HANSARD

Printed and Published by Nova Scotia Hansard Reporting Services

Mr. John MacDonell (Chairman)

Hon. Barry Barnet

Hon. Karen Casey

Mr. Patrick Dunn

Mr. Sterling Belliveau

Mr. Charlie Parker

Mr. Wayne Gaudet

Mr. Leo Glavine

Mr. Harold Theriault

In Attendance:

Ms. Charlene Rice

Legislative Committee Clerk

Ms. Wanda Hamilton

Communications Director

Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture

Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture

Mr. Laurence Nason, Chief Executive Officer

Mr. William Versteeg, President

HALIFAX, TUESDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2007

STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES

1:00 P.M.

CHAIRMAN

Mr. John MacDonell

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think, from notice I have gotten from our clerk, this is as good as it is going to get for participation.

I want to welcome the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture. We're looking forward to your presentation. We'll start with introductions, and, before I do that, I just want to say to the members of the committee that we have a few items to take care of before people get out of here, and some have been kind of hanging over - well, our last meeting didn't happen, and the previous meeting we kind of dispersed before we got to them. So I really want to beg your indulgence if you could just stick around for a little bit so we can get through this. That would help the clerk get some of this out of the way.

So, I want to say welcome to the members, too. Mr. Belliveau, we'll start with introductions with you.

[ The committee members introduced themselves.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: The floor is yours. Identify yourselves for our recording, whatever time you need, and there'll be some questions afterwards.

MR. LAURENCE NASON: I am Laurence Nason, I work for the federation.

MR. WILLIAM VERSTEEG; This is Wanda Hamilton, she is our Communications Director for the federation. I am Willy Versteeg, I am the new President of the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture. My home farm is in Hardwoodlands, which is in East Hants. John is my MLA.

Just a little bit about me and our operation. We have a dairy operation, my parents started it back in 1960 and I'm the second generation operating the farm. The third generation is in the queue and ready to take over in the next coming years. We milk 130 cows, and we have a small raspberry operation as well. So agriculture is definitely in my blood. When I was growing up, I said there was no way I was going to do this, this was just about the poorest career choice you could ever make. As a matter of fact I told my father he was "a crazy old bastard" and there was no way I'm going to do that. So I think every single person in my family is involved in agriculture except for one who is an architect - and I've got a fairly large family, so agriculture is what we're all about.

Certainly we welcome the opportunity to address you folks today. We don't have any shortage of opportunities, I guess, to meet with government, but this is a particularly valuable opportunity in our view to meet with this committee and communicate to you what our views are on the industry, and we find it a particularly valuable opportunity to do so - we're very appreciative for being able to do that.

What I would like to talk about is basically where the industry is today, our perceptions of the future, and a little bit about the Food Miles Project at the end. I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time talking about who we are because I think you know who we are and, if you don't, you can ask questions later on.

We basically exist in a policy paradox - we want to foster and create and grow farms that are big, so we deal with those guys, and we want to encourage small enterprise, so there's a paradox there; then within agriculture we have feed and biofuels paradox - certainly as a livestock feeder I can testify to that paradox because the price of my corn has gone up $60 a ton this year because George Bush wants to feed the ethanol plants with the corn that I like to use to feed my calves; and then we have a trade and protection paradox - certainly a large part of agriculture in Nova Scotia is supply managed and the understanding of supply management is that one of the major pillars is border controls and we want to control imports and exports, but yet we have an element of the industry that is very much export-oriented that wants to have as much market access and, in turn, allow as much market access into Canada as possible. So we have a real struggle or a paradox within the environment that we work in.

I would like to talk about the role of agriculture in the future and the challenge that we have in that new role, and what opportunities exist. Certainly we see ourselves as an economic driver of the rural economy of Nova Scotia. We're an important part of that economy. We produce food, and I think that's a very important function that we perform. We are a source of fuel and energy, not only fuel for our bodies in the form of food, but we hold a lot of the solutions around energy into the future. We have a huge potential around producing energy - we are the stewards of the environment. Agriculture encompasses a large part of the land mass of Nova Scotia - it's a sizeable chunk of land and what farmers do is good for the environment, so we are a provider of environmental solutions.

Health - we're always talking about health, and agriculture is another solution provider for health. We provide safe, quality food - the kind of food that Health Promotion and Protection is encouraging Nova Scotians to use. So that is where we see our role in agriculture, as a solution provider in economic, food, fuel, energy, environment and health.

Some facts about our industry: We value the food and fibre that we produce as $509 million; the agri-food sector is worth $2.3 billion - a pretty big chunk of business; and direct jobs right on the farm - just over 8,000 jobs and a capital investment of $1.6 billion. We love to invest.

The money we spend in the community, studies show that a lot of this money is spent within a 60 kilometre radius of the farms, a huge percentage of it; $422 million that we pump right back into the local economy.

Let's look at where we are on cash income and operating expenses. The bottom line being cash income and look where operating expenses are. We're getting much less efficient - our gloves, or our hands are not as sticky at holding on to the dollars that are passing through our hands. So you can see we're spending more and more and keeping less and less - that's not that farmers are not efficient at what they do. It's the environment they're in doesn't facilitate keeping as many of those dollars.

We look at cash receipts and operating expenses and realized net income. On the very top line, the red, you see the cash receipts. Up to the blue, you have the operating expenses and that wee little section down at the bottom, the yellow section, is the realized net income - that's 1995-2005. There is not a lot left there. The crumbs are getting fewer and further between and they're harder to find.

Any time you get down below that line, that's when you're eating into equity. That's the state of the industry. When that's an industry average, you know that's made up of highs and lows - there's a significant part of the industry that's eating into equity. There's just not enough cash to sustain operations.

[1:15 p.m.]

Look at this one - I said farmers love to invest and this really bears it out - farm cash receipts and farm debt. If you look back around to 1995, I believe it is, it's pretty hard to see there, but there was an important thing that happened back then. Farm cash receipts and debt crossed the line. We've been investing and investing and investing and not seeing a return on that investment.

So what has caused all that? We've been forced to adapt to new market structures, new regulatory regimes - and that regulation takes the form of food safety requirements, environmental regulations, labour regulations. All the things that farmers and other

businesses are forced to do, but they do eat in and create that situation that was laid out on the graph.

Shifting public values - certainly, the public's values form a lot of the way we do business every day. When those values change, we have to change and a lot of times that means less in the pocket.

New technology - we're forced to keep up with new technology. It's part of that investing that we're doing and not seeing returns back out of it.

Land use issues - huge issue. We spend an inordinate amount of time as an organization dealing with land use issues and they don't seem to be slowing down. It's driving costs, it's driving aggravation, it's creating more grey hairs. In my own community - the greatest concentration of dairy cattle east of St. Hyacinthe, Quebec - a month or so ago, they approved a 500 home subdivision in the middle of some of the largest dairy farms in the province. Tell me we're not going to have land use issues around that.

Increasing energy costs - I don't have to spend much time on this. We are very energy intensive as an industry and it impacts us greatly.

Climate change - you can look at that as a negative or a positive. Climate change is going to drive some new opportunities for us as well, believe it or not. We're going to be able to do some things we haven't been able to do because things are warmer. One of the limiting things we've always had is heat, but with that greater number of heat units comes more extreme weather events. So we're putting more out there hoping to get more back but in reality it's a greater risk because of extreme weather events - excess moisture, too much moisture, too much wind. That's kind of what is driving it.

Some of the additional factors that are driving that financial reality are animal disease issues. Certainly we all know about BSE, and we know about avian influenza. The cyclical nature of agriculture, there are always highs and lows and there always seems to be somebody at the low at any one given time.

Changing policy environment and who is driving the policy changes - a huge impact on agriculture. Back when I started farming, it seemed like agriculture policy was driven by farmers in the community and by the province, quite frankly. The way I see it now is agriculture policy is being driven by 60-cent federal dollars and that seems to be the limit of the imagination sometimes, to be quite frank. If it doesn't fit into that 60/40 formula, it's something that is not on the table.

Government's fiscal problems - as I put this together, I was kind of thinking about this one. I think as we mature as an industry, our problems and government's problems are kind of adding to each other. I have three teenage daughters at home and I used to be able to

solve my teenage daughters' fiscal problems with a loonie. As they got a little older, I used to have to flip them five bucks and now they come to me with tuition bills and whatever else. Certainly, as farm income is crunched, our demands are greater and there are much greater demands on government as well. So there is a bit of a crisis there but certainly government fiscal problems have created this cumulative impact that we are no longer able to maintain the level of investment that we require to meet the challenges. We are spent out and we have run out of equity and we don't know how to get the money anymore. That is where we are.

There is good news. I will say, right up front, that I think farmers spend too much time bitching about their problems. You have to talk about your problems, you have to identify your problems but you have to look at the good things, too. If you look at the value of agriculture in Nova Scotia, we are much more efficient than the rest of the country - 11 per cent versus the rest of Canada at 2 per cent. Return that many more dollars. Net of government programs were 9 per cent versus 1 per cent in the rest of Canada - much more efficient.

We have many things that make us unique. I spoke in the policy paradox area about protectionism versus free trade. We have 42 per cent of farms are supply-managed versus the rest of the country, the composition would make it 19.5 per cent or 20 per cent. We have a very high dependence on supply-management in this province and I will go so far as to say, we wouldn't have much of agriculture without supply-management in this province. It's a very important part of our agricultural economy. That 42.7 per cent, not too long ago, was around 50 per cent of supply-management production in the province's farms. That number is shrinking because we are seeing a lot of consolidation in the industry. Medium to large sized farms are buying up smaller farms and is that something that we want to see take place.

Over time, the number of farms that are supply-managed, as a percentage of the Nova Scotia farms, is shrinking because of consolidation. Not because we are losing production but those farms are becoming much bigger, much more concentrated geograpically. When I look at my own area, there are so many cows in my community now that people don't have a chance of outnumbering the cows, not a chance.

The other thing that makes us unique is we have a high level of diversification; on behalf of our federation, I sit at the Canadian Federation of Agriculture table. A lot of farms across the rest of the country, not all farms, but a lot of farms are single-commodity monoculture farms - they are grain farmers, they are feedlot operators, they are cow/calf operators, they are horticulture operators. In Nova Scotia, we have a very diversified farm portfolio. I produce horticulture and dairy on my farm, and I'm not very diversified by Nova Scotia standards.

Lots of farms produce lots of different commodities in this province, and that's a really good thing. It hasn't worked for us in the policy environment, because policy has been very targeted towards monoculture - one commodity produced on your farm. When it tanks,

it triggers a great CAIS payment. The problem is, if the beef is bad, maybe the blueberries are good, and we always kind of average our way out of things, and we've averaged ourselves down to nothing, is what we've done, and we've not been able to participate in federal programming.

Our climate and our geography, another huge advantage that makes us unique. Nova Scotia is second only to New Zealand and the rest of the world for our ability to grow grass and cellulose, and turn that cellulose into milk and meat. So we have huge advantages there. Because we're small and diversified, we also have the ability to change quickly. Another uniqueness that we have is a light ecological footprint. Nova Scotia farms are very environmentally friendly compared to others. We are years ahead in environmental stewardship. Our footprint is very, very light.

We have much less dependence on income support payments - 33 per cent of income for the rest of Canada, Nova Scotia 27 per cent. Income support for dollar of output, only half of what the rest of Canada is. That's partly because of our diversification, and that's partly because agriculture policy doesn't work for Nova Scotia farms. We can't access the programming the way the rest of Canada seems to be able to access programming. We call it the Canada effect. Really, we're being penalized because we're doing things the way they're supposed to be done, we're diversified and we're small and we're nimble, but when programming is targeted at one commodity, large factory-type production, we don't benefit from that.

So we have many advantages, we have a series of negative impacts that are well beyond the control of producers, such as BSE. We have to change. We have to change, and that's not just farmers have to change, government has to change.

I was to my doctor here a while ago for a flu shot and he was talking about - he kind of knows what I do on the side, and I was telling him about our need to change, and he wants to dabble a little bit in mental health, and he said, well, that's the definition of insanity. He said to keep thinking that you're going to get different results by doing things the same, that's the definition of insanity. Well, it kind of scared me, because I didn't know how close to the line I was, but it kind of drew the picture fairly clear for me that day.

So I've got religion, and I think everybody else has to get religion. We have to change. We cannot continue to expect different results by doing things the same. If we don't change, we're going to lose those competitive advantages that I have talked about. We're going to lose critical mass. I thought we lost critical mass a long time ago, and we have lost a lot of it, but if we don't change, we're going to lose the ability to take advantage of those natural advantages we have - intellectual capital, people who know what agriculture is.

So here are the key words, ladies and gentlemen - you have to transition, or change. We have to adapt, we have to do fine tuning and modification of that transition up above, and we have to reorganize. We have to redeploy the resources that we have.

I want to be very clear today - I think there's enough resources in the system. I'm not here today to say the government needs to spend more money on agriculture. If you wrote a cheque, I doubt I would turn it down. I would ask very seriously what we're going to do with the cheque - I wouldn't just take it and say, we're going to pay bills. There's probably enough money in the system - what we need is a policy environment and a reorganization of the resources that we have to make it work for us. We have to be much more proactive.

How are we going to deal with the issues? I talked a second ago that we have to change our policy environment - we don't have a policy environment in Nova Scotia. We don't have an agricultural policy. What we have is a bunch of programs. Most of those programs came by the way to address some specific need at some specific time and some of them have been institutionalized and carried on, but we don't really have an agricultural policy that says that we're going to produce half the food Nova Scotians need in Nova Scotia. We don't have an agricultural policy that says, we want to maintain a vibrant rural economy. There are no signals out there that say that. Quite frankly, farmers are saying, does government want us, anyway? Maybe we're just a pain.

We envision the industry - we would like our industry to be self-sufficient, independent and less reliant on government. We definitely see a role for government, but we want to be less reliant on it. We want to be focused on development and less focused on compensation - that's a key piece right there.

[1:30 p.m.]

We used to have farm development funding - we don't have farm development funding anymore. The little bit of money that we can get out of government programs is either directed at clients or at backfilling previous years' losses. There is not a proactive dollar being spent on agriculture. We need to be proactive.

We have to be able to realize what our position is in the world. We have to consider the impact of global decisions. I'm living the reality of a global decision when George Bush says he's putting $60 on corn to produce ethanol. That drives my cost of production.

We have to allow market signals to drive business and be able to respond to those signals. Agriculture needs to respond to the marketplace, not the government programs. We can't structure our farms and we can't do our day-to-day business around programming because, at the end of the day, the program doesn't buy the milk in my tank or the raspberries in my cooler - the marketplace buys them. I have to respond to the marketplace, agriculture

needs to respond to the marketplace and that's really the only signal we can use to drive the industry.

We envision an industry that is flexible and ready to adapt to trends and market conditions. When I said we have to produce for the market, that's the bottom line. That's what we have to be in business for, that's what everybody else is in business for - the market.

We need to take a broader responsibility for environmental stewardship. We realize we occupy a lot of land and provide a lot of land and provide a lot of the solutions towards the environment. We will take that responsibility, but we don't want to take all the costs. We have to recognize the value of co-operation among and between the components of the food system. We have to, if not in a capital way, integrate ourselves, certainly within marketing structures and value chains. We have to integrate ourselves with all the components of the food system and we need an industry that's much more strategic. So there it is - we're more self-directed, more market focused, more adaptable and flexible, more profitable, less dependent on government.

We make decisions based on the assessment of risk and on that one, I'll tell you when we assess risk, we need to be rewarded for taking risks. When you assess your risks, the higher reward goes to higher risk and farmers are willing to take risks, believe me. They're willing to take risks but when we take risks, we need to be rewarded for it. A venture capitalist is willing to take risks, but he puts a price on it. We have to realize the value of non-farming business activity and we'll get into some of that here going forward.

So here's the role as we see it for government - supporting innovation through strategic investment and a removal of obstacles. We saw an example last week of strategic investment that we think is positive - the government invested in the beef plant in Borden. There are other things that need strategic investment. We've got a laboratory in Truro that is in serious need of investment. We want government to make a commitment to agriculture based on a plan. A commitment to agriculture based on - I want to be diplomatic here but somebody coming to Halifax and crying poor and government finding some change and flipping agriculture a loonie or a toonie isn't going to advance the industry. It has to be done against the plan.

Yes, we can do specific initiatives but it has to be part of the plan. It has got to be taking us to where we want to go and if it's counterproductive, we have to find another way to do it. We have to recognize or government has to recognize that regulation has two objectives. It's to protect the public and support economic growth - and there's a cost to that regulation and it needs to be fairly distributed. Farmers can't bear all the costs of regulation to agriculture.

So I said government has to respond to agriculture within a plan. The federation has a plan and this is why I feel really good about the time I am coming to where I am at the

federation, because for once I see there are solutions. I see there are solutions because we have a plan. We're not going to talk any more about the state of the industry. We're not going to talk very much any more about the state of the industry. We're going to talk about how we're going to move the industry forward and we're going to do it with our plan. Our plan is going to allow the industry to change or transition and respond to the contemporary market conditions. We have to respond to the market and we have to change, and agriculture fully realizes that we have to change along with government.

So we have this model. This is our transition model. This comes out of the Kelco report. That's what everybody seems to know it by. It's the Industry and Competitive Transition Model, I think it's called. It's a hell of a long title but everybody calls it Kelco and we try to get away from it. It shows at the very bottom of the model, a competitive, profitable, sustainable agriculture sector. I'm just going to catch up with my notes here because I haven't been paying attention to what Laurence wrote me and I'm getting behind here about a mile or so. This is an important part and I want to make sure I get to where I should be.

The model is based in three, simple, relatively straightforward concepts and those three concepts are along the top. Compensation for public goods and services that benefit society. These are the things that agriculture does for society that we receive little to no compensation for. I talked about being a steward of the environment and being a provider of environmental solutions. We talked about health and being a provider of health solutions. The things that agriculture does for the public that we receive no compensation for.

If I am throwing this out there and this is the first time you have heard about it, it's not necessarily the easiest concept to grasp, I will give you that. It's probably not even moderately complicated, I think it is probably very complicated. Laurence, I think, is probably prepared to provide you with further documentation on public goods and services that benefit society. It's also known as ecological goods and services, EG&S - you will hear it referred to as that.

There needs to be some stock-taking there and there needs to be a payment to agriculture, quite bluntly, there needs to be a payment to agriculture for what they do. This is not a new or radical concept - it is done in the EU widely and it's a model that they are taking hold of in the U.S. It is a way to flow dollars to agriculture that is green, non-trade distorting, it's market friendly, it decouples money from production so the WTO has no problem with it. It's a way to flow money to agriculture for things that they do.

Another piece of it is transitional support. I'm saying, and have said all along, that farmers need to change - but when you say change is great, it takes money to change and if we want to flip back to the graphs, we find out that agriculture has no money. We need money to change and that would be looked at on a business case investment-type model.

Case by case, that could be farm by farm, it could be commodity by commodity but we have to support farms to make that transition to be able to respond to the marketplace.

We need strategic investment. I alluded to that not very long ago, but the beef plant, that's a strategic investment. That is something that the industry needs and no one actor or player in the industry is able to provide. So investing in the beef plant is a wise decision - that's a strategic piece of infrastructure. The lab in Truro is a strategic piece of infrastructure that not only provides a service to farmers, it protects the environment. We can't do our nutrient management and our environmental farm planning without some kind of laboratory analytical services. Our equipment there is kaput.

So move all that down and we've got a competitive, profitable, sustainable agriculture sector. So that is the plan. That is how we are going to move the industry forward. Questions.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much for your presentation. I know I have a few questions, but I won't springboard as the first speaker. I am just looking for some signal, if there was one, I didn't pick it up. Mr. Parker, then Mr. Glavine.

MR. CHARLES PARKER: Mr. Chairman, it was a very interesting presentation, thought provoking. You put a lot of time in getting your presentation together. You need to change, I guess that's the basic premise of your discussion so far. You have to be flexible and adapt to the market - I'm hearing all these good things. It sounds like certainly you do but, in specific terms, where, in the agricultural component, is there to be a change - is it in beef, is it in sheep, is it in horticulture, is it in dairy? Just where in particular would you say that you need the change?

MR. VERSTEEG: I believe we need change in every sector, and I think change will accommodate every sector.

Let's talk about the beef industry. I say we need to change; we say we need to change; the industry says we need to change. So what do we change to? Let's throw out a couple of ideas. When you have a successful business model, it provides a consistent product that's the same. We have essentially a cow/calf industry in this province that produces, I'm willing to bet, almost every breed of calf known to the beef industry - everything from Maine-Anjou to Limousine, to Polled Hereford, to Angus. How is that responding to the marketplace? When I went to Boston Pizza the other night, I ordered an Angus steak. So how is the Nova Scotia beef industry of any use to Boston Pizza? They want to put steak in front of consumers and consumers are willing to pay a big dollar for that steak, but if we can't service that?

Look at lamb - there's a part of the red meat sector. I mean, it's just another protein source, it's no different than beef - it's just lamb, a smaller package. Look what they've done.

They've got a branded product. If you go to the restaurants in downtown Halifax and you want lamb, chances are it says on the menu that they're providing you Northumberlamb. It's a branded, consistent product. So there's an example of how the beef industry can change. They can change by making some kind of a commitment to provide calves to the industry year-round, rather than doing things the way farmers have always done them because that's the way we've always done them.

[1:45 p.m.]

We have to respond to the marketplace. We've made investment in that beef plant, now we have to be able to feed it with a consistent quality product every day of the year - that's the same in and the same out every day. Love or hate McDonald's, it doesn't matter where you go in the world and you order a Big Mac, believe me, they taste the same as they do in Truro, in Hong Kong, or Halifax, or Toronto - it's the same and that's why McDonald's works.

MR. PARKER: So consistency of product is certainly one very important component of that.

MR. VERSTEEG: Consistency of product and consistency of supply - two very important things. When you go to the marketplace, are you going to the marketplace with a one-off? Are you just going to land in Truro with a load of calves and expect the marketplace to take them off your hands at a premium price? It ain't going to happen.

MR. PARKER: Proving what we already are capable of producing is a very important component of what you're saying for the new future in agriculture?

MR. VERSTEEG: Yes.

MR. PARKER: Are there other opportunities out there that maybe we're missing - like I know in the beef, chicken, and dairy we can build on it and maybe do things differently, but are there other crops or other exotic animals, or whatever, that also we're not doing now that we should be in agriculture?

MR. VERSTEEG: Absolutely.

MR. PARKER: Can you give us any examples?

MR. VERSTEEG: We have how many acres of vacant land, Laurence?

MR. NASON: In 1900, Nova Scotian farmers were farming about 5 million acres and now we farm just under a million - so there are 4 million acres that are available for the production of energy crops, cellulose that you can use ruminants to turn into milk and meat.

There's a huge potential out there. It's a case of jumping on some of the comparative advantages we have - and Willy listed those. I guess one of the points that we've been making recently is that we have a significant number of advantages with respect to agriculture here in Nova Scotia, but we're going to lose those unless we can develop some kind of a vision and a plan so we can take advantage of them.

MR. PARKER: If there was one thing that government could do for you right away in the agricultural industry, what would that one thing be?

MR. VERSTEEG: I might get shot for this. This is my first foray out into the public as a president, and I am going to tell you I don't want a one-off, I don't want a one thing - make a commitment to sit down and develop a plan.

MR. PARKER: So that would be your one thing.

MR. VERSTEEG: I want a plan, a vision.

MR. NASON: And $100 a cow doesn't work anymore.

MR. PARKER: So a full, complete vision or plan for agriculture in this province.

MR. VERSTEEG: Government, along with the federation and the federal government, has sat down with this industry's Competitive Transition Project. There is a plan there, and I am sure government probably can't quite stomach everything that is in the report. To be quite honest with you, agriculture can't quite stomach everything that is in the report either. We haven't bought into everything that is there either, but that probably says that it's a pretty decent plan if parts of it are tough for the individual players in it. But there is a plan that is there.

I told our executive, already, that I don't want talk about the problems in the industry anymore and I don't even want to spend any more time planning. I was at a funeral on the weekend, and I would say that I didn't know the gentleman terribly well. He was the choir director from our church, and my wife is in the choir and she wanted somebody to go with her for the drive to Stellarton. I would say the gentleman probably had somewhat of a troubled life. The priest, he spoke in his homily about missed opportunities, and the key word was the time is now. Don't do it tomorrow, don't do it next week or next year or make a commitment to do it in the future, do it now. Well, if I didn't get anything else out of the funeral other than some good sandwiches and some coffee, I got that. That's the real message I want you folks to hear today, is it needs to be done now.

We have a plan. I am tired of planning, and I am only in the job for a couple of weeks. I have been on the executive for a few years now, so I am a bit tired of planning. I'm a bit tired of talking about problems. Let's get with the plan and let's do it.

MR. PARKER: I just had one final little question, Mr. Chairman - 8,040 direct jobs, how many indirect jobs are in the industry?

MR. NASON: It's 14,000 to 15,000.

MR. PARKER: Indirect or in total?

MR. NASON: In total.

MR. VERSTEEG: In total, indirect and direct jobs. So that's the guys over there in Bedford processing milk, there are 500 people there, there are how many people at Larsens, there are how many people trucking.

MR. PARKER: So about 15,000 in the province depend either directly or indirectly on agriculture.

MR. VERSTEEG: Yes.

MR. PARKER: Okay, thank you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Glavine.

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Willy, Wanda and Laurence for coming in today. It has been very informative so far. We didn't really attack or look at the Food Miles Project, but I appreciated the overview and the umbrella approach here.

MR. VERSTEEG: To be honest with you, Laurence put that in the presentation I gave.

MR. NASON: We have a report Heather will leave with you.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you very much, that is great. I will start with the beef industry, because it is one that I feel that if there is some revival and revitalization in, I think it can be a real plus for agriculture in Nova Scotia, because it is one of the things that we can grow, produce, in every county of Nova Scotia, all 18 counties. We can't do that with cranberries, for example; probably, we can't.

I was over with our Leader and toured the plant in Prince Edward Island just as it was going through a real critical stage as to where it was going to almost shut down the next day, or keep going. One of the things we hear about in terms of being able to crack the market is that we can't produce AAA beef. Is that a myth, is that a reality, is it something that we need to be able to do to be able to produce a larger percentage to go on the Maritime market?

MR. VERSTEEG: Laurence is the resident beef expert.

MR. NASON: Not really. But we can produce AAA beef. We can't produce AAA beef that's barley-fed or corn-fed beef, and really it doesn't make any sense in this day and age to do that. Ruminant livestock - sheep and cows - the value, the great advantage they have is they can turn raw cellulose into protein, meat and milk, that people can eat. Nova Scotia farmers are the best in North America, if not in the world, at producing grass and forage to put through those cattle. So we can produce AAA beef; we can produce AAA grass-fed beef; we can produce AAA grain-fed beef if you want to bring the grain in on the railway - but we're at the end of the line.

So there's a huge opportunity, as you say, for both beef and sheep - and I'd correct Willy, John, I believe lamb probably tastes a bit better than beef, he said they were the same. I'm sure you'd agree with that. A huge opportunity, it's one of the comparative advantages we have. Again, I know Willy said he doesn't like planning, but that industry needs some serious planning. It's like the hog industry - in the 1970s, the Government of Nova Scotia decided there was going to be a viable hog industry here and they put programs and policies in place that developed a viable hog industry, and the same thing has to happen with respect to the beef industry.

MR. GLAVINE: Is Kelco part of that answer in terms of beef and a whole lot of other sectors and commodities? I don't think we've really looked at Kelco yet, or certainly government doesn't seem to have given a lot of credence to the Kelco report, whereas I hear from many farmers who have taken a look at it that they see it as one of the real viable options - what's your take?

MR. VERSTEEG: It's one of the only options we have. I said I don't like planning, but . . .

MR. GLAVINE: Do you want, for some of the committee members who aren't like John and I - the Agriculture Critics - could you just give a little bit of the nub for a few of the others here?

MR. VERSTEEG: This Kelco report came out of the industry planning outlook conference that took place a number of years ago, and it evolved from that. The federation drove forward a consultant who developed this report on how the industry could address the challenges outlined in this presentation. So the outcome of that was the Kelco report.

That report went to government. That process involved the federation, the provincial government, the federal government, and the proper name of it is the Industry Transition Competitiveness Report - and this is the final copy of it here.

That tripartite, that three- member committee, that's the report that was generated, that I said - government probably has a hard time stomaching some of it, Agriculture, I know, has problems with some of it - it's probably a good place to start. Out of that report, if we go back to that model right there, that's kind of the guts of what comes out of that report as to how we can address the needs of the industry.

It's not exclusive to one commodity or the other in Nova Scotia. This can apply to virtually any and every commodity that is produced in Nova Scotia. The one thing it does do is it gets away from the commodity mindset into product mindset. If we can go to that model and be compensated for the public good and services that benefit society and we can get some transition support, some cash for change - it takes money to change - and the government makes the strategic investments that are required, like the beef plant, like we expect they will do in the lab, and there are lots of other pieces in that strategic investment piece, but if they keep making the strategic investments, that's what is going to drive the industry forward.

All this doesn't necessarily take any more money. We've been quite clear over the last year to say that we think there is enough money in the system.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you. Can I have a little bit of time here? In terms of - agriculture by its very nature is going to have peaks and valleys and the highs and the lows. One of the programs that everybody - you know, they paid a fee, they go through absolute turmoil to try and draw down on it. I mean CAIS seems to have been a program designed for accountants, not for farmers. How are we going to get the message to the federal government that we need a program like this for when we have the dull moments in agriculture? How are we going to get the message that we need to be able to fine tune it for the needs of Maritime Canada?

MR. VERSTEEG: The way I would propose we would do that is, we take this model and the federation - along with our provincial Department of Agriculture - takes this model and we go to Ottawa. We're not quite ready for this yet, but I would propose that we do a pilot project in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia represents only 2 per cent of federal spending on agriculture. We're isolated down at one end of the country, we can block off a road or two where we're completely disconnected from the rest of the country. What a great place to do a pilot project; what a great place for government to learn.

[2:00 p.m.]

I believe, and I'm presupposing the results of this pilot project, that if you take those dollars that we're spending backfilling - those CAIS dollars that we can never get, that come two years after our loss and all we do with them is pay bills and backfill - if we can spend those dollars proactively within the industry to drive some of that transition and change, then

we won't need that accountant's dream program there, or we'll have much less reliance on it.

I would never suggest that we go forward without some kind of an income support program, be it margin-based or net income-based or however it works. What we have to do is we have to get away from the model of spending the money after the dollars are lost. It's no different than going out and closing the barn door after the cows are out; it's too late. Government has to step up to the plate and spend money proactively.

MR. GLAVINE: In case we don't get back - John is giving me the signal here, one more question.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You misinterpreted my signal, but go ahead.

MR. GLAVINE: Anyway, we see this tremendous downturn in the amount of land base being used, as Laurence has talked about, the number of farmers has declined from the 2001 to 2006 census. How do we inspire the next generation of farmers in Nova Scotia? Now I see succession with you is nicely taking place but how do we get - and does government have a role to support a next generation of farmers to come along at a time when I think provincial production of food should be a major policy and goal of government? How do we get that young farmer now on the field?

MR. VERSTEEG: It's easy. Every annual meeting we go to of a county organization or a commodity group - almost invariably there is going to be a young farmer stand up there and he's going to say, what are you going to do to get more young farmers? Yes, there are things we can do, we can have interest and debt relief programs and all those things and they're kind of nice and nifty. I know what I did with my debt relief money when I was a starting farmer, I went out and bought a pickup truck with it and that was a hell of a lot of good, wasn't it? It was stolen a little while later.

What we have to do to make sure that we have young farmers coming into the industry is we have to give them some indication, some hope that they're going to see some profitability, then we won't be able to keep them away. That's the only thing that is going to drive new entrants, and it is not just young people. I am interested in the guy who has a business here in Halifax and wants a change of pace and wants to get into agriculture. I would like to see his dollars in agriculture. I want to see some young people in the industry. It's not just young farmers, I want to see new entrants in the industry and the only way we are going to have new entrants is if we are profitable.

The way I see it today, unless we are prepared to go to a model like this and get moving on it, and give some - I would suggest farmers are gullible enough that the only thing you have to do is show them some sign that they are going to be profitable. The people who are in the industry are more than willing to invest and when there is hope of profitability and

when there is profitability, we won't be able to keep the new entrants away. My nephew won't be able to kick me off the farm soon enough.

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you very much.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Gaudet.

MR. WAYNE GAUDET: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Willy, thank you for your interesting presentation. I can say there is lots there to digest. I want to start off by congratulating you on your new position and wish you all the best in your term.

MR. VERSTEEG: Thank you.

MR. GAUDET: I know it is going to be challenging at times. I am sure Laurence hasn't told you everything about the job. (Laughter)

MR. VERSTEEG: Laurence has his hands full with me. (Laughter)

MR. GAUDET: I want to start off by picking up on some of the comments. You indicated that agriculture plays a very significant role in rural Nova Scotia. Can you tell me about - or maybe Laurence - how many farms we have today in Nova Scotia, approximately.

MR. NASON: We have 2,700 registered farms and we have about 3,500 Stats Canada farms - those would be farms that report farm income from Stats Canada.

MR. GAUDET: So when you look at the last 10 years for instance, the number has dropped, I'm quite sure by significant . . .

MR. NASON: Yes, there has been a significant drop. It's the same as the land. I talked about 5 million acres of land being farmed by the first of the 20^th Century - there were 50,000 farmers in Nova Scotia at that time. In fact the farmers in Nova Scotia, at one time, formed a political Party and actually elected enough members to become the Opposition. I haven't told Willy about that yet. (Laughter)

MR. GAUDET: Willy, you talked about the many challenges that farms are faced with and focusing on trying to make ends meet between the operating expense and the net income. I'm going to ask anyway but looking ahead at the challenges that farmers do face in Nova Scotia - looking ahead in the next five years, next 10 years - I hear 2,700 registered farms. Chances are, that number will probably drop. Does the federation have a sense of where the industry is going today? I'm going to talk about your plan there in a few minutes, but today?

MR. VERSTEEG: Where it is going today is we are losing a significant portion of our red meat sector. We have hog producers - and everybody in this room knows it - that I don't think they are worried about their farms anymore, they are wondering about where the roof is going to be over their families' heads. So we are losing that. We are losing youth. The industry is in decline. I think to say that the industry is at a crossroads is a bit polite.

MR. GAUDET: I'm trying to look at the new people coming in, especially young people, to the industry. Again, in the last five years or 10 years, I suspect because of many challenges that the industry is facing, a lot of the young people are turning away from farming. Do we have a sense of approximately how many young new farmers are coming on?

MR. VERSTEEG: No, I would say we don't. I know in my own community we have a brand new farmer in the community and I will tell you, it's the most exciting thing that has happened here in a long time. As far as numbers to quantify that decline and how many people would be in agriculture if there was some hope versus how many people will be in agriculture, I don't think as an organization, or I don't think probably even our own department could tell us.

MR. NASON: We can give you some idea. I don't know the numbers, but we can give you some idea with respect to the age levels of farmers and the change. One thing we do know, Wayne, is that the demographics of the farm community are changing. We've seen quite a dramatic change in the last four or five years. If you just look at the farm registration system, what we're seeing is a really significant increase in the farm businesses in Nova Scotia with gross receipts under $25,000. We see an increase in the number of farms with growth receipts over $0.5 million but the plain vanilla in the middle is declining.

The dairy industry is probably a good example where, you know, the small operations are still there but the larger ones are getting larger and the guys with the 50 to 60 to 70 cow herds are leaving. That's going to be a problem, I think. One of the challenges the federation faces is that demographic change in the industry and I think that's something that has to factor into the agricultural policy as well. So, you know, we're seeing a change in the types of people who are farming and we're seeing, you know, there's a whole different set of values in the different segments of the industries. So we see more smaller farms now which isn't necessarily a bad thing, particularly from an environmental standpoint.

MR. GAUDET: I want to focus on land issues. I'm just trying to understand how much of a problem is it? You know, how much agricultural land has actually been turned over to residential or golf courses, or a variety of businesses, in Nova Scotia. Is that a big problem?

MR. NASON: Willy is living it. Agriculture in Nova Scotia takes place in what I call the triangle. It's found roughly by Kentville, Truro and Halifax, and it's the same place where people want to live. There's a 500-house subdivision approved right in the middle of two of

the larger dairy farms in the province, in Shubenacadie, and I think that you're seeing a bit of that problem in Pictou, certainly in Antigonish that problem is there, and in Annapolis. So, yes, I don't think anybody has any numbers with respect to how many acres are being turned over. Certainly the American Farm Land Trust has some very scary numbers with respect to what's happening in the U.S. but, no, that's a fact.

MR. GAUDET: Before you cut me off, Mr. Chairman, I want to go to the plan.

MR. CHAIRMAN: No, you're good.

MR. GAUDET: Willy, you talked about what role government should play and you also highlighted the need for the industry to be less dependable on government. So I'm not too clear exactly on what role government should play. I agree with you when you say that the government needs to show leadership and to be very clear if Nova Scotia is going to produce - take a number - 40 per cent, 60 per cent of the food that we consume in Nova Scotia, but then I come to the other question, how do we choose what food we're going to produce?

MR. VERSTEEG: Let farmers decide where the opportunities are. Government doesn't need to say, okay, we're going to put money into the cranberry industry, or we're going to put money into the dairy industry. Government doesn't need to pick winners and losers. Government needs to create the environment where the farmers can decide where they can make a dollar from the marketplace. They have to send clear signals that we want agriculture in this province, we want it to be profitable, and they're willing to do some work around making it profitable and providing the strategic infrastructure and providing some cash for change - setting the table. Government doesn't have to say, okay, well, you know, hogs have gone to hell and beef, we don't know what to do with, so we're going to become the Wisconsin of Canada and we're just going to go whole hog in the dairy industry. That's not what we're asking for.

We're just asking for government to create an environment where farmers can take advantage of our natural advantages and go after whatever it is, whether it's cranberries, or dairy, or beef - it doesn't matter. They'll find their own opportunities and capital will find the opportunities, but the only proviso on capital finding the opportunities is that they want to be relatively sure they're going to have the capital back and they're going to get some rent on that capital. They need some profit and that's all government needs to do. They don't need to be paternalistic and say, now, we're going to foster this sector and we're going to foster that sector. To hell with that sector, that doesn't have a hope. As soon as government says well, we don't want this sector anymore - believe me, there's a guy out there who knows how to make it work in that sector and can make it work for themselves. Don't take that opportunity away from farmers, just set the table.

MR GAUDET: I'll finish off by talking a little bit about the Buy Local campaign. I know over the years many attempts have been made to promote local products in our stores, but yet when I go around in many stores I basically look for the Nova Scotia product. I'm just curious, how is the campaign going? I'm sure there are some difficulties with it but, maybe on the high level, how's the campaign going?

MR. VERSTEEG: We see it as a really positive thing. It's something government has done with not very many dollars and they've helped set the table, creating an environment. There's lots of things we could do differently with it and there's lots of things that happened that probably shouldn't have happened and we ended up with local oranges and bananas and all that kind of stuff, but that doesn't really matter. The Buy Local initiative is a great initiative.

If there's one thing that has to happen with it, and I think it has been clearly evident after one year, it needs to be Buy Atlantic or Buy Maritime. We have to do that right away because every province in the Atlantic and the Maritimes has their own program now and before it gets too entrenched and the provinces get too frigging married to their own individual program, we have to make it at least a Maritime or an Atlantic program because that's the marketplace we're in.

Sobeys doesn't have a warehouse for New Brunswick, P.E.I. and Nova Scotia - they have one warehouse, and we're in a Maritime marketplace. So we've got to do that but as far as the initiative, great, I give Nova Scotia full marks for taking $0.25 million and creating a little bit of excitement. And yes, they threw another $100,000 at it. Yes, it has warts and pimples but that's what we mean by setting the table, creating the environment.

[2:15 p.m.]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much. Mr. Dunn.

MR. PATRICK DUNN: Thank you for the presentation. It was very interesting, with a lot of challenges, as in any sector across the province. Often when we were talking earlier there about younger people becoming involved in the industry and it comes down to profit, dollars and cents and so on, in a lot of areas there are lots of examples where people have left us. For example, I have a close friend who left to work in Fort McMurray and he was making $2,000 a day. His heart is back here, where he was working in Nova Scotia. He will be coming back but at the present time, he feels there is no place in Canada right now where he can put more than a roof over the house and provide post-secondary education for his children and so on.

There are a couple of things that Wayne referred to and you referred to in your opening comments, dealing with land use issues. Will that continue to become a real thorn

in your side with regard to the acquisition of land for many, many other avenues, as opposed to the farming sector? Can you visualize that happening as we continue to move on?

MR. VERSTEEG: Access to land is an issue in areas like my own; it's not an issue in other areas of the province. But land use issues as a whole will continue to be a problem as long as we have 50-some different sets of rules around land use, and that's the current environment we're in. My own little part of Hants County, East Hants has its own set of rules that are different than in West Hants, which are different than in Kings County, which are different than in Annapolis County. So we've got a real - I'll be polite and say a patchwork of regulations around land use and what you can and can't do. That's something that should really change.

Society has to answer some basic questions around land use, too. They say, we want agriculture and we want to support agriculture and we want to keep the land for agriculture, but it's getting to the point where we can't afford to keep land in agriculture. If I want to keep my family farming, and I have a few lots along the main road that I could sell for $30,000, $40,000 or $50,000 to pay down my line of credit from my farming addiction, to keep me in business, I can't even do that anymore. Society says, in East Hants, you can't do that.

But, they're not willing to say, I'm willing to buy your development rights either. They just want to download society's values on me and take away my ability to keep my family on my farm. That's just a bit of an example of different kinds of policies and there are how many different municipalities in the province? That's how many different sets of regulations there are around land use and what you can and can't do.

Until we get that all together and society answers some pretty basic questions around not only do we want land for agriculture, are we willing to pay to keep land in agriculture? Then, yes, we're going to be in business for a long time dealing with the land use issue.

MR. NASON: It's an area where there is a real opportunity for provincial leadership. With respect to agriculture and land use issues - right in your area, I can take you to a place where a farmer can spread manure in the town, but not in the county. Just because there are different sets of regulations.

MR. DUNN: Maybe just one last comment. With this slight change in our climate getting a little warmer - although the last couple of days I don't know if I agree with that - but will that help the agricultural sector to become a little more diversified?

MR. VERSTEEG: What a little more heat does is it allows us to take advantage of a little more productive cultivars and varieties. With corn, in Nova Scotia we always say we had, where I am, we had 2,100, 2,200 heat units of corn so I can grow 14 tons of corn to the

acre with that many heat units if I have the right amount of moisture and everything else goes right.

This year I bought 2,300, 2,400 heat unit of corn, that means I can grow 16 to 18 tons to the acre corn. So, some more heat creates more productivity. But if we get a windstorm and it blows it all down, it ain't worth a damn anyway.

So, yes, there are opportunities. I mean, global warming isn't all bad for Nova Scotia and it's probably not politically correct to say that, but that's agriculture's view. We've always felt, around crop production, that we haven't had a lot of attention as far as research goes because we're a small market for seed. Believe it or not, a corn seed isn't just a corn seed. There are a whole range of climates and growing zones where you can grow crops and there has never been a whole lot of attention paid to colder climates because it's a small marketplace. Pioneer only sells so many bags of corn in Nova Scotia and there's a little pocket in Manitoba which has roughly the same climate as we do. It's a small market so it doesn't get the new technology in the seeds. They're not necessarily going to do anything in GMO or stack corn or anything.

But, as you get more heat units, then it kind of gets to be a bigger marketplace or we can take advantage of an area where they've paid more attention. It allows for some more productivity. I don't think there's anything really new that we can do, but we can be more productive with what we're already doing with more heat.

MR. DUNN: Just one quick one. Are the transportation costs ruining the products? Is that really chewing up the profit?

MR. VERSTEEG: Transportation is huge. Sitting right here, we're probably half a mile from the end of the trans-continental railway, where it ends at the grain elevator. So for our livestock sector that wants to feed grain - and there is not a whole lot of choice in the chicken industry or the hog industry but to feed grain - we have a $60 to $80 disadvantage over the guy in Ontario. It's that many dollars a ton. I bought corn out of eastern Ontario this Fall, $60 a ton to move the corn from a farm in eastern Ontario to my farm in central Nova Scotia and I am paid, to within 1/100th of a cent, the same price a litre for my milk as the guy in eastern Ontario. So there is a $60 spread there and, depending on where you are in the province, you can add another $10 or so.

So transportation costs are huge, and then even to get out of this marketplace transportation costs are huge too. We have a plant in Bedford that wants to value-add milk and add Omega-3 to it and get it out into the bigger marketplace because this isn't big enough for them anymore. The transportation costs are huge to get value-added products to a marketplace like Toronto. So transportation, in a lot of cases, is hooping us and every dollar that is added on to a barrel of oil, we are getting hooped more.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Theriault.

MR. HAROLD THERIAULT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman and thank you, Willy, for your presentation. Listening to you here, it sounds a lot like the fishery, similar problems. The only thing different is you would like more involvement with the government and we would like less. So we always thought if the government would go away that we could fix things. We could put our own plans together, but they would rather make plans for us. That's the only difference that I can see here. So maybe you want to rethink that. (Laughter)

MR. VERSTEEG: If you're asking me if I want to go fishing, I don't. (Laughter)

MR. THERIAULT: No, don't go there. I don't either.

I just want to touch on one thing. When you first started your presentation, you talked about the fellow below, the president below the border, south of us, getting the price of the crops up down there for fuel. You sound discouraged with that, but in your presentation you spoke positively about energy - you can produce energy on the farms. Maybe you can fill us in a little on that?

MR. VERSTEEG: Well the opportunity that exists with producing energy on farms is what we are using corn for, producing ethanol. Corn is probably one of the least efficient ways to produce ethanol. The most efficient way to produce ethanol is from cellulose - from plant matter, grasses, trees. We have the ability here in Nova Scotia to produce grass like nobody's business. The most efficient way to produce ethanol is with cellulose and we have an opportunity there to do that. There are also other opportunities on the farm with methane extraction - and here's another opportunity, create an environment for wind farms that make sense. There is a place where agriculture would take advantage of that and get some ownership in that business, part of setting that table where - we have lots of natural advantages here that we can take a hold of. That $60 corn subsidy that George Bush has on is just something that hoops us, it takes away our ability to change because we are too busy paying bills.

I will tell you, I am really optimistic about the industry. We have lots of opportunities, but we have to get our ducks lined up and we need a plan that shows where all those ducks need to go - but, definitely, we have lots of opportunity for producing energy crops.

MR. THERIAULT: So you are saying, like grass and hay and straw . . .

MR. VERSTEEG: Yes.

MR. THERIAULT: . . . for possibly stove pellets and things like that?

MR. VERSTEEG: No - that would be one. I mean, to grow switchgrass for stove pellets is an option, but extracting the cellulose from those plants. They build these ethanol plants and they can extract the cellulose and make ethanol from the cellulose.

There are a lot of dollars going into ethanol plants. We can't take advantage of that because we can't compete nor should we even try to compete on growing corn to produce ethanol in Nova Scotia.

MR. THERIAULT: Right on. Do you think they can extract anything out of alders?

MR. VERSTEEG: Yes. Absolutely.

MR. THERIAULT: Is that right?

MR. VERSTEEG: Alders are a great source, it's one of the best.

MR. THERIAULT: Do you have any alders growing up around your area, because we can transplant you some if you have room.

MR. VERSTEEG: The buggers are in the ditch all the time.

MR. THERIAULT: I want to touch on one other thing, too. You mentioned putting sirloin steak in New York, on the table, because that's one of the highest-priced steaks, probably, or piece of meat out of a steer. I was asked that question one day, and that's what I said, sirloin steak, and I was corrected.

MR. VERSTEEG: Yes, he told you it was beef jerky. That's the past president, he's past president. (Laughter)

His comments are absolutely right. I mean, we can't take our whole beef herd and produce beef jerky. When people are buying beef, they want a consistent product. Leo, you asked, too, about producing AAA, and are we hooped because we can't produce AAA? I would argue, it probably doesn't really matter what we produce as long as we produce it consistently and of a certain quality and a certain supply and we can meet our commitments to the marketplace, it doesn't really matter, not all the beef has to be AAA.

Certainly when I go to the store not everything I buy is AAA. I buy stew meat sometimes, and I don't think we need - I look at that as an excuse. If I can't produce AAA, what can I produce? If it's beef jerky, well, I'd better produce beef jerky or I better produce what the market tells me there is an opportunity in. I have to make a commitment to that marketplace, and that's why supply management works, because supply management has made a commitment to the marketplace that they will supply products and the consumer will never, ever be short of those products and there will be a consistent supply of quality product

at all times. We have to do that same thing in all our other sectors. We have to respond to the marketplace. We can do the same thing in energy crops.

[2:30 pm]

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Belliveau.

MR. STERLING BELLIVEAU: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm interested in the presentation. Like Junior, my background is fishing, but it's interesting, you talk about focus on development and farm development funding and a proactive approach. I just have to tell a quick little story.

The last time we were in here we talked about the vineyards in Nova Scotia and the wine industry. I was at a farmer's market in Windsor, Nova Scotia, a few weeks ago, and I looked and there was an individual there selling wine. I wasn't interested in the content, but I was interested in the label on the wine. It was an interesting label. It had a picture of a lobster claw holding a glass of wine. I know that's the new advertising logo but, to me, I'm convinced that we have the best seafood products in Nova Scotia, we have the best farm products in Nova Scotia, and why we just can't marry that together. Here was the advertisement of Nova Scotia doing that. You talked about buying local, so I see some positive attitudes and changes there.

You talked about the need for change. I'm going to ask the magic wand question. If you had a magic wand, and you had this development fund that you were talking about in being proactive, explain to me what you would do to create this new development, these new changes?

MR. VERSTEEG: What I would do is go out to the industry, and as much as I said I hate planning we would identify, we would take our magic wand and we would say where are the market opportunities in red meat, or producing protein - where are the market opportunities? - and we would develop a plan to address this. That fits within this plan because that transitional support is developing plans to address the marketplace, and my magic wand would go out to every single sector that felt that they were not profitable enough and they needed to change - that magic wand would give them the cash to change. And don't take that home as Willy came here and just asked for a bunch of cash - I've already told you there's enough cash in the system, it's about reorganizing and redeploying the cash that's already there.

I never threw this number out. Are you aware that there's $90 million spent in Nova Scotia on agriculture - $90 million? Some of it's spent at the Agricultural College and some of it's spent in downtown - there must be an ivory tower around here somewhere that we're supporting, but there's $90 million, federal and provincial dollars, going into agriculture. I think we can fix our problems with $90 million, so my magic wand would give everybody

some of that cash so that they can change, so they can meet the demands of the marketplace and respond to the marketplace, because I think we've been following the wrong signals all along. We've been following signals that - you know in the past government told everybody to build tower silos, and my family built tower silos and a lot of those tower silos have been long since torn down.

Government promoted the cranberry industry, and it's not necessarily all bad, but it has been somewhat paternalistic in its view to agriculture - you're not making a living, so go do this. What my magic wand would do is give everybody the cash to change into the type of operation where they can be profitable and that meets the demands of the consumer - and I really feel a lot of the onus on this is not only on government, it's on farmers themselves, to challenge farmers to get away from the model of this is how I want to farm and I have the right to be profitable farming however I want to farm. I don't think farmers have that right. I think farmers who are willing to listen to the marketplace, I think they should be profitable.

MR. BELLIVEAU: And just my final point, I was looking at the slide where it says the exit of industry support, I think that your industry faces similar to the fishing industry. We have a lot of the baby boomers who are reaching the retirement stage in their lives. Is that similar? Am I reading that right? Is there something here . . .

MR. VERSTEEG: I'm saying exit the industry support. Sometimes when you do a plan, there isn't always an answer, and sometimes the best answer is to say cut our losses, I want out of the industry. Help them retrain, help them exit the industry with dignity, because sometimes that is the answer - get out. If you're burnt out and you're not profitable and you're at a stage in your life where it doesn't make sense to make a 25-year investment, if you're 55 years old and you're going to make an investment for the next 25 years, well, I'm not interested in being in agriculture that long. It definitely, in some cases, will help the guy out of the industry. It's the best thing you can do for that farm family and it's the best thing you can do for agriculture.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well I'll have a kick at the can, I think for a few minutes, until the members of the committee think I've gone too far.

I want to say thanks very much for the presentation. A lot of what you said is not new to me; some of what you said I don't agree with. Most of what you said I do agree with, and when I look at how we envision our industry in the future, an industry that is - and then it says allow market signals to drive business and is capable of responding to those signals - to me that is opposite of supply management, because in supply management it doesn't really swing and flow. In the American system it does; they don't have supply management. But as far as market demands and so on, which is really the good thing about supply management, the way I would look at supply management - actually, if I could come up with a global supply management plan and could talk other countries into doing that and say, look, what can you grow that you can feed your people as a domestic market, that you can do fairly

well and try to get some buy-in to that, and then look at export for what you can't, and say we need to import this product and you are a country that can grow it and we can't, and look at agriculture in those terms.

I'm not necessarily the biggest supporter, I think, of the money going into the plant in P.E.I. The reason for that is that I don't see a formula that gives return to the producer, out of that money. If the province had said, yes, we will give $2 million but we want to see this formula that allows producers to get a certain return, I would be much more in favour of that. I agree with you on what you said about consistent quality. That is something that has been said. Northumberlamb has done that, and they still get bounced around by the grocery stores. Sometimes Superstore will drop them and Sobeys will pick them up, and then they will drop them and Superstore will pick them up. I think, right now, they are both taking their product, but that doesn't guarantee them access to the market.

When I look at the beef industry and the hog industry in Nova Scotia - and we finish about 8,000 head of cattle a year in Nova Scotia, we bring in the equivalent of 9,000 head a month - if I was going to tell some young person, they were asking questions, what is it that I could produce, the first thing I would be thinking is something that we eat every day that we are not producing. We already have a market. Rather than doing studies to determine, you know, can I sell this funny shaped widget out there in that marketplace, and do a study to see if anybody would buy it or what the uptake of that would be, but we know every day in Nova Scotia people are eating beef, or at least once a week, and the same with pork, we supply 65 per cent of the needs of Nova Scotians, and if I could develop a grass-fed hog, I would be on it. Actually, even if a hog could take 10 per cent of its usual grain requirement in grass, I bet you that would come close to that margin that hog producers could actually make some money.

The issue of transition - and the big thing that I see for agriculture, it doesn't matter how you package it, bottle it, cook it, bag it, is making money. If you can get paid a decent price for what you are producing there will be young people coming to this industry. What's not happening - all the talk on the hog industry has been Omega-3 natural and whatever. Omega-3 is a $6 premium. So if you are losing $60 on a hog, you only lose $54. So, to me, in talk of transition, that is not necessarily the road that you want to go down. It's a commodity product, and I don't see that the consumer has shifted enough to pay for that.

To me, I would think a risk management program that was similar to the province's risk management program that they cut in 1999, that something was fairly flexible, easily accessible, better than CAIS, and the producer paid in, the processor paid in and, I think, instead of government, the retailer should pay in, and put that money into a pot that farmers could draw out of when they need, and something similar to maybe the ASRA program in Quebec might be helpful.

To me, the big issue is income. Farmers are the last person, well actually they are price takers and they have no ability to lever the price they need, and until we address that - I am not necessarily the biggest supporter of the benefits to society component there, only because I would look at that as an alternative if you can't get those dollars out of the marketplace and we're going to go with another vision - then I would see that as probably helpful. But I would rather see us go down the road of actually trying to get those dollars that consumers are spending, so that farmers can actually access those dollars. That would be my first - and I know I'm not asking a question, and this will sound . . .

MR. VERSTEEG: I'm writing fast.

MR. CHAIRMAN: . . . more like a rant, but I'm just thinking about my time. I do have a question because there's something you said that I think demands attention and I would like the committee to get some direction from you. I'm concerned about what you said about the lab services in Truro, and I'm just wondering if this is not somewhere where we should have a motion for the committee to write the minister in this regard.

So I'd like a little more background on the laboratory services and what you might see as necessary there, and then if you want to respond to some of these other comments that I've made I'll take the heat.

Certainly one of the first comments you made, Willy, was around health in your opening presentation. I agree with you, and what better place to control the product that we produce and to sell it to Nova Scotians as a good, healthy product - and when I think about the products that come in I think about the gluten from China, so definitely I agree this is an easy place for us to have some say in the regulatory side on good quality, healthy food for our citizens, and we should be involved in that. So with those comments, I would be glad to listen to anything.

[2:45 p.m.]

MR. VERSTEEG: I'll deal directly with the lab in Truro. What we have in Truro at the Agricultural College is the lab that provides analytical services for, number one, soils. So you take a soil sample to the lab in Truro, the machine that calculates what the mineral content of the soil is has very reduced throughput because it is old technology and it is worn out and it has broken down quite a number of times - I think it actually burned a little bit here earlier in the Fall.

So the machine that performs that service for soils, and also for forage evaluation for finding out what the feed value of the feed that I made for my cattle is, it is the same machine. That machine is broken down, worn out and basically out of business and requires an investment of, I think, somewhere north of $1 million, isn't it, Laurence?

MR. NASON: Yes, it's an expensive piece of gear.

MR. VERSTEEG: And it's not in the budget and I'm not really sure where the money is going to come from and I believe they're trying to beg, borrow, steal, lease or rent a machine that will do it - but at the end of the day the answer has to be that we need a machine there, tout de suite, to do it. That is almost always identified as one of the most strategic pieces of infrastructure that we require, and it's cross-commodity. It's not just for the dairy industry, it's not just for the beef industry - anybody who does anything with the land needs that lab in Truro. So it needs to be addressed.

MR. NASON: It's not only a critical part of the infrastructure for agriculture, it's a critical part of managing one of Nova Scotia's most valued resources - the soils. The farmers have to know what is going into the soils and they have to know what is coming out of the soils. The lab also does analyses on feed samples and manure samples, water, soil - so it's an important part of the infrastructure that the industry needs. As I say, it's an important part of maintaining the health of soils in the province.

MR. VERSTEEG: That's the bit on the lab. I'm going to bite onto one of your first comments there, John, about supply management and being market responsive. I'm going to tell you that's why supply management, one of the reasons why it is very successful is because they are responsive to the marketplace. One, they've got a net farm income that they can invest in transitioning or changing their product into what consumer demands, being the demands of the marketplace, whether it's low fat, whether it's value added, whatever, and supply managed products oftentimes are the ones that end up being value added in response to the marketplace.

It gets right down to my farm. I respond to the marketplace in that if the marketplace demands more product, I have to produce it. It's not an option, and if it demands less product I have to cut back in my production. So that gives you a bit of an idea of how being market- responsive can manifest itself into profitability - because if you do what the market tells you, they'll pay it, they'll reward you.

With the money into the plant, we are saying very much that it's a positive thing that the government is again investing in a strategic piece of infrastructure. Now the question is how are they going to use the money? If they're going to use the money the same as a CAIS payment and pay bills, I don't get a real warm fuzzy feeling about that. If they're going to use the money for market development, not only up but down to producers and say, look, this is what we want from you guys, and put some strings on what goes into the plant so that they can make some promises on the other side to the marketplace that this is what we can provide you, then I think the $12 million that's going into the plant will create a future.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Do you know if any strings were attached? I don't know of any.

MR. VERSTEEG: I'm not aware personally of any strings that were attached.

MR. NASON: We assume that the investment was made - our advice to government was to make the investment based on a business plan, so there was a business plan done. We haven't seen it, but we assume that somebody made the judgment that the business plan made enough sense to make the investment and it is a critical part of the infrastructure. It's the only federally inspected beef plant there is. Of course, Tony's Meats, which is now owned by producers is also a multi-species plant. So it's a federally inspected plant, but they don't kill beef at the current time. So it's the only opportunity we have, John, to get local beef into the local market and local beef into local institutions and so on.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I think that's a good thing. My concern is there won't be any, you know, producers won't be paid enough. The plant has been up and going for some years now and it really hasn't had a significant impact. I talked to a producer at your annual general meeting who showed me his price on four animals, dressed weight, and he said he would be further ahead to ship those to Ontario, he would have gotten more for them. So, you know, when someone from Nova Scotia is telling me that, then I have to really worry about the taxpayers' dollars and what the benefit for the industry is.

I agree with you, Willy, on if there were strings attached that kind of took us down that road, I would be much happier and I would probably be the first one on that bandwagon to endorse it. So I guess for me to say that is not to take a kick at the industry but it's really to give a heads-up to government, that for this member of the Opposition to give blanket support to the initiatives they take I would like to see some safeguards that help the industry move along - and I'm not entirely sure that I see that, but I would be more than willing to see it.

MR. VERSTEEG: John, you mentioned that right now Northumberlamb is in both Sobeys and Loblaws - I'm willing to bet that the price they pay for it is determined by Northumberlamb rather than the other way around.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes.

MR. VERSTEEG: I know that if one of those guys puts ground beef on special and they order it from the Borden beef plant - we want so many tons of ground beef and this is what we're paying for it - that's where transition has to take place, it's not only on the farm, it's within processing as well. Once they have a branded, consistent product, when it goes to the marketplace we become price setters, not price takers. That's a key element of where the change has to be. When farmers change, that's what they have to do, they have to be able to say I'm moving from this type of production, where I take what I get for the product, and usually a month later, and you don't even know until you get the cheque and it clears that that

is what you're getting, to this product's leaving my farm, this is the price and these are the terms, and you can get a 2 per cent cash discount if you pay me cash.

That's where we have to move to. That's part of when you make a commitment to a marketplace, and it's something the marketplace wants, and you're willing to provide consistent, quality product, you can make those demands. But if, oh, I have a bunch of calves I'd like to get rid of, I don't really have a place to put them in the barn, don't expect the marketplace to pay you premium.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I hear you. Thank you. I want to ask, has the federation made any requests to the government around the technology or the equipment at the lab, the infrastructure? Have you made a request to them?

MR. VERSTEEG: We've been talking to government, Leo Muise, about the situation around the lab, and he has kept us somewhat apprised as to what the situation is and what they're trying to do to remedy it. They definitely know we're on record as wanting - as far as a formal request, no, we haven't made a formal request, but there is a dialogue there.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would you like us to make a request on behalf of the industry?

MR. VERSTEEG: It's a critical piece of infrastructure. I think to indicate to the government that for the economic viability of farmers and for the health of the soils and the healthy environment, and we can provide you with all the reasons that government should make the investment in that lab and they should make it right away, we are more than willing to help you make that request. We'll provide you with any background information that you want.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. Can I get a motion from a committee member?

Mr. Gaudet.

MR. GAUDET: I move that the Resources Committee send a letter directly to the Minister of Agriculture requesting immediate attention to the lab in Truro, and to replace this equipment that plays such a significant role in the agricultural sector.

Maybe Laurence could provide us with some background on it.

MR. NASON: Sure.

MR. CHAIRMAN: A seconder.

MR. PARKER: I second that.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Would all those in favour of the motion please say Aye. Contrary minded, Nay.

The motion carried.

We have a little time. Mr. Parker, I have you down as the only person on the second round. We can start with you, I'll let you have one.

MR. PARKER: I have one question. I have been looking for the last hour at that transition model up there.

MR. VERSTEEG: I hope it burned right into the screen.

MR. PARKER: I understand transitional support and I understand strategic investment, but I wonder if you can explain the compensation where public goods or services benefits society? What are some of those benefits? You mentioned Europe and the United States that are already into that program, what kind of compensation are they actually giving to farmers, and for what?

MR. VERSTEEG: He's the guy to explain it, because when I first came on the federation, one of the main reasons I came on was that I took issue with this multi-functionality, is what it was known as at the time. I said that's BS, I want my money from the marketplace. But the reality is that this is how the rest of the farmers in the world are being funded. Our farmers need cash, and we definitely do provide a verifiable and auditable list of goods and services to society that we need to be paid for.

Laurence is going to explain to you just how we do it.

MR. NASON: It would take an hour to explain it. I'm going to leave you with a background paper that will give you some idea of the concept.

Basically, farmers produce a number of what we call ecological goods and services - economists call them externalities - over and above the production of food. Those things include the aesthetics of the community, of course - which is a very obvious one - but farmers also maintain wetlands that are responsible for recharging groundwater systems. Farmers maintain biodiversity which is becoming more important to everyone now and although, you know, we're very visible and sometimes an industry that doesn't smell all that well, we do perform a number of other functions that are critical to maintaining the kind of environment that people want to live in. So the health in the soils is another issue. In Europe, in Great Britain for example, the Government of Great Britain is determined that there are a number of things farmers do that people of the country are wanting to pay for. Some of those don't make a whole lot of sense here, like planting trees. I drive back to Truro, I see lots of trees, but that's an issue in Great Britain.

Maybe one of the best ways to explain it is, for example, more and more now farmers are creating riperian zones or buffers along streams. So a farmer takes a piece of land out of production, fences it off and maintains that space between the farming activity and the stream. A lot of people benefit from that, okay, but the people who benefit from it are basically free riders. They get that benefit because the farmer can't actually charge them $10 apiece for providing what that stream provides to them. So it's what we would call a collective good, the same as government creates a park. They can't charge everybody a fee, although they do in some cases, but it's a collective good. So the community collectively pays for it. Anyway, I'll leave you with this paper and certainly if you have any questions, just give us a call.

MR. PARKER: Tourism would be another?

MR. NASON: Yes, tourism is another. I think the aesthetics of the community is an obvious example.

[3:00 p.m.]

MR. VERSTEEG: Food safety.

MR. NASON: Food safety is another one.

MR. VERSTEEG: Farmers produce very, very safe food but society has asked farmers to document in this very specific and methodical way that you're producing safe food. I have no fear about going to my milk tank and drinking my own milk but in order to be able to ship milk, I have to be able to produce an auditable, traceable set of documents to prove to society the milk is safe - milk that I already know is safe. I do that at my own cost. I mean it's just another example of things that we are providing information in the case of food safety and certainly if I asked my lawyer or my accountant for information, there's usually an invoice attached to it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, I think I'll let you make your closing comments and then we'll wind up.

MR. VERSTEEG: Well, in closing, I would once again like to thank this committee for the opportunity to present here today. I've most enjoyed it and certainly any time that you would like to speak to the federation in this format, we would welcome the opportunity and if you want to perhaps address specifically ecological goods and services because it's one that needs some clarification, or environment, or any aspect of what it is that we do, we would be more than happy to dialogue with you. This is a formal way that we communicate to government and we're grateful for the opportunity to do so. Certainly, I would like to pass along best wishes to everybody for the holiday season. It's a great time of the year for

everybody, me included, and I hope that everybody has a peaceful Christmas and a happy and prosperous new year. That's it, thanks, and have a good Christmas.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I appreciate you coming and our best wishes to everybody in the industry for the holiday season.

Well, we have a few items to take care of, members of the committee, and I would appreciate it if people didn't stroll away right now. (Interruptions) Okay, the status of the Subcommittee on Fisheries (Interruption)

MR. PARKER: We don't have a quorum.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I can make this introduction and when Leo comes back we will continue. Anyway, I am most concerned because I have the members of the Subcommittee on Fisheries still here. The word we got from the Speaker on this issue was that it really wasn't a committee with standing in this process. The subcommittees generally act mostly for agenda-setting and other functions but as far as having hearings aside from the main committee, they don't do that.

So what the Speaker's office had offered us, which I thought was a really good compromise, was they said, look, we will fund you to meet twice a month. Now you may not necessarily want to take advantage of that all the time but I was thinking of, in particular - and this doesn't mean we couldn't use these for the Resources Committee but certainly for the Subcommittee on Fisheries, your concerns - for those people you want to try to get in relatively quickly and they would actually be able to come and present before the whole committee and you would get a Hansard copy and everything that we get in the regular committee. So the Speaker's office was willing to fund that. So what it allows us to do is get more people before this committee and I think in your regard, you were probably thinking more on the fisheries side of your interest.

So I will leave that with you. I guess I just want to know what your thoughts are. We still actually just have a quorum. I would like to hear from the members what you are thinking in terms of doing that because it is obvious your subcommittee doesn't really exist as far as the legislative process is concerned and we are a committee of the Legislature but it can exist certainly by allowing you to bring more people to the Resources Committee.

MR. THERIAULT: I agree with that.

MR. BELLIVEAU: I agree with it, too.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Glavine, you are okay with that?

MR. GLAVINE: Yes, I am fine with that. That will work.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Parker?

MR. PARKER: Does that mean that we might meet twice a month?

MR. CHAIRMAN: We might, yes.

MR. PARKER: But depending on whether or not there are enough witnesses.

MR. CHAIRMAN: We can. Now there is a glitch and it may not, I guess the glitch is around the scheduling. Just looking from what Charlene has indicated, trying to book committees in these rooms, but that is something we can work with. We may not get the group the week we wanted them but we can get them here quicker, hopefully.

So the other thing, and I would like permission from the committee to pursue something, and that is just around help for our staff. There is a reason that Rhonda Neatt didn't take this job. So it's important, I think, to indicate that along with what we are thinking is a little extra load for our clerk, she also prepares the Public Accounts Committee, which is every week, along with this and it's significant. So I would really like permission of the committee to pursue to the Speaker help for the clerk in whatever way the Speaker's office deems that. I think we have to make that request. The fact that the previous person who worked, kind of in a temporary capacity, didn't see this as a springboard to better employment might be an indicator of the workload. So I just want to know if the committee is fine with at least making a request to the Speaker.

MR. PARKER: Agreed.

MR. GLAVINE: Agreed.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The other things that I want us to look at - there is some correspondence here. The wording of Clause 30 of the proposed new federal Fisheries Act respecting transfer of licences - I just want to be sure that all members got the letters that were sent out and received back from Honourable Ronald Chisholm, Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture. It was a request that he would meet with members of, certainly the Subcommittee on Fisheries. Did those members meet? Did you have a meeting with the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture?

MR. THERIAULT: Yes, we met two or three times, not that anything came out of it.

MR. CHAIRMAN: The Leader of the Liberal Party had made a request to go before the Public Accounts Committee. The Chair of the Public Accounts Committee had sent that request back to us. I am thinking that I may have missed a step in here, did we send it to the Economic Development Committee? He also wrote to the Economic Development

Committee. So the Economic Development Committee isn't going to hear that request, and they wanted to know if we would hear it. Now, maybe some members of the Liberal caucus could speak better to this but, certainly, as the chairman, it seems a sensible request to come before our committee. We would like to get Mr. McNeil's request on the agenda so we could get that before the committee in relatively speedy time. Are members okay with trying to get that on the agenda at some point? Okay.

The other issue, which I think will have to come first, if you look at the next meeting, the Forest Products Association of Nova Scotia, they were the ones who cancelled. So the binders, the work has all been done on that, and just considering the issues around the state of the industry, presently, MacTara, trying to get them back here as quickly as possible would be a good idea. So if the committee is fine with that, I would say that January 22^nd date is about the fastest we could do it.

MR. PARKER: Sounds okay.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay.

MR. THERIAULT: Mr. Chairman, could I submit another name, just submit it, I don't think we have to vote on it today. It has to do with the people from Seafreez, Kathy Dorrington - she requested last Fall. We were going to bring her into the subcommittee and, well, it just never happened. I have the information and the contacts to her that I can get to you, Charlene.

MR. PARKER: Seafreez from Canso?

MR. THERIAULT: Yes. She would like to come to the committee.

MR. CHAIRMAN: This is one of those where my thought was that we would want to get them in, not wait a month after January 22^{n d} but try to get them in two weeks after January 22^nd. This would kind of give some legitimacy to our discussion around the subcommittee and try to make some use of what you wanted the subcommittee to do. So if the committee is fine, and we can leave this with Charlene to try to schedule this, because I'm not sure that this can happen, but we would make an attempt to try to get them in, in a two-week period after January 22^nd.

MR. THERIAULT: I will get the information to you.

MR. CHAIRMAN: You're fine with that? Okay.

The last thing - well I guess not the last thing - I just want members to be aware of the correspondence regarding the longhorn beetle. This was a letter that came back from Greg Cunningham, but I think we had sent the letter to Chuck Strahl, if I am not mistaken.

MS. CHARLENE RICE (Legislative Committee Clerk): Yes.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I just wanted to be sure that members got a copy of that correspondence, and this letter has gone out to the presenters who were before us. I think it was the Ecology Action Centre, the Lawrencetown citizens group, and I am trying to think of the third one. There were three. I think this correspondence has gone out.

MR. PARKER: Friends of Point Pleasant Park, was it?

MR. CHAIRMAN: Yes, Friends of Point Pleasant Park. It was regarding the ministerial order, and I think the science around the order. So I just wanted to make sure that members got that. I am not making a request that we pursue this any more, but I just wonder if you received the correspondence. These were things that got left over and never got dealt with.

MR. GLAVINE: Mr. Chairman, the other value of perhaps a mid-meeting is the fact that we now have reduced our annual number of meetings because we are not going to meet while the Legislature is sitting. So I just reflected on that for a moment and I think this is a good move because with Resources, as with many of the committees, there are very time-sensitive issues that I think we can have an impact on making a strong statement on.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I agree with you and I think for us, for the committee, it's purely scheduling to try to get those groups in.

MR. GLAVINE: Yes, sure. (Interruptions)

MR. CHAIRMAN: So you've got Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays - that leaves us Mondays and Fridays. Well, does the committee have a problem with trying to go with Mondays or Fridays?

MR. PARKER: And both committee rooms are used, are they, on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, morning and afternoon?

MS. RICE: No, the problem usually is that there's a crossover of members, one of the other clerks has a meeting, that somebody would be in the same meeting.

MR. PARKER: Even if one was in the morning and one was in the afternoon?

MS. RICE: That would be okay.

MR. BELLIVEAU: If I could, Mr. Chairman, if it was a Monday, we could have a meeting in the afternoon, so that we could travel in the morning and not lose two days.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Monday afternoon could be - we'll work with that and see if that works, and in the interim I'll draft a letter to the Speaker's office around additional help at the office.

MR.GLAVINE: Excellent.

MR. CHAIRMAN: I think that covers all of my agenda items. Future witnesses, topics for meetings - I think we've already covered that. So Nova Scotia Forest Products will be in January, and then two weeks after that we'll try to get this group, Seafreez.

MR. THERIAULT: Yes, she's the head of the union, the Seafreez workers, Kathy Dorrington.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, very good. I have nothing further. Do any members of the committee have anything they want to raise?

SOME HON. MEMBERS: Merry Christmas.

MR. CHAIRMAN: Sorry to keep you so long.

We are adjourned.

[The committee adjourned at 3:15 p.m.]