Speech
Minister Strahl speaks at the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute (CAPI) conference
Toronto, Ontario
February 14th, 2006.
Hon. Chuck Strahl (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the Canadian Wheat Board): Well, thank you, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
I've got to tell you how grateful I am for the invitation. If you have seen as many briefing books as I had in the last week, just getting out of the office there was a real treat. I think if Len keeps me there much longer, I'll look like Gollum from Lord of the Rings, all pale and emaciated. I do appreciate the invitation.
I appreciate that you're still sitting. This is typical of the whole agri-food business, that they're willing to sit through meetings and discuss things. It reminds me of a policy convention I was at years ago in Saskatoon and it was a party policy convention and the policy was tough. It's just like what you folks are doing, trying to put together all the conflicting opportunities and ideas and struggles in the ag industry.
Finally, in the afternoon, the chairman just said, "Well, we've run just completely out of time. We can't finish it, so it's unfortunate but we'll have to move on." A farmer got up to the mike and said, "I don't see there's anything on the schedule tomorrow morning for 5:30 a.m." And he says, "No, sure enough, there's not." He says, "Okay, then." The farmer just kind of calls the meeting, 5:30 tomorrow morning. And sure enough, and I'll tell you, the place was packed. The farmers, they don't mind getting up to discuss the future of the farm industry at that time. It was a lesson learned about the sincerity and the effort put into that sort of thing.
I do come from an agricultural riding. Not all types of agriculture are represented there, but I do have some awareness of it and of course, these briefing books and discussions I'm having not only with officials but certainly with industry and provincial counterparts and so on is helping me to dig deeper into these issues and I look forward to doing that. We're going to start this afternoon with more meetings again and it will continue and it probably in fact will never stop. So I'm enjoying and getting an opportunity to learn and to meet some key people and that's of course why I'm here today. There's a lot of key people here and I appreciate the chance to speak.
And I do want to thank CAPI for organizing this forum and bringing together a wide representation from this sector. CAPI is now entering its third year and has already made its mark as an effective catalyst and bringing together a wide range of expertise to identify emerging issues in agriculture.
As I've said, I'm just beginning what I know to be one of the most interesting and challenging jobs in the government.
I'm just going to try to paint a picture of some ideas of how I intend to approach the job as the Minister. The first priority area for me and my government centres around the whole notion of opportunity, which you may remember was a word we used a lot during the campaign. Canada's resource industries, including agriculture as well as forestry, mining and fishing, are integral to creating opportunities for Canadians. Standing up for opportunity is central to the federal government's approach to building a strong and dynamic Canadian economy. Helping agriculture grow, prosper and be competitive on the world stage is key to the Canadian economy.
And this leads me to the second point, and that is that I come to this job very optimistic about the future of the Canadian agriculture and agri-food sector. As I watched some of the presentations even this morning, I noticed the words that were being bandied about, talking about new direction, about transformative change, about a new way to do agriculture, about a vision to action, about desirable visions, about change and opportunities. That's the language that I like to dwell in.
I think it's where the future lies. It's something, perhaps it's just my nature, but it's also something that I think you have keyed on here and I look forward to your eventual report. But it's something that you've keyed in on and it's key to me as well.
This optimism is based on some of the key competitive advantages that we have in Canadian agriculture. For one, Canadian agriculture and agri-food sector is incredibly dynamic. Our productivity far surpasses other sectors of the economy and has done so for decades. The sector is both innovative and adaptive. It's able to constantly evolve to meet the needs of an evolving marketplace. We hear a lot and I've had briefings about the stiff competition coming from countries such as China, Brazil and India.
But the flip side of that is the tremendous sales opportunities presented by the growing middle class in each of those countries and their power to purchase the kind of value-added exports we, in Canada, excel at producing.
One of the keys to capturing these emerging markets and improving our global competitiveness will be to take advantage of the new technologies to develop new products that meet the tastes and demands of our customers. And to do that, we need to support innovation, which we plan to do, and we need to stimulate investment, advance research and development.
I do think, just to conclude this point, it's important for those of us in the agriculture and agri-food sector to express our concerns wherever possible in terms of opportunities. I just encourage that because I know in the political world, if you always present it in terms of problems, people start finding other reasons not to have appointments with you. If you present it in terms of opportunities, people immediately gather around the table to say that it's a positive way to look at it, it's a positive way to move forward and that's how I intend, whenever possible, to deal with it.
The third and most important approach I bring to the job is my readiness to listen. I realize I don't come from a big wheat farm and the 20 beef cows I've got on my property don't count for a big agricultural production site, but I am ready to listen. That's why I'm here today. I want to listen to your ideas. I want to listen to the ideas of our producers, to our processors and all the other stakeholder groups along the food supply chain.
I want to listen to my colleagues in the provinces, which I've already had some conversations with, which I'll do again this afternoon, and I plan to listen to my colleagues on all sides of the House.
Whether I can listen during question period, I'm not sure, but thankfully, Parliament is an awful lot more than question period and I saw some of the notes from Mr. Segal's speech, and he talked about not only on the House side but on the Senate side the need to bring ideas together. There's some awfully dedicated people in committees on both sides of the House that I want to listen to and engage in their wisdom and their expertise and really the pan-Canadian look that they bring to this subject is something I'm going to value.
Extending profitability throughout the value chain, something I've heard about again this morning. It will take a concerted effort on all fronts and the dedicated partnership is necessary between governments and industry.
And for its part, CAPI has a tremendous amount of knowledge and expertise to contribute to the discussion. And just again, to reiterate, I look forward to some of the conclusions that you were talking about this morning in the report that you'll be able to present.
With those basic approaches in mind, let me touch on some of the key issues I see in the top of our agenda in the agricultural and food sector.
First and foremost is the farm income situation which requires our immediate attention. As you are aware, the Department has forecast another decline in realized net farm income for the coming year. We are heading into a new production season. Producers need immediate, short-term assistance to meet their financial obligations this spring. We have attempted to address that.
On my first day on the job, I was able to announce that we have accelerated and have been able to start delivery actually of the $755 million announced under the grains and oilseeds payment program last November. Now, just immediately after the swearing in ceremonies, we had our very first Cabinet meeting and the very first decision taken by that Cabinet was to address that payout to increase virtually all of that payout to begin immediately and in fact, I was very impressed that once that decision was made, that the cheques started to flow by week's end and that money will now, I think there's about 20,000 cheques a week that we can process and will start reaching farmers immediately.
While dealing with these immediate needs, we also need to look at the longer term. We need to sit down with people in the sector, with the provinces and territories and take a fresh look at how we can help farmers grow their incomes and get more involved in the production and marketing decisions of the value chain.
Someone approached me as we came in, saying that we just have to get the farmers more involved in that integrated system.
One of the things we talked about as an example of that, in the medium term, we talked during the campaign about the need to expand the use of biodiesels and ethanol in Canada's energy needs. That's something that's going to take the agricultural sector working together with industry, working with environment departments, with people involved, a multi-disciplinary way to get that much product into the system and that's something we want to do in the medium term.
And as you know well, in opposition we had some different ideas on how we could approach farm income and the CAIS program. I'm looking forward to meeting industry and the provincial and territorial colleagues who are necessarily involved in how that's administered and hear their ideas on how we can make our support programs work better for our producers.
The other key area is trade. Canada depends on trade and producers need a rules-based international trading system that allows them to make their own domestic choices and one which will also improve access to international markets. This government believes that the interests of the entire agricultural sector must be protected by strong international rules that support free and fair trade. We will work hard with the sector to pursue those interests in the ongoing World Trade Organization discussions in the negotiations coming up.
That means that the interests of all producers, and I want to emphasize that, I and our new government very much support supply management in those negotiations. And while we will continue to face pressures on issues important to our supply managed sectors in these negotiations, the government will defend the ability of Canadian producers to choose how to market their products.
At the same time, we also need to work to achieve a more level international playing field so that producers can compete fairly and effectively in world markets. And to that end, we will continue to work hard at the WTO to achieve the elimination of export subsidies, the substantial reduction of trade-distorting domestic support and real and significant market access improvements.
Above all, the government will be seeking an outcome to the negotiations which benefits Canada's entire agricultural sector. To do this, we must work closely together - the provinces, the industry and the federal government - in the months ahead and I want to assure you that this government is committed to strong collaboration in consultation on this important file.
As well, we have talked in the past about changes to the Canadian Wheat Board which would give Western grain farmers more options in choosing how to market and transport their crops. I have a parliamentary secretary that's dedicated to the Canadian Wheat Board issue. One of the phrases he uses is evolution, not revolution when it comes to the Wheat Board.
I said in interviews over the last week that I'm not in a panic, I'm not in a rush. It's not something I have that's seizing me, as the negotiations in Geneva will, but it is something that I think will continue to evolve and it was something that we'll obviously be consulting again with everyone that's involved to make sure that we make decisions that are wise for all producers and for the Canadian economy.
In conclusion, looking ahead for a moment, I realize that I have a lot of work to do. I have a lot of ground to cover. I have a lot of things to learn. As I've have said earlier, it'll be a critical year for the Doha Round and I look forward to working with Minister Emerson and others as we make those negotiations in Canada's interests.
Here at home, the existing federal/provincial/territorial agreements governing agricultural policy and programs expire in 2008. The next step will be to undertake formal consultations in concert with the provinces and territories along with a wide range of stakeholders about the next generation of agricultural policies and programs.
Just to emphasize that again, it is really going to be a next generation of policies and programs. Things will change because we have more and different opportunities than we had the last time we had an APF and I look forward to those negotiations and I do think there's a good positive future for our entire industry.
Now the results of this conference and CAPI's future work will undoubtedly play an important role in this process.
So let me once again thank you for all you do on behalf of Canadian agriculture, not only CAPI but each each organization represented here, and the individuals as well. I look forward to working in partnership with CAPI for the benefit of producers and all Canadians. Your advice and input will be key in helping us achieve our common goal of a profitable future for all parts of the industry.
And I look forward to seeing the results of this conference and I thank you for inviting me, getting me out of the office in Ottawa where I could give my very first speech as your new federal Minister of Agriculture.
Thank you very much.