HALIFAX, TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2006

STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

9:00 A.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. John MacDonell

MR. CHAIRMAN: Good morning. My apologies for being a little tardy. I guess I'm the only one coming from any distance in the morning. Maybe not. (Interruptions) Well, it's good to know the last fellow was worth waiting for.

With that, I want to welcome Pork Nova Scotia. I know you gentlemen have been here before. We'll start with members of the committee introducing themselves, and then you please do the same and you can start. Take whatever time you need for your presentation. We have a two-hour limit. We'd like to ask questions when you're done. So we will kind of leave it to you how much time you want to present and receive questions.

[The committee members and witnesses introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Welcome. Go ahead.

MR. MARTIN PORSKAMP: We would like to take this opportunity to thank the Resources Committee for having us in and hearing our plight once again - our issues, and so on. You've all received our full report, or a report, and I'll just go through it and basically highlight the main issues. Otherwise, it will take a fair amount just to go through the whole thing and read it. You guys can all read, so I'm not going to bore you with all those things. So I guess we'll just start off.

As you know, we've been through a planning process which was initiated under the suggestion, I guess from government, that we needed to get a long-term plan in place with the strategic points that we could sort of aim for in the future. We have done that and with that we have hired on a business development officer. He has been busy doing a bunch of stuff and a few of the main things, as he has organized several meetings, including the Maritimes, so we can get sort of a regional approach to this whole issue.

Also he has had meetings with processors in Nova Scotia to look at what can be done to value added products and so on. Himself and a group from government and Pork Nova Scotia went to Iowa to look at some of the value added initiatives that are going on in that part of the country. As you know, they are in the midst of the huge commodity market down there and they're able to do their own little niche marketing-type stuff and being to this point quite successful at it. He has also had meetings with the processors to look at new products that can move this industry forward, too. So he has been pretty busy and so far he has been with us, what, not quite a year yet?

MR. HENRY VISSERS: Yes, since April.

MR. PORSKAMP: Since April. So he has had a lot on his plate and he has been doing a good job for us. He has been a good addition to our staff. As you all know, it takes time to get any kind of a new product out there. If there are certain requirements that are needed - maybe we have to change the breeding program and so on - it's going to take a year before you can get a product on the ground after, you know the specs, for instance. So that's the time factor for trying to develop new products.

Other initiatives - farm modernization, I guess is also part of a solution. We need to stay modern, stay up-to-date, get more efficient and so on. So that's part of our plan. Price structure - we've been in the doldrums now for awhile and one of the factors, of course, is the currency. You all know that anybody who exports is having a hard time right now and we're no different. Our price is based on a world price based on U.S. dollars. Indirectly, our price comes from the U.S. and so we've been beat up pretty bad because of our currency exchange, but the industry in Nova Scotia, there are four plants that kill hogs in Nova Scotia. One main plant, of course, is Larsen's and three smaller ones, O.H. Armstrong, Bowlby Meats and Tony's Meats in Antigonish.

The Maple Leaf plant, which is the main one, of course, you all know they have made a major announcement recently as to what they're going to do to restructure their own internal business. They haven't really come out and said what will happen to the Larsen's plant in Berwick. They are looking at consolidating their commodity business in Brandon. That doesn't mean - Larsen's is not really in the commodity market anyway, they're more for the processing and so on. So they haven't really indicated to us what they're going to do with the Larsen's plant as of yet. There are all kind of rumors out

there but that's exactly what they are, they're rumors. Until we hear from them, I guess we'll just carry on as per normal.

In light of that, you know, producers are looking at other options and there has been talk and people are looking into the export of weaner pigs to the U.S. Mainly what's happening there is that we can breed and farrow the female animal very nicely here. The growing of the hog part is what's costing us a lot of money. So in light of that, they're loading up 1,000 of these weaner pigs, taking them down to the Midwest and raising them there. It's under contract to producers down there. You retain ownership and because there's more competition for the hog, they can garner a bit higher price and plus the feed is cheaper down there. So there are people looking at that.

There's a company in New Brunswick doing it already and they're inviting anybody else who wants to - they can sort of join in what they have already established as a business down there. Up to now there seems to be more money in it than doing it here but there's always the chance or, you know, it's an up and down market and you can lose money there as easy as you can lose money here. It's just the nature of the business I guess.

Anyway, the support requests, I guess you've probably heard what we've been asking. I guess I'll just point them out fairly quickly here. We would like to ask for support up to the trigger program, about the trigger right now, and that's basically a COP minus $10 or $17, in that range, or that's what it works out to, and it's always hovering around the $155 per hog. Now, that's before the feed price has been taken off the last little bit, too. I don't know if anybody follows feed prices, or grain prices, but they've really started to go up. So this COP is going to increase as time goes on, but we've been asking for support up to the trigger which has, like I said, been around the $150 or $155 range.

Also we are asking to have interest paid on the $3.5 million loan that Pork Nova Scotia has with the Farm Loan Board. Up until now, that interest has been covered and we really appreciate that and we're just asking for that to be done again. We've also asked for some support for producers who have been affected by Post Weaning Multi Systemic Wasting Disease, or PMWS. This is a disease or a condition caused by the circle virus that has been affecting all of the major hog producing regions around the world. It has hit Eastern Canada the last three or four years and it has hit some producers very hard, you know, with high mortality at the early grower stage or the late weaner. There was a study commissioned and losses have been predicted up until now of over $1.3 million and projected for 2007 to be more than $550,000. So we're asking for some help for those producers affected in that particular disease.

There are some transition options that we've also presented, or the Federation of Agriculture has put forward. Pork producers aren't the only part of agriculture that seems

to be in trouble in Nova Scotia. So, anyway, there has been a study done by Kelco Consulting that has put forward a way that we can get more money to the producers; hopefully, that report will be done and presented to government by April 2007, or in that range. It's costing everybody a lot of money to be compliant with traceability, with environmental issues and so on, and those issues or those costs, it's very hard to pass them down.

Up to this point the farmers basically have been taking that right in the chin, you know, they just have had to absorb those costs to be in compliance with all the regulations that are coming down. So, you know, it's a cost that we want to get out of the marketplace, but it has just been really tough to do so. Anyway, the Kelco report is going to be presented to government through the Federation of Agriculture, hopefully within the next half a year.

I guess, in summary, Pork Nova Scotia, you know, there has to be a bunch of decisions made fairly quickly. If things go on the way they are, there won't be an industry here in five years. We need processors here, we need producers here to keep the industry going. It is a $30 million farm gate value and over $100 million spinoff and we feel it is an industry that needs to remain in Nova Scotia. With the changes that we have suggested and others, of course, we feel we can remain here but we need some help to get to where we're going, I guess, and that is what we are requesting of government. We're just hoping that we can inform the members so they'll be able to make an educated decision when the time comes. Thank you.

[9:15 a.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Questions by members of the committee? Mr. McNeil, you're first.

MR. STEPHEN MCNEIL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I thank Pork Nova Scotia for coming in. I think in my three years, this has been an ongoing issue to deal with the plight of the industry. You mentioned that the province has been covering the interest right now on the loans with the Farm Loan Board and you requested that they do so again. What has been the reaction so far?

MR. PORSKAMP: The reaction from the province?

MR. MCNEIL: Yes.

MR. PORSKAMP: We have put our request in and really, we haven't had any indication as to how - like we put the request in as a full package and we haven't had much indication as to what will or will not fly, I guess - is that accurate to say, Henry?

MR. HENRY VISSERS: Yes. I guess that it was in August that we met with the minister, and we basically laid out, in a bit more detail, the case that is in that briefing that we've just presented to you. It was for the Hog Support Program to support producers up to that trigger amount. We actually ran out of funds to do that in June and the Farm Loan Board loan - the Hog Loan Program that existed a couple of years ago - there had been interest paid on that. There was a loan previous to that that was to individual producers which actually a good portion of that has been paid back. Because it was individual loans, we don't have a good handle on how much money was actually borrowed but we believe, based on what's been indicated, that it was close to $2 million and there is something between $600,000 and $700,000 left owing on that loan, so producers have been paying on that one. What remains is this $3.5 million loan actually was borrowed by Pork Nova Scotia and, in turn, loaned to producers which, of course, has caused some issues because we are not a lender. We have been requesting the interest payment on that, plus support payment as was done for the industry before and a request was made in August.

MR. MCNEIL: So it was front of the minister in August.

MR. VISSERS: It was presented to the minister in August, and he indicated that he would take it forward to Cabinet. From what we've heard, there was a number of other requests that were grouped together and that was taken to Cabinet at some point.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Dennis, you can respond.

MR. DENNIS BOUDREAU: If I may clarify just for those who don't know any better. Stephen in his comment earlier - I think he asked about this interest forgiveness or no interest on the Farm Loan Board loan. I should be clear, it is only on this $3.5 million - it is not the whole farm loan that we carry. I wouldn't want it to be exaggerated - I wasn't sure.

MR. MCNEIL: Thanks for the clarification. That's what I was asking, the $3.5 million. So you've obviously heard that it has gone to Cabinet.

MR. VISSERS: Yes.

MR. MCNEIL: What has the minister relayed back to you that has been the issue in Cabinet.

MR. VISSERS: We haven't heard anything. We've heard some anecdotal things, but that's about it.

MR. MCNEIL: You can share those, if you want. (Laughter) You also mentioned, Martin, in the farm modernization part of your plan, could you just talk about a time frame, in terms of the amount of time it would take to do the modernization and the cost to that.

MR. PORSKAMP: I guess we've been preoccupied with just trying to stay alive, I guess, and that is part of our plan. What it would cost and how long it would take, I guess that would depend on where the industry was going and what was in place to ensure a bit of a future for us. This weaner thing, for instance - if that were to take off well then you need to come up with loads of 1,000 weaners and that means larger breeding herds. If we can get the Kelco report - if we can get that into place and if we can keep the packers there, well then we can keep the industry here as it is and start to modernize it some, but a lot would hinge on what comes down in the next half year or so from industry and government. How our development officer - if he can secure some higher end markets and so on. There's a whole lot of issues here. If we go to a natural pork or to an omega-3 pork, for instance, we may have to do things not quite the way we always have been, at the farm level. So it depends on where we go, as to what we would have to do to make us more efficient.

MR. MCNEIL: Has there been a dollar request asked of the minister?

MR. PORSKAMP: I don't think there's a dollar request, is there Henry? You can go ahead on that.

MR. VISSERS: When we presented the original plan to the minister of the day, part of what we said was that's not all in trying to find higher-value markets. As Martin said, these farms have been on the edge for a number of years and they haven't been able to keep up to date with technology and those sorts of things. Simply by renovating some of these barns and by modernizing them by creating alliances with producers that would form different structures, we feel that there's a significant gain in cost of production that can be had from doing that. It would have to be a multi-year program. There would have to be some adequate signals from the marketplace that there's a future in it. So there needs to be some stability in price and in the fact that we are going to continue to have a packer here that producers can sell to. All those things have to be place first.

So there hasn't been a lot of effort on our side or the government's side in trying to put a package together that would look at assisting producers in doing that because regardless of what you would do, the market signals have to be there first before producers are going to do it. Once we're able to find those higher values, once we're able to try and settle down the market issues and the market prices that we're facing now, then

because producers are so far behind, they're going to need a little bit of a leg up to actually get going on some of this stuff.

MR. MCNEIL: Just one last question and then I'll maybe come around for the second go-around. One of the interesting things - and I think it's probably fair to say for most members of the House and Nova Scotians to try to come to terms with - is the fact that we only produce 60 per cent of the pork that we consume. It's tough for everyone to understand how the pricing structure is set, and its deals with Ontario and the U.S. I just would like you to expand on that for all members of this committee and then it's on the record for members of the House, on that issue of the fact that we're only producing 60 per cent of the pork, but the price is driven by somebody else and that's what's affecting us. The old adage of

supply and demand isn't working here. So maybe if you could just expand on that for a minute on the record, to explain to the members of the House, how that works?

MR. VISSERS: True, we are producing about 60 per cent of what we consume in Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, because of the way the marketing structure is set up, a number of years ago, probably between 10 and 15 years ago, Canada started expanding its sow herd and started expanding its production of hogs to the point where we're now exporting in excess of 50 per cent of the hogs that are produced in Canada. There were some benefits to doing that, certainly for the West and for Ontario and Quebec, because they were able to develop those export markets. For instance, Manitoba, once feed freight assistance disappeared, there were some advantages to growing pigs to market out there. Their cost of production, for a period of time, was considered one of the lowest in the world, so they were able to compete in these international markets.

Nova Scotia, because we're in a higher feed cost area, our industry didn't expand well while that was happening. At the same time that that was happening, the Government of Canada put in policies like the agriculture policy framework and things like that that really encouraged exports that were WTO friendly, because everybody was concerned about countervail and anti-dumping and all the other things.

All those things were a negative for the Nova Scotia hog industry because we were not exporting. Our vision wasn't to export, it was to market our product in the region. The disadvantages that caused for Nova Scotia was that we were open to currency risks, which at the time that major expansion happened in the Canadian hog industry, we were looking at a 65 to 70 cent dollar. Really, it couldn't go anywhere but up. As the dollar increased, the price those exporters could receive decreased.

That affected Nova Scotia because our prices - whether we like it or not - are set in that North American market. Retailers in the Maritimes can buy pork from anywhere. It's an open market so if we try to maintain our price at a certain level, then we simply wouldn't be able to sell product. I think if you would talk to Larsen's, they would say that

there are some times that they wouldn't be able to sell to the larger chains in Nova Scotia simply because they were able to buy elsewhere cheaper.

We're forced to be on that North American price so we're in a situation where 60 per cent of the hogs are exported, the Canadian dollar has gone up, we saw a countervail challenge a couple of years ago. Even though Canada won that challenge, it had a dampening effect on our price by somewhere around $10 a hog for the period of time that happened. We had a countervail on corn that was put on by Canadian corn growers because the U.S. Farm Bill made it so they couldn't sell their corn at a profit, so that affected the price of grain and our input costs changed at that time.

We're trying to mitigate the risk of foreign animal disease, but that's another major risk. If something happens in Canada to close the borders - a foot and mouth outbreak or classic swine fever or anything like that, then all of a sudden, the border slams shut. Regardless of whether we have our homework done and we're able to show that we've zoned production and we could be back in business, it would take 30 days, at a very minimum, and probably more like six months before those borders were opened.

We have all of the risks associated with a country that is trying to export product and we get none of the benefits from it. The national programs are set for export; the whole industry is geared for export; our major packer in Nova Scotia, up until now, was geared for export. Those are the reasons that in Nova Scotia, we've had such a hard time over the past number of years. It's simply the marketing pricing structure that we've had - that needs to be addressed.

We believe that the consumer is certainly paying an adequate price for pork, and that there should be enough room in there to pay the producer a decent price as well. We've done some small surveys; there's not a lot of stats available on what consumption trends are in Nova Scotia, we simply have to go by the Canadian stats. We've made attempts to try and reconstruct the hog from the grocery store to see what they were receiving at retail compared to what the producer is receiving. The last time we did that, it was in excess of $6 a kilo that the consumer was paying for pork. I don't say that's the wrong price, I'm just saying that the mix on who benefits from that is wrong. Producers now are receiving $1.30, $1.35 a kilo. There should be enough money in there somewhere to make sure the producer is adequately compensated so we can keep an industry here.

We believe it should be important that we keep agriculture in Nova Scotia, or at least some of it. That's the short answer. (Laughter)

[9:30 a.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Maybe one of the other questioners will get after the long one. (Laughter)

MR. CLARRIE MACKINNON: Late yesterday afternoon I was dealing with the cattle producers' situation. It's almost the same story, that in five years, where will we be? Our sons and daughters are not staying in the business any longer.

I think we have a great opportunity today to have this dialogue with you. I would like to know - at this time I think you need strong federal and provincial support - if you had a Christmas wish list for one item from the federal government and one item from the provincial government, what would that Christmas wish list be?

MR. PORSKAMP: I've never been asked that before, I don't know what that would be.

MR. MACKINNON: If we're going to pursue aggressively your situation, what do you need most from the federal government at this time, and what do you need most from the province? Is that a fair question? You need, it's almost a package, isn't it, but by the same token there must be a couple of things that people can dig into and go for you.

MR. VISSERS: Federally, if you look at the funds that are available through the Agricultural Policy Framework, I would hazard a guess that there's probably enough resources there that we could do a few things without them actually putting more money in that. It's just where and how that money is directed.

The CAIS Program, as it exists, is not really working for Nova Scotia, simply because of the nature of our industry. They have a renewal pillar in the Agricultural Policy Framework that is meant to help producers modernize their industry. If we could work with the federal government to remove ourselves from that national APF agreement and create a program that would work in Nova Scotia or in the Maritimes, rather than everything we do being 60 per cent federal, 40 per cent provincial, that we just simply have that pot of money and we work as an industry towards the different challenges that need to be met rather than being in that restricted framework, then I would think that would be a key wish from our wish list from the federal government. I would be surprised if it would cost then any more money, it would simply be a matter of creating a bilateral agreement that would meet the needs of Nova Scotia rather than the needs of Canada. As we expressed earlier, Canada, as a whole, is on a different course than we are. We need to look at our agriculture here in Nova Scotia rather than the federal scene.

As far as the province goes, if there's a Christmas wish list, we would like a program in place that would give us part of the retail dollar that would make it possible for producers to stay on the farm. We believe that there's enough of a share of that dollar that would adequately compensate producers so they could afford to modernize their facilities, and we could start looking at trying to transition our industry to a different model without constantly worrying about whether the market price is going to be there to sustain producers in the meantime. We recognize that we have to move to a different model, but with all of the other things that are at risk with the industry, it's not possible to focus on that. If somebody is chasing you down the road, then that's what you're concentrating on. So those would be the two wishes.

MR. MACKINNON: An excellent answer. To get a better handle on PMWS, how long has PMWS been with us? Is it still escalating? What is being done in the form of research on possible eradication efforts?

MR. PORSKAMP: PMWS has been around, worldwide, for a lot of years. I guess it has been in Nova Scotia - and it's hard to pinpoint exactly when something like that begins because it just sort of slowly sneaks its way in and you're dealing with problems and you don't know what they are and finally you find, oh, yes, that's what we had two years ago and that's what has been causing me all the trouble. I would say since 2000 or so, in that range, it has probably been eking its way in. Like I said before, it hasn't affected everyone, and for what reason, we don't really know, but the people who it has affected, the producers it has affected, it has really affected them quite severely.

What's being done? There are vaccines out there now that appear to be quite effective. They are just available, basically, and not even so that everybody can buy them. There's a piglet vaccine, where each weaner pig is getting two, but the vaccinations - and that seems to be working very well- but there's only maybe two or three producers who are able to get enough to do their operations at the current time. They keep telling us the vaccine is going to be more plentiful over time, but we've been hearing that for awhile. There are some sow vaccines too, you can vaccinate the sow and, in turn, will pass immunity on to the piglets. That also works, but not quite as effective, it appears, as the piglet vaccine. So there are those things out there, but right now, most of them are still limited - you can't buy as much as you would like and there are producers who are screaming for it.

This disease is starting to take off in the Carolinas and in the Midwest too, so there is a huge demand for that vaccine out there. Anybody who is starting to deal with this disease, at least there are options out there; anybody who was dealing with it four or five years ago, there was nothing out there. They just had to take losses, and personally we had a fairly bad bout of it, but I am one of the lucky ones who has the vaccine and it is working very well - but we dealt with it for four years and it cost us, in mortalities, a lot of money, on top of everything else. So far we have had no help from anybody. I am

just very thankful that we were one of the ones to be able to use the vaccine because we probably were one of the longer ones dealing with it in the province. As I said, it has worked very well for us - so it does work, but the availability is the problem right now.

MR. MACKINNON: Thank you very much.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'll get you on the next round.

Mr. Glavine.

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to Henry, Martin, and Dennis, for coming in today to give us an update on where things are. Speaking of updates, in 2000 there were roughly 215,000 hogs produced, and in 2005, 188,000. Henry, is there some stabilization there? What does the tracking look like for production in 2006?

MR. VISSERS: We expect to end this year with production somewhere in the 170,000 range, which is down fairly significantly from our high. We do try to get a handle on the next year's production for budgeting purposes and just to know what is going on out there. Based on that survey, it looks like production will be somewhere in the 165,000 to 170,000 range for next year. Some of the people we asked made comments that if things didn't change, or if things didn't happen, that they may not finish out the year. We have no control over that - those were the estimates we got about a month or a month and a half ago.

MR. GLAVINE: Martin and Dennis, if you could both have a little bit of a go at this, please. What is the view from the farmer right now, as you go to the barn each day and as you try to look down the road - I don't know if you have any children who are looking at the industry, but certainly there are a few farms in Kings West, in my riding, that would like to see a future for their children - I just wonder how you would take a go at that.

MR. PORSKAMP: As a producer, we've been dealing with this for so long now it has almost become a norm - that you expect to be talking to government and lobbying and so on. That is becoming a big part of our - as Pork Nova Scotia, as producers, as chair and vice-chair, we do a lot of that, which I hate doing but it has to be done for the time being.

The attitude on the farm, well I have children and they are not going to be coming back to the farm - that's almost guaranteed - because they see the work involved and all the rest of it. I don't know if they would like to, even if it was a good business. I have three daughters, so that may be a little bit different - although in this day and age it doesn't make much difference anymore. There is a lot to running a farm other than

getting out and doing a lot of physical hard work, you have to do your office management stuff.

Yes, there is a lot of depression, I guess you could say, out there. There is not much hope. People are living from day to day, basically.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you.

Dennis.

MR. DENNIS BOUDREAU: The way I see it, there are a multitude of factors. You have to deal with your banks calling you and saying you have no more credit - so what are you going to do for next week's load of feed? There are farmers in that situation. I think you have to look forward. There's a place for pig farming, pork farming in Nova Scotia if the government would have a vision like the pork industry, we fight to have a vision of where we'd like to be, what we'd like to do, but I think, it's sad to say, but the government of this province, not just this government, but in the past, they really didn't commit enough vision to agriculture, and once we lose it, it won't come back. It will take 10 or 20 years to come back, and it would be a great loss to this province if we let that happen.

I think it's about time consumers have a voice in this agriculture business, and it's been too quiet. You know, people from Halifax, who live in the city, if they really like their pork or their vegetables to be raised here in Nova Scotia, if it's important or not, I think we've really crossed that line and we should have answers if the public is interested in farming or not. I think there's a future, but it's in bad shape and we need support.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you to both of you for that, because I think that really captures and crystallizes the state of farming, generally, in Nova Scotia. We know there are some sectors that are doing pretty good, but that really speaks to probably 50 per cent of the industry right now, if not more.

I'm just wondering what your take is both from the producer and Henry's position with Pork Nova Scotia? Can we have a hog industry without Larsen's? The two are deeply entwined, and I'm just wondering how you would view that piece?

MR. PORSKAMP: We could have an industry without Larsen's, but we need a plant that will kill those kinds of numbers. To take pigs out - and like the nearest plant that's not with Nova Scotia, of course, is in P.E.I., Garden Province, they have their hands full with Island production. If we were to go further than that, it would be in Quebec. That's not going to maintain the industry here, trucking pigs to Quebec, no. We

do need a packer the size of Larsen's. Whether it's Larsen's or not, it doesn't really matter, I don't think, but we do need a plant that size in Nova Scotia, definitely.

MR. GLAVINE: Dennis, do you see that?

MR. BOUDREAU: I'd like to clarify a point in this report. It might be seen by members of the House and government and the public that there's another option, like we can make these little pigs and ship them to the U.S. That's a notion, but it's not for everybody, and the smaller farms, the medium farms that are not that size of operation, if we don't have a plant to kill those pigs, let's say a plant the size of Larsen's, like Martin said, the rest are in trouble. So, we can't really have half an industry; it's either all or none.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Barnet.

HON. BARRY BARNET: I was intrigued a bit by what Mr. Boudreau had to say. As a consumer of pork and other products, I know nothing or very little about farming. I've always been aware of the fact, or have been for a number of years, the fact that the farmer gets a price, and the consumer pays a price, and somewhere in the middle people divvy up the profit. I think it was Mr. Vissers who was talking about the whole idea of the $6 per kilo of pork, compared to what the farmer is getting, and I can never understand this. I guess my first question is, if the farmer isn't getting the fair value and the consumer is paying the fair value, who's getting the money?

MR. BOUDREAU: I'll take that one. The way I see it, and I wouldn't want to point fingers, but when you look at how, I call it, the value chain, is placed, the farmers there, you have the packer getting it ready for us and it's being distributed, you have the grocery store and all those chains, well when you look at all the chains, in the food industry there used to be a store in every corner, well, they've disappeared, because some of these monsters gobble them up. So after a situation like that, people let that happen, government lets that happen, then you're going to get a monopoly. You look at how many supermarkets are in Canada, there's probably only three or four when you look at it. What do we little guys in Nova Scotia have as a handle to control what we get for our product? We get none. So if government doesn't have the guts to come in and put in a program that is sound for farmers to survive, for people to have a decent price for their food, there's a problem in this country before that's all over.

[9:45 a.m.]

MR. BARNET: But you still didn't answer my question. Who's getting the money? If the consumer's paying a fair price and the farmer's not getting a fair price, is it the retailer? Is there a wholesale network? Where does the difference go, where does that money in the middle go?

MR. VISSERS: We're not talking about a lot of money.

MR. BARNET: Well, we're talking between $6 and $1-something.

MR. VISSERS: Well, certainly, profit's not a dirty word . . .

MR. BARNET: No.

MR. VISSERS: Larsen has to make some money and so do the grocery stores - to build those new stores they're building all over the place, and make the floors nice and shiny, but if you're looking at what the producer needs extra out of that $6 a kilo, at the most it would amount to between 15 and 20 cents. So, it's not enough money really to make a big difference on the retail price, and that would be enough that that would sustain the industry.

So, we're not talking about big dollars and change on where that money goes; we're not talking about $1 more out of the $6 average that the grocery stores are receiving, we're talking about cents - we're talking about 15 to 20 cents.

MR. BARNET: I guess what I really don't understand about this - and it might take years of economics at university for me to be able to get this - is that we have the producer of the product who can't survive on the money they're getting. We have the people who package and manufacture it who need that product - without you, they have nothing. The retailers, without you, they have nothing. At the end of the day, the consumers, without the farmers, they have no food. So I would think, in terms of the chain of how this food starts from a small pig to something that you eat, the guy at the beginning is the guy who actually has the most value, or is the most important - it would be important for me, as a consumer, and for everybody along the line to make sure that person stays in business, so their business then can go on.

I'll go on to something else, I guess. Other jurisdictions, New Brunswick and P.E.I., they must be similar in terms of the concerns in New Brunswick and P.E.I. I would guess they have similar market conditions - can you tell us what is the state of the industry in New Brunswick and P.E.I.? I only use those because they're close. Is there an industry in Newfoundland and Labrador? I don't know if there is . . .

MR. VISSERS: No. In New Brunswick, their plant was a Maple Leaf plant, it was one of the ones that was bought when Maple Leaf bought Larsen's and Hub. Hub Meat Packers was closed a number of years ago. About 40 per cent of the production from New Brunswick comes down to Nova Scotia and is slaughtered at Larsen's plant. The remaining production in New Brunswick goes the other way, to Quebec - the northern part of New Brunswick goes to Quebec and the southern part comes to Nova

Scotia, so the distance is not much different for them between going to Nova Scotia or to Quebec.

There is some freight supports provided for them to come down here by Larsen's simply because the numbers they're bringing in are smaller than the numbers they're receiving from Nova Scotia. Averaged over all of the hogs, it's a smaller amount. Their industry has gotten smaller over the past few years, the same as Nova Scotia's has, because of the same kind of marketing conditions and factors that we're facing in Nova Scotia.

P.E.I. is a little different situation. Their population is quite a bit less than Nova Scotia - somebody can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's somewhere around 140,000 people on P.E.I. and they produce in excess of 200,000 hogs a year - that's more than one each, so . . .

MR. BARNET: I think it's around 300,000 now, but that's okay, I understand . . .

MR. VISSERS: . . . they're actually not eating them all. They have a plant there. It was a Maple Leaf plant until about six months ago. It was a jointly owned plant between the producers and Maple Leaf. Maple Leaf had the majority share in that plant, but they bought their majority from the producers 10 or 15 years ago for $1 and they sold it back to them for $1 about six months ago. They now have another group that has come into P.E.I. and taken over that plant. They're looking at some things that are similar to us. They're looking at some niche markets that involve organic, natural-type pork and, of course, they're marketing the Green Gables, P.E.I. kind of image on the Eastern Seaboard and Asian markets and things like that. The price situation is still pretty similar to ours, their price is a little less than ours but they have closer access to grain than we do so one offsets the other a bit, so their situation is not a whole lot different than ours.

MR. BARNET: In the interest of time, I'll combine my last two questions into one.

I visited Tony's Meats in Antigonish and had a tour of the plant. I was quite impressed with the fact that they're more than just simply a butcher shop, they actually do a great deal of work in processing that meat into other types of products. It would seem to me that what they've done there is they've gone out and sought whatever the consumer was looking for and the restaurant industry as well. We know there is a great deal of consumer interest in healthy food choices and, as the Minister of Health Promotion and Protection, I guess I'm kind of compelled to ask the question, what has the industry done to promote itself as a healthy food choice? Is there some area of niche marketing, to use a better term, that the industry can work towards to go after that market, because people are paying attention to the products they're eating?

MR. VISSERS: We recognize that market is there and we've been looking at and doing some feeding trials on feeding flax to pigs, which increases the omega-3 in the pig to the point where you would have omega-3 pork. We've looked at no antibiotic production and all those sorts of things, and those are part of the strategy that we're developing with our business development officer to try to capture some of that higher value.

We already do a Canadian Quality Assurance Program, which is a HACCP-type program on the farm that producers record and follow certain principles in their production methods and bio-security on their farm and how they handle medications and things like that, do the record-keeping and all those sorts of things. The pork industry was one of the first industries in Canada to develop a quality assurance program so it's fairly mature. It started in 1996, so we're about 10 years into that now and we've gone through a couple of versions of our book and things like that.

Certainly Tony's has a nice operation there. He's a valuable asset to Nova Scotia and he's an important partner with Pork Nova Scotia and the pork industry. We have our producers up from Truro, most of them ship their hogs to Tony's and we have a good relationship with him. He is small enough, he owns the plant himself and he's able to make those decisions - there are advantages to that because he can make decisions quickly. He has been an entrepreneur and an innovator and he has certainly developed some nice little markets even with a couple of the major chains.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Minister Dooks.

HON. WILLIAM DOOKS: Thank you very much. Gentlemen, just a couple of questions. What goes into the feed that you feed your stock?

MR. PORSKAMP: It's mainly corn and soy and like a mineral mix, to balance off all your stuff, but mainly corn and soy and, depending on the price, you add some wheat or barley, depending on the least cost methods.

MR. DOOKS: So you mentioned that, of course, the cost of feed is one of the hurdles that you face. Are we not able to grow that type of product here in Nova Scotia, the wheat and the barley?

MR. PORSKAMP: We can grow those products here but not at a competitive price, you know, I mean the producer. If you're a grain producer, just because of the smaller acreages here and so on, you can bring corn in cheaper from Ontario than for what it can be produced here.

MR. DOOKS: How much cheaper? Is it 10 per cent cheaper? Has anybody ever completed an analysis on that? That concerns me, I mean it almost seems that we should be able to grow the feed for our animals here in the province.

MR. VISSERS: I think if the industry was able to size up a bit, not just the hog industry but the beef industry, there's quite a bit of land sitting around Nova Scotia that doesn't have a lot growing on it and there was certainly a certain amount of public dollars put into some of those farms, in tile drainage and clearing and all those sorts of things.

There have been quite a few changes in the varieties of corn and things like that over the past number of years. Once our industry is able to move towards a more modern structure, we should be able to consume more local corn, in particular, because high moisture corn, if you don't have to dry it (Interruption) Yes, if you don't have to dry the corn, if you can put it up as high moisture corn, it has as good a feed conversion as dry corn does, even with the moisture in it. So you don't have the cost of drying it down. You simply store it on the farm and feed it, but there's quite an infrastructure cost in putting those storage facilities in place and changing the feeding systems in the barns to make that possible.

There also needs to be some work done on the ground, no pun intended, to convince people that growing that corn is a profitable venture for them too because, you know, they aren't going - and probably those things will change over the next few years when we see what's going on in the States and in the corn-growing areas when they're starting to move towards ethanol production and things like that, you know. There are some advantages to grain prices going up because it makes it more possible for us to do those sorts of things here.

MR. DOOKS: It's all reflective of it, yes.

MR. VISSERS: Whether we'll ever be self-sufficient in grain, I certainly wouldn't want to bet on it, but we can certainly help ourselves out some by doing some more of that.

MR. BOUDREAU: If I may, just to clarify that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MR. BOUDREAU: I wouldn't want the members of the House or the people of Nova Scotia to think that just because you can grow corn or grain that you can grow with that same ton of grain you put in the ground, seed, that you can grow the same amount of corn in Nova Scotia as in Iowa.

MR. DOOKS: Yes, we would recognize that. Bring clarify for me to this primary value chain recovery project, please?

MR. PORSKAMP: That's the Kelco report that you're referring to?

MR. DOOKS: Yes, yes.

MR. PORSKAMP: We started that initiative - how long have you guys been working on that now?

MR. VISSERS: Well, it was a couple of years ago. It has partly to do with what we were talking about as far as not receiving a fair return for product and things like that. We recognized that it was an issue that needed to be dealt with, not just for a commodity but as an industry, and mostly the industry that doesn't have a supply management agreement to backstop supplies and things like that. So it's beef and pork and things like that. So we worked with the federation on that as well as other commodities and we developed what has been commonly called the Kelco report, which is a really nice advertisement for the consulting company that wrote the report because they're called Kelco Consulting. So those reports were finished. There was a Phase I and a Phase II.

After those reports were finished, then there was some interest from the Minister of Agriculture in trying to develop something, so the minister has developed a working group that's looking at the results of those two projects and trying to develop something to bring back to the minister within another month or two.

MR. DOOKS: Thank you for that. So the reason why you're unable to set your own price to get what you need is because the marketplace dictates the price, and basically the big stores will buy somewhere else or . . .

MR. VISSERS: It's a matter of market power.

MR. DOOKS: Yes, that's the real issue, I think is very clear. When we talked about the government supporting you in the interest on your loan, how many years have they done that, or is it just one year before?

MR. BOUDREAU: Two years.

MR. DOOKS: Two years previous?

MR. BOUDREAU: Yes.

MR. DOOKS: One other question, this small question, Mr. Chairman, how long does it take to bring a pig to market size for sale?

MR. VISSERS: From birth to market, they don't all go at the same time, but it's approximately 160 days.

MR. PORSKAMP: Yes, 160 days, average.

MR. DOOKS: So 160 days and tell me in pounds, please, what is a market-size pig, 150 pounds, or 170 pounds?

MR. BOUDREAU: Two hundred pounds of meat.

MR. VISSERS: They dress out at 90 kilos, which would be 200 pounds.

MR. PORSKAMP: And that's dressed.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Gaudet.

[10:00 a.m.]

MR. WAYNE GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, I want to thank our guests for coming in this morning. Henry, in your presentation this morning you made reference to you meeting with the minister back in August. I'm trying to understand what request is before government. In your presentation earlier to government, was there - I'm trying to understand - did it include your long-term plan or was it strictly a short-term plan, or were both included? So maybe let's start off with that first.

MR. VISSERS: In our presentation to the minister in August we outlined what the industry had been doing to try to move ourselves forward. We've been working with some staff from government on this business development piece. We have a small committee struck that meets regularly to discuss progress in that. We reviewed that with him.

We also asked for the short-term support that you see in here. We basically updated him on what was going on, he already has the planning report that was delivered to Minister d'Entremont, who was Minister of Agriculture at the time, which said we had a capacity gap within Pork Nova Scotia and we needed to hire a business development officer. It also recognized that we had to move to different types of markets and it recognized that in the meantime there needed to be some support to keep the industry in place.

Those were the things we highlighted with the minister. We didn't review the planning report again, but we said these are the short-term support pieces that we need to have in place. This is the longer term plan we're working on, this is what the business

development officer has done to date, here is the report on the wasting disease that we're facing and those sorts of things.

MR. GAUDET: So what's the request right now that you're waiting to hear from?

MR. VISSERS: I don't know what was written in the Cabinet documents.

MR. GAUDET: I mean, what's the request coming from the industry to government?

MR. VISSERS: The request from the industry to government is to continue the hog support program at the trigger point, which runs at approximately $155 a hog; the interest forgiveness, a write-off, on the $3.5 million Farm Loan Board loan that Pork Nova Scotia is carrying; and support for those individual producers who are affected by the PMWS.

MR. GAUDET: So what price are we looking at? What's the price tag?

MR. VISSERS: Approximately $4 million.

MR. GAUDET: So when does the industry need to hear from government on this $4 million request?

MR. PORSKAMP: Yesterday.

MR. GAUDET: You also indicated you understood the request had gone to Cabinet. Did the minister or the department indicate to the industry that the minister was taking that request to Cabinet?

MR. VISSERS: The minister made a commitment to take our request to Cabinet at the time we met with him in August.

MR. GAUDET: Did he specify when?

MR. VISSERS: The responses I've had since have not been by letter or anything. We simply have heard that it went to Cabinet and that it was sent back with questions. What we have heard, unofficially, is that there were requests from other commodities as well and those requests were brought forward at the same time.

MR. GAUDET: Does the industry have a sense of when Cabinet will be dealing with this? When's the request supposed to be re-introduced to Cabinet?

MR. VISSERS: I don't know. We haven't heard. That would be a question for the minister.

MR. GAUDET: Okay. I want to move on to the Larsen plant. You indicated - I think it was you, Martin - that there were lots of rumors out there. Has the industry sat down with Larsen to talk about the future of the plant?

MR. PORSKAMP: We talk with the plant manager, Mike Larsen, on a regular basis. I realize he has probably very little to say as to what will happen ultimately with Larsen's in general. Our development officer has been talking with Maple Leaf in Toronto to find out and to try to work with them to do some more things at Larsen's. Because Larsen's is a relatively small plant in the big scheme of things, they can do things that the Brandon plant just can't do.

Those talks were going along very well until the announcement came out, but I still think that, personally, Larsen's isn't going to be the same type of a Maple Leaf plant that the bigger ones are. Maybe they will do something a little special at Larsen's. It's hard to talk, you just can't pick up the phone and talk to Michael McCain, for instance. You just don't get anywhere with that.

I know our development officer has been talking to Annalisa King, she's the vertical coordinator - is that her position?

MR. VISSERS: That was her title, they're not doing much coordinating anymore. They'll have to change her title.

MR. PORSKAMP: We thought we were making some headway, then their big announcement came and she was away for awhile and I don't know what the status is now.

MR. VISSERS: Murray is still talking to her about some of the ideas that we've had. Of course, Larsen's takes between 80 and 85 per cent of Nova Scotia's production so we need them to play ball with us if we're going to try to do some of this stuff we plan to do.

MR. GAUDET: I'm just hearing that production numbers are going down, we're looking at maybe sending our weaners off to the U.S. market, the cost of production is going up. The industry is faced with many challenges right now. Have there been any signals by Larsen's that we know what the future holds?

MR. PORSKAMP: None.

MR. GAUDET: No signals whatsoever.

MR. VISSERS: Some of what they've said they are going to do are not going to be easy things to do. They are planning on having two shifts at the Brandon plant in Manitoba. That's a major undertaking. We are kind of feeling that on the pork side of Maple Leaf that Larsen's is really not on the radar right now. That is good and bad, if they are not on the radar and you keep your head down and keep doing what you're doing, the other thing is that they may not be all that interested in doing some innovative things, either. So we'll have to push hard, and we need the help from the government side to push hard, to try and convince them that this industry is worth saving here and that there are things we can do to make it profitable for everyone.

MR. GAUDET: I'll finish off, Mr. Chairman, with one last question. I need to talk about the cost of production. I don't know for how many years I have been hearing $155. I hear that the feed is going up, labour is going up. The cost of production must be higher than $155. Why does the industry still use $155?

MR. VISSERS: We don't. If you read the document it says that's what the trigger is, it doesn't say that is what the cost of production is. We also point out that it is $17 below COP.

MR. GAUDET: So why don't we adjust the trigger with the COP?

MR. VISSERS: Well, any of the documents that we put out reflect both the cost of production and what the maximum support that the program will offer is, and that maximum support is $155. Now that certainly doesn't take into account the fact that feed prices are going up. We track feed prices weekly, and we're seeing an increase between $6 and $10 per hog in grain prices over the past month, month and a half. If you are capped at $155 then obviously you are further behind the eight ball because of that.

MR. GAUDET: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Belliveau.

MR. STERLING BELLIVEAU: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the interest of time, I am going to ask for a couple of points of clarification and get to my question. I realize I am not an economic professor but I realize that I may have only one kick at the can here and I don't want to lose it.

A point of clarification, you said earlier that the cost to the farm gate or the farmer - and I was intrigued by that, because the understanding from the hog at the retail level, the large supermarkets, was $6 a kilo, am I correct? At the farm gate it was $1.50-something?

MR. VISSERS: Well, it moves around. Right now it is about $1.35, it averages over a couple of years somewhere around $1.58 a kilo.

MR. BELLIVEAU: The packers are the other person in there, too. So there are three different . .

MR. PORSKAMP: The wholesaler.

MR. BELLIVEAU: My understanding from your presentation was 15 to 20 cents. If you had more at the farm gate was a break-even point, did I hear that correctly?

MR. VISSERS: Yes.

MR. BELLIVEAU: Okay.

MR. VISSERS: If you take an additional 20 cents of the retail dollar and put it back in the farmer's pocket, then that is enough for him to be sustainable.

MR. BELLIVEAU: From the retailer.

MR. VISSERS: If there's an extra 20 cents a kilo somewhere in the process that could go back to the farmer.

MR. BELLIVEAU: That's the point I am trying to make, yes. The other point of clarification was that you suggested that Canada is on a different course than Nova Scotia.

MR. VISSERS: Yes.

MR. BELLIVEAU: Can you clarify that for me?

MR. VISSERS: Western Canada has lots of grain. Feed freight assistance disappeared in 1995, I think it was. At that time, there was a major shift in where production took place, because there was no longer federal support for grain coming into the grain-deficit regions, which was what that program did, it kind of helped to offset those freight costs. So we saw an immediate increase in the amount of production in western Canada, which is where a lot of this growth was. Also, because of the programs that Quebec has in place, they are export-driven and they have increased their production. I'll give you some numbers that will compare to Nova Scotia - Quebec markets 7 million hogs a year, Ontario markets 5 million hogs a year. Manitoba is the larger producer of hogs now, they're actually marketing between 4 and 5 million and they're exporting an additional million or so, plus they have a weaner pig market, which is part of what we talked about earlier, too.

So those things changed to the point that those jurisdictions certainly can't consume all of the pork they're producing, so it has become an export business, and the drive is for export. For awhile, the minister in Manitoba was saying every new barn built is another hog to export, because every one of those new pigs had to be exported.

MR. BELLIVEAU: Now if I could, Mr. Chairman, get to my main question. You mentioned earlier that one of the first initiatives your association did was hire a development officer. I'm interested, is that particular officer interested in new niche markets, local feed supplies, or modernizing plants?

MR. VISSERS: His mandate is partly all of those. His mandate is to try and work with processors in the region and try to develop those kinds of niche markets that have been mentioned here a couple of times to try and create alliances between packers or producers to find those markets, to a lesser extent, because of the nature of the way the industry is now, to also look at alliances among producers to try and reduce their costs. We haven't been as successful in trying to make those things happen simply because nobody is willing to make those additional investments right now.

MR. BELLIVEAU: So if I just take it a step further. If Nova Scotia was to be a leader in creating these niche markets, for instance, our institutions, our schools, whatever we have across Nova Scotia, is that a direction that you feel would be complementary to your industry?

MR. VISSERS: I think it all has to be part of the package. When we talk about those sorts of things we're talking more about restaurant trade, higher-end markets that would be willing to pay for the added value that we're trying to add on the farm, which would be willing to pay for the omega-3 in the hog, which would be willing to pay for a product that's marbled a little bit more so it adds some taste to the product and things like that. Also, if there are markets on the Eastern Seaboard, which there's a higher population than here, then there's a possibility of selling those higher-end cuts there, too. Now, saying that, there's certainly parts of the hog that are not attractive to those sorts of markets, so you still need other markets to get rid of the rest of the hog, as well.

MR. BELLIVEAU: In conclusion, is your development officer looking at the potential for the by-products of this industry?

MR. VISSERS: We've recognized that for those types of products we're probably talking about 20 per cent of the cut on the hog so, obviously, the rest of it has to find a home too. So, yes, he is working on that, as well.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Belliveau. Mr. Dunn.

MR. PATRICK DUNN: You'll probably be pleased to know that I sat down to a beautiful meal yesterday, late afternoon, to a good feed of pork chops. They were excellent. Just one quick question. Maybe you've already done this and, if not, would there be any benefits to it? You made reference to New Brunswick and P.E.I; P.E.I. producing a couple hundred thousand hogs per year. Would there be any benefit to meeting with the three agricultural ministers from the three provinces, and coming from that point of view, would that be beneficial, or would there be anything to gain from doing such a thing?

MR. VISSERS: I think they meet and I expect they talk about us.

Part of what we've been trying to do with this development piece is talk as a Maritime unit and talk about trying to work together on some of these things, and part of that development mandate is to look at a Maritime industry. That's one of the alliances that we feel - we're pretty small, even the three of us together, compared to the rest of the Canadian industry, so if we can do some things together to knock some of the costs out or try and get into some of these other markets, then that is certainly what we want to do.

MR. DUNN: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. I'd like to ask a couple of questions. So are you actually saying that the price you should be getting for a hog is around $180?

MR. VISSERS: Yes.

[10:15 a.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: In a previous presentation a couple of years ago that you made to this committee, there was no Kelco report, but you made a similar suggestion. Minister Barnet's question - Pork Nova Scotia is created under legislation, you're a marketing board, so in that legislation you actually have the ability to set price.

MR. VISSERS: Yes, we do.

MR. CHAIRMAN: In the real world, you don't have the ability to set price.

MR. VISSERS: Yes, we do, we just can't . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: You just can't collect it?

MR. VISSERS: They'll just say, well, we don't want any this week.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Sure, that's right, exactly. I think Minister Dooks went down that road, but I don't know that Minister Barnet actually picked up on that. The point is, even though you're producing the product, and you're the only game in town, really, in Nova Scotia, you're not the only game in Canada so, therefore, if retailers - I mean, they don't even have to buy from Larsen's. If they want to buy from God knows where, and then just say, look, we appreciate that you want to get this much per kilogram but we're not buying it this week, so we'll just get it wherever, so that pretty well gives you no ability.

Under the interprovincial trade agreement, and we talk about what governments can do, and Mr. Boudreau has gone down this road a couple of times, to an extent we've sold our ability to do what we should be able to do for our local areas, because in the interprovincial trade agreement, in Chapter 9, there's a limiting clause that says you can't interfere with the flow of agricultural goods, which is a bit problematic when it comes to trying to set up even buying local, or whatever, in your own area - I'm not sure that that's insurmountable, but it's a bit of difficulty, I'll say that. My understanding, and I don't want to get to the politics of Kelco because you haven't really said much, you threw the name out there and that has made me a little gun shy on saying much about my understanding of the Kelco report.

In the value chain, there is a problem in you trying to get your price - even though it's there, and I believe it's there in the display case - is the question of, is the price of food going to go up, and it's going to be blamed on the farmer. In other words, if you need 20 cents or 15 cents a kilogram, is the price of pork going to go up by 20 cents? I do get the odd letter saying that farmers are the reason that the price of milk is so high, under the supply managed system, and I keep trying to make the case that farmers across the country producing milk are getting basically the same price. So the retail price in Ontario and Nova Scotia, there are other factors relating to that.

So I want to know if you have a strategy around the sale of - what I understand, is at least part of what's in the Kelco report, because a lot of these things that you have mentioned in the section of your proposal here to us today, or your report, and the support requests, there's an awful lot about this industry that would change if you were making money. In other words, in your ability for the infrastructure and all these other things this would be a completely different world. What you would be coming to the government about would be something completely different if you were making money. I think there is money, and the money is there. So I want to know, do you have a strategy around trying to sell Kelco, because you have to sell it to us first if we're going to try to sell it to the public.

MR. VISSERS: Yes, agreed. There certainly are some constraints around that. The minister has struck a committee, a working group, I guess, that's looking at the Kelco report and what the various means of implementation would be, and things like

that. That committee is still doing its work, so it makes it difficult for me to comment more than I commented in the report on that. We believe, as you said, that it is the answer for a lot of the problems that are being faced not only by pork producers, but beef producers and a few other jurisdictions, as well. If it's properly done, we won't have to come hat in hand to government anymore for some things that certainly farmers don't want to do. We would like to come here and talk about issues other than the one we're always beating away at.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'll tell you what I think as an MLA, not necessarily as chairman of this committee, is that there is a lot of support out there by the public for you. I'm not sure the reaction by the public would be so over the top. I remember watching hog producers one time taking their pork and selling it. They took their trucks to parking lots and they were selling pork, and the public was very sympathetic about the relationship between what the retailers were getting for pork, because they said this roast would cost you at the store this much, but here's what I get for it as a producer. I think for the first time that the public actually thought, gee, there seems to be something wrong there.

I think there's more support by the public for farmers to get their fair share. I think, the people who I've dealt with in the city, they're very concerned about agriculture and its impact in rural Nova Scotia. Even though they live in the city, they look at good quality food, locally grown, and these are important issues for people. I think there's more support here than you know, and I think at some point the industry is going to have to try to get its message out in a clearer way and tap into that support. It really is here, and if you go to the farmer's market, that should be a clear indication that people are really interested in buying local and supporting farmers and seeing that they can make a living.

Okay, I don't want to take any more time.

We have a second list started, and I have Mr. MacKinnon on the top of it, then Mr. Glavine, then Mr. McNeil, and Minister Barnet.

MR. CLARRIE MACKINNON: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Not to be outdone by the member for Pictou Centre, it was my wife's birthday yesterday, and we had a birthday party at one of my daughter and son-in-law's home in Minister Dook's area. We had pork chops, at our request. They called us in Pictou County yesterday and asked, what do you want for your birthday meal, and my wife and I agreed that it would be pork chops for a large party.

Anyhow, that is a fundamental concern to me, because we are not just producing sons and daughters for western Canada, we are helping the coffers of western Canada out by eating Alberta beef and Manitoba pork. It really bothers me when I am buying a

product and I don't know where in fact it has come from. I have supported Larsen's products for a long time, but lots of times you see Our Compliments or President's Choice and you have no idea who is packing for them.

There's often a beating up of the retail element. As far as I'm concerned, we don't pay tribute, sometimes, to the retail element, like Sobeys, for example, still keeping corporate head offices in Nova Scotia when it may in fact be more advantageous to be in Ontario, considering the spread from coast to coast of Sobeys.

Sobeys have also, on occasion, been supportive of Nova Scotia products. I'm wondering if we have ever - I know it would be very difficult to tie into President's Choice with the competition, but has there ever been a Larsen-type product that is involved with Our Compliments?

The other thing is, how do we know that we're buying Tony's product, or whatever? We do this all the frigging time. We're eating New Zealand apples instead of our own, and all this kind of stuff. How can we do a better job of supporting you people?

MR. VISSERS: A lot of the store labels, the proprietary labels, are produced by different companies. There are certainly times when there is a Nova Scotia packer who is producing Our Compliments - I know that to be the case. There is a strategy in doing that, in that they are not tied to a label so they don't have to buy a product regardless of price. If it is a proprietary label then they simply buy it where they can buy it the cheapest and, as a part of the specs, their label is slapped on the product. So that is a retail strategy.

I agree with you that we can't spend all our time beating up on retail. They do a good job - there is always food on the shelf when the consumer goes to the store. You can't argue with that, it looks good, and the consumer gets all the pork they want to eat regardless of where it came from. We have had some of our people whom we work with say that the pork industry is doing great - and it is - there is all kinds of pork out there, all kinds of it to eat, and all kinds of it being produced. There is just one little problem - the person who is actually producing it.

It is difficult to see where that product is produced - if you look at Our Compliments, or something from Superstore, and it has the Canada inspected little circle on it and it says "Establishment 150", then it is Larsen's. That is about as close as you can come to finding out where that product is - it is unfortunate, but there is definitely a strategy involved in that.

MR. MACKINNON: Any chance for one more?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, there may be.

Mr. Glavine.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you. I guess we have time for just a few quick questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, we have some time. I just want to see how this goes.

Before you go on, I want to say to Mr. MacKinnon that we are under kind of the same rules as the House, and I'm not sure that "frigging" is parliamentary language - but I would say it is on the border of what I would find acceptable, so I would ask that we tone that down, please.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm glad to see Mr. MacKinnon being passionate about this topic.

Anyway, Henry, what is the price today for a kilo? Roughly today, I know it was set earlier in the week.

MR. VISSERS: It is about $1.34 this week.

MR. GLAVINE: It's $1.34. So the trigger then is now in effect to bring it up to $155?

MR. VISSERS: Yes, it is kind of a virtual thing right now. (Laughter)

MR. GLAVINE: And we're saying basically that $180 would allow you a reasonable profit margin, possibly a dollar or two to reinvest right back in.

Okay, so let's say that it stays at $1.34 for a period of time. Dennis, can you stay in the business if you get no help at $1.34, or is your operation in southwestern Nova Scotia history? I want to put it right on the line here.

MR. BOUDREAU: At $1.34 there is no chance that you can survive. It doesn't matter if you're a 5,000- sow unit or a 100- sow unit, there's no chance. It doesn't matter if your farm is fully paid for, that you own it and you are 60 years old, you can't get through. You have feed bills to pay and other things, it doesn't matter what. It is fair to say it can go a lot further than that.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you. Henry, you did a great job giving us the analysis - all of the risks seem to come together right here in Nova Scotia, in eastern Canada in terms of pork production. If you were making a case - and I think you should, and I certainly want to make a case that we keep and have a pork industry here, that we're identified with having this agriculture sector for the future. What are a couple of the strengths that we could say are the basis of moving the industry forward?

[10:30 a.m.]

MR. VISSERS: Well, one of our strengths is certainly that we're producing less than we're consuming, so for the most part, unless we're talking about the higher-end cuts that have extra value, we should be able to move everything that we've got in Nova Scotia - we should be able to take the shelf space or shove other things off the shelf space and take its place. We have a small enough industry that if there is a need to move to a different market niche, we can do it quicker than other jurisdictions. They're mostly family farms; because they're family farms, they are placed in different parts of the province, so they have less of an environmental impact that way. For the most part, all the inputs and outputs are handled right on that farm. Without having a corporate structure, there's a lot more incentive for producers to be good stewards of the land, to have something that they can pass on to their family. If there's an industry that's sustainable and viable, then that kind of a program takes care of the succession of the farm, and that farm will be passed on to another family member.

There's nobody on our board or in our industry who really aspires to being a large corporate structure. They are simply family farms that want to exist within the existing framework and be a part of a sustainable industry in this province. In a number of cases, they're mixed farms, so they're able to use the manure and whatever else for cropping and other things on those farms, and because they're mixed, they can stand a little bit better the highs and lows of the marketplace. Not the lows that we've been having.

MR. GLAVINE: That's a good overview that gives us some of the facts, and I think that "feel element" which agriculture, of course, relates to so strongly, but you have to be able to make a living. You know, if I were sitting at the Cabinet Table, I would not be able to vote against supporting you, because there are actually very few industries in this province where on a $30 million farm-gate value, 94 per cent is reinvested in Nova Scotia. I mean, that's compelling alone, right? That is one of the points that I wanted to make this morning.

The last question. Will you have any opportunity at all, maybe not even the plant manager will at Larsens, but will you be able to make any kind of a case, maybe not at the boardroom table but, publicly, in some forum, for Larsens? To centralize in Brandon goes against what I hear Agriculture Canada saying, which is that if we have regional operations, we have greater chances of bio-security in the production of our food. This flies right in the face - I mean, I know it's private business, but what are we going to say there?

MR. VISSERS: Well, from Maple Leaf's corporate strategy, you're looking at a major restructuring of their industry, and they're basically retrenching, in Canada, for most of their production to be sold in Canada. So they're doing a major downsizing of their pork production. They're focusing in Manitoba; the number of sows and market

hogs they own are going to be focused in Manitoba, and they're planning to sell all of the rest of their assets. So they're really localizing their business. So, really, they're saying that they're going to have all of their fresh pork come out of Brandon, it's not that they're going to truck everything from other parts of the country, they're not. They're closing their Burlington plant, which slaughters 45,000 hogs a week. They're not closing it, sorry, it's for sale. They're selling their feed operations. Sure Gain business is for sale. So it's a major change in their business.

In some ways, they're starting to look a lot like Larsens looks right now, because rather than focusing on slaughtering hogs and marketing a lot of that product in the Asian market, or wherever else, they're saying, you know, we're going to sell everything that we produce and we're going to sell it ourselves and we're going to try to sell it through value add, through making other products that return us more money. That is a lot of what Larsens does with the products that they produce.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. McNeil.

MR. STEPHEN MCNEIL: Mr. Chairman, I'm probably going to repeat myself, because a few members have mentioned this, but I think it's important because it's something that has been somewhat perplexing for me. It was mentioned earlier today that without the producer there's no wholesaler, and without the producer and wholesaler there's no retailer. Well, in theory, that might be right, but it's simply just not true when it comes to your industry, when it comes to the beef industry in Nova Scotia. We have a monopoly in Atlantic Canada, I know it was mentioned earlier, or perhaps in Canada, but definitely in Atlantic Canada when it comes to the retail distribution of food. They simply will say what we are going to buy it for, and you can sell it to them or they just go somewhere else to get it with no regard, quite frankly, for doing business in Nova Scotia.

In New Brunswick they have in place a levy on apples that are being sold at the retail level, regardless of where they come from - if they're produced in New Brunswick they still pay the levy, and if they come in from any other country they still pay a levy and that money is turned around and reinvested in that industry in New Brunswick.

You had mentioned earlier today that there are times you get $1.35 a kilo and there are other times it's $1.50 or $1.60 a kilo, it doesn't affect the retail price?

MR. VISSERS: Pork is considered inelastic - fairly inelastic for demand, which means that consumers will buy a certain amount of pork regardless of what the price is, up to a certain degree.

MR. MCNEIL: The point is at any given time the price has already been distributed properly - if it's $1.60, $1.50, you're getting what you think you require, are you not?

MR. VISSERS: Pardon me?

MR. MCNEIL: If you're getting $1.50 or $1.60, is that what you think you need out of the retail price?

MR. VISSERS: No, I'm saying that the price at retail doesn't change that much because consumers will buy it anyway. If you looked, over time, at what the producer gets and what the wholesaler pays, that will move around. If you look at the retail price, it stays flat except for specials.

MR. MCNEIL: That's my point.

MR. VISSERS: Yes.

MR. MCNEIL: There's room inside the retail price . . .

MR. VISSERS: Sure.

MR. MCNEIL: . . . to make that distribution properly? It's just a question of whether there's a will. I guess my final point will be that unless we can find a mechanism to distribute that retail dollar properly, government either is going to have to sit down and say we're going to subsidize this industry, or they're going to say how do we get you out of it because there will be no industry - that's just as plain and simple as it gets.

The supply and demand system does not work - when you've got a monopoly system, it just doesn't work and we're either going to have sit down and say we're going to have to divide the retail dollar, and find a way to do it properly - I mean it happens in the supply managed commodities in Nova Scotia, and if you look at the ones that are non-supply that's where we're hurting. So unless we can find a way to distribute the retail dollar, governments are going to have to sit down and say we're going to subsidize those industries, period. If not, how do we get you out of it - and that's just the crux of it, that's the message that needs to go to Cabinet.

MR. VISSERS: Those are the options really, you're right. It either has to be a recognition that there's a public good from having food production in Nova Scotia, that there are environmental and other goods and services that are provided by the farm community for the general public, and government can recognize that and say we're going to put an amount of money into the industry every year to support the industry and to help the industry move to other markets to try to get the most out of their product, or

somehow or another we have to do something at retail, or help us get out - those are the three choices.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Barnet.

MR. BARNET: I originally had a couple questions about the share of the market and the weaners being shipped, but it's really irrelevant at this point in time. It seems to me as I sat here and listened to the debate, the questions that I asked you were probably unfair and should have been asked of somebody else - my questions around the amount of money you get compared to what the market is probably is a better question for somebody like Michael McCain, or a senior person at Sobeys.

It would seem to me, and I'm actually directing this to the committee, that it would be probably in the industry's best interest, and our best interest as a committee, to seek out who that would be in the industry - be it Michael McCain or be it a senior person at Sobeys or Atlantic Wholesalers - and have them appear before this committee and ask them those questions, because at the end of the day you're simply going to tell us what it costs to raise this and what you're getting, and the questions that we really have are where's the money in the difference, and how can we make this industry survive here in Nova Scotia?

So what I'm suggesting is that we send a letter to Michael McCain, and to Sobeys and Atlantic Wholesalers, who are the two major retailers in Nova Scotia, asking them to appear before this committee to answer our questions related to this particular issue.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Can I comment?

MR. BARNET: You can if you want - you can second the motion and then we can vote on it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I didn't even know it was a motion. What I'm thinking is - and maybe Pork Nova Scotia can say no, that won't work - I am thinking Jeanne Cruickshank of the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors, maybe she would be the person because she speaks for Co-op, Sobeys, and Superstore. You're looking structurally, aren't you, on price?

MR. BARNET: I guess the difficulty with requesting an industry spokesperson to come is the fact that you can't really drill down to the industry itself and get to the people who make those decisions because, essentially what they'll do is, they will stand up and say our industry does this or industry does that, and they speak for the group rather than for the individual. I think it would be more effective if we had somebody here directly from Sobeys, and Mr. McCain directly from Maple Leaf. They may not come.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I'm just thinking in the interest of time, because we would probably want to have somebody from Sobeys as one presentation. We would probably want, if you say Mr. McCain, as another presentation. So the question is whether you want to leave it at those two retailers or you want to do a third, and thinking about what we have for a list already before the committee whether that is going to offer us - and if we get two conflicting answers from those two presenters, what ground will we have gained?

So I guess I will take comments from the committee. Mr. MacKinnon.

MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, I think this is a very valuable suggestion and I support it 100 per cent, and I know that a couple of us were trying to second what wasn't even a motion. So I think there is strong support for what Minister Barnet has put forward. It is not only in relationship to the situation with pork, but we may get some answers in relation to beef from these people, as well. I think it is fundamentally important. I did have one more question.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I know you did, so let's deal with Mr. Barnet's motion, or lack thereof. Do you want to make that in the form of a motion?

MR. BARNET: I thought I already did, but you have it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I didn't. Is the motion seconded?

MR. MACKINNON: I'll second it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Unless somebody else wants to comment on that motion any further, otherwise, can we have a vote from the committee?

Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, me.

[The motion is carried]

So, obviously we're going to go down that road, I guess, so we'll leave that in the hands of the staff and try to do that, I think, as expeditiously as possible, Mr. Barnet? Okay. Did you have another point you wanted to raise?

MR. BARNET: I was just actually going to ask a quick question, and maybe you don't know the answer to this, but the number of jobs in the industry, there are obviously

production jobs at places like Larsen's and the farm jobs, do you have an idea of what they are?

MR. VISSERS: We always say 1,500. Now we're trying to recognize the number of farm jobs, not just the owners of the farms but their employees, feed mills, equipment suppliers, Larsen's and other plants, and things like that.

MR. BARNET: So it would be 1,500 farm jobs and associated farms . . .

MR. VISSERS: All associated jobs as well, yes, the spin through the economy.

MR. BARNET: So I guess you probably have some kind of a formula that would say so much of the feed industry would be towards that.

MR. VISSERS: Yes, it's fairly easy with the packing industry and how many jobs are involved there. There are approximately 500 jobs at Larsen's, and then the other plants that are involved in the industry, as well, and then we try and take a percentage of the feed mills and things like that.

MR. BARNET: So 1,500 is the total of both.

MR. VISSERS: Yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Belliveau.

MR. BELLIVEAU: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank all three of you for coming in today. Some of the honourable members alluded to having pork the last few days, and I just want to go on record that it wasn't a few days ago, it was earlier this morning that I consumed some, and I am the Fisheries Critic for our Party.

I was intrigued by the comment that we, as a province, consume more than we are producing. I know that you have some ideas, or I think that your development officer must have some ideas, so I would just like for you to probably share some of them now in the last few remaining minutes here. I think that is something that as a province we need to - I visualize that we need to advertise more and talk about keeping these farms in our communities and across our province, and the strength of our rural communities not only your particular industry, but fishing, we're all under attack in these coastal communities, so I see, my personal view is that we need to strengthen that, but I want you to share your comments.

[10:45 a.m.]

MR. VISSERS: We do some work on promoting our industry. We probably don't do enough, because there are limited dollars to do that sort of thing. Pork Nova Scotia is funded by the producers. You see on the front page of the document we handed out, Farm to Fork - Quality People, Quality Pork, we have a communications and marketing budget that comes from levies that we get from producers and from plants. We've refocused that over the last couple of years more toward who we are and what we do. We have a small advertising campaign, that we placed a couple of times already, that focuses more on who we are, that we are family farms, that we are part of the community and those sorts of things. We don't have the resources to focus on promoting pork, so our focus tends to be more on that, simply because we are consuming everything we produce. So there's no problem with extra pork sitting somewhere that's not being sold. The bigger issue is the return the producers receive for that pork.

We're trying to present it as a communications strategy that does that, that communicates the family farm, that communicates what we're doing, where we are, who we are, those sorts of things. I think if we do move forward with the type of program that provides some sustainability, that not just ourselves, but other commodities are going to have to put some resources behind that and make sure that the consumer knows how important it is to maintain agriculture in the rural parts of Nova Scotia.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Mr. Belliveau. Mr. MacKinnon, I think you are just about going to have the final question.

MR. MACKINNON: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I really appreciate having a final word on something.

I really think this has been a good session, and there have been so many sincere questions, but I must compliment all three of you on the very, very forthright answers that you have given to the questions that we have put to you today.

Having said that, I have a number of strong feelings in relationship to resource sectors. One of them I'm hearing in Pictou East is that the CAIS program is not working. You people have said that today, CAIS is not working, it needs revamping to represent the regional needs of Nova Scotia. This is something that keeps coming forward. What are our 11 Members of Parliament doing in relation to trying to get some changes to this national program that just doesn't work for a lot of people in Nova Scotia, a lot of our farmers? Are you after them to make these changes that will reflect your needs?

MR. VISSERS: We tend to work with the Federation of Agriculture when it comes to whole farm issues like the CAIS program. We've certainly recognized that it doesn't work for the Nova Scotia pork industry simply because it's a margin-based

program and there are no margins. As I responded to one of your earlier questions, we would be a lot better off if we had some kind of bilateral agreement with the federal government that allowed Nova Scotia to go its own way and do what needs to be done in Nova Scotia, rather than trying to squeeze that western grain-based program into the Nova Scotia farm formula. It just simply doesn't work.

As far as lobbying the federal MPs and trying to move them off that program, it's difficult, because a lot of this is generated in the provinces that are exporting pork, and they're simply concerned about whether or not those sorts of programs become countervailable if they changed them too much. This is considered a green, or at least an amber program, so it doesn't ring any bells at WTO, so the provinces that are exporting pork, like it. Power in numbers again.

MR. MACKINNON: Thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Seeing no other interveners, trying to be clear I'm not really keen to accept others, I want to thank Pork Nova Scotia for their presentation. I wonder if you have any closing comments that you'd like to make? The committee has a couple of agenda items that we want to deal with before we leave, so if you have any comments you want to make . . .

MR. VISSERS: I don't have any. I think we were able to express our comments through the meeting, but, personally, I would like to thank the committee.

MR. PORSKAMP: Likewise, I would like to thank you for hearing us - and just a little thing about wondering where all our food comes from. We were at a conference once and one of the things being done in England was they would have a sticker with the food miles on each product - if it was local it was a small number, like 10 or five, or if it came from goodness knows where it was 1,000 or 1,500. So that would give the consumer a good picture of where it would come from, whether it's pork, it all looks the same possibly. That's one way and it's being done in England right now on a lot of products, so that may be a thing we could look at here.

MR. BOUDREAU: I would just like to thank you for the chance to be here, and for you to hear us. I think it's important that I clarify for the MLAs who are here, the committee, and government and the public, that we're talking here - we've said a bit that we would like to have or we need, the cost of production is $180 a pig, and I wouldn't want the general public to think that we're increasing our limits all the time. I think they should be made aware that the price of our costs, the grains and everything, is going up and we have no control. So I would like it to be clear in the press, that they won't mislead that we're always wanting more and more - we can justify easily why we want more.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. We really appreciate your presentation. I know events on the ground for you make it very timely; as a matter of fact, probably past time. If you made a presentation to the minister in August, and a plan, and here we are in November and you said you needed it yesterday, that means you needed it before August and still haven't gotten word on that. So we'll definitely use whatever persuasion we can to see that the minister can move on that as quickly as possible. Thank you.

For the committee, I have a couple of items here, the letter from Debbie MacKenzie - Recommended Scientific Consultants. I'm not sure, Mora, if you want to speak to that for the committee, please?

MS. MORA STEVENS (Legislative Committee Clerk): Debbie delivered this letter after a request by the committee concerning the scientists whom the committee might like to have in on the ecosystem. That was after their presentation. I'm still waiting for the list of DFO scientists, it takes a little while to get through that system, but these are the ones her group has recommended that the committee would like to hear.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, so are we still waiting for another group, or can we make a decision that we would like to have these ones come before us?

MS. STEVENS: I'm just waiting to get the request back from DFO, the list of entire scientists, but these are certainly viable people and are on their list.

MR. BARNET: Let's just wait until we get that list back from them to make the decision, okay?

MS. STEVENS: Okay.

MR. CHAIRMAN: All right, a letter from Sou'west Nova Metis Council.

MS. STEVENS: This letter was received and looked at and I distributed the response from the person over at Aboriginal Affairs, Ernest Walker - he had done the key points and whether or not this issue was before the courts. The Metis are not recognized in Nova Scotia as a tribe just simply because of the circumstances and how they were founded. There is a lawsuit before the courts, so it's up to the committee whether or not and how they would like to respond to that letter.

MR. CHAIRMAN: My thought is, if it's before the courts, we probably don't want to deal with it until after a legal decision is made?

MR. BARNET: I agree.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Gaudet, do you have a comment?

MR. GAUDET: I think that probably the reason why this group was maybe considered was just to hear more from the group itself. By extending an invitation to this group, I don't think we're actually entering into the legal part of what's before the courts. So I would still like to see this group being invited to come in and just basically hear more about this group, where they've been, where they are - you know, we don't need to go into the court debate or legal aspect of it. So those would be my thoughts on it.

MR. BARNET: The difficulty I have is because there is legal action, or pending legal action, with respect to this, that somehow our meeting may become part of the overall case that is being developed and that the transcripts and what is said and done here may actually be part of evidence submitted to a court. I think we have to be very careful that as a committee we don't somehow put ourselves in the middle of that case.

I'm not a lawyer, I don't know the intricate details around this stuff, but what I will say is that we always have to be extremely careful that we don't somehow inadvertently find ourselves being considered as factual evidence in a case which is against the Crown. I think we would probably be better counselled to have some legal advice as to whether or not it is appropriate at this point in time.

MR. MACKINNON: Mr. Chairman, I would like to echo the comments of Minister Barnet because, by having this group come forward, there could, in fact, be a claim that there was recognition even by the Province of Nova Scotia through its Resources Committee, and we were recognized and had an opportunity to speak before that committee and so on. I am willing to listen to any group at any time about anything, but when it is a legal situation like this I think we have to be careful.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I think any group in the province is allowed to self-identify. You can call yourself whatever. So I don't think there is a problem, but in terms of the legal issues around this, can we agree to postpone their coming to the committee just to a future date? I don't necessarily say that we are saying no.

MR. GAUDET: Maybe, Mr. Chairman, we should pursue what Minister Barnet is suggesting, get a legal opinion on this?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Sure.

MR. GAUDET: If, in the end, there are concerns raised, then the committee will deal with it at that time.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We can look at it again, sure. Mora, can you take care of that, please?

Now we have Minister Barnet's motion about trying to get Mr. McCain, and I don't know who else it might be for Sobeys, to come and speak to the committee.

There is one issue I wanted to raise to the members, and that was to ask if you would be interested in having Doctor Boris Worm come, he was involved with the report on the oceans, the collapse by 2050. I am thinking that Nova Scotia is an island, and we know the value of the fishing industry in this province, so I just wondered if the committee is interested in having a presentation by him to this committee on the report that was done? He is from Dalhousie University.

MR. BELLIVEAU: Well, Mr. Chairman, I would think, historically, in 50 years time, people will be looking back and seeing the comments on that question. I would think that we, as MLAs, would definitely want to invite Dr. Worm here.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. Do we want that kind of expedited a bit?

MR. BARNET: We have 49 years, 11 months, 28 days.

MR. GLAVINE: The February meeting gives us lots of time to plan.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. That's fine with the committee? Agreed. Thank you.

MR. GAUDET: Mr. Chairman, on the earlier motion, I am just looking for some guidance, this committee cannot summons anyone to appear before this committee, right?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I think we can, but I don't know . . .

MR. GAUDET: So we're looking at extending an invitation to - whether they accept or don't, that's . . .

MR. CHAIRMAN: I don't think we want to . . .

MS. STEVENS: What happens usually is, people are asked, they are requested to come before the committee. If they do say no, then the issue comes back to the committee to decide what they would like to do.

MR. BELLIVEAU: A point of clarification, Mr. Chairman. The Sou'West Metis Council will be contacted and suggested that there is legal advice being sought and that this committee may make that decision at a later date.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think it would be appropriate to send them a response, I think that would be a pretty fair thing to do. Do members agree with that? Okay.

We're adjourned. Thank you.

[ The committee adjourned at 11:00 a.m.]