STANDING COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES
Mr. Neil LeBlanc
MR. GEORGE ARCHIBALD (Chairman): Neil LeBlanc called me yesterday and asked me if I would sit in for him this morning because he will be late getting here. I said okay, so I will sit here until he gets here and he can do what he likes.
Just for convenience, why don't we go around the table and introduce ourselves so everybody knows who we are and who our guests are.
[The members introduced themselves.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: I would like to welcome you folks to this committee meeting. The Cattlemen's Association is a very important economic and agricultural segment of Nova Scotia's rural industry and it is our understanding, as members of the Legislature and having met previously and read articles lately that the Cattlemen's Association has a story to tell us and it also has had a report and it is looking for the government to implement more sections of the report than have been implemented thus far.
So without further ado, I would like to turn the meeting over to you, the Cattlemen's Association, Frank and Donna, and after that we will ask questions and that will be it. I think our meeting should last from now until 10:30 a.m. and then the committee has some work it has to do.
MR. FRANK FOSTER: Mr. Chairman, perhaps I could circulate, I think a number of people already have this stuff.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Francene Cosman just came in. Frank Foster, Donna Langille.
MR. FOSTER: Mr. Chairman, I am not sure what the process is, however, if I may, first of all, I would like to thank everyone for giving us this hearing. If I don't perform as well as I should, I would like you to understand that we have a lot of weight on our shoulders not only for fellow farmers but for the future of all of the farming industry, and, in my belief, the people of Nova Scotia themselves, the non-farm people especially, in fact.
I will give you a little bit of an overview of myself so you know who you are talking to. First of all, I note that this is the Standing Committee on Resources. I am not sure what that means within the Government of Nova Scotia. I know where I come from - as you no doubt gathered, I am not a native Nova Scotian - it is one of the most important committees in the sense and I believe it was Adam Smith who said that the most valuable resource of any nation, state, whatever group you wish to call it, is in fact the human resource and human labour. I think he went on to say that if you travelled around the world, and proof of what he was talking about was that there were all kinds of Gardens of Eden, and all kinds of Shangri-las where the people lived in abject poverty because of the lack of will, leadership, resources, not least of which was the human resource.
My personal background, I am a farm boy. Just to touch upon that, I happen to believe that it is surplus farm boys of the last couple of centuries who have enabled us to all attain the levels that we are at and people can work and live off the farms. This may sound a little bit melodramatic but in the words of one oil company, a witness who was being interviewed some time ago on the national radio, she said that the greatest problem that they were facing in the oil industry was the lack of farm boys because of the fact that farm boys are able to work on their own, innovate, fix and whatever.
If you think of things around, it is a fact and I am faced with that fact every day in the fact of young people coming on - yes, young people every bit as capable, in one sense as they were - but I now have, at the moment, just to illustrate the point, I have two very gifted and very clever Slovakian students who probably know everything that there is to know about computing and that world but they stand absolutely nonplussed compared to one worker of mine who is illiterate. In other words, he can handle machinery, knows what he is doing, knows what he is supposed to do. Unfortunately it is extremely frustrating when you have very gifted people who didn't grow up around animals, grew up around machines, et cetera. Yes, they can do this but it is a problem and it is a problem that is going to come more and more.
I made reference to this being a little bit like the dock. I am a farm boy, originally from the U.K. I am from the part where the Romans were stopped 2,000 years ago and when I came to this beautiful province - this may sound silly too but it is in my mind, Julius Caesar was reputed to say when he conquered Britain, whenever it was: I came, I saw, I conquered - the way I feel right now, I am beginning to feel like: I came, I saw and was conquered. It may sound a little flippant, but it is how a lot of farmers are feeling, especially in the beef business.
I don't know how to say this, but following my start as a farm boy, again, in order to get married, in order to have a secure job, I joined the police service in the U.K. and there was a mindset at that time that it was farm boys that they wanted, that they were the people who understood stockmanship, understood dedication and understood 365-day care. There was a belief, and still is, that they made the best policemen in the city streets, and I think there is a little bit of that carried on over here. After a short time in uniform, I was actually appointed the youngest detective officer in the force at that time. I served for eight years as a detective officer. I look around this room and realize that I am probably the oldest here and feel pretty long in the tooth, but at that time I was what would be described as a high-flyer.
Suffice it to say that after a lot of experience with the revolving door syndrome - put them in one door and they go out the other - plus other circumstances, I more and more came to think again about farming. I had three young children, I got the opportunity to come to Canada, to Pictou County. Again, people who know me have called me - well, some people have called me every name under the sun, both in my former life and here, but one of the things that I am reputed to be is - stubborn. I don't see it that way, I see it as persevering.
I ended up in Pictou County and the reasoning behind that was at that time, I had no idea that I would be able to farm in this country. I thought that I would be a hired man - that is a bad word in my language over there but it is a common word in usage here - for the rest of my life, but at least my children would have a different quality of life. Really the first year in this country was something like a sabbatical. I was a very cynical person when I first came here, extremely cynical, and I am getting back that way. The more you know, the less you want to know.
I have to say that after one year in Pictou County - and this is ironic today - the man who was instrumental in bringing me here is now a broken man, in the sense that he had a stroke. His vision at that time was to develop the rural area - and this is 24 years ago - through the beef industry, through beef cattle. It is also ironic that I recall saying to him 20 years ago, and you may well say this to me after today, that he was like a man trying to hang onto a runaway steer going over a cliff and didn't have the sense to let go. I respect that man very much even though through his stubbornness he lost his wife and other things, all due to his dedication to and his belief in the fact that we could grow things through farming and beef cattle. The ironic thing is that his roommate at Harvard is now the president of Nova Scotia Power.
Enough of the background except to say that in my former life often the best witness to what is happening is the person who is in touch, has used his senses, has seen and done, et cetera. One of the easier ways for people to put down people close to the ground is, of course, to say that they are disconnected and they do not know which way is up and I will use the words what is he, just a dumb farmer. Those who have survived out there are not anywhere in that category. One of the things that is driving me to appear before you today, and I have no wish to be here, is that I came, I have been around, I have seen all of man's
inhumanity to man but there are lots and lots of fellow farmers out there, some of whom are four and five generations. If I go into their homes, it is heart-wrenching to see and to realize that one wrong word and I have got tears, absolute tears.
It is very hard for me to go into my own home and find my wife crying all over the place. She is a very good person. She has not been exposed to what I have been exposed to. She still believes and trusts and thinks that somebody is going to take care of it because we are doing the right thing. There are many people out there who believe they are doing the right thing and have become disconnected or that is the way they perceive it. The fact that I am here today and you are listening to me indicates that that is not exactly the truth but that is the perception that is out there.
I do not know how to say this but from my past one thing I did realize, as a farm boy, as a son of a shepherd, et cetera, that there is only one difference between humans and animals, that we use animals, we use domesticated animals, we use the instincts of animals, and all you have to do, and you can tell this to your children and many of you of experience will understand the truth of what I am saying, that all you have to do to train an animal, in reality, is to teach it to stop and to go, yes and no, and that is exactly the same thing with children in their very formative years and then instinct takes over. You use that instinct to your advantage as a shepherd using those dogs. In your children, paths and vocations are the rulers. You are the people who put in place the stewards. You are stewards over the rest of us, just the same as I am a steward over my farm. You may think I am putting something on you but you chose that role.
I really do appreciate the fact that there are people like yourselves who do take on that role and have to listen to fools like myself. You would not be listening to me if you did not care. It is how we change it, how do we do something about it. The human animal is only different in the sense that it has the gift of memory and imagination which is supposed to lead to foresight. One of the reasons that Canada has so much potential, and all northern, or people, the further away you go from the Equator, have and have done what they have done is actually, if you think back and think holistically, is all on the backs of the domesticated animal.
It is all on the backs of the beef industry in the big picture, the beef or the sheep, because to open up after hunting and gathering - and I may be getting off the point, so stop me if I do - that was Mother Nature's way of allowing us to carry our food on our backs from one season to the next. In the tropics and other areas, that was not necessary. If you strip away all of the detail that we often get lost in, the beef industry is still the underpinnings of wealth, food security and what frees up the rest of society to do the other things that create the GDP, create value add and value add human labour. Without that underpinning that I represent, the rest is for naught.
I listened to the radio, on the way down here, about the Indonesian Government in Jakarta. It was only a very short time ago that it was being lauded as the next huge boom and now the president is pleading with the people to have two days of abstinence from food a week. That is a community and an economy that has collapsed within the last two or three months.
If you look at me, you may say, well, here is this guy, what is he talking about with his obvious - and I will say it myself - belly? That is a beer belly, I got that in the line of duty before I came to this country. I can't get rid of it either. Anyway, to get down to basics, one of the things that I was - I may as well tell you - commended for into the teens of times was my ability to examine scenes of crime and put together things and present and adduce evidence. That is the way I have looked at the beef business. That is the way I have looked at coming to Canada and farming.
This is what is so frustrating to me, is the fact that it is there. It is all around us but the cynic part of me is saying, look, all the facts fit, why isn't it possible? I put my money where my mouth is, I go and do it, I try and I am still getting beat and everybody around me is getting beat. Then you stop and ask, but why? What is the reason for this? You realize that over a long time - it didn't happen just yesterday - we had the comparative advantage which should be synonymous with competitive advantage but when you start digging into things, you begin to realize that it is, in fact, the adverse effects of competitive advantages given through political interference in the market place to other regions.
There is an old story, once somebody gets to the top of the heap through help, then they believe they are invincible and they believe they put themselves there, that it wasn't the political bodies that put them there. I mean no disrespect to the dairy industry but I milked 200 cows for a while in Canada and one of the reasons - a stupid one, yes - that I got out of it was that my family was somehow beginning to believe and think that they had done it. Yes, those farmers are dedicated. Yes, they have done it but the structure has been put in place and to quote the words of the president of the International Grasslands Society who was here last year, he said of Canadian supply management, in particular dairy, they are cosseted and ossified the same as we are.
However, the beef industry is a different story and it is a different story. We are a world-traded commodity. You say, well - and people say to me - if what you are saying is true, why isn't there a beef industry? Well, I have searched and searched for the answer to that question and I believe that answer stems from perception, lack of will, lack of direction, lack of leadership within - dare I say it? - the hallowed halls of our own department. I don't want to believe this but no matter which way I push, or whatever, it seems that if there is no will, there is no way. If it is believed by the lending institutions that it is not possible, then it is a self-fulfilling thing.
I was at a meeting last August and again this March, and I think it was at the March meeting with the Canadian Cattlemen's Association when a member of that board, who was from the West, made some remark to me after there had been a safety nets meeting. One of the bones of contention and problems that we have here is NISA and the way that the department views things compared to the reality, and I was astounded to discover these guys going on and condemning NISA as nothing more than a glorified retirement thing for farmers who have made it, et cetera.
I opened my mouth - probably when I should have kept it shut - and afterwards this guy said to me, you know, we have been listening to you. Do you think we are listening? There was a bit of a joke going on. He was sitting next to me. I said, yes, you hear me like the mosquito and I made a flippant remark about flipping the mosquito away. He said, oh, we don't give you the brush-off like that. Then he went on to say something in a flippant manner about eastern bums, and that really went right to my core because from their perception, this is a beautiful part of the world, it has all the natural comparative advantages, plus the population, but we don't have an industry. So there has to be something wrong. It is not the will of the people. There are all kinds of four and five generation people out there struggling. Of course, the natural thing is to kick the cat. Everyone blames the next person, they blamed me.
I will explain this, just so you know. I came here, I had all of this grass going to waste, I saw what was going on with the sheep industry, et cetera, and it was nothing smart on my part, I just knew that wormers existed and that the biggest enemy of a sheep was another sheep that needed worming. I went to Cape Breton and I bought all kinds of sheep for next to nothing. I doubled my money. I make no bones about it. In that first year, I made $40,000 in two months. I doubled my money on those lambs, just by the simple act of worming. Of course, those farmers, eventually that gets out and I tried, like a fool, to tell them what I had done and what they should be doing. Instead of it getting to be the thing to do, I became the parasite, stealing their lambs for nothing. That is something that you all know is a human failing. I am just pointing out that some of the things get off track as a result of my optic vision. (Interruption)
Sorry, George, I just want to finish and say that one other policy - and you may as well know it - I don't know what to do about it, I am not sure what I am going to do about it. To give you a personal example, I exited dairy because I was challenged to put my money where my mouth was and I got into the beef business. I no sooner got into the beef business, then there was a policy put in place, which I objected to but was told, when in Rome do as the Romans do, and was a fool to go ahead. I took my quota money, built my barns and decided I was going to prove what I could do. I no sooner did that than a policy was put in place that in effect levered, for the cost of $270,000 to the government, the provincial government, $6 million out of the buyer's pockets. Mainly out-of-province buyers. But I am the guy that is caught with a $400,000 loss directly attributable to that. Then we have another
$300,000 loss. That is the magnitude personally, but that is mirrored right across this province.
[9:30 a.m.]
The statistics here show in fact the truth of what I am saying, if anyone cares to examine them. In the statistics, it is showing cash receipts to farmers are substantially on the increase from livestock, but when you carefully examine them, they are on average down $5 million. That is up in 1994, 1995, 1996. That doesn't count in 1997 which is a huge amount more. You are talking the loss of equity in this business, the loss of cash, actual income, of at least $30 million over the last three years.
I am one of the more favoured in the sense that my losses were preceding the losses of most of the beef farmers. Most of the beef farmers who, we are the hewers of wood, the drawers of water for out-of-province interests. That is the way it has evolved. Those farmers, when I was speaking like I am speaking now two and three years ago, didn't believe me, because they were getting the inflated prices as a result of things that were adversely affecting yours truly. In the big picture, so what, he can take care of himself. Maybe I can, I don't know.
In the big picture, without the buyer there to keep the price up locally, then you are absolutely captive to price and price takers. The industry is going downhill so fast that I am on a committee looking at the Maritime Provinces getting together. Let me tell you this, Hub Meatpackers for example, is down to a two-day a week kill. They are killing on Mondays and Fridays, and hogs on Wednesdays. They have outgrown the hinterland, and the supply is drying up. Now yes, I have a truck - and have had since Christmas - a truck going to Ontario every week. A pot belly sending 45,000 to 50,000 pounds of weight, simply because the strength of that market, we in fact, being price takers have to take the difference between the Toronto price and the price here, less trucking. In other words, I am forced to do it. I am forced to send animals which go all the way to Ohio to be fattened, which come all the way back here, just to spin my wheels to keep going. That is the big picture.
I don't know if we will ever get that treated right away. In the meantime, we are faced with the equivalent of no fishermen and a bunch of sports anglers. I want to try to draw an analogy as to what is left there. If you take, I used to say, and have said, and I believe I said it to George, I certainly said it to a previous Minister of Agriculture, that really all the beef industry needs is some encouragement, a reason for being, and that somebody cares about their existence.
The reality would appear to be, especially in view of the negotiations and the things that have taken place with respect and regard to help, that it would be the opposite. I have to say to myself, why, why? Why is it not so apparent as to what needs to be done? Then you start to think, well there are hidden agendas involved. Is it the department, to call it the words
of some APEC person who did a big study, that the beef industry in Nova Scotia, the bureaucrats were too elitist, and wouldn't go anywhere because of the elitism within the department. Those are not my words. Those are the words of a study that was done by APEC. Is it that, or is there direction? I am down at the bottom, cannot go anywhere, cannot run anywhere. I happen to believe in peace, order, and good government. I happen to believe that the rule makers, that the supreme is, in fact, in this room, but if there is something between here and the farm that is wrong, because the proof of the pudding is in the eating and if it is not getting back to the farm, something is wrong.
MR. NEIL LEBLANC: I am Neil LeBlanc. I am the Chairman.
MR. FOSTER: You are the boss.
MR. LEBLANC: Archie is the boss.
MR. FOSTER: I am sure George will, maybe very succinctly, fill you in on how far we have gone and what we have said.
MR. LEBLANC: I think perhaps it would be more appropriate to continue. I apologize for being late but I could not do very much about it. So if you can continue, my colleagues will probably fill me in, if that is okay with you.
MR. FOSTER: I have told you the negatives. The positives I still happen to believe are tremendous in terms of wealth creating.
I am not an economist or anything else, but I happen to read and I read the work of economists and I see what is happening in other parts of Canada. I understand the beef industry. I understand the westerners, how gung-ho they are, and you realize that everything that has taken place in the last while, in the last 50 years in fact, we have the negatives of FFA. I will give you an example. We had a big kerfuffle some time ago and the honourable George Archibald supported the cattlemens' position, unfortunately we lost and, unfortunately, it is a battle that is still chewing at some of us.
The reality is that, I worked it out that it was untold millions of dollars of wealth that were transferred away from here, away from the basics of growing food, the basic resources, as a result of FFA, as a result of policies that brought grains in from other areas and there were value added here to the detriment of the local industry.
What the cattlemen are saying and have been saying since the late 1980's or early 1990's is that if we design a policy that - and remember what I said about the training of the dogs, they say yes, give them a goal to achieve and allow them to use all of their skills and resources to achieve that goal, and that is why the cattlemen over time have discussed what is erroneously called a gross margin policy. All it is is very simply that if there is any help
whatsoever to be given to the beef industry, it should not be piecemeal here and there. It should be focused and it should be on the basis of what the beef industry contributes to the public good in the sense that it should be a percentage of the value added that that does which in turn is, if you use the economic multipliers, multiplies by 4.7 per cent out in the community according to Albertans, not according to our local Dalhousie figures. According to our local Dalhousie figures that spin-off is less than 2 per cent.
In fact, the greater spin-off in this province is reputed to be the blueberry industry. The only reason I can understand that is very simply because the value adding of the beef is mainly going out of the province. That is another battle that I am not here to fight but it is something and maybe someone has looked at it and said, hey, this is not worth doing anything about. Let the stuff grow back into bushes, but I throw something out and this may sound rather dramatic, but we can never say never in anything. One of the things in my training that was paramount, was security of the nation state, or whatever you want to call it. If we continue to value add other people's products, if we continue not to grow our own, and we do have a separation, where do we sit? What happens?
Less than 7 per cent of the beef produced here, except for hamburgers from surplus dairy cows, less than 7 per cent of the good beef, and we are talking about, in the big picture, well over $1 million per day in value added wealth that goes west of here for something that we could be growing here ourselves. When you realize that and you are sitting there next to an Albertan who says, you eastern bums, you can't argue against it, because we are in the Garden of Eden. They have been down here, they see the grass growing. Let's be fair about it.
I think you all have a copy of, and I want to get to that, Rural re-development through Ruminant (Beef Cattle), "A land poor in livestock is never rich. A land rich in livestock is never poor.". Now, these things may be trite to sophisticated people, but they are certainly the things that were instilled into people like me from childhood. "The above 'wisdoms of the past' instinctive to livestock farmers are easily overlooked. Ruminants convert grass directly into the most nutrient dense, naturally concentrated vegetation . . . and since domestication have been society's basis for wealth creation.".
If you think about all of the words that capitalism uses, think about every word that we use in the language today to do with wealth and money, it all comes from a domesticated cattle industry. Chattels used to mean cattle. Capital means cattle. Look it up in the dictionary. Hedging is a means of keeping that domesticated animal enclosed. All of the financial words that the banks use come directly from this industry that I am representing here, and it has been forgotten. It has been absolutely forgotten. I am sorry to harangue, if that is what I am doing. I just feel intensely that, and maybe I am doing it wrongly, I don't know. I don't know how else to put the point across.
As an aside, something that is burned into my memory, and just came into my head was, I had a meeting some 26 years ago. Let me explain, I am older so I can say this. Most of the people who trained me had all gone through baptisms of fire in wartime. So 70-some odd per cent of the people I was trained with 20 or 30 years ago had seen the reality and knew how to stand up and knew how to fight and knew how to say things and knew how to do things. But there came a time when those guys were dying off or retiring, or whatever, so they came up with a great scheme called education.
We set up a college for senior officers. We set up something that trains people above, it is called the Hendon Police College. It churned out people who went straight from university into supervisory ranks. I met one of those on a promotion board, I told you I was a high-flyer. I was tired, like I am now. I had got in at 3:00 o'clock in the morning, I had seven people in the cells, I was due in court at 10:30 a.m., my board meeting, promotion board, they brought in the Civil Service thing. Instead of merit and recommendations of your senior officers, you had to go through this procedure.
My boss said he had a place picked out for me. I was moving, my family were all excited and everything else, but I had to go through this procedure. It is a breeze, don't worry about it. Go there. I was myself, all right. Probably I am doing the same thing here, I don't know, but I ended up having a report come back that if this officer is as capable as is recommended, he should be instructed on how to conduct himself before his superiors in future. So if I am speaking out of turn, I am telling you, it is my past.
The truth - and it is all in the eye of the beholder - as I see it, is that we have a tremendous potential to develop. How do we move from where we are now? I was alluding to the cattlemen's proposal. We are being told that it has to be through a thing called NISA. I don't want to get into details because we have a thing that you can read at your leisure but I said to Donna on the way down here, do they not really realize that what they are trying to do, they are saying here you need a workhorse so we are going to give you a foal that someone else has to look after and in four or five years time it might be able to work for you.
NISA, that is being promoted to me and to the cattlemen, in fact rewards those people who have liquidated, who are getting out, and in fact, it is counter-productive. If you really analyze the thing, it is theoretical encouragement for farmers to save for a rainy day. No one has figured out that, hey, if those farmers invested that money on their farm and if that money works through the system, it is returned many-fold on the farm and yet we are encouraging farmers by dangling a carrot and saying we are going to match, put money into it.
I have a friend of mine who is retired, who has actually been to see his federal MP is madder than anything because he was a sheep farmer and his wife was a teacher. He tried a little bit of beef and he thought that is no good for him, that is too marginal. So he borrowed money from his teacher wife and put it in NISA because he thought the return was greater than anywhere else. He has now suddenly discovered that it is tied up with the bank, that the
banks have got his money for less than 0.5 per cent and that he has really been caught and snared. That is his feeling. The theory is great but the proof is in the delivery and it isn't working. It may well be working for some who are in a favoured position but it certainly doesn't work for people like myself and some of these four and five generation farmers - and in no way, shape or form am I talking down about them - who do not have the wherewithal to even come before a group like this. They just don't know why it is happening to them.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Frank, could we have a few minutes of questions now because we have about 40 minutes left so we should probably move into some questions now. Do you want to just raise your hands for questions? We can start with Jim and go right around the table.
MR. DEWOLFE: I appreciate hearing your talk this morning. It was most enlightening. It was from the heart, I could tell. I won't go through all my questions that I had to present because we are short of time. I noted when I was doing a review of the Cattlemen's Association past, last evening, that a task force was appointed to develop an action plan and to address the industry's production and marketing challenges. This was back in March 1997. When I was reviewing the members of the committee, I thought what a well thought out cross-section of individuals and organizations were represented and it should have been an excellent group of problem solvers. I guess the question I had is, did they, in fact, solve problems or just merely identify problems with no substantive resolve? I didn't see any feedback in my literature of what they came up. I was wondering if you could enlighten me on that.
MR. FOSTER: In 10 words or less, I cannot but I can tell you this, that was set up as a result of another side of me banging on someone's desk in the hallowed halls down here. The offer of a task force was set up. It was a very good and comprehensive document, but I am long enough in the tooth to know that sometimes just creating an audience defuses issues. Let people expend their bile and it will go away. Now there are 22 recommendations in this task force. In my opinion, and I have been called very opinionated by no less than my banker, 20 of those recommendations are really and truly just housekeeping things to do with the department.
My board, when I say my board, and I use that word advisedly, the Board of Directors of the Cattlemen's Association, time after time said focus, focus. Focus on development, focus on help. All of the time, my problem stems very simply through lack of credit, because of perception. Lack of credit to do the things that I have to do. That was what the task force was supposed to focus on, and also focus on the carrot. Focus on bringing something that would create and let people do their bit with their own land, whether they be an off-farm or have an off-farm job.
It is a motherhood thing, this farming business. So you have the teacher, the lawyer, the whatever who has some land, and he wants to do it, there is nothing wrong with that. They should be encouraged. They shouldn't be encouraged to the detriment of somebody full time and vice versa.
The Cattlemen's recommendation, which got subverted into a NISA-based sustainable performance program, I will use the words of some politician, where weasel words allowed it to be changed from the true intent of what was meant by myself and others around the table. That is what we are really still fighting about. It cannot work the way it is, and yet the department insists that it can.
If you do an analysis of the money, et cetera, that has gone out there, it comes on about an average of 300 producers and there are supposed to be 900 of them. There are about $800 and some odd a piece. If you extrapolate the figures out and do a very simple calculation that I am trained in, you discover that there is actually more eligible net sales than there are in the province. This is the truth, so I was told that if I couldn't get NISA to work for me, to get another accountant. My accountant was extremely upset and annoyed at that.
I can show you, I have them here, if anybody was interested, that under NISA the last two, three years, I think I have done about $4 million worth of business. Because of the way NISA has been done for me, and I have seven full-time, year-round employments, if I was part-time, I would have between 25 and 30, and probably be viewed differently if I was changing it into a golf course. But those figures show huge losses, in fact my losses for the year 1996, according to NISA is minus $500,000, and my losses for the year 1997, according to NISA is minus $800,000. I wouldn't even be here if that was right, but that is the way those figures are being taken out.
The task force recommendation number one - could you just give me a second? I will report something to you.
On this very subject there is a letter in the thing which we will hand out which is from Mr. Brian Smith saying, "Thank you for the opportunity . . . to discuss the NISA Based Beef Performance Program . . . I understand from the minutes of that meeting that your Board of Directors does not accept the program as presented. In its place, the Board of Directors prefers Recommendation #1", which is what we are talking about, ". . . as amended September 2, 1997.".
To recap, that amendment said that the budget should be $1.4 million. We should remove purchase feed from the ENS calculation which was done because we were in a drought situation last year. I hate this coercement but there had to be NISA participation, no penalty for late application, remove cap. The cap which means that someone like myself under the current rules of NISA and the way this thing would operate would receive less than 30
per cent per head of what the rest of the industry would receive and that is a fair and equitable program according to the way the department wants to do it.
Assistance to producers, they have $600,000 in a budget, which is $100,000 more than the minister, Mr. Lorraine, offered us at the annual meeting. In other words, and I use the words I said at the meeting, that it really is a little bit of an insult in terms of it being a token to what the industry needs.
Ladies and gentlemen, I want to say this very clearly, if I am wrong, it does not really matter. If I am right, for the sake of the province putting in $2 million or $3 million, and if the cattlemen are right - one of the problems with this NISA number one, the cattlemen's idea of it, once you understand it, you cannot get it out of your head. I do not know, Mr. Chairman, whether you recall some people down in your area worked on it for a year or two years and once they understand the concept, it is impossible to even think of anything less but the pennies have not dropped elsewhere yet.
In the interests of time, there is a piece in here, "As you are aware, I had made my personal records available to your staff for objective analysis in the belief that the inherent unfairness of your staff's proposal would be revealed making this reply unnecessary.". This is a reply. I had said that I would love to agree with him that we were not too far apart but my responsibility is otherwise. "When you factor in the adverse effects of the loss of FFA, drought and program induced increased feed expenses (e.g. old crop barley hoarded with the aid of interest free loans is now available at - $40 per tonne and hay less than half price) . . .".
What happened, I could not believe it, in fact, I took the minister to task on it. When the grain mill and the East Coast commodities, were given through a federal program advanced payments on feed, in the height of a drought, and no one figured out that all that does is take feed off the market and jack up the price. The increased cost to me I estimate was at least $30,000 - I am sorry for being like this, but it seems to me that people only see what is in front of their nose. Anyway, those are the facts. That is what happened. I am saying here, "The sustainable performance program recommending 8% gross sales based on NISA participation was agreed to on the basis of Hobson's Choice. I reluctantly agreed trusting the department would be acting in the best interests of the cattlemen and the province despite an aside from the then deputy minister, Dr. Haley, that he did not understand NISA.". This is the deputy minister who told me after one meeting that he didn't understand NISA and it has taken me until now to understand NISA. They are trying to make us back a horse that is going in a different direction to what the industry needs to go. As one part of it, under NISA under the Federal Safety Nets programs, there are three arms to it. Everything is being put to one arm. I think, there is some nodding around here, so I am not talking to someone who doesn't completely understand, I think.
[10:00 a.m.]
"Comparison with the success of NISA . . .", they said it was developmental and, ". . . for the mink industry is particularly misleading and in fact works for that industry in the same manner as the cattlemen's concept of a sustainable performance program . . . Careful analysis of the statistics of that industry with a four-fold increase in gross sales based on the `whims' of female fashion reveal the truth of the above. As a mainstream globally traded food staple, beef prices would not be allowed to double, let alone quadruple, without worldwide catastrophe.
Comparative advantage is generally synonymous with competitive advantage except in this region and province where . . . over time has been negated because of government policies and acts of ommission giving the competitive advantage to the west in the beef industry. Beef and dairy cows are basically the same and before `protection', annual output value roughly equated to extra feed used, that is $400 per beef cow and $1000 per dairy cow.". I am sure George can attest to this. Sorry, George.
"The competitive advantage of the latter is now more than tenfold that of the beef cow, i.e. $400 compared to $5000. This change has occurred over the last twenty to thirty years. I am not advocating `supply management' . . . but I am trying to point out that even the smallest adverse effect as a result of well-intentioned policies can be catastrophic. The beef producer in the last three years has had no choice but to liquidate, use up equity, cash reserves, and/or borrow money to stay in business. In the west, I am led to believe companion disaster programs under safety nets paid individuals up to $200 . . .".
Just to finish, "If your proposal covered the following understanding which I have gleaned from the Federal Safety Nets program I am sure our common goals can be attained:
1. NISA which is in effect encouragement for farmers in profitable years to put aside for a `rainy day' will be encouraged for those wishing to participate . . . E.N.S. Caps would remain as it would obviously be counter productive to encourage farmers to invest `off farm' e.g. $10,000 provincial money being locked away to bankers' advantage whereas used on-farm would generate (due to value-added spin-off income) well in excess in tax revenue. At 8% of gross cattle farm gate sales this $10,000 . . .", this is very important according to the economist, ". . . would eventually return $176,250 in tax revenue at 30% tax rate and short circuit $362,500 in imported beef purchases at retail.". I can go on and on and on.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Well, we have to go to the next questioner. Jim we have to move from you, your question was too long. (Laughter) Next question, make it a short question.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: I will try. I am trying to round these all up into one question. Mr. Foster, I really appreciate the passion with which you speak, and agree with the necessity or the basis on which the beef industry could really support rural communities, or the food industry generally could. I did question the minister on the NISA program, or questioned him as to his vision, or where he thought agriculture could go or should go, and certainly he is pro-beef. But he was definitely pro-NISA, and I am certainly not going to say that I understand what NISA is, I don't. He didn't make it clear that day.
I am not really clear on where you really see the industry going, or how you see it getting there. You mentioned to the chairman about the fact that people in his area had worked on some concept for a year and a half or whatever. I wasn't clear what that was. So I guess, if you could say in a nutshell, what you would like to see done, you were talking about the $2 million or $3 million, is there a place that that money could be directed in the best way to encourage the industry to be at least in the direction of where you think it could go?
MR. FOSTER: Yes, there is a handout here that Donna has prepared that is covered in the work that I was alluding to. Sometimes the simplest concepts are the hardest to explain. The original concept is that if you reward producers, if that is the word, or induce them, as a percentage of what their value added from farming Nova Scotia - not from farming somewhere else but from farming Nova Scotia - now there has to be limits on everything. So if you put that limit as a sustainable cap on acreage, which is some of the arguments if you read this stuff, then it is simple, farmers can understand that there is a cap. In other words, if the theoretical, sustainable limit is $600 per acre of production and the average is at around $150, the incentive to utilize can be controlled by government to increase in the public good, production to that sustainable level and it will be encouraged by a percentage, whatever is deemed. This is why this 8 per cent came in.
It accomplishes several things. It gives farmers a target, it gives government goals and targets to work from. It allows the department to do what it should do best which is disseminate information to allow farmers to improve their productivity and, in fact, it could be something that is universal. It is not a unique idea. In other parts of the world it is used for less favourite places, place where the pastoral beauty setting is required to be maintained which, if you allow rampant expansion, you deplete that thing that everyone wants to enjoy. It is called, very simply - and I haven't heard it mentioned for years and years - the law of diminishing returns. In fact, there has to be an equilibrium. Does that answer what you asked me?
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: I think so.
MR. PARKER: Frank, I have a question here I want to ask you. It is about marketing and supply. You mentioned we have a lot of natural advantages here. We can grow the best grass in the world probably here in the Maritimes. Therefore, we can raise our cattle pretty
cheap with good, natural grass. On the other hand, a lot of western beef comes in here and it costs money to ship cattle a few thousand miles from western Canada and the cost is going up all the time for transportation. I am finding it a little hard to figure out why, if we can raise cattle so cheap on our natural advantages here in the Maritimes, and yet it costs more and more all the time for exporting or bringing it in from Alberta, why can't we compete? Where is the problem? Is it with the chain stores? Where is the problem, I am trying to figure out here.
MR. FOSTER: I tried, in my address, to cover that. I obviously failed. It is very simply, where there is a will there is a way. I have wrestled with trying to articulate those reasons for 20-some years, since I came here. I know that we have this grass here and we have land values at 10 per cent of what they are in other parts of the world and we have the potential for productivity but if the body politic and everyone else believes that it cannot be done, then it will not be done. I may say I could stand on that desk and jump across there - and I am quite sure I could - but if it was in my head I couldn't, I wouldn't do it. That is the problem.
MR. PARKER: The chain stores are bringing in western beef all of the time. That is where most of the product is coming from.
MR. FOSTER: Because they haven't got the supply here. We have got to search a niche. We have gone so far, I don't know if we can get back. To use the words of another person, Paul MacInnes and Associates who was instrumental at setting up better beef, instrumental at setting up Ralph's meats and supposedly turning the Ontario thing around, a challenge for the Maritime beef industry, just to give you a quote. If the industry continues to lose market share, further downsizing will occur and the infrastructure could soon reach a point where it is no longer economic to maintain it. The Maritime packers who haven't already, will continue to lose their customers to lower cost suppliers as in the beef business, Canada-wide packers, a packers best business is his local business.
As they lose this business it becomes increasingly difficult for them to sell their beef and, therefore, buy cattle from local producers. Unless a new strategy is developed and most importantly implemented, a downward spiral will affect this important contribution to the Maritime economy. He is identifying that to a tri-province meeting, but the downward spiral has been going on, in my submission, since 1924 as a result of the bigger picture. Everything is around economies of scale. One of the problems that I have is that my spreads, I can show you facts and figures, are every bit as good and better than western Canada.
My biggest problem was I could not get sufficient numbers to maintain the infrastructure to pay for the gear, to pay for the equipment, et cetera, because the banks pulled the plug on me because they believed that there was no money in the beef industry and ended up letting me go again when they discovered that I was the guy that was telling the truth. The point, this is personal, but that is mirrored all over the place. If the bank believed
that this cannot be done, if the department believes it cannot be done, then it will not be done. So you may say, well, what is the point of this? All I am trying to say is that we have got to the stage now where, and that is what I tried to get to before, if I am right, if we could be self-sufficient, we would readdress the imbalance in the balance of payments in this province to the tune of $0.5 billion a year.
For the cost and the sake of putting in $2 million or $3 million, especially when the money is being put in all other areas, this is a decision that this group and others have to make, is Foster right off the wall, does he know what the hell he is talking about, what if he is right? Collectively it may have cost $2 million or $3 million. If I am right, look at the success and the win for everybody. If I am wrong, you alluded to the minister and NISA. How can I address that? I actually, I have a great deal of respect for the current minister. I went to see him over this very issue and I said, sir, I do not know how to tell you this, but if you have half of the people out there and more who do not believe you, trying to hitch themselves onto this horse of NISA and cannot get on it, or have got so gun-shy that they are heading for the backwoods and they are going to be in the underground economy and away from it, it is not my credibility that is on the line, sir, it is your credibility. If more than half of the people out there do not believe, so, you know.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Neil LeBlanc had his arm up.
MR. LEBLANC: I wanted to ask a question. I did not hear all your statements so I am a little bit left behind, but there is one thing that we brought up in the House and it was in a sense to, for Nova Scotia to try to promote buying Nova Scotia products. George Archibald, when he was Minister of Agriculture, used to drive us almost crazy at caucus about buying Nova Scotia, buying Nova Scotia, because if we as a province can take pride in Nova Scotia products, we can generate a lot of wealth. I think that some of the questions that are coming here today are what can we do to stimulate that. I guess a lot of times when we have witnesses come in, we try to focus as much as we can, and this is a much more complex problem than I anticipated and I can appreciate from your statements that a lot of times is it is multi-faceted and to get into everything, you could probably take days for all of us to try to understand it, but what we are trying to do is to try to get as focused as we can to try to see whether there are solutions.
My understanding though it is just general is that a lot of the institutions that we as government fund, a lot of the time do not buy Nova Scotia products. They are buying federally inspected meat and so forth. Am I right or wrong in that regard, first of all?
MR. FOSTER: First of all, you are right and, secondly, we do not live in a dictatorship and the object of the exercise for me today is to try to focus on what is doable and what is not doable. We have to start at the bottom. As far as I am concerned, if we do not turn the tide, then all of this is academic. You cannot dictate from the top. It has got to start from the bottom. There has to be a supply, we have gotten to the stage, I . . .
MR. LEBLANC: . . . I kind of disagree, a lot of times. As government I agree that we are not, a lot of times, the generator of things, but decisions that we can as legislators give some direction as to whether there should some demand for Nova Scotia beef, if the demand is going to be requested. I was going to go back. My understanding is that the institutions are looking for federally inspected beef as it stands now. Is that correct, or incorrect?
MR. FOSTER: That is correct, everyone wants food safety, and . . .
MR. LEBLANC: Is there a federally inspected processing plant in Nova Scotia right now?
MR. FOSTER: I believe there are two small ones, one in Antigonish, and Armstrong's is no longer.
MR. LEBLANC: They are working on it, sort of.
MR. FOSTER: There used to be Larsens, but then when (Interruption) you know, there is a case in point, I and other beef farmers know that $9 million went into that operation, and the worst thing that happened is when they stopped the kill-line on the beef end of it. You may say, well, what did it do? I can tell you that the facts show that it took at least $50 a head out of the dairyman's pocket in the terms of lack of competition for culled cows, never mind the part of the industry that I am involved in.
All of these things have a cause and effect. I believe that you are putting resources and money, and I am not saying it shouldn't go on, but you have got to start at the very basics. The longest journey starts with the first step. In my era, everyone used to be, Confucius say this, and Confucius say that. I remember that the longest journey starts with the first step. We're back at that stage, I believe, in the beef industry here. Unless there is encouragement, unless people believe what their instincts tell them is worthwhile, and some money gets out there to farmers.
MR. LEBLANC: You are looking for a subsidization - or monies into - for farmland utilized for cattle, is that correct? That is one point. What about the other point of trying to make it easier for people to market? I go back to the point that I am saying, if we as a government can change our focus as to how we are even buying products, whether or not that can be also used as a tool. One will, if it succeeds and just say institutions begin to be a purchaser of Nova Scotia beef, then the two of them will probably work very much hand in hand in trying to accomplish what I think all of us in this room would like to have, a strong, vibrant cattle industry in Nova Scotia. Am I right or wrong in that summation?
MR. FOSTER: I would love to agree with you. You are not wrong in it, if we had the source of supply. My understanding is that even if we said, tomorrow, if - according to the honourable Guy Brown's figures, we don't even have the beef supply to supply all of the institutional meals bought and paid for by government on a daily basis.
MR. LEBLANC: Well, I am not saying this would happen overnight. I am saying you give direction, but you are the one that is saying too, Confucius say you start one day at a time, or one step at a time, and this is what you have to do. I don't think you, often times dictate that thou shall always buy this, but I think we should be encouraging it as much as we can.
MR. FOSTER: I think that is already being done.
MR. LEBLANC: Yes, well, . . . .
MR. FOSTER: And there have been projects, even producer-led projects that have tried to do that. But you have a tremendous power in the hands of - to give you an example, I hesitate to say this but, Hub Meat Packers were requested meat to make it aware and to get on to Sobeys, because they had stopped buying from Hub. As a result that led the kill down to two days a week. They have, I don't know how many million dollars, it is about $1.5 million a week I think. Now if you look at Empire Company holdings, and look at the increased profits of that company, I can make a very good argument and case that it is all as a result of profits in their value-added portion of the beef industry. Beef, whether we like or not, is still 22 per cent of the food dollar items, I think it is, across North America and it is still, I think it is 7 per cent, even in the grocery store, it is still more than double the next item, I think it is pop, at 3.5 per cent. So beef is a mainstay commodity. I am trying to make the point here that we have gone so far down that we have to get it back to the farm level to start again.
HON. FRANCENE COSMAN: Mr. Foster, I am going to speak as a consumer right now. I go into Sobeys and I buy some beef, I do not know what I am buying. I do not know if it is grade A or grade X. I do not know if it is an old cow and I do not know if it was raised in the West (Interruption) Well, I do not though and I do not know if it was raised here in Nova Scotia. I think, obviously, we have a lack of consumer awareness and I am not the only consumer who does not have that knowledge. If it is good, great and if I luck out and it is not good and it is a tough old piece of meat, then I complain to the butcher the next time around, but this whole business of Buy Nova Scotia and consumer awareness and what to do with the roast beef when you get it home if you do not know how to cook meat, or if you are not a good cook, you know, what does the industry say about this, about Buy Nova Scotia programs, and about consumer awareness and buying here first?
MR. FOSTER: You have hit some nails on the head. A lot of this stuff I have with me, it would take too long to get into, but to try to say what the industry is doing generically is we have reinvented the wheel in the last two or three months in the sense that things that I accepted as within everybody's knowledge it is suddenly being discovered are not within people's knowledge. So they have gone to all meat display cases and are labelling all cuts relative to what should be done with it, whether it be grilling, whether it be stewing, or whatever.
I am a farmer. I understand cuts of meat and everything else, but I did not realize - I go to Sobeys and other counters and look at the retail price. I see blade steak the same price as T-bones and striploin. I say how can they do that but that is retailing. You push the envelope. If the consumer is moving that product, you increase the price, no matter if it is an inferior product. The latest thing that industry has done is try to address that and say if you cook it this way, it should be consistent and acceptable and high quality eating. I do not know what else the industry can do to educate the consumer. We hope that every time they do it, as per the instructions, they have a good experience.
Unfortunately, one of the problems that has taken place is vertical integration, or not vertical integration, that is not the word I want, consolidation, we have the hourglass effect. We have a myriad of consumers and we have everything going through single desks to get to those consumers and we have a number of suppliers. We have the worst of both worlds. For years, in fact, Departments of Agriculture promoted single-desk selling, but the absolute count at the single-desk selling is single-desk buying, which is what you have got in the retailing grocery trade today, in the hands of very few players.
Huge companies by Maritime standards are like pawns to these retailers today. That is why, with fear in his voice, Joe Rinzler, from Hub Meat Packers is pleading with me, can you not do something about this but do not mention my name. He wants the industry to say to the Sobeys of this world that we should buy local yet you are driving us out of business with a two-day a week kill. We have got 800 men working only 2.5 days a week because now they have struck a deal with Cargill out West to bring all of that stuff in. They are very powerful, extremely powerful people. I do not know what any of us can do about that except try to sell quality, try to promote the idea that local is better than away, but the industry people tell you that you lose more than you win by doing some of the things that keep coming up. You draw attention to the fact, and if there is a perception there, and someone has had a piece of meat, and it was a piece of freezer beef that was tough and they had to throw it out, which has happened, because it wasn't properly fed or properly finished, oh, I am not eating local. You have to have the guarantee behind that. Some of us are prepared to do it, but we have to get to that stage. Are you with me?
MRS. COSMAN: Yes. How do you control the quality of the local product, and how do you market it around the big stores that are buying from the West. Maybe you have to open your own Nova Scotia beef stores, and have a product that is so darn good in the taste bud selection that people will run back to buy your product, instead of going to Sobeys.
MR. FOSTER: One of the beauties about what has happened, to give you an example, how can I say this, I was fattening a little over 1,000 head of cattle a year. That may sound like a huge number, I can tell you that two years ago - I don't know what the current figure is - that was more than 50 per cent of the federally graded inspected cattle sourced in the Province of Nova Scotia.
Today, I am having to send those good cattle to Ontario, because of the realities, because of that huge mega-corporation, and we are captive suppliers; Hub is now caught in the middle. It is a classic struggle that eventually, maybe we will all start these momma and poppa stores again. But will the consumer put up with that.
For me to market my own, it would cost me, I would have to find about $3 million, I would have to find 20 people with the skills, and I would have to take huge risks. I could probably do it, but for a small company in the middle to try, they are out of business in two weeks. No matter how much money you throw at them. The reason that Hub does not sell, even though they are paying the producer here $70 less than I am getting in Ontario, that is still not competitive enough with Cargill out West. Hub's total kill is less than 3 per cent of those two plants out West. My supply is less than 3 per cent of Hub's supply.
We are almost insignificant, but we are still a people, we are still a province, we still have opportunity. That is really and truly why I have to keep focusing we have to start, everything else will take care of itself once you have the supply again. We are just so far down that we are in danger of being gone altogether. And of course, the next question is Hub has gone. It is as simple as that.
MR. CHAIRMAN: It is 10:30 a.m., we have had several questions, and very good presentations. The committee has to do some business, so I guess we will thank you very kindly for coming in and we appreciate it very much. I really know that all of us wish the cattlemen in Nova Scotia the very best, and hopefully things will turn around for the better, and you know that if there is anything that we as members of the Legislature can do to assist the Cattlemen's Association, all it will take will be a letter, and we will do all we can to help and assist you and your organization. Thank you, Donna, for coming, that is very kind.
MS. DONNA LANGILLE: Thank you. If I could just take a moment. We have prepared two copies of documents that the cattlemen have been involved in, lobbying for a program since 1992. They have taken resolutions to the Federation of Agriculture meeting, we have copied those and put them in here. We have copies of the minister's task force in here, and we have an outline of the sustainable performance program, also known as the
Gross Margin Program, in here. We hope that some of your committee will take a look at it and maybe respond with any questions you might have about what you would like to know.
[10:30 a.m.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: That is great. If you leave them with us, we will see that they are available to the members of the committee.
MR. FOSTER: Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. In concluding, at any time anyone is free to contact me. I have all kinds of data and information that I can back up specifics with, but I would ask you to consider, could this crazy guy be right. Is it just as simple as creating the will? I would ask you to really consider that. I believe I am right and a lot of us do. Thank you.
MR. ARCHIBALD: Neil, you can have the meeting again.
[Mr. Neil LeBlanc took the Chair.]
MR. CHAIRMAN: Let me just see where we are here. Our next meeting, which is with the Nova Scotia Agricultural Association, that is with Marli MacNeil and also with Brian Muise. That is scheduled for July 21st.
We had two meetings that we had set for this summer. We had indicated to both the Cattlemen's Association and to the Nova Scotia Agricultural Association that we will be meeting with them. So this is the second of those two meetings and it was scheduled for July 21st. We have not had a time indicated. I would suggest to the members a later time. Some of us come, John is the same as me, we are three and one-half hours away and if there are no other meetings, if you are not here on Monday, that means you either have to come Monday night and another day away from your family, or you have to get up extremely early to try to make it here on time. So I would suggest a later time for starting the meeting. Does that cause any problems with members of the Cabinet? Are there meetings taking place on Tuesday that would preclude you from attending meetings? Maybe Francene could speak on behalf.
MRS. COSMAN: It does not cause a problem for me because I am not on Priorities and Planning, but I guess I am wondering why we are meeting in the summer, quite frankly. It is a busy time for these organizations, farmers, fishermen, and all the rest. So I am just wondering if we want to rethink the fact that we are meeting in the summertime at all.
MR. CHAIRMAN: We had both these meetings scheduled and that was the reason. I was going to make the suggestion, and committee members can also speak to it, that we meet with the Agricultural Association and then try to start our meetings back up in September, after the summer months, and maybe I can hear some comments. Some of us are also on some other committees. I am on the Public Accounts Committee. So it is not just this
meeting in isolation and that is what makes it difficult and a lot of us have been, subsequent to the election, away from our constituencies for almost five months. You know what I mean.
MR. ARCHIBALD: Why do we not meet with the agricultural people in September?
MRS. COSMAN: Reschedule.
MR. MICHEL SAMSON: Your point is that meeting has already been set up.
MR. CHAIRMAN: They have been requested. Perhaps, Darlene, what have we indicated to them, we asked them to attend and we suggested July 21st?
MRS. DARLENE HENRY (Legislative Committee Clerk): Yes, they were willing to show up on July 21st and I did ask if they would like to show up around 1:00 p.m. for the afternoon meeting. I can contact her and see if we can reschedule if that is the will of the committee.
MR. ARCHIBALD: They would appreciate it probably.
MRS. COSMAN: I think they would.
MR. CHAIRMAN: It is up to the committee. If I can hear a consensus one way or another, I have no problem, maybe people can speak in regard to it.
MR. JOHN DEVEAU: I would be pleased if it was scheduled in September because, again, with the focus being on my riding, I have not been there and every time I seem to get focused and ready to go at it again, there is another meeting booked.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Charlie.
MR. PARKER: I was going to say it seems almost a waste, you know, for us to come in here for a couple of hours if that is the only reason you are coming in. It is only 90 minutes for me but it is certainly much longer for some of you. I would certainly be interested in hearing what they had to say, but if we could somehow combine it with something else going on at the same time.
MR. JOHN MACDONELL: I only live 30 miles outside the city, but I guess my concern is if these people have been approached and they set up their schedule for this meeting to see us, then I think if we are going to change it, we should be fairly delicate about how we go about that. My personal preference would be to have this meeting, since we have already approached them on it, and then if anything after that, you want to let that go to September or whatever, I have no problem with that.
MR. ARCHIBALD: Well, Darlene is going to check and see whether they would just as soon come in September, because they probably would.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Ask them if they would, if that causes them any problems, and we could say that there are some scheduling problems with some of our members, and if they wouldn't mind, whether they could start this early in September. If they are agreeable to that, then we shall change it to early in September. If they are not, and they are adamant, then we will be advising the members . . .
MR. ARCHIBALD: Is that it? Can we go now?
MR. CHAIRMAN: . . . George, you are so full of pep and everything else. You did such a good job as Chairman. I would like to congratulate you on being very professional. (Interruption)
MR. ARCHIBALD: I move we adjourn.
MR. PARKER: I was going to bring up one little item if I could, Mr. Chairman.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Certainly, Charlie.
MR. ARCHIBALD: You won't recognize my motion?
MR. CHAIRMAN: No.
MR. PARKER: I mentioned earlier in the previous session, another group, next after the aquaculture group maybe, would be the Nova Scotia Silviculture Contractors Association. I would like to hear from them because of the forest industry and the crisis we are facing.
MR. CHAIRMAN: I think that is a good point.
MR. PARKER: For September, or whenever, after this group here.
MR. CHAIRMAN: Can I make a suggestion to the committee, and I think Charlie's suggestion is good that we do bring silviculture perhaps after the aquaculture association. There is also the whole point that I would like to perhaps get a little bit of a fisheries focus, and maybe in some things, there are a lot of things going on in the fishery in regards to TAGS, whatever, I have just received a submission from the Saltfish Association down our way in regards to it. There are a lot of different groups that are showing some interest, and perhaps I could distribute some possible selections in the fishery, subsequent to the silviculture association. During the summer months, the members can either indicate their approval or disapproval as to whether that would be an appropriate witness. If that is agreeable to everybody, that is the intention.
Silviculture will follow and then a fisheries group, and I will be speaking to Darlene to try to come up with suggestions.
MR. PARKER: So, we may or may not be meeting on July 21st?
MR. CHAIRMAN: You will be informed by Darlene.
Is it agreed?
It is agreed.
[The committee adjourned at 10:38 a.m.]
