Speech
Minister Strahl Speaks at the Annual Meeting of the Coop Fédérée in Montreal
Montreal, Quebec
February 23, 2006.
Hon. Chuck Strahl (Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the Canadian Wheat Board): Thank you. Mr. President, Members of the Administrative Council, Cooperators, Ladies and Gentlemen.
It's a pleasure for me to be with you today and I look forward to meeting with members of your executive shortly.
I was going to talk about hockey. Was I supposed to talk about hockey? I think not. First, I do want to start, particularly by paying tribute to the work that you folks do each and every year and which you make public through your annual meeting. The Coopérative fédérée is a well-known institution and it is defiantly considered a symbol of success both here in Quebec and across the entire country.
Our Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, is already very familiar with your organization and I know he has met with the executive in the past. He's asked me to extend his warmest greetings to you at your annual meeting and I know he's interested in what you're deciding here today.
You also know a few of my other cabinet colleagues, Diane Finley, who is our Agricultural critic for the past two years and is now Minister of Human Resources and Social Development; Josée Verner, our current Minister for la Francophonie; Monte Solberg, our Immigration and Citizenship Minister; and Lawrence Cannon, the Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities have all met with you in the past. You're a well-known organization to us and you're known because you are important to the future success of agriculture in rural communities.
The ministers I mentioned know you because you're important but above all, they know you because my government has a commitment to communities that depend on agri-food, which is a sector which is essential to the prosperity of Quebec and of Canada.
The agriculture and agri-food industry is an important contributor to the economy in every part of the country and for generations our producers, our cooperatives and our impressive agri-food industry has supported Canadians and provided the food we eat across the country and around the world. Now I know I'm coming into the job at a time when the situation is not easy with what we are facing in agricultural incomes. Our producers are confronted with difficulties. The BSE problem, for example, or the Post-weaning Multi-systematic Wasting Syndrome, another problem. Volatile markets, declining commodity prices.
But our government is committed to developing a sustainable, long-term prosperity of agricultural producers and is equally committed to working in partnership with you, with agricultural organizations across the country and with our provincial and territorial colleagues to develop programs that work for you.
I've been the minister just over two weeks now, but we've already put in place a pretty aggressive plan to do that consultation and to work on developing the next stages of our agricultural policy.
And also we took action immediately on the day that I was sworn in as minister. For example, I announced plans to accelerate payments under the $755 million grains and oilseed programs and I'm happy to tell you that in the past two weeks, that 41,000 farmers have already received cheques worth more than $222 million, and the rest of the cheques they're producing at a rate of about 20,000 a week and the rest of that money will go out very quickly.
I'd like to just take a couple of minutes to explain to you how I intend to approach this portfolio and tell you about some of my priorities in the short, medium and long term. We have to look at the issues around farm income in that way. Short-term problems and short-term solutions, medium and long term.
I've started the process of consultations with leading industry representatives, that's why I'm here today. I want to hear what your organization has to say. I've spoken with quite a number of people already. I've had meetings with provincial ministers, discussions on the international scene with Secretary Johanns, Secretary Mayorga from Mexico, all in the effort to try to quickly do a kind of quick consultation with these people and then get down to work on the next stage of priorities for the ag industry.
I'm working right now to bring together in the next three weeks, a roundtable discussion with myself and Trade Minister David Emerson to discuss trade issues affecting agriculture. Obviously, the next big issue internationally is the completion of the Doha Rounds of negotiations in Geneva and we want to have industry's input on Canada's position that we take into those negotiations.
I've spoken to, as I mentioned, all the provincial ministers by phone. I've met with many of them. I think I've met now with six of the premiers, including Minister Vallières today, in person, and look forward to what I think is going to be a good relationship and a necessary one as we work together to develop policies for the future.
At the same time, I'm consulting and have consulted with my cabinet colleagues, the ministers of Environment, Health, Transport and Industry. Agriculture is one of those things that is multi-jurisdictional and multi-ministerial, if I can say that. You can't just touch one part of it without including cabinet colleagues and other players in the field. It involves all these different sectors and it requires all of us, both at the federal and provincial levels, to work together to find solutions to move forward.
This is an immediate and quick consultation process with farmers, industry and political leadership that I'd like to have before the House of Commons resumes on April the 3rd, I would like to have a growing consensus on how to move forward together with input from all of those folks.
Part of the problem that we are facing is that not all sectors have been impacted equally in the agricultural business. I've just been to Atlantic Canada, for example, in the last couple of days, where I've been hearing encouraging news, as an example, in the growth of the farm sector in Newfoundland and Labrador. Their growth is going to be six or seven per cent last year, six or seven per cent again this year. They're quite encouraged with what's happening.
The same sort of thing, I spoke at an event in Abbotsford, British Columbia, a meeting of all of the leading agricultural producers in British Columbia. They're a very dynamic group of people, talking about opportunities both at home and abroad in their industry and they're excited about the potential for the future.
Admittedly though, this week I also met with grains and oilseed producers and their story, of course, is not so encouraging. So depending on where you are, the sectors are not impacted equally.
So it's a bit of a mixed bag out there and one of the challenges in this is to find ways forward that don't impact one part of the agri-food chain adversely, yet trying to help those that have the particular needs that we've all seen and know about across the country.
So we are going to develop programs that provide new market opportunities for farmers and expand the existing ones. I know that that's what you're involved with as well. As an example, our government will require an average of five per cent renewable fuel content in all Canadian fuel by 2010 in an effort not only for environmental concerns, but an effort to diversify our agricultural and innovative sectors to provide that for us. It's going to create demand, I'd hope for millions of additional bushels of grain each year and again, an opportunity to expand the agricultural sector into something new and exciting.
We also need action, as I mentioned, on the international front. We're committed to the World Trade Organization negotiations, of course, and we're committed there to try to bring down international trade subsidies and unfair trade-distorting domestic practices of some of our international competitors. We're looking for solutions that benefit everybody.
This means that we're committed to defending the interests of all producers and I'd like to stress that the new government and I, because I know this is a concern, fully support supply management. We will continue to be pressured, I know that, about the key issue of supply management during the WTO negotiations. But the government will defend Canadian producers so that they can choose how to put their products on the market.
Now all that being said, there's some pretty serious problems out there. The farm income forecast for 2005 and 2006 calendar years released in January shows that we can expect net cash income to decline during 2006 due mainly to lower program payments and higher operating expenses. Realized net income is expected to climb again this year. A report by the University of Saskatchewan professor put out earlier this week also points to those continuing income challenges, particularly for the Western provinces and particularly for grains and oilseed producers.
And so those are sobering numbers. I realize that that's a big challenge and will be for me in the months ahead. However, I do again want to remind you and to assure people that our government is committed to an additional $500 million in new money to agricultural support programs. It was a campaign promise that we will follow through on that money, and we'll be in discussions with the provinces and industry on how that is best spent. We'll be doing a few other things to help put money in farmers' pockets too, including things like cutting the GST, reducing small business tax rates and other things that will help the economy generally and help farmers particularly.
As well, this government's committed to replacing CAIS. Son of CAIS or CAIS 2, I'm not sure or what we're going to call it, but we want distinct programs for agricultural income stabilization separated from disaster relief.
The CAIS program has done a good job in some ways but we want to separate disaster relief away from CAIS and we're planning on an income stabilization program that does that, that's simpler and more appropriate and we're going to move ahead, obviously, by meeting with the provinces in the days ahead to work on a replacement product down the line.
But we will also create opportunities that will allow our farmers to have sustainable long-term prosperity. Creating opportunities that permit the agricultural sector to be competitive on the world stage is critical not only for the agricultural economy but for Canada's economy overall. Over eight per cent of Canada's gross domestic product comes from agriculture and agri-food industry and one in eight jobs in Canada is related to the sector. It's hugely important. And one of the real positives that we have in Canada's agri-food sector is that we do have a number of key competitive advantages that can be developed to generate new and expanded market opportunities.
There are tremendous sales opportunities out there and increasingly, international consumers are demanding the kind of quality, value-added products that we can and must produce and it's not just about basic foodstuffs. At the Agricultural and Agri-Food centre in Ottawa, we have a sign that says "agriculture is food, but so much more than food alone."
It is the "so much more" part that really gives me cause for optimism because in addition to producing some of the highest quality food in the world, we also have the science and research capabilities and have to expand those science and research capabilities to develop new products that meet the changing demands of our customers both at home and abroad.
So by stimulating investment in research and development and by continuing to do basic research ourselves, we can extend profitability throughout the value chain.
By nature, I'm an optimistic guy and I think it's important whenever possible for those of us that are involved in the agri-food sector, to express our concerns about the challenges facing us in terms of opportunities. I mention that - and this is the political side of me coming out - I mention that only because in the political world, if all we talk about is problems, people start finding reasons not to meet with you.
We have to express our concerns and our challenges in terms of opportunities whenever possible. People will gather around and try to help and try to find a way forward when they're expressed in that positive way and they become engaged to develop those opportunities with us.
I like the positive approach. It's how I intend, whenever possible, to act in this portfolio. When I talk to my cabinet colleagues, I talk in terms of investment in agriculture, about opportunities in agriculture, about the way forward, about collaborative work with the provinces, about industry input, about cooperatives and the important role that they play.
The cooperatives particularly, I would just like to talk about for a minute, about the important role that they play in moving the industry forward. They not only ensure that the producers have an active role in the industry, but they also provide a means for them to gain direct benefits as the coops enter into the value-added activities.
One of the functions that has been delegated to me is the responsibility for cooperatives. I'm very glad about that. Cooperatives have a long history in our country. It's always impressed me that, especially dealing with farmers, with farmers you have some of the most independently-minded people in the world. They get on that tractor, they're thinking all day long about what could be better, how they could do their own business or how the government could help them better. They're independent. They make their own business decisions and so on. But they have a long history in Canada and in Quebec of working together cooperatively.
And when they do that, when farmers and agri-food producers come together in coops, good things happen. And farmers then benefit, not only from a common voice and a common way forward, they also help to spread some of that value through the value chain back to the farmers themselves. Cooperatives have a great history and they're a great part of the agri-food business.
I know how important they are in Quebec and in the Canadian economy and I just want to assure you that I understand how the Coop fédérée plays a lead role in Quebec and in Canadian agriculture as the second-largest non-financial cooperative in Canada and number one in terms of employment. I know that you have some concerns about the problem of capitalization of agricultural cooperatives and your equally high expectations for a strong government intervention in this matter. I think I'm going to hear it and I look forward to hearing it from your executive again shortly. I intend to go into this issue, thoroughly explore the solutions that will be brought forward to me and will be most beneficial to you. I will discuss them obviously with the board of directors first, then with officials in my department and those in the finance department as well. It's clear that we have to examine all of the acts and regulations that create obstacles for cooperatives. You can be assured that I will do all that I can to make sure that you have the tools to enable you to continue this strong and steady growth of your cooperatives and discuss openly and quickly solutions that make them even stronger.
I once again want to thank you for inviting me today. I've been on a whirlwind tour and I'm looking forward to meeting not only members of your executive, but folks like yourselves, industry leaders, in the days, weeks and months ahead as we chart this course forward on a multitude of issues. I wish you every success in your deliberations. The work you do is important. It's important for me. More importantly, it's important for your producers and I look forward to your decisions and hearing about the conclusions of your deliberations and look forward to coming back again often to Quebec to discuss issues of importance to you.
Thank you very much.