:
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It's a pretty self-explanatory motion, Mr. Chairman. You, I believe, were present on our APF tour, at least through eastern Canada. Prior to that, one of the things we had was an in camera meeting here back in late May, I believe, this past spring, to deal with some of the issues that were very contentious. It was also to basically deal with some of the perceived monopolies and things that may distort the marketplace, not just for the consumer, at the end of the day, but for small agribusiness, including grocery stores, which are in kind of a bad position.
The motion is pretty straightforward, and I would certainly ask that everyone support it.
:
Mr. Chair, I don't think we have enough information to support this motion.
There may be another direction we should go with this, and that is, rather than immediately reimbursing anyone, we should maybe sit down and take a little bit of time to study Mr. Measner's past package--what he had in terms of salary and benefits, bonuses, memberships, and those kinds of things--and then we would also take a look, perhaps, not just at his severance package but at his retirement package and the benefits the Canadian Wheat Board has extended to him.
I think there need to be some questions asked about the benefits he received, and potentially any benefits his nuclear or extended family may have received.
If you're going to support a motion like this, we need to go much further than this motion of Mr. Atamanenko's. I would actually be willing to make an amendment. If the committee decides that they would like to have that amendment, I'd be willing to make an amendment that we study Mr. Measner's severance and retirement packages, as well as his last two years of salary and benefits, in order to determine whether those numbers are reasonable.
It's a pleasure to be here today. I'd actually have been here earlier, but Wayne said I couldn't come while he was in China, so we had to readjust our schedule.
I'm happy to be here. Let me say, it's great to be back at the committee. It's kind of funny being at this end of the table--
An hon. member: You're talking too fast for translation.
Hon. Gerry Ritz: You want me to go slower? Well, it's hard to be an auctioneer and get the job done at the same time.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Hon. Gerry Ritz: Sorry, guys. I apologize. I'll try to keep the jokes slower so you get them and can translate them properly.
It's great to be back here.
Jean-Denis and Jean-François, it's a pleasure to see you gentlemen again. We had some great times at that end of the table.
I certainly enjoyed my time with the committee. I think we got some very productive work done. It's a pleasure to appear before cabinet now and move ahead on things like the Grain Act, which we spent a lot of time on here, and discussions on the Wheat Board. I'm sure Mr. Easter will have questions on that shortly.
I've had a tremendous opportunity in my four months as minister--coming up within a couple of days here--to meet with just about every farm group across the country. There's been some tremendous input. I had my first face-to-face with the provincial ministers in Toronto in mid-November. We got agreement in principle on the new suite of programs moving ahead April 1, 2008. We also agreed on a transitional timeframe of up to one year to get the non-business risk side--the environmental farm plan, succession planning, that type of programming that's tied into the business risk management suite--in place as well, and those talks are going extremely well.
I had a tremendous opportunity--and Wayne was with me--to travel over to Rome and have a number of bilateral meetings with other countries to talk about agricultural trade. When we were coming back from that, the Russians followed us home and spent a couple of days here talking about livestock, dairy, beef, genetics, and innovative techniques. There have been some tremendous negotiations and discussions between our CFIA and their regulatory body there as to how we handle things like avian flu and the lessons learned from BSE, and those types of things.
We've developed a very good, respectful dialogue with our major trading partners. A case in point is the U.S. We've had some glitches at the border. There's been some extra testing required. We've been able to keep that to a minimum and actually have them lift that testing in a very short timeframe.
We are following up on our dialogue with the Canadian Wheat Board. We've had very respectful exchanges. We kept it below the media radar screen, and I think that's led us to some very forward thinking. There is still a tremendous optimism out there in western Canada that these changes will happen. Farmers are very intense businessmen, and they really analyze the market worldwide. They're seeing wheat above $10 in the U.S. They're seeing durum above $20 in the U.S. Of course, we're getting in the $6 to $11 range for our products. They're wondering why there is the discrepancy. We're working on that.
We've made some significant announcements for agriculture moving into the next phases of biofuels. I made those announcements early on. It is now within the Agriculture Canada mandate to move forward on the whole biofuels situation. We have announced the 10¢- and 20¢-per-litre subsidies that are available on ethanol and biodiesel respectively.
Livestock is a challenge at this time, and I'm certain we'll be facing some questions in the House of Commons, but please be assured that my officials and I have been actively engaged on both the pork and livestock files. We are reaching agreements on what we can do and how quickly we can do it. I do have ongoing meetings with the sector and ongoing meetings with my provincial counterparts as to what they feel they can do. The next one will be face to face with the pork council, meeting with my officials today and me tomorrow. I just recently had meetings with the livestock sector, the cattle industry in particular. We are seeing the opening of the U.S. border to older livestock. That is a very positive step. Having said that, of course, we are waiting with bated breath for the R-CALF injunction to be heard on December 19, and we'll have to see where that goes. We do have allies in the States on the R-CALF proposal, and we are making use of them at this time.
We have announced $600 million in new federal moneys that will be available to the livestock sector, and farmers as a whole, as early as January of the coming year. Very shortly before Christmas, everyone will get a letter as to what their portion of that $600 million will be, to give them an idea of what's coming. We are talking about targeted cash advances for the cattle and hog sector, and those discussions continue.
I have tasked my CFIA officials with coming up with--and I saw this in the draft of your report that will be coming forward on the livestock sector--the costs of the regulatory regime in Canada as compared to the U.S., our major trading partner. We are analyzing that to see what we can do on those files, as to where the discrepancies and disparities are. We will address that shortly.
We are looking at the cost of SRM removal and traceability. Those costs always end up at the farm gate, and how do we make sure that everyone who is sharing in the benefit shares in the cost? We will be doing some more work on that. There is a pool of money to address SRMs and try to get more value out of them.
A lot of the bilaterals and agreements that we will be doing as I travel over the next coming months. Barring a federal election, we are lined up to do Mexico, Cuba, China, Japan, Hong Kong, Russia, and so forth, as we start to develop those other markets so that we're not so heavily reliant on the U.S. market. We will continue to work on those.
I think there's a tremendous opportunity for agriculture in this country as we move forward. We have dropped the ball as a federal government over the last number of years on science and technology. We've let a lot of that go to the private sector, and our producers are paying for that in not having access to products and procedures that are of more cost benefit to them. We will ramp that back up in the coming days. Innovation certainly plays a big part in the new face of agriculture in this country.
Those are just some of the things we've been working on in the last four months, continuing on with the great work that Chuck Strahl started.
I'm happy to take your questions. We have some time left to do that.
Mr. Chair.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and welcome, Minister.
Although you said you and I might get into the Canadian Wheat Board, I do not intend to get into the Canadian Wheat Board issue today. It is before the courts. I think it's fair to say that you had 13.8% support for your position; that's not adequate. But definitely, the previous minister, the Prime Minister, you, the parliamentary secretary to natural resources, and a few others on the government side have shown absolute contempt for Parliament by ignoring the motions in Parliament and reports that came from this committee, and have shown absolute contempt for the courts in the way you're handling that issue. That's all I'll say on the matter.
The most urgent issue at the moment, no question about it, is the crisis facing the hog and beef industry. We're losing producers daily. We haven't been getting any answers from you, sir, in the House. I would hope you could answer more specifically today. I will say this in the beginning. I've heard the $600 million announced four times now. I hope that adds up to $2.4 billion. But the $600 million is not going to cut it for the hog industry and your members know that. It's not going to cut it. The Canada Pork Council has asked for an immediate program in terms of loan guarantees.
So my question is this. Have you, as minister, or has your deputy minister provided any direction with respect to the creation of any ad hoc program or any other kinds of programming beyond CAIS advances to address this beef and hog crisis? We need some specifics in terms of what you've proposed.
Secondly, you answered in the House yesterday that you would answer shortly. Can you be specific as to the date the Government of Canada is going to do something, other than the $600 million, to deal with this crisis? We're losing producers every single day. We can't wait until after Christmas. We have to have an answer and we have to have one now. They need a date and they need specifics.
:
I'll start off with your tirade on the Wheat Board to begin with. When you analyze it, 62% of the farmers in western Canada supported some change, some sort of open market attitude at the Wheat Board. The Wheat Board itself has come to that idea, too, that it's going to have to change, because it's losing market share.
If we had that same plebiscite today, Mr. Easter, I'm sure it would be in the 75% to 80% range, judging by the calls I get from the affected farmers in my area.
Moving on to the livestock sector, we've had very productive talks with the sector, with the provincial governments. As to an exact date, no, I cannot give you that. We have assured the sectors that there will be announcements before Christmas that will allow them to start to move ahead to work with that.
I have had discussions with the chartered banks, with Farm Credit Corporation, and no one is foreclosing at this point on any particular sector. There are certainly case-by-case issues that have been ongoing longer than just this latest glitch in the market.
The dollar is down. Interest rates are down. A combination of their portions of the $600 million that will be available in early January and the targeted cash advances are what has been on the table at this point, that have had agreement between my department and the provincial departments.
I do have ongoing discussions with the provinces coming up tomorrow afternoon, and we'll have to wait and see what comes out of those discussions. I cannot commit to anything at this point, until we have those discussions with the affected provinces as well.
:
My hope is to have some fairly succinct announcements before Christmas. I will know more after I speak with my provincial counterparts tomorrow.
The biggest thing the livestock sector--cattle and pork--has given us are guidelines saying that whatever we do cannot be trade challengeable. They're very concerned about that.
To your point about the European Union, they have made the announcement on the 75¢ per kilo. There are a couple of other hurdles it has to go through yet, so it's not in play. As soon as we saw that announcement, I drafted a letter and sent it to the commissioners of the EU saying we were discouraged by that, as we move forward in Geneva to a new WTO agreement.
I also have calls in to the U.S., Australian, and New Zealand governments to work together to push back on that particular issue. So we are being as proactive as we can, given the fact that they haven't actually implemented it yet.
Clearly, I will not take the five minutes I am allowed to say my piece, but I sense a certain lack of respect for our committee. Mr. Chair, it is probably important that you hear what follows.
I feel a little rushed. The minister has shown up out of the blue. In other committees, when a minister is invited, we have some kind of advance notice of when he is going to appear. I am quite capable of asking questions. But I do not understand why things are different here than in the other committees.
We even dig people out of jail to come and testify at committees, while we here have the hardest time getting the minister, and then he appears out of nowhere. We thought we were going to have a filibuster on a motion dealing with the Canadian Wheat Board, but instead, we have the minister with us for a short time, and so on.
In any event, I was getting ready to say that I was disappointed not to have seen him before the break. So, I am pleased that he is here, but I would like to...
:
I understood that he wanted to come, but, look, his name does not appear on the orders of the day.
Enough whining about it. Mr. Minister, I am happy that you are here before Parliament rises for the break.
I am going to continue along the same lines. People have come to give evidence to the committee, as a matter of urgency, and have asked us for help. So we are passing that request for help to you. Just today, the chair of this committee has tabled our committee report. I do not know if you have had a chance to become familiar with the report on the crisis in the pork and beef industries. You told Mr. Easter that you have a meeting scheduled for tomorrow or at least some discussions about the pork sector.
Although you have said that are not in a position to announce anything here, as Canada's Minister of Agriculture and Agri-food, are you ready to respond to the requests of pork producers, that is, to their requests for loans? The request poses no problem under World Trade Organization rules. This is what pork producers are asking for as a matter of urgency: loans. Are you in favour of that request? Is it your intention to support it in your discussions tomorrow and to work towards implementing it?
:
Absolutely. I apologize for my lack of announcement or fanfare in coming before the committee. I know you gentlemen are up to speed on the agricultural issues, so I didn't think you'd need much of a head start. It was my only opportunity before Christmas, and I wanted to be here before Christmas because of the livestock situation.
The minister from Quebec, Monsieur Laurent Lessard, is my co-chair in the fed-prov meetings. He and I will be having a short discussion on the agenda before the meeting tomorrow. It is basically, at this point, completely on the livestock situation, with nothing on Growing Forward, and so on. We have agreement in principle on that, so it's strictly the livestock situation across the country that we will be discussing as to what the provincial governments are prepared to do. There are programs that we share 60-40, and we want to make sure they are onside with those as well, and they are affordable and fairly quick in their delivery.
We are certainly seized by this. When we had our first fed-prov meeting in November in Toronto, we came in a little earlier on the Friday evening and spent three hours discussing livestock, before we went on to the Growing Forward situation. Hindsight is always 20/20. If we had been able to bring in the new suite of programs a year ahead, as we proposed to do, a lot of this would have been mitigated by the stand-alone disaster component. We would have been able to funnel money through there a little differently than we do now.
But nothing is off the table at this point. We're having these discussions with the hog sector specifically. They're hurting more than the cattle sector at this point. They cycle faster so they're going down quicker than they were before. The difference in the dollar really hurt them quite a bit. We're seeing 75¢ per kilo talked about from the European Union, which again is going to build on that open wound. So we are addressing it all. Hopefully by the end of tomorrow we'll have some more concrete actions in mind.
:
Sure. Back up just one little bit, Mr. Bellevance. It was actually the agricultural sector, the livestock sector, cattle particularly, that called for that level of SRM removal and traceability and so on to help open markets. During the BSE crisis, we went ahead and did that. Of course, we are looking at—what will I say?—some extra cost to the Canadian industry at this point that is unfairly weighted against them, as opposed to our trading partners, and that's the point you're making.
I don't disagree with that. The situation we find ourselves in is that the $50 million that the Canadian Cattlemen's Association and the provincial arms of that are asking for would in no way get back to the farm gate. It would get into the processing sector and possibly into the feedlot, but there's no guarantee that it would get back to the farm gate in any significant way.
We are looking at different ways of addressing the SRM situation and at maybe taking certain products away. We've actually been overqualified on SRM removal at this point, compared to our competitors, because we needed to get the border back open during BSE. We're still behind with the Japanese market. We are going back into the American market in a big way, but it is due to our traceability and our SRM removal that we have been allowed to do that, and that has taken some of the sting out.
We do have $130 million available—$80 million federally, $50 million provincially. That pot of money is available for SRM removal costs. There's a pilot project in Montreal in which they're taking those rendering products and making biodiesel out of them. There are other companies that are putting biodigesters in to develop power. I was in the Maple Leaf plant in Brandon, and they're putting in a biodigester to use up a lot of their.... They do 1,300 hogs an hour, 75,000 a week, and they have a lot of offcuts and offproduct that they are now rendering and turning into biodiesel. The offshoot from that is power to generate back into their whole plant. So it's a completely integrated situation.
Those are the types of things that I think are going to help us in the long run and that I think will do far more to stimulate the economy than that $50 million. There's really no program or plan for how that would be applied.
We are getting a lot better trade treatment from countries due to the processing sector we have here, due to the CFIA regulations. As tough as they are to bear right now, you know, in the long run, they will pay off for us.
:
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will be splitting my time with Mrs. Skelton.
Thank you, Mr. Minister, for being here today. I, for one, welcome you here any time, even if it is only for an hour.
Mr. Minister, we all know the issue and the problems right now in the pork and beef sectors. There are some things the government can do and some we can't. One, of course, is dealing with a high dollar. High feed costs is another one that's hitting those industries right now. There's a bit of overproduction in there that figures into it, and also, especially in the cattle end of it or the beef end of it, we're still not fully over the BSE whack. So we have a lot of things ahead.
One thing this committee did not too long ago was pass a motion unanimously to have the department look into a review of all CFIA inspection costs--not just at slaughter and packing plants, but at the border as well--which affect both pork and beef heavily. I know that when I came to you with the idea of having that, you were very favourable towards it, and I thank you for that. I believe the study is well under way.
I'm wondering if you have any kind of update you can give me on how that study is going, what you may have found to this point, and what we may do about it?
:
I've had those discussions with CFIA officials, Larry, as well as with the departmental officials at Agriculture Canada. They are seized by this at the moment. They are looking at every regulation, every cost, and comparing them with those of our major trading partner, the U.S., and seeing what the USDA does and doesn't charge for what we do. They will have some numbers for me on certain portions of that by the end of this month, and then by the end of January, they hope to have the whole package ready for me showing what we charge for that the Americans don't and what the effect or significance is, and so on.
We have to be careful that we do not jeopardize our food safety in any way when we're doing this. Having said that, there are a number of operations and things we do on a cost-recovery basis that the USDA absorbs. The basic taxpayer pays for it out of the global money in the States.
We are cognizant of that. It's one of those things that is not trade challengeable. You can take away taxes and take away regulatory costs, and it's not trade challengeable. We'll look at that. Even if the dollars aren't as significant as we think, because there has been a moratorium on price, on cost-recovery, for the CFIA since the mid-nineties, there's the psychological benefit of saying that we're not doing that anymore. Certainly I'm more than willing to have a look it.
It may be the type of thing we can't say, carte blanche, we're not going to do anymore, but we can certainly implement a holiday, year by year, on some of those regulatory costs, and that's what we're working with right now.
:
The Russians and a number of countries--Mexico, Cuba--and the Chinese have all expressed interest in live animals as well as boxed beef. They're very impressed by the genetics we've developed.
Of course, our cattle and hog producers are some of the most innovative in the world. In Alberta we have a producer who has developed a hog that is circovirus immune, so they're very interested in those types of things.
Out of the University of Alberta and with some work at the University of Saskatchewan, we have developed vaccines that make animals less susceptible to E. coli. Even as you grind the hamburger and carry on down through, I won't call it a preservative, but that immunity is there. So there is tremendous opportunity to market those types of innovative situations around the world.
In light of food safety--of course, we've seen the media stories on this--we were already starting to do some work ahead of that. We have 10,000 food importers in this country, and a lot of different product comes in that does not have the same scrutiny applied to it as to our own domestic product. That has to start to change.
We're looking at programming whereby that would be done at point of exit, not after it gets into the country. Certainly that would make us much more proactive than we are now.
We are trading more and more. I know there's the food sovereignty movement out of Quebec, but it's very hard to have food sovereignty when.... I think it was Bernard Landry who said we don't grow pineapples here. And I take his point, but there are things we can and should be doing.
I'm very concerned with what constitutes “product of Canada” as opposed to “made in Canada”. We are starting to look at a regulatory regime that would correct some of those anomalies. It's a concern.
There is work under way with the Minister of Health, the Minister of Industry, and me to address some of these labelling challenges and some of these food safety challenges we're facing.
:
Thank you very much for being here, Minister.
I wanted to let you know I've had good discussions with your deputies, both at CFIA and your deputy minister. We have a good working relationship, and I'd like to thank you for facilitating that.
My first question is with regard to biofuels. This is a major initiative. It's something that's been thought about for a long time. There are concerns about that, and I know we will be addressing some of them later, in the next year.
Are there safeguards built in to ensure our producers aren't undercut by, for example, cheap U.S. corn coming in as fuel for the ethanol industry? I think that is taking place in southern Ontario. That whole potential of palm oil and sugar coming in from the southern hemisphere has just devastated many countries and forests.
If they're not in place now, I'm wondering what safeguards you can envision to protect our producers and make sure that what we do is right and that we're not making life worse for people in the southern hemisphere.
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Costa Rica. Thank you, Wayne.
It involves a number of Central American countries who have gone together to get economies of scale when they start to negotiate on agricultural situations. Canada is one of the largest contributors to that group, and in working with them on a case-by-case basis we have developed some trade lines bringing their products in. We are cognizant of the sensitive products like sugar, dairy products, and other SM5 products, and so on. We're working around those situations.
Having said that, there's a tremendous opportunity for us to take our expertise to them and help them grow better products, more environmentally and organically friendly products, and those types of things. It's working very well. He thanked us for our input on that.
We are doing a number of bilaterals with other countries as well to facilitate trade in agricultural goods. We do overproduce in this country to some extent and we do export a tremendous amount of that product. But we have to make sure that what's going out is safe and what's coming in is safe.
On the biofuel side, it's a tremendous chance for producers to be involved. We have structured our products for the biofuels industry so that there is producer involvement. A lot of the subsidies that are available from the federal government are based on the fact that there are producers involved in any particular physical structure and in delivering a product to that. They will make a case-by-case basis as to where they buy their product.
Having said that, there is no surplus of corn in the U.S. and there won't be for the near future as their ethanol industry ramps up. They are an energy-starved nation, as are we, and an industry-challenged nation.
I don't see the use of U.S. corn. I toured the GreenField facility in Johnstown just by Prescott the other day. They are going to be buying between 20 million to 25 million bushels of local corn on an annual basis to produce some 175 million litres of ethanol on an annual basis. They're looking at feeding into that Ontario market. They're also looking towards the future where they can double the capacity and start to export ethanol across the line.
There's a tremendous opportunity for farmers to be involved, not just to deliver to a different warehouse door but actually be part of the next step up in the food or energy processing sector. I think it's a tremendous opportunity.
:
I don't think it's that other countries don't care to the same extent we do or don't adjust to their trade challenges as we do. It's economies of scale. We probably export more per capita than any other agricultural country in the world. We're just that good at it.
I think consumers are getting more and more concerned with what they're eating and what they're able to buy. They want truth in labelling on the store shelves so they know exactly what is in the product. There's a tremendous number of examples out there that you can point to that say “this is made in China”, “this is made in India”, but it's in a jar that says “product of Canada” because the label, the jar, and the processing was done here. We need to be better equipped to make those decisions off the store shelves.
I think it's very important too that we start to analyze the environmental footprint on the cost of that food. When you look at transportation of the little gherkin pickles from India as opposed to what comes out of the greenhouses in Quebec and Ontario, etc., you've got to start to analyze that environmental footprint and what it costs to get that product here. Even though it's cheaper to buy, what was the environmental footprint?
Consumers are getting more concerned with those types of situations as well. That's leading to the drive behind the food sovereignty movement and different things like that. We've actually put some money into the food sovereignty issue to try to drive a pilot project that we can work with on a federal scale. We'll have to see what that looks like at the end of the day. I had a discussion with some of the folks at the UPA the other day on that issue.
There's a tremendous amount of possibilities out there, and I think we have to be much more innovative than we've been up to this point. I don't think farmers any longer want to be hewers of wood and drawers of water; they want to be innovators, businessmen, and they want to sell their product to the world.
:
I'm going to have to slow down a little bit here I think and maybe explain some things, because Mr. Easter doesn't seem to be interested in listening.
We think it is important that western Canadian farmers have access to this information. The reason we think that is important is that western Canadian farmers are paying the bill. So I'm not sure why the opposition is trying to deny western Canadian farmers the opportunity to find out what they are paying, what the cost to them is to pay Mr. Measner not just his severance package but his retirement package. I'm surprised that Mr. Atamanenko didn't support that as well. He seemed to have an interest in Mr. Measner's severance package but has no interest in western Canadian farmers understanding what the other benefits are that Mr. Measner is receiving. Mr. Easter is making the point that perhaps the minister has access to information. I'm sure he does, because he's responsible for the Canadian Wheat Board, and the government is given that mandate in the legislation, but western Canadian farmers do not have that information.
So that's the point I'm trying to make. The original motion here is almost not understandable, because it talks about the government immediately reimbursing farmers for the extra costs. Mr. Atamanenko says that means the Canadian Wheat Board. That's not what the motion says.
So I guess we're going to oppose the motion. The opposition may pass it, but it doesn't mean anything as it's written there, so I'll leave it at that.
I certainly support the motion. Although it's not said, and maybe Alex could answer this, when he says, “recommend that the government immediately reimburse farmers”, I expect he means through the Canadian Wheat Board, and maybe he can answer that.
I have a couple of points. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture asked, how much is the government on the hook for? The amount would be exactly the same amount as western Canadian farmers are on the hook and paying for as the result of the government's actions--the firing of Adrian Measner for doing his job. That's how much, and we don't know.
You'd think if you had a sensible government, they would have found that out before they took the illegal activities they took in terms of putting gag orders on the board, firing directors, firing the CEO, etc.
:
Thank you, again, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Easter may have said more than he wanted to. He talked about the government's actions and how he feels the government should reimburse the Wheat Board, but somewhere he said that sensible government should know what those numbers are. I would argue that a sensible opposition should be asking what those numbers are. They're asking us to spend a pile of money, but they don't seem to have any interest at all in finding out what those numbers are. I saw this motion the other day and I thought it didn't made sense. It doesn't talk about the Canadian Wheat Board; it talks about reimbursing farmers. In that context, it's not clear.
If the opposition is going to call on us to spend a certain amount of money, we think it's responsible to find out what these numbers are. It's clear that they aren't particularly interested in that. We think they should be.
Clearly there's a lot more than just the severance that is costing money. Mr. Measner's last couple of years of salaries and benefits, which were extensive, I understand, would have contributed to the pension and retirement package he has. We think it's important that we take a look at those numbers. Those are just a couple of the numbers. In terms of the salaries and benefits, we think it's important to take a look at the bonuses, because that would have an effect on the pension and severance package as well.
I think the bonuses are an important thing, for a couple of reasons. One is that through much of the time that Mr. Measner was the chairman of the Canadian Wheat Board, the volumes the board was trading in actually went down. It seems to me that there's an even bigger issue than just severance packages. As a committee, we could potentially take a look at the board's policy in terms of its bonuses over the last few years. If they're talking about performance bonuses, and Mr. Atamanenko wants farmers to make sure they're getting value for their money, perhaps we should be taking a look at that situation as well. Are these bonuses being given as performance bonuses, or are they a salary that was hidden from farmers' eyes? I think the salary was posted, but the bonuses never were, so farmers never understood precisely what Mr. Measner's salary was. That's an issue that certainly needs to be looked at. I think we need to take a look at those bonuses.
There certainly have been issues raised about memberships. The Canadian Wheat Board seems to have a number of memberships that have been part of their package. We need to take a look at those. Any extended health care coverage I think would be something that farmers would be particularly interested in. They don't have that kind of coverage. We need to take a look at that as well.
Mr. Chair, I'm prepared to go on all night, but I think I've probably spoken long enough on this.
Mr. Easter has talked about the fact that sensible government needs to take a look at these numbers. It would be my challenge that the opposition should be sensible and insist that we look at the numbers.
I guess we're again back to the principle of a government subverting democracy and causing extra costs to the Canadian Wheat Board. I think it should be understood that all those costs the Canadian Wheat Board endures are borne by primary producers. The extra costs incurred by producers are as a result of the government's action, so in any normal circumstance, the Government of Canada should compensate the board, or, in this instance, as it says, producers, for those extra costs that have been caused. The facts are clear.
There was a balloting process started. Some people were informed that they would be able to vote. Their package never came in the mail because the Government of Canada, the , basically changed the process on the list partway through the process. So there's no question in our mind. There are extra costs borne by western producers as a result of government actions, because they are responsible for the costs of the board.
So I support this motion. It only makes sense that when the government is responsible for increasing farmers' costs, subverting democracy, as they've done in this case, the Government of Canada, and not western primary producers, should bear those costs.
:
I brought forward this motion on Monday, Mr. Chair, and it was the following:
That the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food condemn the message in the calendar produced by the Kerrobert Credit Union and ask Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to investigate how this calendar was funded and if any other Credit Unions are using a similar template for their calendars.
I was very concerned because this calendar, on one page, gave the advice to eat a meatless meal once a week in order to help the environment. I felt that this was both misleading and based on false or oversimplified information. This sidebar includes a glaring error by stating that it takes 2,200 litres of water just to make a quarter pound of hamburger. This figure is a misreporting of a discredited U.S. figure of 2,200 gallons claimed by an unqualified author over 15 years ago. The correct Canadian figure at this time is 15 litres of water or 3.3 Canadian gallons. And it's certainly less today given the advancements in animal husbandry methods and technology.
Now since that time, I have gone forward and I have talked to credit unions in Saskatchewan. This Credit Union Central of Canada sends out calendars every year to credit unions in Canada, and the credit unions can pick which calendar they want.
There were some credit unions that picked this calendar, not realizing that it was in there. I was very concerned a couple of weeks ago when we heard from witnesses who came to testify that they worked with credit unions or with cooperatives, and I wanted to make sure the Government of Canada wasn't paying for this false information that went out.
I talked to the credit union manager. Immediately when they discovered this, they pulled the calendars from their credit union. That made me feel very much better, but I have grave concerns that this was done. I think we should be supporting our meat producers in this country and agriculture right across this country, because they are the true environmentalists.
I understand Mr. Lauzon has an amendment to this motion.