---

Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry

Issue 10 - Evidence, February 25, 2003 - Afternoon meeting

---

EDMONTON, Tuesday, February 25, 2003

The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met this day at 1:32 p.m. to examine and report on the impact of climate change on Canada's agriculture, forests and rural communities and the potential adaptation options focusing on primary production, practices, technologies, ecosystems and other related areas.

Senator Donald H. Oliver (Chairman) in the Chair.

[English]

The Chairman: Our first witness is Mr. Bart Guyon from the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties.

Mr. Bart Guyon, Vice-President, Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. In the political world, I am the reeve of Brazeau County, which is a community just about 80 miles southwest of Edmonton. I am also the vice-president of the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties. That association represents about 95 per cent of the landmass of Alberta, but only about 16 per cent of the population.

It is quite a challenge for us to deal with the diversity in Alberta. In the same world, I raise buffalo, elk, and deer on a 4,000-acre ranch located in the heart of the Cardium oil and gas field, which is one of the largest oil fields in the country. These two industries present quite a mix. I am quite aware of both of those.

Both industries have the impacts on the two things that I would like to discuss today. One is the whole impact of climate change and where that is going, and the other is the ownership of carbon credits. Both of these topics could have an impact on both of those particular industries.

We have been through a number of disasters from tornadoes such as the one at Pine Lake in 1991, and the thunderstorms that have been going through Alberta. We are used to erratic weather patterns, but last summer the drought was probably the broadest and widest-spread disaster that hit Alberta. It had a huge impact that will probably last for some time. The last report in December indicated that the moisture level in the soil was not enough to germinate the crop in over 90 per cent of the province.

While that drought was going on, I happened to be in Ottawa. I called Paul Tellier's office at CN and asked them what the impact of the drought was. They said the impacts of the drought to them was more than $100 million in lost commodities and the different types of effects that could possibly have. The drought is by far the worst disaster to hit any particular part of the country.

This committee could help by encouraging more work on understanding what this whole climate change is going to do to us and then thinking about what sort of programs could be used to help mitigate the damages of the changing climate.

You have a very successful program through the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Association, PFRA, which started to map out the groundwater supplies. We need to know what our resources are, what the water supplies are going to be. The PFRA has been an effective tool in doing that. They have made some subtle changes.

Besides the pipelines and the regional type projects that PFRA supports, there is also a program that allowed the producers themselves to capitalize on a partnership with the federal government by drilling water wells, building dugouts, and trying to find ways to manage things like the drought.

For whatever reason, the federal government stopped at that last project. It is still available in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, but for whatever reason, it is not available in Alberta. It might have been partly because the province of Alberta started to see the impacts of the drought they designed a program to address these. However, we just did not think it was fair or equitable that the Alberta farmers could not tap into that same program.

We would encourage you folks to use whatever pressure you can to allow the farmers in Alberta to have the same opportunity as our sister and brother associations in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

The federal government should also do research on different plant species and animals. If we are going to be into food production, the federal government should conduct research on what type of plants and animals would be better suited to this ever-changing climate. That is something that would help Canadians across the country.

I would also like to talk about carbon sequestration. Producers have a fear that the federal government is going to scoop up the carbon credits that we really believe belong to the producers, the landowners — the people who are actually on the ground.

Agriculture is a tough industry. Carbon credits could ensure agriculture some sort of longer-term viability because they will provide a little bit more revenue for producers. Most farmers in today's world actually have a second job just to subsidize the job that they have got. I do not know how many of you folks need a job to subsidize the job that you are at right now. I would probably —

Senator Wiebe: I do. This is the job that subsidizes the farm.

Mr. Guyon: You do understand what I am talking about.

You can design programs that will send the right signals for farmers to possibly change some of their farming habits that will start to incorporate carbon sequestration. They may get more into forest production — maybe into forestry, wood lots, those types of things. If you design it so that they can take advantage of it, farmers generally come along because it makes some economic success.

If that does not happen, I am not so sure that they will not just maximize their land to try and produce right to the maximum — which in most cases is not the most environmentally best way to manage the land. You are trying to get every single animal you can to graze every blade of glass, because you are being paid on volume. If there is another way to do this that would tie in to the whole environmental movement, the carbon sequestration could be a useful tool to do that.

I am open for any questions here on either one of those subjects, and maybe I can get some more points across through the question-and-answer process.

The Chairman: I appreciate your comments. You have raised three or four major points that have come up before this committee both yesterday in Saskatchewan and at our hearings in Ottawa.

I know that the issues you have raised such as carbon sequestration and the ownership of these carbon credits is something that we want to pursue with you.

Senator LaPierre: Did you say that are the reeve of your community?

Mr. Guyon: Yes, correct. The reeve like probably in your part of the world you have wardens, same idea.

Senator LaPierre: How big is your community?

Mr. Guyon: We have about 7,000 people in our community. Area-wise it is not that vast, about 60 miles by about 30 miles.

Senator LaPierre: The people who live in your community are farmers, foresters, oil people, and ranchers?

Mr. Guyon: All of those. We have a very diversified community there with traditional type agriculture as well as the diversified agriculture with the elk and the deer and the bison.

Senator LaPierre: Do you have a high school?

Mr. Guyon: We have schools.

Senator LaPierre: Yes, but do you have a high school, or do your kids have to travel to go to high school?

Mr. Guyon: Our rural kids travel about on average probably an hour to an hour and 20 minutes bus routes. That is traditionally the way it was when I was growing up in that community.

Senator LaPierre: What is the average age?

Mr. Guyon: We are quite a young community. In Drayton Valley, the average age there is probably about 40 years, primarily because the oil and gas has drawn in a lot of young workers into that field.

Senator LaPierre: To live in a small community to be presented with changes in climate that may affect the lives of every one of your 7,000 people one way or another through the impacts of it and the adaptation to it that will be necessary, what is the psychological mood? Are people stressed out? Are people frightened? Or do people say, ``This is the way the cookie crumbles, and we have coped with worse before, and we will just keep on coping.''?

Mr. Guyon: I think that anybody in the agriculture is pretty much tapped out. There is not anything that really pencils out.

Senator LaPierre: I am sorry. I do not really understand ``tapped out'' and ``pencils out.''

Mr. Guyon: I mean that they are pretty much drained. I think they have tapped into any reserves that they have had over the last number of years. I am hearing from very smart, good businessmen — good farmers — that when they get out of this one, they are out of it.

There are a lot of people who just want out right now. Because of the capital investment and because a lot of the commodity prices are in the toilet, it is difficult to take an even further beating by jumping out of it right now. Some people are going to hang on, but the mood is they just want out. They are just fed up.

Senator LaPierre: Therefore we are dealing with a very stressed community?

Mr. Guyon: I would say they are very stressed.

Senator LaPierre: Talk to me about the young of your community. Are they stressed out too, or are they just waiting for the day that they will move out?

Mr. Guyon: I do not think many people would want to get into the agriculture communities. If I passed my farm on to my kids, I would probably be charged with child abuse, because it is just not something that they would do.

I have worked as hard as I can, and I am surviving. I have put up 70,000 fence posts, 230,000 staples, a half a million feet of fence, and worked every single minute I have on the farm. I think that when I get out of this, I will be through with farming. That would be the sentiment of a lot of people. They are pretty frustrated, and there does not seem to be the same level of support from our federal government that we see in both the U.S. and in Europe. When you do not have support of your own country, it is pretty disheartening.

Senator LaPierre: Is this sense of futility a result of the degeneration of the economics around agriculture and forestry, or is the threat of climate warming?

Mr. Guyon: It is a mix of both. If you are making money farming, it is quite an enjoyable lifestyle, but if you are constantly battling the weather and battling programs, it is pretty tough. You can usually look to the weather, and you can usually manage and slowly shift or change your habits, for example, from raising grain to going to forage or selling your cattle and raising bison. However, after you keep getting banged on the head a number of times, you slowly decide that enough is enough.

Senator LaPierre: You will leave your community, when you say, ``this is over.'' When is ``this is over'' taking place?

Mr. Guyon: It has already started. I bought out half a dozen farmers just in my short time farming, so there are people that are moving and leaving. I kept living on hope, and I am reflecting my own particular feeling the same way as a lot of people. They kept getting bigger and bigger so they could produce more and more for less and less, but there comes a point. In the end, we will have a chunk of land that we will be able to sell off as some sort of retirement program. However, a lot of people just do not have that same opportunity. Some people will stay in the community; others will leave.

Senator LaPierre: Then, in time, that community will die?

Mr. Guyon: If it were directly related to agriculture, I would think it would run the same fate as Saskatchewan. That is a classic example where the population has slowly shifted out of the province. In our community, we have oil and gas, forestry, and some other things so that people can move from one industry into the next. My focus and my love is the love of the land and farming. I am going to stay as long as I can. However, there have been some pretty hard whacks in the last few years.

Senator LaPierre: Do the majority of the 7,000 people — those who are bread earners — live off farming or associated, or do they live off oil and gas?

Mr. Guyon: I do not want to focus too much on my community, because I am here to represent the whole province, but it can give you a reflection. There are about 550 farmers in our particular municipality. The balance of them work someplace else. I would suggest that most farmers — probably 85 per cent or 90 per cent — work a second job to offset their farming habit.

Senator LaPierre: Climate warming is degenerative. In other words, it is creating social problems, adaptability problems, home problems, and stress problems?

Mr. Guyon: Climate change forces you to change. We love change, but not on an ongoing basis. In our community, we used to have rain in the springtime, and it would rain until it froze in the fall. Drayton Valley was a tough, hardworking, and hard community. It rained all the time. You used to get stuck on the main streets. That is how bad it was.

Now I fix my equipment with a 24-inch pipe wrench because that is the only tool I can find in the cracks in the ground. It just changed that much. So with the drying also comes insects and disease. We never had a grasshopper problem. Now, we are kind of, How do we manage these grasshoppers, that they are eating the grass as fast as it is growing up.

We never used to think about water. There were always pools of water in the fields. I drilled four water wells and two dugouts last summer because when you run out of water, the impact is immediate. You have about four days to respond. If your animals do not have water, they start to drop.

When that happens and then you run out of pasture, now you are panicking, and you are making panic decisions. If we have programs in place that help you to manage the impacts of climate change, maybe people can hang on a little longer.

For example, in the south we have got all kinds of irrigation projects and things like that. They have had droughts pretty steadily for the last four years. There is nothing good about a drought, but at least they have got some infrastructure in place that allows them to manage the impacts of the drought. They have got irrigation canals and things like that.

In many parts of Alberta, that infrastructure is not there. I mean, to drill four water wells when everyone else is trying to drill wells, I had to wait a month just to get a water well rig. In the meantime, you are pumping water, and you are doing everything you can in a panic mode.

If there are some programs in place, there is way to help manage against some of these disasters. In Winnipeg they set up dykes and canals for the flooding; that infrastructure is in place. This is happening so quickly that we do not have the infrastructure in place.

We are hoping that the federal government can help us through research and development and also on a monetary side to help us offset those impacts, whether it is the one-third funding of water wells and dugouts through the PFRA or any other initiative that helps us understand what types of plants and animals we could raise.

Senator LaPierre: I ask you all of this because I am leading a crusade to find out how people are really affected by climate change. We get all these very beautiful briefings from very fine scientists, but I think you are the first person that appears before us where I can ask this question, because you actually are living on the land and so forth.

I want to thank you very much. I was not trying to pry in your privacy. I just want to know the story because that is the only way we are going to able to help you and your community. If we do not know the stories, we are doomed.

The Chairman: You said that you dug some wells to have water for your cattle and livestock last year. What did you do for hay and feed in the drought?

Mr. Guyon: I cried. It was a real panic situation and I can only reflect my situation, but it is pretty similar. Most of my hay came out of northern B.C. and northern Alberta. I normally used to pay $30 to $40 a bale. I was paying $120 a bale.

Feed ran out because of the drought, and the pastures went short, so I started feeding in August. With the bison, elk, and deer, I traditionally do not feed until January and February just because there is enough grass under the snow that they can paw and forage for themselves.

When the price of the commodity drops in half, the price of your feed triples, and the length of the winter increases by 20 per cent or 30 per cent, you have had three big whacks on the head. It is very difficult. It would be as if you had a store and suddenly half your stock worth half as much, one-third of your customers disappeared, and the freezers did not work.

We can manage that. Most people have probably cut their herds back in half, sold them for a loss, but at least they have only half as many mouths to feed next year. Some people started to put infrastructure in place so they will not be doing that panic investment. People have some reserves, but once you tap into those, that is it.

Senator Gustafson: I am wondering about the term ``climate change.'' We have had droughts before and a lot of this is cyclical. The scientists tell us that it is a percentage of a percentage over a number of years. It may be wrong for us to qualify the whole problem of the drought as climate change. Is that fair ball?

Mr. Guyon: Yes, absolutely. I am not an expert in climate change, but I do know most of the province went through the worst drought since Confederation. Whatever happened in this circle, it was a bad one. Drought is just one of the things that is affecting agriculture. I think it was the straw that broke the camel's back. Commodity prices are down and so on. It was just that one big whack that really put people into the gutter.

Senator Gustafson: In the area in which you live, did you have the drought of the 1930s?

Mr. Guyon: I was born in 1955. We moved out there in 1959. My folks and my parents talked about the drought of the dirty thirties. They came up through Saskatchewan, and we slowly settled out in Drayton Valley. I do not think we settled there; we just got stuck there.

There are cycles. I understand that. However, the drought has had huge economic impacts. With each one of those cycles comes a huge economic impact. When the farmers dry up, so do the small towns. When the small towns dry up, the railroads lose money. When the railroads do not have money, the banks do not have money. When the banks do not have money — it just starts to snowball.

Senator Gustafson: Don Mazankowski used to say that a dollar spent in agriculture will multiply 24 times. With all due respect to Liberals around the table, it seems that our government forgot all about that. We, in fact, are not putting money into agriculture.

In the last dozen years, the amount of money that has gone into the agriculture department has declined by a high percentage. Maybe we are missing the boat here in terms of the responsibility that all Canada has for agriculture.

You raise elk. That is quite an exotic business. You have had some difficulties in those areas.

Mr. Guyon: Just about everything that I have gotten into in the effort to diversify has gone in the toilet. I went to a world animal production that was in Edmonton herein 1991. It was the first time it was held here in about 65 years in Edmonton.

They said that if any country is going to be truly globally competitive, then they should be raising animals native to the country. In Alberta, they opened up the opportunity for us to raise elk and deer and moose and bighorn sheep and so on. I diversified into that because it just made sense. For cattle, you need barns and shelter and feed and so on. Elk and deer and bison are native to this part of the world, so what better animal to raise than those?

I suppose if I were in Mexico, I would be raising iguanas and macaw birds in the rain forest just because that would make sense there. That is what I got into. There were some political things that happened that have probably destroyed it more than the opportunity that was there, including the controversial hunt farms like fishing in a dugout.

Senator Gustafson: Well, diversification was the subject of the day for the last 20 years. We went through that cycle, and we did diversify only to come out with the same results as we had or worse than before we diversified.

There are some words out there now that are very, very interesting in that we have got to deal with our own products. What is the word I am looking for?

Mr. Guyon: Value-added?

Senator Gustafson: That is a real buzzword, ``value-added.'' Yet, you can put your finger on a lot of areas where they went into value-added, and they went broke. The last one that I know of is a mill that was in Regina.

The point I am trying to make is it is probably true that we jump from pillar to post to try and find solutions, and we do not really have any programs as a nation in place to deal with the very serious problems like drought.

Until we get something that is stable, a country like Canada should have no business in phasing out agriculture. We have got arable land; we have got an opportunity. When I was a kid going to school, we believed we were the breadbasket of the world. Towns such as Big Beaver say, ``We feed the world.'' It is getting pretty hard to say that anymore.

Mr. Guyon: Yes. It is getting tough. We are moving to a more corporate farming style that is based on volume. You start to lose some of the social aspects — the small towns, the value that they bring, the work ethic, the honesty, and openness. I do not know; there is a flavour that rural Canada, rural Alberta has. I think some of that will be lost.

We are moving out where a number of generations do not know much about the farm. You folks probably still remember going out to grandma's farm or it was your own farm. Those are your fond memories.

Senator Gustafson: If your land comes up for sale, can you sell it?

Mr. Guyon: Yes, we can, because there are a lot of quarter-section acreage farmers. Grandpa said you invest in land and you will not go wrong, and that is true. Land values are not going to drop that much. There is still going to be somebody that is going to live on hope. They are going to spend their youthful years trying to make a go at farming.

You can do it with hard work. Hard work will get you through just about anything, but that only lasts for so long. I am getting close to 50, and I am good for another 10 or 15. I do not see any young people getting into agriculture. It is just too much work, too much risk, too much capital, and too much of nothing, and lots of that.

Senator LaPierre: I cannot tell you how valuable this is.

Senator Gustafson: I want to thank you.

Mr. Guyon: Well, thanks for understanding.

Senator Wiebe: I want to go back to the first question that Senator Gustafson asked in regards to whether the drought that you experienced was a result of climate change or whether it was just a drought.

If I can understand from your comments that Drayton Valley ever since you started farming up until, say, this year, it has basically been an area with sufficient moisture.

As a committee, we are looking at adaptation. I go back to my own farm, which is located in the southwest part of the province. Since I started farming there in 1959, we have gone through six droughts, so we have had the impacts, and we have learned from it. These are some of the things that we have to incorporate when we start talking about the effects of global warming.

As an example, when I started farming, I was just strictly grain farming. We decided in the 1970s to go into livestock. My grandfather said to me, ``Look, if you are going to go into livestock of any kind, remember, your farm is located in the Palliser Triangle. Make sure you have got a deep well and always keep three years' supply of feed on hand.''

As a result of that advice, even through those droughts, we never had to pay those high prices for feed. We went out and we put up feed in the ditches and every place that was available. Someone in your situation who has never had to worry about that, of course, all of a sudden is caught with it.

This committee wants to look at how we must adapt or provide advice to people in other areas of Canada who have not gone through that experience so they make wise decisions when they go into livestock — that they will make sure they have safeguards in place.

I should like to raise the topic of carbon sinks. Neil Hardy, president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, SARM, talk about carbon sinks yesterday. A carbon sink is not something that is already there; a farmer's land is something that can absorb carbon — the value of not what is there, but the value to be able to absorb those carbon sinks.

Mr. Hardy talked about selling or leasing carbon sinks. The question is, ``To whom do you sell and what kind of terms will be part of that sale?'' For example, if Imperial Oil decides that they are going to buy some of my carbon sinks, how long are they going to ask me to continue to zero till that particular soil? I want to retain the freedom to make the management decisions. If it is advantageous to me to plough under that soil, I want to be able to do it. However, I do not want to have a liability that I have to pay to Imperial Oil for having broken that contract.

Whether you lease or whether you buy, there will be stipulations by the individual —another country or a company — placed so that so that they can get the value out of their money for what they paid you to get them off the hook. That is what we are doing. We are getting the companies and countries off the hook from putting in the kind of safeguards that are going to reduce their carbon emissions. By selling it to us, they postpone what they are eventually going to have to do.

We are cleaning up their mess. My position as a farmer is rather than go through all of that, why bother selling carbon sinks at all? Why bother encouraging other countries that are not looking after their carbon emissions to come to Canada and buy our carbon sinks?

Would it not be better from our perspective, the government paid an oil refinery to cut back on their carbon emissions? Would it not be just as right for the Government of Canada to pay me as a farmer an incentive for me to go into zero till to absorb that carbon? The net effect to the farmer would be the same. We would get extra value for the job that we are doing, but we would not have the caveat on our title as to how long we had to live up to that.

Mr. Guyon: If there is a choice as to whether the producer or the government owns the carbon sinks, it would be better that the producer owns them.

Senator Wiebe: In my mind, there is no doubt. The individual at the land owns the carbon sinks.

Mr. Guyon: Because farmers traditionally do not have a whole lot of money, the decisions they make are usually financially sound with the limited resources that they have. If decisions will be made on whether a farmer would buy, sell, or trade carbon sinks, rural Canada or rural Alberta will help to make the right decision.

However, if the farmer does not even own the carbon sinks and the federal government decides to scoop them up, there would not be any incentives available to the producer in regard to carbon sequestration. As you said, he will shift some of his grain crops into forage production, or he will get into silviculture and wood lots and things like that in an effort to capitalize on the benefits of sequestering carbon, which in the end would help to benefit Canada's commitments under Kyoto.

Senator Wiebe: On the question of who owns the carbon sinks, the owner is the individual who has the land that has the ability to absorb the carbon sinks. Unless you have got grass or a slough with a lot of trees around it, you have already got the mechanism to absorb carbon sinks, and you own that. You own the land that is going to be able to provide the plant that is going to absorb the carbon sinks. We have to establish that first.

The carbon sinks are not there now. The ground is full of carbon and every time we till that it, we release more carbon into the air. Our ability to absorb carbon is there, and because I am the farmer, I own that ability. Therefore, if society wants us to reduce the level of carbon in the air, it is only fair that society then, through their federal government, pay you and I as farmers to grow the kinds of crops and manage that farm in such a way that that carbon can be absorbed.

Mr. Guyon: All those in favour?

Senator Wiebe: I think we are on the same wavelength.

Mr. Guyon: We are afraid that that is not the way it is going to turn out, though.

Senator Wiebe: I do not want to see farmers trying to get the extra money to stay alive having to have caveats stuck on their land by turning around and selling a carbon sink to someone.

My concern with selling and leasing is that we do not tie our hands to not being able to make the management decisions later on down the road. Or if we do, we are open to a libel suit for having broken that contract.

Senator Tkachuk: That is why leasing is a good idea, because you just pay per year, right?

Senator Wiebe: However, you will not find many companies that will lease. They want the long lease, you see.

Senator Hubley: You are living in a small community. Agriculture is probably your largest industry — or is it oil?

Mr. Guyon: Oil, probably.

Senator Hubley: Where do you get your information on climate change? How does the information come from the research stations and the scientists that we hear down to you, the farmer? How is that happening?

Mr. Guyon: For the most part, you catch it on the news; you get the political statements provincial and that particular agenda. You get the federal information via the TV.

There seems to be enough information out there in the news. However, it is difficult to wade through it all to find out the real story. Everybody has their own particular agenda on what they think climate change will do.

From a political point of view, various speakers come across the table. We will have Mr. Tim Ball on one side, and we will have Louise Comeau on the other side. We try to let both sides tell the story and then let the individuals try to sort it out themselves.

Information comes from a variety of sources. The federal government puts out brochures; the province puts out brochures. There are focus groups and workshops. People seem to be becoming aware that there is an issue with climate change and that it might affect them individually.

From the ground, you have always been looking to the western skies for the weather. You know that something is happening, so you keep shifting and changing. That is why I am stressing the fact that the federal government has a role to play in research — looking at what is happening with the weather and what do we do to try and mitigate some of those impacts.

Senator Hubley: So you have looked at adapting? Adaptability is a word that would be quite familiar to the farming community.

You raise buffalo, elk, and deer. Do you think there will be any impact on those large herds that are pretty well left on grasslands?

Mr. Guyon: You are talking about the wild animals?

Senator Hubley: No. It would impact you as well, would it not?

Mr. Guyon: Yes. The numbers are going to go down. The breeding cattle have been slaughtered, a lot of them have been moved out of the province. People have been dumping off a tonne of their breeding stock. It takes a long time for that to rebuild. It took my father 35 years to bring up a line of Simmental cattle. He had a different disaster at that particular time where they were all wiped out. It takes a long time to get good breeding stock. Alberta has some pretty fine stock. In the north, we pasture all the animals for Joyce Fairbairn's part of the world where they feed them and fatten them and take them off to the final frontier.

Yes, there is going to be an impact. It has happened. It has started. People have reduced their livestock numbers. It is necessary.

Senator Fairbairn: I would like to do is talk to you a bit in your capacity as the vice-president of the Alberta Association of Municipal Districts and Counties.

I take your comments on a Southern Alberta advantage of irrigation. That is true. In the 1930s, my father was one of those considered to be insane when they decided that there was a need for an irrigation system. It was very much going against the natural grain of things. Nonetheless, these things exist.

However, in the last two decades, we have discovered that when the chips are down and the weather is not there and the runoff is not there, almost nothing is there. This was particularly the case the year before last. There has been a lot of stress in the area. I love the area. Lethbridge is a wonderful little city, but it would not be that way if it did not have that ring of incredible towns around it — Magrath, Cardston, Raymond, Fort Macleod, Coaldale and the list goes on.

In trying to better understand this issue myself, I have spent a lot of time in those towns and on that land to see what is happening. The year before last, I saw that Chin Lake — a very large lake — had disappeared down to the stones. That lake not only provide water for growing, it also provided water for the town of Taber.

My mind slumped further wondering if we are into a change that is going to bring about the kind of situation that developed throughout most of Alberta last summer. How long would that last? How much of a struggle is going on in the smaller communities with regard to sustainability in the face of the circumstances that we have been seeing more regularly over the last years? We go back to the mid-1980s, when there was an awful lot of drought going on as well.

How long do you see this continuing without some of those towns just kind of gently shutting down?

Mr. Guyon: That trend has started — as I mentioned before, it is similar to the trend that has occurred in Saskatchewan. Of course, it has been more dramatic in Saskatchewan because here we have other industries to help shore up the difference.

However, a number of municipalities that have already gone under. They have had to dissolve and become unincorporated and become part of the rural municipalities. Joining two poor municipalities does not make them any wealthier.

Some of the tax bases are four to five times that of the rural municipalities. They do not have the assessment base or the resources anymore to survive. They do not have the assessment base because there no businesses are starting up because there is no money to feed them.

Rural Alberta is really the fuel source for the economic engines of the cities and things like that. We provide them with all the raw resources and the essential things required to make those economic engines run.

Senator Fairbairn: You also buy products in addition to selling them there. You keep places like Lethbridge alive.

Mr. Guyon: Yes. Therefore, when the rural sides starts to die, those small communities naturally start to collapse. The bigger you are, the better the chance you have of surviving. Lethbridge will survive as long as it does not dry up.

Then again, there have been reports that the Bow Glacier may be gone in up to ten years. That is the main source of water for the city of Calgary. There will be a panic situation when that happens. Where do you take the water? Do you do interbasin water transfers, or do you start preparing and setting up the infrastructure now knowing full well that those things are possibly going to happen.

That is my point. There is a need for studies and research on where this whole climate change is going so that we can have a better understanding of what we need to do — whether interbasin water transfers, pipelines or irrigation — to try and mitigate it.

Senator Fairbairn: When you get into the transfers, you also get into international treaties and so forth. When people decide to gently move away from the farming area, where will they go? Will they stay there? Will they try to find new business?

Mr. Guyon: People are gravitating to the bees' nest. They are going to the cities. The evidence is there. People are moving off the farm either into the local town or further into the major centres.

That is starting to cause all kinds of social and economic situations. We have to provide homes for the homeless and all those other things that start to happen. If you want to get the best bang for your buck, invest in rural Alberta, rural Canada. The spin-off benefits, as Senator Gustafson has said, is 24 or 50 or 80 times.

Who would have thought that a drought in the Prairie provinces would cost the railroads $100 million worth of business? That is significant. For a small investment up front — whether it is who owns the carbon credits or investing in some water projects or irrigation projects or research and thing such as that — the best bang for the buck is in rural Alberta, rural Canada.

My bias is Alberta, but I often talk about rural Canada in the same light. It is the same issue across the Prairie provinces. Ontario has their disasters and wrecks as well.

Senator Fairbairn: A great deal is said about technology and how it runs our daily lives. I know there has been an effort to hook up all of our schools and libraries across Canada. There has also been an effort to use technology or try to put Canadians, wherever they live, in a position to be able to use technology to do business wherever they may live.

For someone such as yourself still loves the land but is not going to work it, is there any great interest developing, as there are in the cities themselves, in the business-from-home kind of thing?

Mr. Guyon: You have reminded me that in rural Canada we are well connected through the Internet and that is another major source of our information. I am using the latest and greatest little note pad that I can write on. I can flip this thing around and turn it into a typewriter.

We do tap into technology as rural folks. That whole broadband initiative that the federal government has taken will be great. That will help rural Canada in a big way because you will not have to go to the cities. I talk to people in this cities who would much rather be out in the country and still carry on their businesses.

There is another thing I should mention, although it is off the topic. If you have any influence on transportation of our goods, we need a national highways program so that we can start thinking about trading a buck for a buck instead of a buck for 60 cents.

The north-south corridors are great, but it would be nice to start trading east and west. We always talk about unity, but we do not put our money where our mouth is. There is a trail in Ontario for which you need a compass to navigate. We need to start trading east and west.

I know that is off topic, but it is related to the products and stuff that we produce.

Senator Fairbairn: We have to start dropping those interprovincial trade barriers too.

Mr. Guyon: Absolutely. We are one of the few developed countries that does not have a national transportation program. Some $600 million comes out of Alberta in gas tax alone. Over a ten-year period, the federal government has put back $60 million. Something has to change.

The U.S. has an interstate program where the federal government funds the interstate highways. We need the federal government to be funding this one here so we can trade east and west and maybe become more of a country.

The Chairman: On behalf of the committee, I want to say thank you very much for your time. This study is based on three things, the study of agriculture, forestry, and rural communities, and the effects of climate change and the way that they are going to have to adapt. Your evidence has dealt with the rural communities part of it in a very major way in addition to the agriculture part of it as well.

When we were in Ottawa, there was no one who appeared before us who gave us the kinds of hands-on information that you have, and so we are indebted to you for that. Thank you.

Mr. Grant Meikle, Vice-President, BioGem Power Systems: Honourable senators, it is an honour to be here on behalf of BioGem Power Systems. My partner, Larry Giesbrecht, and myself are very pleased to be here today.

We are going to do a brief PowerPoint presentation. We will then proceed to questions and answers.

BioGem is a privately held corporation in Alberta. We are leaders in providing biogas, electrical and thermal generation systems to the intensive livestock industry. BioGem solutions convert livestock manure and liabilities into a marketable asset and new revenue streams.

We have the first commercial biogas plant in Canada operating on the public grid. We are very proud of that. Our agriculture waste solutions are tested and proven through our association with a European firm out of Luxembourg. We have 130 systems worldwide, one of which is operating in Alberta.

Over the last 100 years, the population of cattle and pigs has increased by 50 per cent. Conversely, the number of farms has decreased by 50 per cent. We believe that trend is going to continue. This brings about new challenges in storage, handling, and costs as well to the producer for all that waste product.

Odour control, groundwater contamination are paramount concerns not only to our governments and to our local communities, but to the producer as well. It is evident that we have to do something in regard to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, climate change, the Kyoto Protocol. We feel we have a solution to a lot of the methane emissions that are being emitted right now through open lagoons.

Because our market is now international, rising power and energy costs in North America have driven up costs for the producer, leaving tighter margins. It is harder for them to make a profit.

A typical sow unit from farrow-to-finish — to explain, that is the mother and all of her offspring — to shipping weight will produce 23,640 litres of liquid manure a year. A single 1,200-sow operation, farrow-to-finish, will generate 28 million litres of effluent a year. Feeder hogs produce 2,554 litres a year; dairy cows, 32,736. A single 600-head dairy cattle operation will generate 19 million litres of manure annually. 6,552 for closed-herd feedlot applications per unit.

This slide shows a map of Canada. Each dot represents 100,000 pigs and indicates where the hogs are being raised. You will notice that the hog population is moving west with the introduction of new programs into Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba. There are 240,000 livestock farms in Canada, according to Canadian census 2001. There are 14 million hogs in Canada, 15 and one-half million cattle — Alberta being the largest producer of cattle in our nation.

This slide gives you an overview of the total daily manure production in kilograms per hectare. It shows that the intensity is spreading in certain areas of our nation. All sources combined produce 361 million kilograms of manure daily or 132 billion per year.

BioGem Power Systems believes we have the solution for the producer. We can provide the producer with the ability to take a liability, turn it into an asset and create a new revenue stream in his operation.

Biogas is a renewable resource, contrary to a lot of our other energy sources. We create our own electricity. We create our own heat for heating barns, as well as reclaiming the water that we have been using in our plants and new revenue streams into the operation. Who benefits in this whole scenario? We believe the benefit is threefold: the producer benefits, the community benefits, and our environment benefits.

How do we create biogas? It comes from manure and organic waste. That can be by way of manure as well as forage crops, heated grain — many, many, sources. We put the product into our anaerobic digestion cycle. From there, the biogas is harvested off to an internal combustion engine, which is the prime mover for a generator, which produces power for the use on the farm or the plant. It eliminates monthly electricity costs and the excess can be sold into our public good for revenue. The heat is recovered through heat recovery exchangers, so we can heat adjacent buildings and further reduce heating costs.

At the end of the cycle, the product is separated, the solids and liquids are cleansed, and the water is reclaimed. Again, the producer benefits from reduced or eliminated monthly heating and electrical costs. They also have reduced manure-hauling costs because the amount of manure that has to be taken to the field down from 100 per dent to 14 per cent — in other words, 80 to 90 per cent of what we are putting back into our fields is water. This process also eliminates and reduces water-hauling costs.

For a typical 1,200-sow farrow-to-finish unit, in Western Canada, 21 per cent of the costs are power and heat, 14 per cent is manure handling. Therefore, 35 per cent of the total operating cost can be significantly reduced or eliminated. As we had said before, new revenue streams are created by selling power into the grid.

Through a deregulated environment such as we have in Alberta and, I understand, they are doing in Ontario as well, the power can be brokered through the power pool and from the power pool, it is sold directly to end users and/or sold at whatever the bid price is at that particular time on the pool.

You can sell the excess organic fertilizer. The water has real value as well. In the future, we believe that greenhouse gas credits will also generate new revenues for that producer.

Our waste-energy solutions are both economical and feasible, contrary to other systems that have been brought into or built in North America in the past. Those systems were cumbersome and highly labour-intensive to install and maintain. We try to design each system specifically for that producer.

We also have the ability in Alberta to sell our power at peak demand times. From 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m., there is a heavy demand on our power grid. We have the ability to come off and on the grid at will and sell at peak times and shut down during low times. That is a management skill that is offered through our system.

If we can remove the manure systematically from the large barns in particular, then the herd health is increased as well; feed conversions are increased. A barn becomes a nicer place to work.

BioGem's facilities operate year-round. In the past, people thought that biogas systems would not work in northern areas because the ambient temperature was too low during the winter. Through computerized controls and heat controls on our digestors, we can operate in the summer as well as in very cold conditions in the winter.

Our waste-to-energy solutions are proven and tested. A group in Europe works with us and have supported us very closely. We have adapted the system to a North American market. Every system is individually designed for that producer. We offer an optimal life cycle design approach to our waste-energy system. We are committed to long-term environmental solutions.

We offer equipment supply, complete system design, full construction services, commissioning the start-up, and maintenance far into the future.

The Chairman: Thank you very much. What an excellent, exciting program.

Senator Gustafson: My question is one a farmer would usually ask first: How much is it going cost?

Mr. Meikle: I will give you and example to answer that question. The system that we have operating at Viking is based on a 1,200-sow farrow-to-finish, and it would be in the neighbourhood of $2 million to purchase capital cost. The payback return on that investment is in the neighbourhood of five and a half to six years, depending on the management, or the production and generation of power.

That payback is also calculated only using power sales and recovery of heat. Any other side benefits are over and above that.

Senator Gustafson: There are a lot of problems in the community in regard to hog barns. Does this eliminate those problems?

Mr. Meikle: It eliminates a lot of the problems. Between 80 per cent and 90 per cent of the odour is reduced, because most of the odour is caused by methane. Recovering that water can reduce the spreading of millions of gallons of effluent per year. Yes, many of the issues that we have to deal with in our permitting process can be eliminated.

Senator Gustafson: Is there only one plant in Canada?

Mr. Meikle: We have one plant operating in Canada.

Senator Gustafson: How many plants are there in North America?

Mr. Meikle: There are biogas plants operating in North America. As far as we know, most of those in the mid-states are used for odour control. Some of them are generating power. I am unaware of any that are generating excess power into the public grid.

Senator Fairbairn: Naturally, that would be of interest down in my area. Is there any take-up on this in the so-called ``Feedlot Alley''?

Mr. Meikle: There is a lot of interest being shown right now in Feedlot Alley. The feedlot waste actually works as well or better than any other — it certainly works very well in our system.

Senator Fairbairn: How long has your plant been in Viking?

Mr. Meikle: We are into our fifteenth month of operation now. We had the joy of starting the plant up in mid- winter, so we put her through the test the first year.

Senator Fairbairn: Have you had any problems?

Mr. Meikle: The system has operated very well. Our main hurdle was getting acceptance in relation to putting the system onto the public grid. Even though our utilities are deregulated, it was a chore to get acceptance there. However, we believe we have accomplished that. I am sure it will be smoother going into the future.

We have had some minor problems with heating pumps that had to be replaced because they were built in Europe — they were built for 50 hertz and 60 hertz. Otherwise, we have had no significant problems.

Senator Fairbairn: Have you had any sense that the people who have expressed an interest are coming to you for economic reasons, or is there a sense that the producers are seeking environmental remedies in the context of climate change and its various implications?

Mr. Larry Giesbrecht, President, BioGem Power Systems: They are very interested in recognizing that they do have a problem and a concern that they are impacting their neighbours. They are probably more aware of the impact it has on the communities than anyone else. They are very concerned about that.

If it is feasible for them to do it, they are quite willing to react. The producers are taking responsibility and they do want to make things better if there is a possibility to do that.

Senator Fairbairn: As they exist now, is there an economy that will benefit them almost immediately from if they were to buy into this process?

Mr. Giesbrecht: They maintain a cash flow. It alleviates their liability. For instance, in many cases the producers are concerned that the waste management practices that they have been using for years have created issues relating to runoff, odour, and so forth. They would like to deal with it in the best manner they have. They have not been able to come up with a solution. This is one solution we have offered.

It has taking about four years for us to reach this point. We did a lot of research and have put together a package that we believe can empower the producer to deal with his own problems and help to enhance his practices.

The Chairman: Thank you. I have a couple of financial questions for you. I am trying to figure the payback. You say that $2 million is pretty much paid back in five years' time. I am looking here at the picture. I see three buildings, and the buildings seem to be about a hundred feet long or more.

There are the construction costs and all of the software and the hardware inside these buildings at a cost of about $2 million. How much are you getting each month by putting this electrical power into the grid?

Mr. Meikle: The file folder that you see in the brochure there is merely a photo of an operation — a hog operation. You are looking at hog barns in that photo.

The Chairman: What does the $2 million buy?

Mr. Meikle: The $2 million is for the anaerobic digestion tanks, the generation equipment, the heating equipment that is on that generator prime mover, and all of the control systems to interact and synchronize to the public grid.

The Chairman: How much can you generate a month from an operation with 1,200 sows?

Mr. Meikle: The one that we have up and running here in Alberta is 350 kilowatts an hour. Of that, they are probably exporting or could export, depending on what they choose to do, up to 200 kilowatts an hour 24/7.

The Chairman: What does that work out to be in dollars — per day or per month?

Mr. Meikle: You would have to take that at an average. Over the past nine months, an average rate on the power pool has been four and one-half cents a kilowatt-hour. That is an average for lows and highs.

For example, their power bill was in the neighbourhood of $200,000 a year and they have no power bill. That gives you an idea what they can generate with their system — plus they will have a revenue over and above that.

The Chairman: You mentioned that reclaiming the water is easy to do, and we saw a picture of very clean, pure water. What is the cost of purifying and reclaiming that water? Is it highly expensive? Is it an expensive part of your whole process?

Mr. Meikle: No. In the overall cost of the process, it would probably be in the neighbourhood of 30 per cent to 40 per cent. That plant cost about $400,000 to install.

The Chairman: What is the process? How do you actually reclaim and clarify that water?

Mr. Giesbrecht: I would like to add to the discussion on costs. When you purchase power off the grid, you have a supply, peak demand, transmission charges, and everything else. For instance, Mr. Meikle said that the cost of power is about 4 and one-half cents per kilowatt-hour. You can calculate what they pay for the power is more closer to 12 cents. When you factor that you are producing your own power to produce the power to purify the water, it makes it more economical. It is a package deal.

Senator Tkachuk: You are not paying 12 cents; you are paying 4 and one-half cents.

Mr. Giesbrecht: That is right.

In regard to the process, we take it through a system and separate the majority of the solids through a squeeze separator. Then we take it through constant flow filters in three different sections. We can purify it to any portion that you want. We can take it down to 2 microns; we can take it down to 0.03 microns, and then we take it down to 0.001 microns in a reverse osmosis, RO, system.

Senator Tkachuk: What does that mean? Is it drinkable?

Mr. Giesbrecht: We have to be very careful how we put this. Yes.

Senator Tkachuk: I do not want to think about it, but go ahead and explain it.

Mr. Giesbrecht: We do not certify these. I have to be careful how I answer that. The water is purer — the process takes out all the minerals and everything. Reverse osmosis is the last step in the system. There we take it down to 0.001 of a micron. From my understanding, your average water here is probably 5 microns.

It tastes exactly like distilled water and is almost exactly identical to distilled water.

Senator Fairbairn: It is more distilled?

Mr. Giesbrecht: Right.

Senator Wiebe: What is done with this water in this operation?

Mr. Giesbrecht: It goes back into the barn.

Senator Gustafson: It goes back into the barn for watering or washing?

Mr. Giesbrecht: Both.

Senator Tkachuk: Pigs have to drink something.

I want to follow up Senator Oliver's questions on the economics. I think you said there is a six-year payback on this system.

Mr. Meikle: Yes.

Senator Tkachuk: How long does this system last?

Mr. Meikle: The life expectancy is in the neighbourhood of 25 years. We have systems in Europe that have operated for 19 years and still going strong.

Senator Tkachuk: Is it fairly prevalent in Europe?

Mr. Meikle: Yes, it is. Yes, yes. There are a lot of units in Europe.

Senator Tkachuk: You would think that everybody would be using them. I mean, why would you not use one?

Mr. Meikle: I guess it is the capital cost. That is right. The capital cost is there. It has taken off well in Europe because most of their federal governments have subsidized the installation of biogas plants.

Senator Tkachuk: If it is only a six-year payback and a power bill is $200,000, it should be a no-brainer.

Mr. Meikle: I would agree with you.

Senator Tkachuk: Do they still have difficulty getting financing from a bank or a financial institution?

Mr. Meikle: It is quite new in North America and we are going through an acceptance period. The FCC now is on board and supporting the financing of these plants. That has come about in the last six to eight months. We have spent quite a bit of time educating their risk-management people so they understand what the plant is all about and what is involved in set up, the lifetime expectancy of the engines, et cetera, et cetera.

The Chairman: Your response to Senator Tkachuk, when he said that it sounds like a no-brainer, made me think that you might be the vice-president of marketing. I am very much in agreement.

Senator Tkachuk: I am looking forward to the tour this afternoon.

Senator LaPierre: Can you power your car with what you make? Can you convert it to run a car or farm equipment?

Mr. Meikle: Yes. Biogas can be used in any internal combustion engine. The cost of compression and containment is prohibitive right now from an economic point of view, but it is possible.

Senator LaPierre: It will be possible down the road?

Mr. Meikle: Down the road, yes.

Senator Wiebe: If you could just run by me some of the cost and reasons that relate to getting the manure to your particular plant and size. For example, this is a Hutterite colony. They have hogs; they also have poultry, and they have dairy. Why did they decide to choose this system just for their hog operation?

In an existing feedlot or diary operation, other than the cost of buying this plant, what is the cost of converting their manure-handling system to be adaptable to this one here?

Mr. Meikle: The plant that we are going to view this afternoon is operating on hog manure, dry manure from their poultry, and from their sheep dairy. There is a variety of composition of manure going into our plant.

The system will operate equally well on any style of input stock. We make minor changes to the receiving tank when we are using a product that is very dry. Feedlot manure is a good example of that — there is a lot of straw and bedding involved. We use a live in-feed and the material is chopped up into fine pieces prior. Then we make slurry out of it before it goes into the digestors.

The Chairman: When you were responding to Senator Fairbairn, you indicated that feedlot product would be excellent for your particular machine. What is different about something from the feedlot and some of the others that you are looking at such as sheep and pig?

Mr. Meikle: If you have a hog operation or dairy, you already have water in the manure. It is in a liquid state already. That is the only difference. In the event of a feedlot, then we would add water and reclaim it at the end of the process and recycle it.

Senator Wiebe: With these three different types of manure, do you still have to have a holding lagoon prior?

Mr. Meikle: No. At this point in time, the manure comes directly from the barns directly into our system.

Senator Wiebe: Well, then how do you get the dry manure?

Mr. Meikle: There is a chute on the top of the receiving tank. They can back up and dump their dry material into the chute.

Senator Wiebe: Does that has to be done manually?

Mr. Meikle: At this point in time, yes. If it was strictly dry as in a feedlot application, when they clean their pens it would be piled in an area that has a live role or a live in-feed on it so that the material would be brought into the system automatically.

Senator Wiebe: I imagine with a system like that, if someone were to invest that and build a new feedlot, it would be to his advantage to put in slatted floors on that livestock feedlot.

Mr. Meikle: Yes, so you can capture it.

Senator Wiebe: Then he does not have to worry about the storage lagoons and this sort of thing, and it would just flow automatically into the tank.

I guess the size of an operation will depend on the total cost? What size of operations are we talking about? What is the largest operation this system can handle and where does it become uneconomical to invest the $2 million? Use a hog barn for example.

Mr. Giesbrecht: That is a good point. We have picked the 1,200-sow operation as an example because it is on the most economical feasible part. If we go too much smaller, the economics go down because the infrastructure does not change that much more as you get bigger. As your production grows — over 1,200 sows — it becomes increasingly economical.

To answer your question, for an operation with approximately 700 sows, farrow-to-finish, it would probably still be economical. For anything under that, it would be very tight — the payback would then be 12 or 15 years.

Senator Wiebe: Let us say, then that this particular operation decided to build another 1,200-sow operation and just run a pipe from that over to this. Could the system handle that, or would they have to invest in some more equipment?

Mr. Giesbrecht: Each producer produces so much manure a day. We size the plant for that. The whole infrastructure would not have to change, but we would have to add digestors, which is a portion of the cost and more generation power.

Senator Wiebe: Does this $2 million include the 400,000 to purify the water?

Mr. Meikle: No, it does not.

Senator Wiebe: If you wanted to purify the water, it would cost $2.4 million, then?

Mr. Meikle: That is right.

Senator Gustafson: Does that include the barns?

Mr. Meikle: No.

The Chairman: This presumes that you have got the hog operation, and you have got the sows already in operation. Then suddenly you add in this $2.4 million system.

Mr. Meikle: That is right.

The Chairman: Well, we are going to be going out there later today to have a look. I am sure we will have a lot more questions, but thank you very much for a most excellent presentation.

Mr. Meikle: Thank you for having us. We will be pleased to answer any of your questions later on.

The Chairman: Thank you.

I want to welcome Dr. Islam, who is the sector advisor with the Metis Nation of Alberta.

Mr. Rafique Islam, Sector Adviser, Metis Nation of Alberta: First of all, I want to thank you for inviting us to make this presentation. To my left is Mr. Trevor Gladue, who is Provincial Vice-President, Metis Nation of Alberta — an elected position. To my right is Mr. George Quintal. He is Regional President of Region 1, Metis Nation of Alberta, based in Lac La Biche. He is also Minister responsible for Agriculture and Road Development, the Metis Nation of Alberta. My colleague here, Myles Arfinson, is Economic Development Officer, Region 1, the Metis Nation of Alberta.

I have been asked by my employer, the Metis Nation of Alberta, and my minister to make this presentation.

I am an Albertan and a Canadian citizen. Professionally, I am a registered member of: the Alberta Institute of Agrologists, Agricultural Institute of Canada, Alberta (Municipal) Assessors Association, Canadian Society of Soil Science, Soil Science Society of America, International Union of Soil Science, American Society of Agronomy, and Crop Science Society of America.

I am employed with the Metis Nation of Alberta in the provincial head office in Edmonton. The Metis Nation of Alberta is a democratically elected 70-year-old organization. It represents the interests of the Metis people of Alberta in all six regions, covering rural, remote, isolated and urban communities.

The Region 1 is in the northwest corner of Alberta. Each region has these geographic boundaries and a unique location. I would like to share with you today information related to agriculture, forestry and other sectors.

I serve as a sector adviser to the elected Metis public policy and decision makers in agriculture, environment, forestry, natural resources, housing, municipal affairs and rural community development.

Today I am making this presentation on behalf of the Metis Nation of Alberta, and for the Metis as an Aboriginal people pursuant to section 35 of the Canadian Constitution Act, 1982.

Mr. Chairman, we are very pleased that you are holding these hearings in Western Canada. According to the Metis historians, leaders and elders, the story of the Metis people is the story of Western Canada.

The Metis played a pioneering role in the development of Western Canada as a go-between for two civilizations in adapting European technology to the wild land. They taught the European settlers the local life and trade skills for survival and success in Canada.

In 1870, at the time of the transfer of Rupert's Land to the Dominion of Canada, the Red River Settlement of Winnipeg had the largest concentration of Metis people.

The Metis farmers and ranchers of today have evolved from these people who depended on fishing, trapping and hunting for a self-reliant lifestyle. Their understanding of land and the land ethic, declining hunting, trapping and fur industry employment opportunities in the Red River Settlement resulted in many Metis pursuing agriculture as a natural way of making a living and becoming self-reliant.

The dispersal of the Red River Valley Metis farmers from the prime farmlands in Manitoba to different parts of Saskatchewan — Batoche, Meadow Lake, Wood Mountain, Cypress Hills — and to Lac La Biche, St. Albert, Edmonton, and Peace River regions of Alberta and British Columbia bear testimony to these historic events.

In 1934, Mr. Chairman, as you are aware, the Province of Alberta appointed the Ewing commission to study the settlement and betterment of the socio-economic conditions of the Metis population, with a focus on agriculture development. The commission set five suitability criteria for selecting Metis settlement locations.

The five criteria were: the area should have reasonably good agricultural land, farmland; it should be adjacent to a lake or lakes from which a supply of fish could be obtained; it should have access to sufficient suitable timber for erection of log buildings for families and livestock — basically, it should have access to forests; the area should have expansion capability, if required; and the location should be free from interference by European settlers.

As you are aware, some 12 areas were proposed by the Metis organization of the day for permanent Metis settlement purposes. I remember that Honourable Senator Chalifoux was one of the members at that time. Only eight were approved by the government as suitable for Metis settlements. About 10 per cent of Alberta's Metis population live in these settlements. The rest live off the settlements.

Mr. Chairman, four of them were not approved at that time because of climatic conditions, or maybe suitability. Since that time, agriculture technologies have greatly advanced. Therefore, your committee could perhaps revisit those areas, if you think it is appropriate.

Now, what do we mean by Metis agriculture or agro-forestry in Alberta? Metis agriculture is fundamentally an extension of hunting, fishing and trapping in traditional land in and around the hinterland of those isolated, remote, and settled rural communities. By ``agriculture,'' we mean farming — cultivating the soil and plants — and also by hydroponics — producing crops, raising livestock, poultry, other animals and fish, and in varying degrees, the preparation of these products for food, feed, fibre and a variety of sustainable uses, and their safe disposal. By ``agro- forestry,'' we mean cultivation of trees and other woody plants with crops, or pastures.

Metis farmers and ranchers operate in all soil zones in prairie, parkland, boreal, and montane regions in all agro- climatic areas of Alberta.

Mr. Chairman, the lands these Metis farmers or ranchers own or lease are mostly traditionally used. Now, you may ask me, ``What is traditional land use?'' By ``traditional land use,'' we mean established land uses by the Metis, and other Aboriginal peoples, through generations of custom, belief, observation, knowledge and experience that were handed down to posterity, orally and by practice.

This includes several land-use categories according to CLI classification systems for agriculture, forestry, wildlife and recreation. There are several categories, and farming is one of them.

We are talking about traditional farming, gardening, grazing, and hay meadows for cow-calf, horse, and other animal raising; berry patches, wild rice, coarse grains, agro-forestry; medicinal plants, herbs, shrubs, spices and other special crop-growing lands; berries, eggs, medicine, et cetera, gathering sites.

This also included traditional land-use areas, including hunting, harvest locations and habitat for moose, deer, elk, caribou, et cetera, and mineral licks.

Number three: trap lines and cabins, trails, inter-settlement/reservation trail systems.

Wildlife: fur-bearing animal and waterfowl habitat, harvest, observation and nesting sites.

Fishing lines in streams, rivers and lakes; fish spawning areas in creeks, rivers and lakes; fish habitat and harvest locations; dry fish preparation sites.

Also included are burial and sacred sites, spiritual renewal camp and retreat sites, archaeological sites, artesian wells, et cetera.

Now, Mr. Chairman, these are all traditional lands uses and they signify many things to the Metis people, and other Aboriginal peoples, I would imagine.

These uses signify a bush economy and also they sponsor environmental stewardship. Those uses signify many things. As I say, they also signify the storehouses of food and other essential supplies, including medicine, for self- sufficiency, comparable to our present-day Superstores and Safeways. These are the sayings of our Metis elders and seniors. Those places, those traditional land-use areas, were real storehouses for becoming self-sufficient.

They are also a means of livelihood, self-sufficiency for survival, access and transportation; cultural heritage and spiritual values; sense of community identity and pride; and agro-ecology, which is a set of ecological principles operating within agricultural systems and relationships between an agricultural/agro-forestry system and the society in which it is embedded; and a land ethic and environmental stewardship based on the principle of perpetual sustainability of natural resources.

Now, this is the traditional land use and its significance to the Metis people across the province.

Next we come to the Kyoto Protocol. We talk about the impact of climate change on agriculture, forests and Metis communities.

We know, Mr. Chairman, that in 1997 in Kyoto, the protocol was formulated to address the environmental threat posed by the large-scale production of greenhouse gases causing climate change. Our scientists who are involved in climate change areas say that greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide, are the culprits. That traps the heat from the sun, contributing to global warming.

Now, the main culprit is carbon dioxide gas, a by-product. We know that is a by-product of burning fossil fuels, deforestation, industrialization and clearing and turning native grass and forested land into intensively cultivated fields.

In 1992, when Canada and the U.S.A. signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, there was evidence that serious climatic changes were taking place. The subsequent reports released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and scientists stated that climate change is real, and it is human induced. They provided evidence that changes may have adverse effects on our environment and ecosystems.

At the MNA, Mr. Chairman, we respect the traditional wisdom, knowledge and experience of our elders, and I do not have to elaborate on that for Honourable Senator Thelma Chalifoux.

We correlated the recent scientific findings on the trend in climate change with the oral knowledge and life experience of our Metis elders. Our elders opined that the climate change is palpable and may worsen the already existing environmental damage done to traditionally used and occupied land areas by energy, forestry and mineral exploitation and development companies.

Mr. Chairman, I have been in this province for over 30 years, practising in these areas for the Alberta government, for the University of Alberta. Today, some of the traditional land use areas we are talking about have either been decimated or are hardly recognizable.

Climate change may cause more frequent and prolonged droughts. We are talking about these things — violent storms, other extreme weather events that we have been experiencing in recent months, increased crop and animal disease and insect infestations, spread of mosquito-borne diseases, human illness, forest fires and crop failures.

Mr. Chairman, water limits agriculture and forest crop production, yields and quality. We know about that.

Water shortages may result in: reduced food, feed and fibre supply and high costs; food and water security and safety may become a serious problem; and a constraint on agriculture and forest-based economic development, causing economic hardships to already disadvantaged and poverty-stricken Metis and Aboriginal communities across Alberta and, most seriously, in the Northern communities.

This climate change may also create a shift in agro-climatic, commercial forests and move tree lines from south to farther north; imbalance in land, air, water, plant and animal systems, that is, ecosystem biodiversity; and traditionally used areas that we are now talking about, traditional land-use values that we already have summarized, and the self- sustaining lifestyle and potential Metis cultural heritage may be exposed to risk.

This may also worsen water quality, which may cause adverse effects on the food chain and human health.

As you perhaps know, Mr. Chairman, some Metis communities avoid fish in the diet, which used to be a staple, because of these other adverse effects on the river systems and lakes.

Metis land-use issues and conflict may intensify due to a variety of land-based commercial, industrial, residential, recreational, institutional and other development on traditional land-use areas in the hinterland of the Metis communities.

Now I will talk about, Mr. Chairman, the production and management practices of the Metis farmers. Metis farmers today generally use no-till or conservation tillage, low input, and carrying-capacity-based production, harvesting and management practices in the traditional land uses described.

They are environmentally friendly. They also lead to increased soil organic matter or carbon content, improved land and water resources quality, watershed flow, fish and wildlife habitat, recreational and aesthetic values, and protect cultural historic resources.

We are talking about how these practices will help us to perhaps address global warming, how this can be reduced. We know that in Alberta, Metis people are primarily concentrated in northern, greenbelt and forest areas.

Next on the screen is ``Green Advantage and Carbon Sinks.'' Recent research findings in Canada and the United States indicate that Metis land-use management practices, coupled with planting trees, are conducive to enhancement of net transfer of atmospheric carbon into soils and its storage in soils, plants and plant products.

This carbon fixation process helps build up soil organic matter. That can reduce the release of carbon dioxide gas into the atmosphere, increase the agricultural and forest soils productivity, enhance the air and water quality, increase food, feed and fibre security and safety, and may alleviate poor economic and living conditions in rural communities. These benefits may help to improve the social well-being of Metis Albertans.

Now, Mr. Chairman, to summarize our observations, comments and the life experience of the Metis and other Aboriginal people in the province, we have a set of recommendations before you. I am going to go through them.

Mr. Chairman, we believe our approach, as described, is practical and realistic. We believe this approach should be endorsed, along with the following recommendations: We recommend that this committee enact traditional land-use legislation for protection and conservation of traditionally used land and water resources in Alberta's green and white areas — ``green'' being forested areas, and ``white'' meaning agricultural areas — adjacent to Metis and other Aboriginal rural, remote and isolated communities for Metis self-reliance and well-being.

The second recommendation, Mr. Chairman: Initiate monitoring and verification protocols for carbon storage, or sequestration, as we call it, in traditionally used differing land-soil-plant ecosystems for scientific, technical, regulatory, economic and Metis public-policy analyses.

Our third recommendation: Reduce dependence on fossil fuels through development of alternative sources of renewable energy such as greater use of biomass ethanol in gasoline, for example. That can lead to less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and a new source of income. It can generate new income for farmers in rural communities. We also suggest harnessing wind, solar, geothermal power, hydrogen fuel cells, and others.

Our fourth recommendation, Mr. Chairman: Initiate Metis-specific agriculture and forestry programs for adapting to climate change in agriculture, agro-forestry, forestry and land-management practices, with adequate funding for technology transfer, co-management and cooperative management of traditionally used land and water resources.

Our fifth recommendation: Foster, respect and implement knowledge and experience of Metis and Aboriginal traditional land and resources use and blend those with contemporary land and resources use for multiple land-use planning, allocation, development, production, conservation, protection, stewardship, environmental sustainability, public education and awareness.

Last, Mr. Chairman, as you are aware, the Government of Canada and the Metis Nation of Alberta, as well as the Province of Alberta, have an entrenched, longstanding commitment to work in partnership, under the Metis Nation of Alberta Tripartite Process Agreement, in pursuit of Metis self-reliance, self-determination and self management.

Consistent with the objective of this agreement, we ask this committee to urge the involved Government of Canada departments to encourage, communicate and provide incentives for meaningful Metis participation in the Canadian Agricultural Rural Communities Initiative, the Canadian Rural Partnership — Rural Development Initiative, and other programs for project funding that match cultural concepts of capacity building toward Metis self-reliance. This could materialize through these programs' decision-making and implementation processes.

Mr. Chairman, unfortunately, it is just not happening when we make applications through these initiatives. The Metis Nation of Alberta is a 70-year-old organization. Yet still some of the people within the department do not know what the Metis Nation is or how it works. Sometimes they will laugh at me, because we do not have enough resources to make the applications properly.

I am the person my employer sends to all levels of government. When we make some application, maybe they will say, ``Well, what is the Metis Nation, and what does Metis on-settlement, off-settlement mean?''

We have a well-entrenched political structure in a 70-year-old organization.

We have the local council, regional council and provincial council. The central provincial body, Metis Nation of Alberta, submits an application to a program officer in Alberta, who approves it. Then it goes to Ottawa, where it is rejected, perhaps because there is not enough information.

The Metis labour force, youth and families require access to opportunities in a supportive environment that can encourage the Metis people to break the cycle of poverty. Without the necessary supports through programs and services like the program that we mentioned, they will find it difficult to overcome these obstacles and may not be able to realize their aspirations for self-reliance or quality-of-life goals.

What I would like to say, Mr. Chairman, is that if the application has some kind of deficiency, we are well prepared to provide any additional information. However, sometimes it does not happen, and we are really frustrated. Our leader is also frustrated. We are doing our job, but we need support and, I think, understanding. The Metis Nation does not have enough resources.

We look forward to your support.

The Chairman: Dr. Islam, I want to thank you on behalf of the committee for a most comprehensive, detailed and important report and presentation. A number of senators would like to put questions to you and the other officials around the table.

Senator Chalifoux: I am so pleased to have you here as partners on this very important issue we are facing and that we are studying here in the committee, that is, global warming and climate change.

You are Aboriginal people who have lived off the land for many generations. I would like to ask George, especially — George is the president of Zone 1 and lives in the Lac La Biche, Fort McMurray area — what is your observation through the years as to the changes in the land, especially in the areas of farming and fishing?

Mr. George Quintal, President, Zone 1, Metis Nation of Alberta: Well, as far as I could see, and after talking to a lot of my members in my zone, the water levels in our lakes and the fishing have declined and we are having problems. A lot of the time now when we go out fishing, it is only catch and release. It is not like when you used to be able to catch fish and take it home and eat it.

I have talked to the elders also about the change in the weather. I asked one of our elders if had he ever seen weather like this in his lifetime. This man is roughly 82, 83 years old. He said, ``No, I have never seen anything like this. It seems it is getting worse. Our weather is getting warmer and there is a lack of snow in the winter and a lack of rain in the summer.''

It is affecting everything in our areas. You see farmers crying for water, for rain, throughout Alberta. There are a lot of changes in our area.

Now, even our rivers are dry. Where I used to go fishing as a kid, last year I could cross that river with a truck. That is how bad it is out there. There is no water. Our muskegs are dry and it is getting worse.

Senator Chalifoux: How is that affecting the livelihood of the people in the rural communities?

Mr. Quintal: Well, fishing contributed to the traditional diet in their areas, and also, when you have lack of water, the farmers' crops are not as good. Your hay, your grazing leases are dry. It affects a lot of people in our communities.

Senator Chalifoux: Are our Metis farmers and ranchers able to access any of the programs that are available, and how are they received?

Dr. Islam: I think this is one issue that I just touched on. I did one program application for Metis Nation of Alberta. That was through the Canadian Rural Partnership — Rural Development Initiative. That was in Region 1. We identified three communities, Powell River, Imperial Mills and Elinor Lake. You are aware of those, Madam Senator.

Those are traditional land use areas. There is farming, fishing and all kinds of activities. However, things are very bad because people cannot access those programs. We did a lot of work on the program application. We had the full support of the municipality. They provided a letter of support. We applied for an integrated program for the three communities.

The primary purpose was to access these programs to train people, to make employment opportunities available, so that their economic condition will be improved, as well as water quality, environmental quality and all kinds of other things.

We had a letter of support. It went to Ottawa, and they said the committee did not support our application. Our structure includes a regional president and a vice-president. The letter proved their support. The municipality sent a letter of support. I think there is a lack of proper understanding in some of the responsible departments of how the Metis Nation works.

That is a serious issue. There is no program available for those isolated communities. There are still no modern-day water supplies or municipal services in those communities, nothing. And Madam Senator knows very well about the housing, the living conditions and the unemployment — 50 per cent of the people are unemployed. The Alberta government has identified them as remote communities.

However, the application has been turned down. The objective was to develop needs-based employment training opportunities, skill development, education and other approaches to the problems.

This was a pilot project that we developed and applied for. It was for several Northern communities, including Imperial Mills, Janvier, Conklin, the Wabasca/Desmarais area, Peerless Lake, Trout Lake, Fort Vermillion and Fort Chipewyan. Those communities cannot access any programs.

Mr. Chairman, we are making another application through this Canadian Agricultural Rural Communities Initiative. I do not know how it will be received, but we are making an effort.

We do not have any documentation. The people have been contacted by word of mouth or by telephone. We do not have any documentation because we do not have any funding in the Metis Nation of Alberta to produce it.

Senator Tkachuk: You mentioned, and a lot of witnesses have said the same, that we should develop other, alternative sources of energy and you talked about ethanol and wind power and all that. How do we do that?

Dr. Islam: I think ethanol is one of them, the biomass production. There may be more research. The requirement is there, if that kind of program can be developed.

Perhaps we can use our dependence on what are called the traditional wells. I do not know how to do that. It is agricultural related, using grains and other things. That is one way of doing it.

However, a lot of research is needed. We are looking primarily for gasoline, natural gas, petroleum and other things. Perhaps another way of doing it is to look at alternative sources like agriculture-based grains. How to do it, that is the work of the research scientist, and maybe Agriculture Canada's research organization can work on those things too.

Senator Tkachuk: Mr. Quintal, were you talking about the lack of fish due to global warming?

Mr. Quintal: Well, it is not only a lack of fish; the problem is that the lakes and the rivers are too low. The spawning areas are not as good any more. They do not go downstream to spawn because of the water levels. It is really affecting our areas.

Senator Tkachuk: You talked about the river that you drove across. How many years has it been like this?

Mr. Quintal: I have seen it declining over the last 10 years. It has been just slowly going down. Today, as I said, you can drive into that river, and as long as it firm on the bottom, you can cross anywhere. That was one of the major spawning rivers. I remember fishing there as a kid in the spring.

Senator Tkachuk: I know in the 1980s you used to be able to walk across the Saskatchewan River to Saskatoon, but you cannot do it any more.

Mr. Quintal: That is totally different, because it is feeding off the mountains, and this is —

Senator Tkachuk: However, it was lack of snowfall in the mountains that caused that; the level of the Saskatchewan River was down.

I grew up in Northern Saskatchewan, and we used to travel to just north of Prince Albert. I do not know whether you know that area, but there is Emma Lake and Candle Lake. We used to catch fish just beyond where the creeks run in. Then, of course, they commercialized it and the people up there fished it out. There are fish now, but very difficult to catch.

It is certainly not like it used to be when I was growing up 55 years ago. Are you saying that the reason is not overfishing; it is just a question of —

Mr. Quintal: Well, there is commercial fishing, but they are only allowed to go into these lakes once a year, I think. Commercial fishing is not as popular as it used to be in our area because the cost makes it not viable.

Senator Fairbairn: You are in a very difficult situation. I am trying to think where, without irrigation, which we have in the South, you can find a regular supply of water for your communities. Is it a case almost of having to truck it in?

Mr. Quintal: Well, there are places where I see farmers pumping water right out of the lakes into their ditches, into their holding lagoons. Years ago, you would never have seen that.

Senator Fairbairn: No.

Mr. Quintal: It has just been getting worse. I do not know if it is global warming, but I have seen it here in Edmonton, water being pumped out of the North Saskatchewan into the farmers' yards and holding tanks, their lagoons.

Senator Fairbairn: Sometimes it is very difficult to explain to people from outside the area how if you do not have any moisture, there is not a lot you can do about it. Even in Southern Alberta, you may recall a couple of years ago, in cattle country, the province actually reached the point where the dugouts were all dried up and they were actually helping to truck water in, which, of course, is hugely expensive.

I am just trying to get a mental picture of how the heck you get the water.

Mr. Quintal: Well, I think the problem has a lot to do with trees that have been harvested. A lot of trees have been harvested, not only in Zone 1, but right across the area. People are crying up in Fort Chipewyan because of the water level. These people used to rely on trapping muskrats every year in the delta to make their living. They cannot do that any more because the rivers are being dammed.

They claim that the Bennett Dam has caused a lot of dryness in the area.

Senator Fairbairn: What about some of the inroads made by natural resource development? That would have cut into your supply area too, would it not, through diversion?

Mr. Quintal: Yes. It is difficult and frustrating when you see how the country has changed since you were growing up. I am 51 years old now, and I remember when I was 10 years old, being out there with my father in Imperial Mills, and the changes that I have seen in the area.

There are still 10 families living in the community of Imperial Mills, and they have to truck their drinking water 45 kilometres. These are the things I am talking about.

The municipality put in a community well, but the water is not drinkable. They had to shut it down, and there are not enough people living in the area to put in a treatment plant. These are the things that are happening out there.

The Chairman: Is the water brackish? What is wrong with the water? Why can you not drink it?

Mr. Quintal: Well, it is minerals. So much —

Dr. Islam: It is rusty. There are too many salts.

Senator Fairbairn: They do not have the process to purify it.

Mr. Quintal: You cannot even wash your clothes in it. Nobody used it, so we just had to get it shut down.

Dr. Islam: This is the project we talked about, involving Imperial Mills, Elinor Lake and Powell River, three communities 50 kilometres apart, and the department could not understand. We wanted help. They still truck water 60 to 80 kilometres from Lac La Biche. If these officials from the departments could go out and take a look —

Senator Fairbairn: That was going to be my next question. Does anybody come to see this?

Dr. Islam: I worked for the Alberta government for many years. That is very frustrating, because if the officials do not empathize, do not go out and understand, all we can do is write reams of paper.

As they say, we do not have enough resources. I am the one person working on this. I have to go to all levels, from the grassroots to the highest official. My employer cannot afford to employ many people. He will speak up on these issues, and perhaps you will ask him about them.

This is the point we are making, Mr. Chairman: Please try to do something to help the Metis Nation of Alberta.

Senator Hubley: I will direct my question to Mr. Gladue, if I may. All of you have presented a picture today of conditions within rural, more remote areas that perhaps we have not seen before. Perhaps we are aware of it, but it has not been put before us under this heading of ``global warming,'' and our abilities to adapt to it.

Also, your whole way of life is unique, and different from other farmers and fishermen — it is holistic. You use the land, you use the streams and you are very close to nature.

Has the Metis Nation been able to access any research dollars that might allow you to investigate ways in which your community can adapt to the changes that you have seen recently, but which will probably be more of an issue in the near future?

Mr. Trevor Gladue, Provincial Vice-President, Metis Nation of Alberta: First of all, I just want to say it is a real honour, and the first time for me, to actually sit at the same table as our member of the Metis Nation, Honourable Thelma Chalifoux.

Senator Fairbairn: Your mother.

Mr. Gladue: Yes. As a matter of fact, she has guided me in the Metis movement since I was very young — and I am still very young. It is leaders like her who have encouraged me to keep carrying the torch, no matter how bleak things may seem.

I really appreciate the work you are doing for our people in Canada. Thank you. I am just amazed at this whole process that the Canadian government has embarked on through the Senate. You hold a lot of wisdom and life experience, and as a young person and a young leader, and being a Northerner myself, I have grown up with a lot of the things that my colleague has talked about. I am 32, and I have lived with constant climate change in our agriculture, the forestry and our way of life.

However, the Metis people have always had a unique way of handling all this change that has swirled around us, because we are a unique people. We are not Indian and we are not white; we are both. We were the pioneers of Western Canada. We broke our backs and our people fought and died for the development of Western Canada. That is the history; you people know that, and I am sure Senator Chalifoux does not let you forget it.

Senator Chalifoux: No, I do not.

Mr. Gladue: When I look at your mandate to examine the impact of climate change on Canada's agriculture, forests and rural communities, I think about the potential adaptation options. I think about the things that Dr. Islam has put forward in terms of innovation, and how we can contribute, as we did hundreds of years ago, to the development of Western Canada.

We maintain that we will contribute to the further development of what we call Canada today. We can find innovative ways of ensuring that we have an inclusive process to get our young people into training programs in agriculture and forestry to learn new ways of doing business in the bush economy, because that is what it is all about.

However, it is very important that we all always remember our traditional teachings as we go forward with an innovative way of living. That is really important for Metis people, because we hold that key. We bring the traditional knowledge with us and can combine it with Western scientific theory, like wechi teachings, and apply it to today's society.

I have learned a lot in my very limited life experience about how we can move forward with new ways of protecting our forestry, our agriculture and our climate. I am hoping to some day have the opportunity to travel to Kyoto to get a feeling for what those world leaders were thinking when they proposed that protocol in 1997.

However, I also know that our elders were thinking of that for hundreds of years, and we have made everything so complicated in trying to make life easy for ourselves. I think we need to take that into consideration when we visit the communities.

I want to thank you for giving us a chance to present the song and dance of the Metis Nation, because we have been excluded for far too long. What we do not have in quantity, we definitely make up for in quality with Dr. Islam, who is an expert in many fields. He looks after us and I respect what he has put forward here. Please take his presentation seriously and move forward on those recommendations as he has made to you.

Senator Fairbairn: It would have been wrong to come here and not hear from you.

Senator Chalifoux: Just one supplementary. You did not answer the question about the research.

Mr. Gladue: Yes, sorry.

I did make a quick note on that. For example, I have looked at the National Research Council. There are different places where we could have our people trained. There are places where we can get the proper knowledge to start implementing different ways of accepting and adapting to climate change.

However, it is very important that we have the resources to do it, and I think that is the whole point of Dr. Islam's presentation here, that we do not have those resources. We are not in a position to bring our people up to a level playing field. I am going to use a word here that is often used by the Canadian Alliance, ``equality.''

I wish they would practice what they preach. I am not a CA member. I will be very blunt about that. However, I do believe that Metis people need to be on a level playing field, with the proper training.

The Chairman: Thank you all very much. It has been an excellent presentation. You will not be ignored. In fact, we will take all that you have said into consideration, as we will all the other presentations that have been made to us.

The committee adjourned.

---