumbers, carpenters and welders for people in that area?
Ms. Prebushewski: Can I be more positive and tell you about a success story? The success story is built around four communities, three of which are First Nations and one of which is not. The non-Native community is in the Northwest, around Chitek Lake. The other three are Pelican Lake First Nation, Witchekan Lake First Nation and Big River First Nation. They saw a lot of unemployment and a need for housing. They started a housing project. They now have over 40 young people who are apprentices in building those houses. The construction site is off reserve so no conflict could evolve about ownership, propriety and all these kinds of things. The adjoining community has pitched in and provided the expertise to train these young people.
They balance their training and attending school with building those houses. They are on the web. They have one of the best built houses, with a different air exchange, better insulation and capacity for more people. Most homes are made for two or three people. First Nations people have larger families, and mould builds up in many homes. I have seen many problems.
These projects are real success stories. They have provided new homes at a much lower cost and now they are starting to sell to other communities. It took four years to put that program together and I assisted only to obtain web training to develop their web page so they could market themselves and some management training.
When working with so many communities, training is almost incidental. We see a need and we train. So many times we come up with these long lists of programs: we will come in and do technology or management problems. We try to offer everything that they would cover at a university or an institute of some kind. That is not the training need here. We respond specifically to the need of the community. That has been successful because they do not waste their time and our time is not wasted as well. We really need to become entrenched in their needs rather than what we think their needs are. Building that relationship takes a long time. It takes a lot of confidence building and a lot of leadership skills. The whole idea of succession, who will do that next, is important. They should do it next. The ultimate goal is to develop enough skills so that they take on the responsibility. We need that training philosophy for First Nations communities who are far away from available urban centres. The closest community college is two and a half hours away. They cannot attend. There is no gas for the vehicle and the roads will not let them go there anyway. They are realities in rural Saskatchewan. That situation exists for a lot of our non-Native communities, too. Isolation prevents them from doing all kinds of things.
Senator Mercer: The gender application to training, do as many girls take advantage of training as boys? What are the numbers on that?
Mr. Johns: In the area that I am familiar with, information technology training, a few more ladies take the training than young gentlemen, although it is close to 50-50. That particular occupation is non-gender-specific. More and more young women are accessing the non-traditional trades, and that is a positive thing. Some trades are still somewhat male dominated, such as truck driving and that kind of stuff, but more and more ladies are taking them.
Ms. Prebushewski: It is interesting that you ask that question because I was given a small amount of funding to start an artisan cooperative in one community, but it was only for women. I think the perception was that only women do art. I went to the community, made only a general announcement and worked with the human resources officer. An equal number of men and women were interested in forming this artisan cooperative. We can never assume anything. Human resources and a lot of the leadership, though, are mostly women. I see a lot more women in my work than I see men. I have never done a study to find out what that means. There is equal participation in most cases. Sometimes there are more women, especially when it comes to learning accounting, word processing and those kinds of things. Women tend to take this kind of training more.
Mr. Johns: We are talking a lot about occupations, training for Aboriginal young people. Some of our perspective is that training really starts at the school level when they are young, from age 10 and upwards. One difficulty in Aboriginal communities is that there is not a whole lot of role modelling in terms of different occupations. Young Aboriginal kids might see the teacher, the social worker and the nurse, so they want to be a teacher, a social worker or a nurse. In the resource industry, a lot of the people working in those industries go away from the community to work, maybe to a fly-in mine for two weeks and then two weeks back. Those jobs are not role-modelled. With the SchoolNet program, we are trying to bring resource people into the school through videoconferencing to talk about their occupations if they are working in the mines. We are trying to connect the mines with the schools and to connect leaders that would not normally make it out to these communities. In the last month, Chief Lawrence Joseph of the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, FSIN, presented for the opening of the series in videoconferencing. His main message to the students is that we are connected now and we do not have to be isolated any more as First Nations: the technology can connect us. We thought that message was a powerful one for the kids in those communities.
A couple of weeks ago, Premier Lorne Calvert from Saskatchewan made a presentation to the schools and talked about his experience, how he grew up and so on. He gave a down-to-earth message. We bring in profile people as well as people that can talk about their job, and what they do to provide some perspective and an example for the students. From a young age, it is important that students have the idea that this young person did this and I can do these things too. That process needs to take place in terms of integrating more Aboriginal people into the mainstream workforce. Once they reach an older age they are more prepared and in a better mental state to take training, be successful and enter the workforce.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Johns and Ms. Prebushewski. That is interesting and helpful as we carry on with these difficult issues. It is important that we hear from the people who are on the ground dealing with the issues, and we thank you for coming.
That ends our panel discussions and we now go into our town hall discussions.
Ken McBride, President, Agriculture Producers Association of Saskatchewan: Agriculture Producers Association of Saskatchewan, APAS, represents producers from all across Saskatchewan. On behalf of my organization, I take this opportunity to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart for coming to Saskatchewan. It is always nice to have the mountain come to the people as opposed to the people going to the mountain. I think it is extremely important that you come to talk to us about the situation in Saskatchewan.
APAS serves as a voice for agriculture in Saskatchewan. APAS envisions a future where agriculture is profitable, rural communities are viable and the role of agriculture in society is recognized and appreciated. To accomplish this vision, the organization strives to improve the economic well-being of Saskatchewan's agricultural producers, and to support viable rural communities and infrastructure through lobbying for progressive agricultural policies.
Agriculture and the rural economy are inextricably connected. As the dollar value of agriculture production has diminished over the last 20 years, the problems in rural Canada have escalated.
Canada has placed our agriculture in the position where we must produce within Canada's cost structure, but market into a global market that consists of countries with a limited ability to pay for food. Europe, the U.S. and Japan have programs that shelter their agriculture from the impact of the agreements they have succeeded in having the rest of the world sign on to. Canada has not provided a similar kind of policy environment for our agriculture and, in fact, for our economy.
The U.S., Europe and Japan all have focussed on their rural communities specifically. As a society, they have invested in their agriculture directly and they have invested in their communities through various means. Environmental programs have preserved certain kinds of farms, and provided environmental or ecological goods and services.
The U.S. has invested large amounts of money in conservation programs and will expand on this initiative in their next farm bill.
The rural issue in Canada has a large potential to grow. The rural poverty issue in Canada is extremely large.
Farm incomes in this country are at an all-time low, while our competitors in the U.S. are at all-time highs. Debt-to- asset ratios in Canada are at their all-time worst levels, while at the same time in the U.S. they are at their all-time best levels. These policy differences over time have had considerable impact on industry and the economy, and have grown into problems for the agriculture industry and our rural communities. Increasing poverty is the result.
Dollars invested in the agriculture industry have a multiplied beneficial impact on the economy in providing jobs and paying for activities that stimulate a rural community. This investment is what reduces poverty and provides opportunity for people to live in rural Canada. Conversely, reduced dollars coming into the agriculture industry also have a multiplier effect. Reduced investment is extremely negative. Many valuable jobs are lost. Debt increases, costs increase and measures to survive are implemented. Poverty emerges because we frequently have a political response to a problem that requires an economic response.
The Canadian Farm Families Options Program was implemented to ensure that people received a poverty-level income. The program totally ignores the financial needs of the industry and the investment. These needs will result in more debt and the increase of rural poverty. This result is due to agriculture policy failure. This result is due to a disconnect between Canada's national and international policies.
Last week in Ottawa, our federal agriculture minister told the Canadian Federation of Agriculture at the annual general meeting that globalization is not a race to the bottom. What policies do we have in Canada for agriculture that will preclude it from being a race to the bottom? Graphs indicate that we are clearly winning the race to the bottom. Poverty is the product, the prize for winning this race.
The first graph indicates the debt-to-asset ratio: Canada in blue and the U.S. in red. You can clearly see that in the period from 1981 to 2004, the U.S. debt has gone down and the Canadian farm debt has continued to rise.
On the following page is a graph comparing the net farm incomes of U.S. and Canada from 1981 to 2005. The top line is U.S. net farm income and the bottom line is Canada. Again, those lines in Canada clearly are not sustainable.
We need policies that are competitive with policies of other countries. We must provide comparative advantage for this industry in our country relative to our competitors. We must have strategies that build value for our agriculture, provide jobs, and compensate people and investment. That approach will do the most to build our economy and reduce rural poverty.
I look forward to your questions.
Marvin Scauf, Policy Manager, Agriculture Producers Association of Saskatchewan: We have provided a supplementary sheet to you that gives examples of how Canada has failed in policy and practice to protect and build this industry, and to grow value in the industry. We have negotiated at the World Trade Organization, WTO, we have worked hard for specific agreements, specific accesses, and then Canada provides supplementary access to what was negotiated. Specifically for beef, as an example, Canada has a tariff rate quota, TRQ, of 76,000 tonnes of beef. Under WTO, we are required to take into Canada that amount of beef from other countries in the world. Prior to BSE, Canada accepted 54,000 tonnes in supplementary import permits. What does that supplementary import mean for Canadian producers? It means that producers are required to compete against off-shore beef where production costs are low. Canadian producers have that beef coming into the marketplace and they are required to compete against it.
We have asked our Canadian producers to continue those processes of food safety, traceability and tagging so that we can track those animals, even if they move half a dozen miles down the road from their farm. Expenses are associated with all those processes, and yet our off-shore imports are not required to follow them. We know hardly anything about those animals. The requirements are a cost disadvantage for our Canadian producers.
We have had the example of grains and oilseeds where the United States has pumped large amounts of money into grains and oilseeds in the United States and have pulled value out of the Canadian industry over a 40-year period. The discrepancy in those incomes and debt ratios has accelerated within that last 20-year period. Canada refused to recognize that injury. Canada refused to provide programs that mitigated that injury and refused, in many cases, to implement trade tools: remedy tools that could have been available had we chosen to use them.
Out of all this information, we need to develop an attitude that Canada needs to win for our agriculture. If we do not develop that attitude, the industry will not be able to provide all the jobs and pay the bills.
Canadian producers cannot compete against the subsidies without some assistance. We are a developed country. We have a high-cost society. We have a low-return marketplace. We need a different strategy to be able to be sensible in that situation.
A planeload of horticulture product can leave China right now and be on the street in Toronto tomorrow. Horticulture is not something that is hugely important to Saskatchewan, but it is absolutely a useful piece to look at in the context of competition because that international marketplace is on our streets in Canada. Product comes in with different standards and cost structures, and yet we tell our producers to go through all these procedures and processes, compete with that low cost international product and still continue to pay the made-in-Canada costs. When we look at everything from electricity to government that does not live in an international marketplace, all these people want to be paid Canadian values. How do we pay those values in the context of the international marketplace?
We need to do a lot of connecting between our Canadian and our international policy, and we need to be serious about what we do in policy and practice because the practice is what will make our agriculture competitive or not competitive. We can say that we are not involved in a race to the bottom, but unless we have policies in place to ensure that claim, we are, in fact, in a race to the bottom. We are not talking only about agriculture. Agriculture will be first, but the rest of the economy will follow.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Scauf. Thank you both for being as frank as you have.
Senator Mahovlich: You say our policy has not been correct. It looks like our farms will be mostly corporate farms. Do you think the government should have had some foresight and said, we are not heading in the right direction? We are still heading that way from what I can see here. More and more corporate farms are being produced and they are gobbling up all the property. I am not sure that is a healthy way to go. We can see the trouble beginning right now. Our communities are falling apart and we still continue on that route. Do you suggest we should stop corporations from becoming involved in our farming and there should be some limit as to how much property someone can own?
Mr. Scauf: When you look at the two graphs we provided, recognize that this view is agriculture with nothing more than a political line across a piece of land. One country has implemented policies that have demonstrated over a long period of time significant success, not only at the primary producer level: at that level, but for the rest of the industry as well. The other country on the north side of that line has demonstrated a dismal failure. Those differences are policy differences. I do not think the problem is about structure, whether corporate structure or family farm structure.
Senator Mahovlich: The Americans do not have a policy for corporations in farming, and they are still successful?
Mr. Scauf: They do not for land ownership, as far as I am aware. They are successful.
Mr. McBride: As Mr. Scauf said, the root of the problem is not the structure, but the lack of profitability. People are not receiving a return on their investment. We heard a lady talking about how she worked off the farm with two of her children trying to make that farm go. What kind of business would operate under a system like that? In a business, if they do not receive a return on their investment, they leave it. That is what is happening now when we talk about all the auction sales. People have not had a level of profitability over the last number of years. A lot of people are older, but they have not been able to replace their equipment because the level of profitability, the return on their investment, has not been sufficient to keep them at a level where they can continue. Therefore, they sell to somebody who has the wherewithal to maybe farm it in a larger setting.
Senator Mahovlich: The wherewithal is corporations. How can the corporation succeed? The price for them is the same as it is for local producers.
Mr. McBride: In farming, a lot of different issues are at play all the time. There are a certain number of corporate farms. Where did that farm initially come from? Are they using that land for something else? A number of issues are involved in the whole industry. Where I farm in particular, there is a large oil and gas industry. People supplement their farms with oil and gas revenue. Some of the industry has been there since the early 1950s, so now we are into the second generation. People have told me that if the oil and gas industry had not been there, they would not be farming today. Off-farm income has held most of the industry together over the last period of time. We are ignoring that. We need to get back to a return on investment. People need to be compensated properly.
Senator Peterson: There is no question that the problem is the negative cash flow on farms. Variable costs have a lot to do with the problem. To set this up so it is easy and deals only with variable input costs, should we try to develop a formula to include variable input costs? Then we could add a return of 15 per cent to 20 per cent to come up with a number, and then adjust it for inflation either up or down with those variable costs only. Would that type of number work? We do not need to use the same number as the Americans, do we? A farmer must make a profit. That is what we are trying to get at.
Mr. Scauf: The farm does not need to be profitable only out of government programming. We need to be absolutely clear about that. We need a market mentality. We need an attitude to succeed. Now, we grow a lot of things and we put them on a boat as quickly as we can and we sell them at low values. That approach needs to change: that is part of it. We have a lot of regulatory waste. Our transportation system has a lot of waste in the regulation. Our regulation for registration seed in chemicals has a lot of extra cost for producers embedded in inefficiencies in those systems. We need to do things in the marketplace. We need to do things in our regulation. We need to increase revenue. We need to decrease cost. We need to focus on those things in a real way and we need to do it now. These numbers show us that we do not have time to talk about things rhetorically. We need to fix this industry. It is absolutely crucial if we are to deal in a real way with rural poverty. It is essential.
Senator Peterson: How do you reduce the costs of fertilizer and chemicals? Do you tell Monsanto that we will not pay this much?
Mr. Scauf: How do we reduce the costs of fertilizer and chemicals? Currently, we have a regulated registration system that is extremely expensive. It is also protective. It effectively gives those companies supply management. Farmers should not have it apparently, but it is good for chemical companies to have it because there is no external competition for them. That is only one example. In the rest of the world, 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the chemicals are generics. Other producers have access to them. We have 20 per cent to 30 per cent potential access to generics. A huge cost to the registration system in the first place ultimately flows to the producer. There is a huge cost in not having access to those chemicals, to those production tools.
Mr. McBride: Through regulation, a lot of fertilizer plants have gone down because of inefficiencies or some regulations and those companies have never come back to full production. We are producing probably at capacity now. Suddenly, because of the huge corn crop that appears will happen in the States, those producers have the wherewithal, because of profitability over the last number of years, to pull a lot of that fertilizer into the U.S. market, and that takes it out of here. It has driven the fertilizer costs in western Canada sky-high over this winter. A lot of the problem is regulation that has happened in the past, too.
Senator Peterson: This problem would carry through then with the pulse crops, the containers and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency slowing things up.
Senator Mercer: It always troubles me when I continue to hear about people working off the farm to keep the farm going. The guy who works on the assembly line at General Motors in Oshawa does not need a second job so General Motors is more competitive. I do not know when Canadians will wake up and figure this out. We cannot continue in this spiral. That is my rant for the moment.
People continue to skirt around what we should do and people talk about supply management and how it works positively in the areas where we have supply management. Nobody has said to this committee that maybe we need more supply management. Should we have more supply management?
Mr. McBride: The one thing that primary production is good at is being competitive with one another. We are going through a debate right now over another issue that has brought out the best and worst in lots of people, and it showed the diversity amongst producers. To have them agree on one particular issue is extremely difficult. Producers will continue to do what they do, a lot of them because of off-farm incomes or because they are a third generation and their grandfather did it, their great grandfather did it and why not them? A lot of that activity continues on and people do not make the best decisions. They erode their equity when a far better business decision would be to exit.
Cultural attitude issues are involved. People want to do what they do. They enjoy it. I am a farmer myself. I enjoy what I do. To plant something, watch it grow and harvest it are extremely important. Farming is satisfying, but we still need return on investment. We need people to realize that for this to continue, people must be recognized for their investment.
Senator Mercer: You are right. We have heard from farmers and we have visited farmers across the country who are fourth, fifth and sixth generations of farmers on the same land. They are upset that they cannot farm the way their grandfather or great grandfather did before them. I guess it is a question of how we say we want them to continue, but if government becomes involved, I think there must be changes at both levels. The government's intervention cannot be only to save agriculture. The government's intervention must be to help the industry be more efficient and to say yes, they can continue to do what their grandfather did, but they cannot do it the same way.
Mr. McBride: People recognize that, but that is part of a symptom. We still need to recognize the root cause. A concerted strategy has been put in place in other countries — U.S., Europe and Japan — to ensure that the whole economy grows because of a policy. It is not directed at the primary producer, but at a total economy and we need to recognize this.
Senator Mercer: Do you think a farm bill with a 10- or 15-year plan would be a good first start?
Mr. Scauf: A farm bill would be an excellent first step, but it must be something that understands clearly that agriculture needs money. Canada cannot go to WTO and say, "We will agree to all these rules and, by the way, you can give your farmers as much money again as they get out of the marketplace, but we will not do that for ours.'' You cannot have that kind of disconnect in logic. We will have a biofuel project as soon as we can figure out how we do not have to pay for it. We are conducting feasibility study after feasibility study. The project is feasible. They have biofuel projects in the United States. We are trying to figure out what. We are growing a bureaucracy: we are not growing an industry. We have to get some priorities straight. Priorities need to be based on the fact that if we invest and if we work, we are paid. That is the only way to build a sensible economy and ultimately, that is the only way we can afford our social programs such as health, education and all those things. We need to close the loop and it must be strategic.
Senator Gustafson: I have a tough job trying to educate Senator Mercer on marketing boards. It would be impossible to have a marketing board like the milk marketing board with the grain that we export, 80 per cent, because only 20 per cent of our farmers would be left if we did. The same thing is probably true of the cattle industry. We have to be honest. I do not want to take anything away from the dairy producers. However, they produce only what they consume in Canada. You were talking, or one of the other witnesses was talking, about exports of grain for Canada, and the things that come into Canada. No milk comes into Canada.
An Hon. Senator: Yes, it does.
Senator Gustafson: It does? Well, then I stand corrected. There is no question that the dairy producers look after themselves, and the more power to them. We must sell our product into the global economy, and if we do not have some sort of level playing field with the U.S. and Europe, we have no hope: it is all over. There is no use even bringing in the farm bill unless we say to the government, this will cost government some money and possibly in 10 or 15 years we will get something out of it. If they can return money to the Treasury from the oil companies and the automobile companies that receive large subsidies, surely they would have some consideration for a farming industry. If they do not, we will not have an industry. We can talk about corporate farmers. Some of the corporate farmers that I know who farm 120 quarters are in big trouble. I have a neighbour who farms a big operation and he told my son the other day his best asset is a debt with the bank of a couple of million dollars: They cannot close him out. The situation is serious and you gentlemen know that. You are in a position to communicate that situation to the agricultural powers that be in Canada. You sit on those kinds of committees. We must take one direction, agree on it and head that way. Otherwise, under the Canadian Federation of Agriculture we come up with a lot of ideas and different ideas mostly run by the Ottawa bureaucrats. It seems to me that their approach is root hog, or die: if you cannot make it, too bad; go and do something else. Frankly, a lot of our farmers are doing exactly that. On my own farm I have two sons. One is a building mover and the other one works for Enbridge Pipelines. They come home at night, climb on the tractors and work 16 to 18 hours a day. Without that work, we would not keep the farm going. We have to deal with those facts and the situation is critical. Everything we have heard from the different provinces now is the same. I always thought in Alberta they were having a glorious time. They are in difficulty like we are: they are farmers.
The Chairman: We heard it, big time.
Mr. Scauf: The government needs to look at an investment in agriculture as an investment that has a potential to return. It has a potential to return jobs, taxes and all the good things we need in an economy, but it will take some investment. I heard on the way here today that the government is making an announcement today for the Alberta oil industry of huge dollars. We can invest in something that is working in a profitable environment. We need to look at this industry as something that needs an investment to move it into that profitable environment. With supply management you say we would have only 20 per cent of our farmers, but if 20 per cent of our farmers were healthy financially, it is probably better than what we have right now.
Senator Gustafson: That is going a long ways, but I will say amen to that because it is so critical.
Mr. Scauf: Ultimately, we will end up with no farmers, and these two graphs tell us clearly that somebody needs to hold these graphs up in front of the Department of Agriculture. They have been using them. Somebody needs to ask what part of this industry they are proud of. Their policies have taken us here.
Mr. McBride: Agriculture Policy Framework II, APF II, is taking place right now. All they talk about is declining farm income. If, at the end of five years, the next policy framework is still the same, it is a dismal failure. We need to look at what has happened in the U.S. They have a bureaucracy there. We have a bureaucracy in Canada. Each of them needs to look at the other and say, what am I proud of about the program in my country, compared to the program in that country? The program is not doing what it should be doing for agriculture.
Senator Mahovlich: Before we can put money back into our agriculture, we need to fix this world trade problem. I played "a man short'' in my life and we can only go so far. Eventually, we need five men on the ice. Do you think that Europe and America know that we are in trouble right now with agriculture? I bet you they are aware. Canada is an agricultural country. They know they have us. We need to send our minister over there to talk to those people and fix this problem before we can put money back into our system.
The Chairman: Thank you both for being here. It is important we hear from you.
Marilyn Gillis, Women's Advisor, National Farmers Union: I am with the National Farmers Union, NFU, but what I am presenting is not officially from the organization. The NFU has already prepared a brief that they have given you. I am speaking as an individual member, as an elder person who has had a connection with farming.
I speak from the perspective of one who has experienced farming for over 65 years, and I am deeply troubled by present-day agri-business policy. I am currently collecting testimonials from elder farm women and many of the quotes are from their stories.
From my perspective as an aging woman, these policies have been market- and trade-driven by the corporate world and do not come close to meeting social needs of a community or an ecological integrity for our land. Government policy has been deliberate in discouraging the small family farm model for 50 years. Farmers have been tenacious in finding ways to stay on their farm through off-farm jobs or by both spouses working two or three jobs. In the past 11 years, the policy has picked up its tempo: Now it feels like it is killing the small family farm. This policy coincides with the North American Free Trade Agreement, NAFTA, and World Trade Agreements. The effect on peasant agriculture is disastrous on the Canadian Prairies, and globally. The infrastructure that has supported rural Saskatchewan is being eroded. The most recent example is the attack on the Canadian Wheat Board.
The industrial agricultural model is not sustainable environmentally, socially or even economically. It is crisis- oriented with urban-based research facilities funded by the corporate world. Shareholders push for profit. Depopulation of rural areas is of no concern. Any elder farmer intuitively knows that putting 100,000 cattle or 30,000 hogs in one location is not common sense.
I have heard the following expressions when women of my era observe present day agri-business: "It is progress in reverse;'' "We are throwing the baby out with the bath water;'' in reference to our children — "The cream of the crop are leaving;'' in reference to reliance on chemicals — "When will they ever learn;'' and "We have become a consumer and throw-away society for those who have money.''
When these women reflect on their own experiences on the family farm, they said: "As a child, even in hard times, we always had enough to eat — our own meat, milk, eggs and garden produce;'' "Seeing the satisfaction of watching things grow and appreciation of nature and friends;'' "I recall the rural school district with all the activities;'' "Even with the hard work I did, I still think that I lived in the best of times;'' "Your neighbours were like family;'' "As a child, I liked picking peas because they tasted so good;'' "It was so important to save our own seed;'' "We cherished the concept of co-ops;'' and "It is hurtful to be declared inefficient in light of the ever increasing plenty we've produced.''
There is wisdom in the previous statements. I feel we need to re-conceptualize our vision of society, urban as well as rural. We need the participation of those who are able to look through the wide-angle lens that encompasses both the timeless, changeless ground that supports life and the practical affairs of life.
I find hope in the following efforts to create sustainable, commonsense agricultural practices by individuals and communities: eco-agricultural practices that shift away from "for profit only,'' seek to minimize high energy inputs and acknowledge a stable rural infrastructure; the increasing numbers of certified organic producers reduce contamination with chemicals; local food for local consumption reduces energy for transportation; and food sovereignty focus has the potential to empower rural communities.
Regretfully, I do not see hopeful signs at government levels. The following are examples: governments go along with trade practices that put consumer expensive lamb from New Zealand on our store shelves and Canadian lamb producers cannot meet their cost of production or even market it; fruit falls to the ground in B.C. because imported fruit flood the market; "Product of Canada'' labels are put on honey that has been blended with honey from China; the federal government refuses to label food containing genetically modified organisms, GMOs; allowing corporate systems (mega hog barns) to invade unsuspecting rural areas is something that causes divisiveness; there is no government will to address the huge corporate profits and the disproportionate rates of return to the producer and rural communities; and governments use fears of health risks and high cost requirements to discourage rural people from empowering themselves (not allowing popular community fowl suppers and closing small abattoirs that service rural communities.)
Governments must represent the common good of citizens. Rural poverty issues require a systemic approach. Humans have the capacity to create a garden or a wasteland. Our beleaguered planet needs practices that contribute to its healing.
Dan Hoover, as an individual: Thank you for coming to Saskatchewan and thank you for allowing us to come and say our piece here. I am not a current NFU member. I speak here on my own behalf.
My family was farming in Canada long before there was a Canada. We have lived on the same farm in the Foam Lake area of Saskatchewan for well over 100 years now. We are fairly stable.
In the middle of this century, our farm supported about 13 people, plus hired help on top of that. Now, there are three people. The topic of the day is poverty. I feel somewhat qualified. The last 10 years we have yet to make it over the $10,000 net income mark once. We think we are doing all right if we can keep the wolves away. Our debt is lower than it has ever been. The change came about 13 years ago when I woke up far in debt due to following poor advice and being an early adopter of technology. I was a high-input producer running a high-stakes game and I lost.
Since then, I have changed my ways and I have gone to a much more sustainable method of farming. Our income is still low, but the biggest problem we have is an outlet for our goods. With the decline in the rural population, we are losing our local market and we are not allowed to ship our meat across provincial borders. Senator Mahovlich asked how the large corporations do it more cheaply than we do. They do it by vertical integration, meaning they control the product from inception and embryo, through to packaged retail. Anyone who is not in that chain is not welcome to participate at any stage. Even though we produce in Saskatchewan the best quality pork that we possibly can, we are not allowed to sell it except by direct sale, which is fine, but we are running out of people next door to sell it to.
As far as the grains go, even the export grains, the commodity cycle grains, we have made more money farming the way it was done 100 years ago than using what we consider modern methods. I have a net income, whereas 20 years ago income was negative. I produced a lot more gross product and a lot more people made money from my farm besides me, but I did not make anything.
I have spent six years truck driving to clear my debt and I have travelled to every corner of North America. One of my interests was talking to farmers wherever I went, and I visited a lot of them. We have a huge misconception that the American farmer is a lot better off than we are. That belief is highly untrue. Their situation is every bit the same as ours. Their farm policy has put a lot of money into American land and made it valuable for landowners, but the profitability of an individual private farmer is no better than here.
The only success stories I have seen — and I have seen them — are people that have managed to do what the corporations do best. When they can grow a product, provide most of the energy from their farm in the form of sunlight and hard work and sell it on their own, they are the ones making the most money.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, both of you.
Senator Mahovlich: When the government made the rule that producers could not take their product across a provincial border, did they give producers an allowance for that? They should have bought it. In a free country, if producers are not allowed to go across a provincial border, I think the government should supply them with funds. How do they survive?
Mr. Hoover: We are finding there are more barriers provincially. It is easier to export to the States. The big market for us would be Alberta. That is where all the Saskatchewan people are and we would like to feed them. There is a huge demand for what we produce only a few hundred miles that way, but we cannot send it there.
Senator Mahovlich: Eventually, the corporations will control all our farm country.
Mr. Hoover: They basically control all the markets now. Organic producers are about the only private processors left and they are slowly being monopolized as well. All the commercial commodities are already completely corporate. Producers either sell to them or they sell to no one.
Senator Mahovlich: The advantage of a corporate farm is its profitability. The government is looking at the bottom line.
Mr. Hoover: The issue is control. For instance, in Saskatchewan the hog industry receives a lot of federal and provincial government money, but none of that money goes to private hog producers. It goes to the corporate hog structure.
Senator Mahovlich: Is the structure for hog farming feasible?
Mr. Hoover: It is not sustainable, no.
Senator Mahovlich: We heard that a lot of farmers in Alberta are getting out of the hog business.
Mr. Hoover: The market price is far below cost. We could not deliver to the commercial market now with any hope of ever making a profit, but yet the retail price is still good. We can offer the consumer a good deal and the best product they can get if only we are allowed to sell it to them.
Senator Mahovlich: You need to go through the proper channels and that is not a profitable way of doing things.
Mr. Hoover: A lot of regulations are brought in under the guise of food safety, but they are meant actually for market control. Private producers are denied access.
Senator Mahovlich: When I was a young boy, I lived in Northern Ontario and in the summertime it was picnic time. My dad went out to a farm and picked up a lamb. We thought it was healthy. It did not hurt me any. I am still here. We slaughtered it, skinned it and then barbequed it. That was the end of that. There was no regulation. Is there a regulation for that now? Can I go to a farm and pick up an animal?
Mr. Hoover: You can if you show up personally, yes. If you live in the city, I cannot deliver it to you now. You cannot have it. In the last three years, within 20 miles of my home, three abattoirs have gone bankrupt because they were not able to attain CFIA approval. Therefore, their product was unsellable.
Senator Mahovlich: It sounds like the policies need to be changed a bit.
Mr. Hoover: At the same time, we are earning incredibly small wages for the work we do. We are expected to fund our education system. A net income of $10,000 in the last 10 years is almost exactly the amount of education taxes on my farmland. We are supposed to commit 100 per cent of our net income to education tax. What workers would continue working if they made $20,000 this year and the taxes on their houses are $20,000?
Senator Mercer: Thank you both for being here. I am from Nova Scotia and the hog industry in Nova Scotia is in as bad shape, if not worse. We have no federally inspected slaughterhouses in Nova Scotia so we suffer the same problems.
The CFIA is quickly becoming one of the bad guys in our study because people tell us the rules. Do you think the Saskatchewan provincial rules for provincially licensed slaughterhouses are as safe as the CFIA rules for federally inspected slaughterhouses?
Mr. Hoover: Absolutely, yes.
Senator Mercer: Are they as strict or as stringent?
Mr. Hoover: Do not get me wrong. There is a need for the safety regulations that are in place. When abattoirs kill thousands of animals in a day, a tiny amount of contaminant will make a lot of people sick, so there is a place for these regulations. A small abattoir that handles maybe eight or ten animals in a day, some abattoirs maybe six in a week, this abattoir is clean by reputation. If it is not clean, it will not have any customers. The operator has the opportunity to do a complete cleanup between each kill, whereas a federally inspected slaughterhouse is a chain reaction factory setting: nothing is ever stopped. In a small abattoir, they slaughter an animal, clean the place up and then slaughter another animal. The scenarios are totally different. I think the federally and provincially inspected abattoirs are every bit as clean.
Senator Gustafson: With the markets, we do not even have free trade between the provinces. When I was a member of parliament, we had a case where a farmer had a small butcher shop and he tried to sell halves of beef into Brandon, Manitoba, from Gainsborough, Saskatchewan. We went to work on that case and it never went anywhere. It is still there today. The reason for that issue was if they had a steel two-by-four building in one province, I forget which, the other province had a regulation for a building of brick or cindercrete blocks, and so they would not allow producers to sell the beef across the border. Canada is great for over-legislation. We have too much legislation and that is a good example.
When I was a boy a while ago, my folks would butcher three hogs a day. We raised hogs. We scalded them in a barrel, pulled them in and out, and we tried to do three hogs in one scalding. We sold them into Estevan, a small city of 10,000 people, but nobody stopped us. We received a few bucks out of the hogs that way, more than by shipping them to Regina or wherever they went. There is no question that we are over-regulated.
I commend you for what you have done, but I also want to say this: you should not have needed to do it. This country is a great country — I do not think there is a greater country — but the way we treat agriculture could not be more difficult and more unreasonable. Hopefully, this committee will bring some common sense to the powers that be.
The Chairman: We all agree, Senator Gustafson. It is a long haul, but sometimes out of sheer frustration we get together and say, we must do something. You can count on it: we will push as hard as we can when we finish this exercise.
Ms. Gillis: I want to comment on the government over-regulating. From my perspective, I wonder who they are regulating for. Would they regulate for a commercial corporate entity? In my experience, my husband and I have had a little flour mill and we have ground our own wheat. We have been organic producers for a number of years. We grind our wheat because local people ask for it and the local store stocks it. New government regulations were coming down the pike that we needed nutritional labels that would cost us about $1,100 a year, and the amount we were selling probably added up to $800. It would not be worth our while to do the labelling, and yet people wanted this product. That kind of thing was made for a big industry. Either it was made for big industry or the idea is to make it hard for people to sell their products and get rid of them. I am not sure where it comes from, but that has been our experience.
Senator Mercer: You had some interesting quotes in your presentation. I suspect that the ones you read were not the only ones you collected?
Ms. Gillis: The last ones of their recollections of their experience on the farm, they were all from ones I collected.
Senator Mercer: If you have collected more, it would be interesting to hear them. I spoke to my mother last night and she continues to remind me that I learned a lot from her and from my father, and so we should not pass up this opportunity.
Ms. Gillis: I have been collecting these stories from about 20 farm women. We are in the process of putting them into a small booklet. Their stories would be about one or two pages each. These quotations are from them.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. That was an important part of our meeting today.
Our last two witnesses are Rob Barber and Ray Orb. Mr. Barber is the Chief Executive Officer of the Carlton Trail Regional College. Mr. Orb is Director of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities.
Rob Barber, Chief Executive Officer, Carlton Trail Regional College: Carlton Trail Regional College is the community college that serves this immediate area, the rural communities in central east Saskatchewan. Within that context, I want to address my views on poverty and the relationship of education and training to poverty. I will keep this theme, as such. I believe that we need to eliminate barriers, which is no great surprise, but that is my theme.
The literature speaks to the low literacy rates in rural Canada and that situation is no different here. The one barrier in literacy is the lack of available curriculum, especially on-line electronic curriculum. I believe a remedy would be to develop a strategy of a more consistent, if not uniform, array of materials to support literacy Canada-wide. In the same context as literacy, there has been a movement to develop a suite of workplace essential skills tools to evaluate workers and match them with the means of upgrading their skills. Unfortunately, there are few takers for that. The initiative resides in many ways in the businesses and industries that we have. There is little uptake. I can only encourage a more proactive approach to gaining essential workplace skills. It is the core method for our businesses to become global, to be competitive.
Another topic is immigration. Saskatchewan is turning more and more to immigration to fill workplace need. There are a few barriers: English as a second language and also, the integration of immigrants into our communities. I suggest that one particular remedy is in public housing. Whether that responsibility is federal, provincial or municipal, it is a problem in rural Saskatchewan, and to find adequate housing is difficult.
We have already heard people speak about the trades and our need in Canada, not only rural, for an increased participation by young people, in particular, in trades. Several barriers exist in rural Saskatchewan and rural Canada. The participation rate of businesses with journey people is disappointing. I have seen information that ranges from 10 per cent to 20 per cent participation rate. The system is built on aligning apprentices with journey people, and if we do not have better participation we will have a profound difficulty in the near future. Adding to that difficulty is the fact that fewer journey people are in rural Canada, especially in our First Nations communities and the communities adjacent to our reserves. We would do well to examine other models from other countries and other jurisdictions, to find other ways of matching journey people to apprentices or giving potential journey people the work and training experience they need. Lack of journey people is truly a problem in rural Canada.
An obvious problem is distance, and we have heard about distance education already today. A solution, but not the solution, is increased online access to programs and courses. We rely on dial-up. I can only encourage the various governments to assist in the high-speed system as much as possible to help our rural communities.
In terms of our work with First Nations and Metis individuals, the barriers are many, and we have already seen or heard of those barriers, plus the ones I mentioned previously. It is discouraging to look at the unemployment rate on our reserves and recognize that we do not encourage micro-enterprises and the entrepreneurial spirit. While government may or may not have a role in that, the deficit is serious on our reserves and we need to develop human resources there.
The last barrier is our demographics. Obviously, we are losing people in rural Canada and rural Saskatchewan, and many of the reasons are well documented. I propose that we look at rural communities in a slightly different light. The inequity between rural and urban communities in policy is sometimes missed. I will give you one little example to illustrate this problem. For student loans in Saskatchewan, individuals were given a monthly travel allowance to travel to and from class. A $40 allowance for a rural student may mean two trips by car to the college. A $40 allowance to an urban student may mean the month's bus pass. The inequity is apparent, because obviously the situation is different. We need to examine that inequity in a different light.
I want to conclude my remarks, though, by reflecting back on education and training and the fact that I am absolutely convinced they are a key to reducing poverty. We have some successes here, both from the federal policy perspective and the perspective of the province. I want to close my remarks with some of those successes.
The Canadian Agricultural Skills Service program, which supports individualized learning programs for farmers and farm families, has been an absolutely resounding success in Saskatchewan. Thousands of participants in that program are bettering themselves, bettering the farm enterprise, if possible, or learning how to increase their income levels.
A program in Saskatchewan is called Job Start/Future Skills, and I believe the model is one that Canada should look at. It is based on a workplace training program for new hires that matches an employer with a new trainee. It is a cost share program between the company and the province and we have no end of business in terms of matching employers with new trainees in rural Saskatchewan. We could double the amount of work we do in this program. That training increases our competitiveness again in the global market. In Saskatchewan, rural areas receive about half the money. An add-on of recent note is up-skilling current employees so that they can keep up to technology. Up-skilling uses the same approach as workplace training. I cannot say enough about how successful that program is.
In our college and other colleges in Saskatchewan, we spend a great deal of time working on programs that focus on work readiness and life skills. This training education link truly tries to deal with poverty because for individuals with poor life skills and an inability to work, the link to lack of employment is clear to us. We spend a fair amount of resources on that training and we believe we have success.
The last point I mention, because I have listened to some of the farm folks here, is that I recommend people take a look at the Craik Sustainable Living Project in the community of Craik between Saskatoon and Regina. The project addresses sustainable agriculture, community living and practices in a comprehensive manner, including education and training. While it is not the only way we should go, I think it is a bellwether for the future.
Ray Orb, Director, Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities: I am glad to be here today. Our president, David Marit, gave a submission when he was in Ottawa, and our organization felt that we would be remiss if we did not give one when you were in Saskatchewan, to welcome you here. That is why I am here today. We were talking earlier about being at a rally in the Cadillac area south of Swift Current, and the problem of a severe drought there. It is probably not well known in the rest of the country, but those communities are under siege because of a drought that has lasted for almost two and a half years. We are talking about farm policy. I think that area is a good example of what happens to rural communities when we do not have policies in effect to take care of disasters such as drought. We hear that the federal government will develop a disaster program separate from business risk management, and we certainly welcome that. We hope it alleviates some of the problems they are having.
One thing I wanted to touch on today was education itself, and that was mentioned in your report. I read your report and I think that is one of the reasons why the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, SARM, made a contribution towards what we felt were some of the solutions. We believe that education is a key to agriculture diversity and we want to encourage our producers as best we can to take ongoing courses. Certainly, we use Carlton Trail wherever we can and we use the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology, SIAST, and all the other entities in the province to better the education for our producers in the small communities.
The problem is that again we are looking at a raft of school closures in rural Saskatchewan. Right now, 52 rural schools are slated for closure, and that discussion is ongoing. As a matter of fact, the number coincides exactly to the number of rural hospitals we closed a few years ago. Fifty-two rural hospitals were closed. We think these closures put rural Saskatchewan at a disadvantage. The cities have it easier here. It is much easier, of course, to make a livelihood in a larger urban centre. Closures also cause people not to have a desire to move to rural areas.
We have done an analysis of what has taken place in rural Saskatchewan. We have done a study of our own called Clearing the Path. I do not think our president has talked to you about it, but what we sought to find out whether rural municipalities were an impediment. We have been criticized because we have 296 small municipalities, not area-wise but population-wise. We talked to the manufacturing industry, we talked to urban counterparts and we talked to both at the provincial and the federal levels of government. We found out that the rural municipalities were not an impediment. The problems were more infrastructure problems and maybe an education problem — educating our urban counterparts about what goes on in rural Saskatchewan. We have addressed that through a report, and we have gotten through to both levels of governments to some extent. The last couple of years have been an important time: we have gone through that.
I realize I do not have much time, but I want to talk about farm policy because SARM has an agriculture committee and I am on that committee with Jim Hallick. Mr. Hallick is our vice-president and a senior member of SARM. One of the ideas we had goes back to two years ago, and I think the idea may well have come from this Senate committee. We believe the idea is good. It is the Set Aside Program. We developed a policy. Our members passed a resolution two years ago at an annual convention and so it was our job to make a policy to make it work. We have been criticized a bit from the industry, more so maybe from the grain handling industry end of it, the farm supply industry, because they think to take land out of production in Saskatchewan is a major undertaking because we have basically half the farmland in the country. We think it will help because we feel, to some extent, that we may be overproducing. We sell our exports into markets that are subsidized. We are not sure if we are going in the right direction. We are asking our federal government to continue subsidizing, in the limited amount that they are, I suppose, but maybe targeting other programs that will make our agricultural areas in the rural parts of Canada more diverse. One of them may be to seed grass only.
Organic farming is an option. We take our hats off to those people doing it because they probably are more sustainable at this point. With the high cost of chemicals and fertilizers now, one major problem is that many farmers cannot pay the bills and cannot afford to seed the crop. We are looking at exactly the same problems we had a year ago. Even though our grain prices are up, the input prices are up dramatically. Nitrogen fertilizer has been quoted at over $500 a tonne. That is amazing. That is an all-time high as far as I know.
This program will pay the farmer to take land out of production. We set a dollar value of $40 an acre for 40 per cent of the land, and we feel the amount is not big, but it may help some farmers to farm the land that they can afford to farm and still sustain their communities at the same time.
I do not have an official submission today, but I wanted to run the idea by the committee again and to see if you think there is any potential for that program in this country, or whether it will only fall by the wayside.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, both of you. We were pleased to have your president, David Marit, at our committee not so long ago in Ottawa. We have a long association with SARM and it was good to have him there.
Senator Peterson: Mr. Orb, did you look at the Lower Inventories for Tomorrow, LIFT, program which was around 1971? How did that turn out and how would this relate to that?
Mr. Orb: Going back to 1971, I think the policy was not designed to succeed. I think the shortage of grain on the market was a coincidence. Canada is a big supplier of grain, there is no doubt about that, but at the same time there were crop failures in other countries. Senator Peterson, you and Senator Gustafson know what happened: that Russia bought up the surplus grain and drove the prices up. Whether it worked is open for debate, but we do not think this program will drive up grain prices necessarily. We think the program could help farmers that cannot afford to put all their land into crop every year.
Senator Mercer: Mr. Barber, how many students are at your college?
Mr. Barber: We are a small college with 400 full-time equivalents, but we serve around 3,000 a year.
Senator Mercer: Where do they come from? Do they come from the Humboldt area?
Mr. Barber: Our area covers the rural area from the outskirts of Saskatoon and Regina, and about 150 kilometres on either side of the highway. Most of our students come from our local communities, but we recruit some students from other areas of Saskatchewan.
Senator Mercer: What range of programs do you offer?
Mr. Barber: We offer adult basic education, nursing programs, continuing care assistant, trades programs such as electrician and welder and those kinds of programs.
Senator Mercer: Is your nursing program a full nursing program?
Mr. Barber: It is a licensed practitioner and nursing program.
Senator Mercer: The students who graduate from the college, do they rush off to Saskatoon, Regina and Calgary?
Mr. Barber: Depending on the program, most stay in Saskatchewan. The college is highly localized that way, but many go to the two cities and do not stay locally.
Senator Mercer: Have you been at it long enough to tell whether some of those people come back? We know that young people like to leave home, particularly between age 18 and 25. Do some of them come back?
Mr. Barber: We do not recruit too many continuing students from high school because of that factor. We are well aware of that. We appeal to those who have discovered that the grass is not always greener elsewhere.
Senator Mercer: They still go to Saskatoon or Regina after graduating.
Mr. Barber: Again, that depends on the program. For example, our students in the continuing care assistant program stay in the immediate surrounding where they take their program. Graduates of the nursing program will most likely go to the cities.
Senator Mercer: Mr. Orb, you talked about 52 rural schools scheduled to be closed, and you drew the comparison to the 52 rural hospitals closed. I am not from Saskatchewan, but I remember the closure of the hospitals and it became a big political issue. Is the correlation direct that because there is no hospital, there are fewer people?
Mr. Orb: No, I do not believe so. It only happens to be the same number.
Senator Mercer: They are not the same 52 communities?
Mr. Orb: It would not be the same communities.
Senator Mercer: How many members are in the Saskatchewan legislature?
Mr. Orb: I think there are 62 or 63.
Senator Mercer: I was looking for a theory, but it did not work.
Mr. Orb: Unfortunately, there is no connection there.
Senator Mahovlich: Mr. Barber, you mentioned a town between Regina and Saskatoon. Can you extrapolate a little bit? What was the name of that place?
Mr. Barber: The community is Craik. It is a small community. In some respects, it was a dying community and for whatever purpose some individuals came together and saw a future in sustainable community living and sustainable agricultural practices. They have dedicated virtually the entire surrounding community to this prospect. They have built an eco-centre using recycled materials, and an eco-sensitive golf course. They have a subdivision of lots.
Senator Mahovlich: Do they have a community centre?
Mr. Barber: They do not have one yet, but they are heading that way. They have attracted businesses that are in that realm of sustainable production.
Senator Mahovlich: I imagine the businesses would be attracted to a community that is thriving or on the right track.
Mr. Barber: I think they had no choice, but I think they are on the right track, absolutely.
Senator Gustafson: The whole idea of a LIFT program is a good one, but the guy that brings it in has to remember what John Diefenbaker said to Otto Lang: if there were two cow pies in a quarter section, he would step in both of them. That comment was the result of the LIFT program. However, I think it is a good idea, depending on the regulations they put around it. Would you consider the program only if the land was sown to grass for cattle, or would you consider a summer-fallow situation? In our case with the LIFT program, our land needed some preparation and we summer-fallowed better and it worked out well for us. For some, it did not work out so well. I think if it was for cattle, it would take grain out of production and fill another need that would be positive and good for the soil.
Mr. Orb: We talked about that possibility and summer fallow is included. I did not read the whole policy, but summer fallow is included. Some producers use summer fallow already. I mentioned organic producers. I know some producers that grow organic crops do not necessarily summer fallow but they grow cover crops and things like that. Really, the land is out of grain production so it should all qualify, as well. I think at the same time, we are trying to grow our livestock industry in this province. I think the program would supplement the livestock industry. It would not hurt it. I know there is a lot of talk now about biofuels. There is a backlash from the livestock community to the extent that biofuels have raised feed grain prices. That increase is mostly because of what has happened across the border. I know the livestock producers are pushing back on this issue because our organization has promoted producer involvement. Livestock producers say we are raising their feed grain prices and hurting the farms. We are saying, no, we are promoting producers to build integrated facilities with feedlots attached. They can use the mash to feed their cattle. We went through the Poundmaker facility a few times at Lanigan, which is not far from here, and we think that plant is one of the most efficient plants in Canada. There is no waste from that plant: it is all being used. This Set-Aside Program would probably work and it would probably help the livestock industry.
Senator Gustafson: I think it is worth pursuing as long as the amount of money paid out equalled at least two sprays and one cultivation, at a minimum. We cannot expect a farmer to go in debt further, but that can be figured out.
The Chairman: I was interested in your opening remarks discussing your college and your observation and a current observation of the importance of workplace training at this point in time. One challenge of workplace training is the degree to which the literacy levels of a great number of people in our society are not easily there. When we read almost every day in the big newspapers, in the little newspapers and on television, that one of our biggest problems in Canada right now is with all the challenging problems we have, we do not have a skilled workforce. Why is that? Possibly if 40 per cent of our adult citizens are unable to cope with reading, writing and numeracy, then we need a college like yours and programs supporting it that will raise up our workforce and their ability to see the challenges and take the challenges of what is in many places, including my own province, vigorous industries that are begging for people in our own country that we have taught and trained. Is this literacy portion of that training process supported with assistance within your college?
Mr. Barber: That is a double-edged sword. Our dedicated funding for literacy would be, at best, 5 per cent of our program money. That amount is clearly inadequate, given our target audience of the high illiterate rate. On the other hand, we have counselling and assessment services that are central to our colleges, outreach to the community. With those services, we are better able to target those small resources to the people who need it. Counselling assessment is linked to workplace literacy and to life skills. Like many other rural colleges, we may need to pull from other programming to expand that program.
Training and education in Canada, as we know, is always a grey area between federal and provincial jurisdiction. I see workplace training, using that word, as a federal responsibility. I can see a wise investment in terms of workplace essential skills. I think the investment is a good one.
The Chairman: Thank you for that answer. I agree with you completely that it is a national responsibility, a federal responsibility. People like you keep fighting on and together we will win.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you so much for taking the time, and for some of you, the patience, to wade through this process. We have had a wonderful day. A wonderful variety of people have come. It is all in the record now. We will look forward when our hearings are all over to go back and remind each one of us of the support and the ideas we received here in Humboldt.
I thank all my colleagues. This schedule, too, is a long haul, and these senators are terrific Canadians, and I thank them.
The committee adjourned.