HALIFAX, MONDAY, APRIL 8, 2013

 

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE HOUSE ON SUPPLY

 

4:55 P.M.

 

CHAIRMAN

Mr. Clarrie MacKinnon

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Good afternoon, minister, members, ladies, and gentlemen. We will call the Subcommittee of the Whole House on Supply to order. We will be debating the estimates of the Department of Agriculture

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Resolution E1 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $61,973,000 be granted to the Lieutenant Governor to defray expenses in respect of the Department of Agriculture, pursuant to the Estimate, and the business plans of the Nova Scotia Crop and Livestock Insurance Commission and the Nova Scotia Farm Loan Board be approved.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable Minister of Agriculture.

 

HON. JOHN MACDONELL: I want to say greetings to my colleagues around the table. I would like to introduce the staff I have with me. To my immediate right is Linda MacDonald, executive director of programs and corporate services. To Linda's right is Rosalind Penfound, deputy minister. I think you would be aware that Rosalind had previous experience in this department and has found her way back to us, which we're glad for. Weldon Myers, our director of finance, is to my left. Behind me is Alan Grant, executive director for agriculture and food operations, and we have Loretta Robichaud, the director of food operations; Cathy Shaw, manager of legislation and corporate services; and Brett Loney, director of communications for the Department of Agriculture.

 

I have to say how much I appreciate the people I work with in this department. They're dedicated and committed. The responsibility for a lot of the good that you see coming from the Department of Agriculture lies with them. It's a really good group of people to work with.

 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak about our government's commitment to work with industry to undertake the changes necessary in agriculture to create good jobs and grow the economy in order to make life better for Nova Scotia families.

 

As you know, agriculture is an important industry in Nova Scotia. In 2011, farm cash receipts reached a height never seen before: $526.6 million with about 5,200 people employed in Nova Scotia's primary agricultural sector. According to the 2011 census, there are 3,905 farms in Nova Scotia, an increase of 2.9 per cent over the previous census. That makes us the only province in Canada to experience an increase in farms.

 

This growth was driven primarily by the mink industry, various fruit and sheep farms, and small lifestyle farms. Agriculture, including food processing, accounts for 1.6 per cent of the provincial economy. The entire agri-food industry, including fisheries, makes up about 3.2 per cent of the provincial economy. As you can see, agriculture is an important industry to our province. The fact is, the world is changing, and we have to change with it to ensure our agricultural industry remains strong and continues to grow.

 

As our government promised, we brought the province back to balance. The credit for getting back to balance belongs to all Nova Scotians. We are one of the only provinces in Canada to table a balanced budget this year. My colleague, the Minister of Finance, outlined the numbers last week when she delivered her Budget Address. I don't need to repeat what she said, but my message is the same: the past four years have required sacrifice and commitment. By making the right decisions in tough times, we are building a better future for Nova Scotia families.

 

Nova Scotia is starting to turn a corner. In front of us are unparalleled opportunities for families in this province. That's why Nova Scotia's agriculture and agri-product industries are important, because they can help us take advantage of these opportunities. Our primary industries - agriculture, fishing, forestry - are still the heart of our economy, and contribute significantly to the province's exports. These are the industries that bring in new wealth, grow our economy, and help pay for services like health care. It's more important than ever that if we invest our tax dollars in the industry, we have to do it strategically.

 

In Nova Scotia we've articulated our vision for the future through our Homegrown Success strategy, which shares the view that Nova Scotia's agri-product industry will rise to meet market opportunities and build on Nova Scotia's natural competitive advantages. Homegrown Success is the province's 10-year plan to transition our industry to competitiveness and profitability. It is all about a broad, strategic approach to the long-term growth of agriculture, but the bottom line is helping Nova Scotia farmers generate greater profits.

 

We are also working to support farmers and the agricultural industry through the $24.6 million multi-year series of federal and provincial agricultural programs called Growing Forward, led by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Department of Agriculture. As you know, 2012-13 is the last year of Growing Forward.

 

Last September in Whitehorse, Canada's federal, provincial, and territorial Agriculture Ministers signed an agreement in principle for Growing Forward 2. Growing Forward 2 is a five-year policy framework which focuses on three priorities for the agricultural sector: innovation, competitiveness, and market development. In fact, it includes a 40 per cent increase in cost-shared investments in non-business risk management, strategic initiatives to stimulate innovation, competitiveness, and market development.

 

We are currently nearing the conclusion of negotiations with the federal government on the bilateral agreement as it pertains to Nova Scotia. GF2 will include a complete and effective suite of business risk management (BRM) programs, greater flexibility for provinces and territories to tailor programs to local needs, and increased opportunities for provinces to invest in environmental initiatives and on-farm water infrastructure.

 

Growing Forward 2 provides a framework for Nova Scotia and Canada to invest in opportunities throughout the value chain. Under Growing Forward, the Atlantic region found it challenging to attract significant national and regional research and innovation-related funding. As a result, Nova Scotia will explore, with its neighbouring Atlantic Provinces and beyond, a co-operative approach to innovation and research programming. We hope that by pooling our resources we can collectively achieve greater impact than would be realized through four individual program approaches.

 

Accessing developing markets, domestically and abroad, will also receive increased funding in GF2. Growing Forward 2 will see Nova Scotia track and train highly qualified and knowledgeable people to work in all segments of the agri-food industry. Over the course of Growing Forward, Nova Scotia assessed and tested some adjustments to its approach to environmental stewardship. In Growing Forward 2, we will explore a target approach to addressing specific areas of concern.

 

This may involve changes to design and delivery mechanisms in our environmental stewardship program, which incorporate additional resources to manage water issues like erosion and controlling farmyard runoff. A greater investment in planning and design of manure and waste disposal management systems will complement new regulatory requirements in our mink industry.

 

Our department and our government want to ensure farmers have the tools they need to grow, develop, and sustain the industry. We need to improve the agricultural sector's adaptability, competitiveness, innovation, and environmental stewardship to ensure the industry's future prosperity.

 

Grass-fed beef is one of those potential innovations. We are exploring a value chain model for Nova Scotia beef producers based on grass-fed beef, focused on sustainability and built on our competitive advantage pastures.

 

I'm going to go off script here. There's a lot of literature on grass-fed beef - and I really should say "grass-finished" beef, because we want to be finishing them on grass, not on grain.

 

Two years ago we bought six animals. We finished wintering them, actually - I think we bought them through the winter - at Corsten's Farm in Antigonish, and they had just had, I think, free choice silage or haylage, no grain. When they got to finish weight we had all but one slaughtered. It turned out one was pregnant. She got a pass. The other five all graded A - and I probably won't have this right, but I know it was two AAAs, two AAs, and an A - I think there was only one A, but I might have the combination of AAs and AAAs not right. Anyway, all five graded A.

 

We did sensory work on those at Acadia, at the Faculty of Nutrition. We were interested in the omegas and linoleic acids and the health advantages. There are two points to this: to determine whether or not there was a market advantage or a market basis for selling beef based on the health advantages of grass-finished beef, and also to offer to Nova Scotia producers a program whereby they could see that they could finish cattle without grain and hopefully finish their cattle cheaper on what we call Nova Scotia's grass advantage. Anybody living here knows how many times you have to mow your lawn in a season, and we can grow forages.

 

The chemical analysis was off the chart. They were better than the literature indicated. I think on the sensory side for people's taste and so on, everybody who was in on that lab study picked grass-finished beef over grain-finished beef.

 

From that Spring, that coming season, since we owned some pasture, Crown pasture - Cape John is one that the province owns - we divided 120 acres of that pasture into six 20-acre paddocks and did the analysis of the forage before the animals went in and then did rate of gain through the summer. Then we bought 30 or so animals out of that group, did the whole process all over again and I think those animals were wintered a bit and then last year we took them off the pasture.

 

I think we're working on protocols on price and actually the value chain of what the producer would need, what the processor would need and what the retailer would need and there has been nothing in this process on grass-finished beef that has led us to believe that we are on the wrong track. Everything out of this has been quite positive. We've even been working on the protocols for how you could market it in order to say it's grass-finished beef, these are the protocols you would have to follow. We will have a cost of production formula for beef and there has never been one. The hog industry had had one and they had that down to a science. They had years to perfect it but there has never really been one for the beef industry so that is something that will come out of this.

At some point soon all of that information will be available to the industry in the hope that a few things will happen. Nobody should assume that there aren't things happening outside of government, that there aren't producers who are already ahead of us, they've been doing this, they have established their own individual markets and their own clientele. Really, what we will be able to offer them is actually the scientific data that indicates that you're not just guessing - you're right; that this can be done and here's how you do it and here's how you do it consistently.

 

I think one of the things that was kind of surprising, other than the fact the animals did well, our beef producers, not only do they have to be able to have good husbandry skills to be able to raise cattle, because we didn't have a finishing industry really here. We had a cow/calf industry so they would sell those feeders out to feedlots - P.E.I. or Ontario or wherever. We don't have a big history or long history of finishing cattle. There is some of this that the industry, as a large brush stroke, has to learn. There will be some people who would know a fair bit about finishing cattle but by and large that isn't what our industry was.

 

Not only do they have to have good animal husbandry skills as far as dealing with livestock but they will have to become grass growers. They will need to be able to grow and put up good forages that maintain the quality that they need in order to finish cattle properly. I think that information has been around for a long time, in Nova Scotia the dairy industry has capitalized on this long ago. They're very good at it. When you see the end of May when they're out cropping grass, they know that they're in the right time of year to be getting the highest quality feed they can get. It has really enabled them to move their industry forward, reduce their grain inputs. Although I don't think they can exist completely without grain.

 

The Holstein cows are big machines and in order to keep that total digestible nutrient and balance with protein and energy they probably have to top that up with some grain. On the beef side it looks like we have all the components that we need; cool Springs, lots of moisture and soils that lend themselves well to growing grass. At some point soon, that information will all be compiled and be available and then we're hoping that there will be a processor that will be interested in taking on some of this with a negotiation with either a retailer or the restaurant industry or whoever, but at some point it won't be us, it will be the private sector that will really have to see a business opportunity and then run with it. It does look as though the margins are such that beef producers should be able to get the price they need out of their livestock and hopefully that will mean we'll grow that industry. I'll just say stay tuned.

 

One fast-growing agricultural industry in Nova Scotia today is mink. It's now worth $120 million annually in export sales and employs nearly 1,000 people. This is a very strong industry that is entirely export-based, it brings a new wealth into the province. As a result of new regulations we've passed for the fur industry and amendments we made to the Fur Industry Act, fur farms will continue to grow and create good jobs in rural Nova Scotia while being held to firm environmental standards.

 

Nova Scotia is the first province in the country to establish regulations for the fur industry, we talked with Nova Scotians, we heard their concerns and we put in place regulations that will help the industry contribute to our economy while protecting our environment.

 

I just want to make a comment about the mink producers, which is by and large the largest sector - I'm trying to think if we have one fox farm in the province but anyway - they've been very good to work with. I mean, here was the only sector in agriculture that actually had manure and water issues, environmental issues, on their farms, the only sector that's actually regulated. The rest of agriculture is guidelines and this group of farmers was incredibly good to work with and I have to say I think they were lucky - well I don't know whether to say good luck or good management - but they had good leadership in that organization and I think that was a big help to them. They are making money. Some of these changes are going to cost them a little money but for sure I think for peace of mind for themselves, for their families, and their neighbours that the financial cost of this is not a severe burden for the state of the industry right now. It's one of those nice things that when you go to a meeting of mink producers and you look around the room there is a fair number of young people which you don't see in all commodities. Generally you see it in the commodities that are making money which was nice to see.

 

The regulations focused on environmental management of operations with more than 100 mink or fox in their breeding herds. They concentrated on storage, treatment, and disposal of manure, waste feed, and carcasses. The changes to the Fur Industry Act ensured that existing farms that expand have only six months to comply with the new regulations while farms not expanding have a three-year grandfathered period. The amended Act also requires any fur farms to stop operating to clean up waste.

 

Another way we are supporting the agriculture industry is through our efforts to encourage Nova Scotians to buy local with our Select Nova Scotia program. An example of that program's success is the more than 8,000 Nova Scotians who attended the 12 IncrEDIBLE Picnics held last summer across our province. Since Select Nova Scotia first began in 2007, awareness of buying local has increased 33 per cent. Farmers' Markets are popping up across the province and Nova Scotians are buying more local food. We recently raised the profile of Select Nova Scotia by updating its visual identity and incorporating the provincial flag, ensuring our products are recognized as Nova Scotian here in the province and around the world.

 

On March 25^th we also launched a new TV commercial that is airing on CBC, CTV and Global. We'll continue to invest in Select Nova Scotia and promote local food because it's good for consumers and it's good for farmers.

 

As I mentioned earlier, one of our most important tasks is to help position farmers and the agricultural sector to embrace future opportunities. Two of the highlights of 2012 for me as Minister of Agriculture were the official opening of the Perennia Innovation Centre and the merger of the Nova Scotia Agricultural College with Dalhousie University to form the Dalhousie Faculty of Agriculture.

 

The Perennia Innovation Centre is a $7 million, 20,000-square foot state-of-the-art facility which brings together innovators and inventors to work with business development professionals to create new business opportunities in agriculture and the agri-food industry. Attending its official opening last October was like stepping into the future - a future of innovation where curiosity, creativity and business savvy combined to help us find new ways to grow our agricultural industry. The centre helps companies that work with plant-, animal- or marine-based resources to create new products. The centre enables clients to work with the Faculty of Agriculture, with researchers, and with students.

 

I liked the place so much I stopped by last Fall to announce the provincial government investment of almost $780,000 for infrastructure to support two multi-fuel heaters as part of the province's 2013 capital plan. This new green energy heating system which burns grass pellets will help us further develop the agricultural biomass sector.

 

I just want to mention, I think it was during the 2009 election campaign - or prior to it, I don't quite remember - I went to a symposium in Truro, it was a group of people interested in grass pellets for fuel. I'm in a room full of people interested, after that there was some talk but I couldn't seem to find anyone who was motivated to put in a grass pellet plant. It was a bit worrisome. There were no takers on a facility that would burn grass pellets.

 

We had thought this would probably work - I was to Prince Edward Island and they were heating an apartment building with pellets. At the time it was rye grain, it wasn't grass, but the thought is still the same. I said to my staff, we've built this Perennia Innovation Centre, why don't we put in a boiler and a system that would use the pellets? That was where we went and plus we can use that now to collect data and information that we can give out to others to say how well or badly the system worked - would probably be more silent on the badly.

 

Also through AgriFlexibility, one of the Growing Forward 2 programs with the federal government, 40/60 dollars that we share, West Nova Agro group in Annapolis put in a grass pellet plant there. We actually had someone who could supply us with fuel so we were quite pleased with that. We're eager to see how this pans out and we think that there is lots of potential in Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia has 40,000 hectares of pasture and an ideal climate for growing grass for energy production. Grass pellets offer an opportunity to develop a niche market that could add some $36 million annually to our industry while at the same time giving farmers an option for lowering their own heating costs.

 

My thought on this was that if you use your traditional farming haymaking equipment so you didn't have to invest in other equipment, and use basically the same cultivars of grass that most farmers use - but the one you hear about mostly is reed canary grass - that either you grow it for this purpose or part of your crop gets rained on, or whatever, and otherwise you would think that you lost it you could still use it for pellet production and just offer something else as far as a commodity that a farmer could use to help his cash flow on the farm. One of the things I certainly thought is he still has to get paid enough to make it worthwhile to do it but I thought it offered some opportunity and now there is some interest in putting together a project using miscanthus which is a grass that is grown particularly more for that one purpose, at least with the other forges you could maybe feed them to cattle or whatever but I think the miscanthus project will purely be an energy project. I think there is about 5,000 acres already corralled for that project and so we're eager to see how that goes.

 

Speaking of the future, the official merger of Dalhousie and NSAC last September created Dalhousie Faculty of Agriculture, an enhanced centre of excellence for applied research and a national leader in agricultural excellence. I am absolutely confident this merger has strengthened the institution, benefiting the students and ultimately all Nova Scotians. From all reports this merger has gone very well.

 

As you know, we've undertaken a reorganization of the Department of Agriculture as a way to respond to a number of key areas outlined in the Homegrown Success strategy and to respond to what we heard from the industry. Our objectives in undertaking this restructuring were: to create a more regionalized and coordinated approach to service delivery across the whole value chain; to strengthen our policy development and analytical capacity; to link Homegrown Success policy with funding programs and better coordinate our production technology services to the operations of the department; to link financial programs and services; and to maintain a separate fisheries and aquaculture department.

 

What does this new structure look like? For starters we've downsized from five branches to two branches: Policy and Corporate Services under Executive Director Linda MacDonald, who is sitting beside me; and Agriculture and Food Operations under Executive Director Alan Grant. We've eliminated two executive director positions and one associate deputy minister position. We've separated the operational resources of Agriculture and Fisheries and Aquaculture. Our new Policy and Corporate Services branch includes the following: procurement, hiring and leasing, policy development and legislation, and research and analytics; Crown agencies including the Farm and Fish Loan Boards, the Natural Products Marketing Council, and crop and livestock insurance; Program and business risk management, including the development of programs such as Growing Forward 2, Homegrown Success suite of programs, and our business risk management programs.

 

Our Agriculture and Food Operations branch includes: advisory services and outreach; regional services including resource coordinators; rural leadership; land protection operations; and our link with Perennia. Provincial programming includes business development, transition coordinators, agricultural education, and environmental and land protection. Protection services, which include the pathology and analytical lab services and animal protection, which include food inspection, meat inspection, animal welfare, bees, weeds and pests.

 

Of course, we've not only restructured our department but we've also moved the headquarters of the Department of Agriculture from downtown Halifax to Truro-Bible Hill.

 

There have been 34 positions in Halifax relocated to Truro-Bible Hill to department offices in the Perennia Innovation Park and also to our offices at the Dalhousie Agricultural Campus. Most of the staff are now in place with only a handful of positions left to fill. This move brings good jobs to rural Nova Scotia and reaffirms Truro-Bible Hill as the provincial centre of agricultural excellence. It consolidates our operations in order to provide better service to farmers and the agricultural industry.

 

Agriculture holds a prominent place in our province's culture and economy. It's a diverse industry that takes a whole-value chain approach focusing on markets, opportunities and a strong Nova Scotia brand. As I've said, we need to think and do things differently in order for the agricultural industry to find long-term success and growth. That's why my department is helping to champion innovation and a strong culture of research and development.

 

Thanks for the opportunity to speak to you today and I'm happy to take any of your questions.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: We have a time now of 5:30 p.m. The Liberal caucus will have one hour and then we will turn it over to the Progressive Conservative caucus.

 

The honourable member for Kings West.

 

MR. LEO GLAVINE: Thank you, minister, for your opening remarks and welcome staff as part of the estimates process as well.

 

The first thing I notice is that overall the budget decreased by about $2 million. I know there are a number of changes as well that have gone on that perhaps, especially as you mentioned, towards the end as the merger of Dalhousie and the Agricultural College that have probably impacted on staff positions and channeling of some funds perhaps. There may be a little bit of work to kind of see where that's unfolding so I may have some questions around that.

 

The overall reduction, we've seen that in the past decade as we look at the broader features of agriculture, there are indeed positive elements in the past decade as well as some of the remaining challenges. If we're seeing good things happening, why the drop in the budget dollars?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I'll say because of two things and then I'll have somebody correct me.

 

I think about $1.3 million in funding that was AgriFlexibility money and that was money that was 40 cent dollars shared with the federal program that we did some projects. One was the grass-finish beef project, the West Nova Agro project on the grass pellets. I think our boiler was part of that, it seems to me the Atlantic Centre for Agricultural Innovation (ACAI). I think $1.3 million there that was AgriFlexibility money and I thought there was about $600,000 for vacancy reduction.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: What I'm going to do as chairman is some years we have had some short answers and the Chair was almost like ping pong - member, minister, minister, member - so for short responses just back and forth but always remember that there is a Chair here and we do have to keep order. Thank you.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and I do appreciate that kind of dialogue where we can keep the discussions moving along. So in effect and just to confirm, minister, there would really be no changes affecting programs essentially - would that be a correct statement?

 

MR. MCDONELL: That would be correct.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Okay then. So in terms of any new directions where some of the budget would be going, have you made any emphasis in areas, for example, such as continuing the beef program? Also, where your intention is to have innovation and profitability, are there any other programs lining up with those principles, as outlined by the department?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I'll try to be charitable. One thing that - we basically have finished the project around the grass-finished beef so the question I think after that becomes well, is there something we can do that is going to be kind of an incentive project going forward, so we haven't nailed that down.

 

I think you may remember - I think it's two years now we've done a genetic enhancement program for sheep, cattle and goats. We did the pollination expansion program last year, which we continue this year. I have an interest in the creation of some kind of small farm program mainly because I think that the seed stock for farmers are young people raised on even small operations but they have some experience with livestock, some experience with crops but generally they don't hit their $10,000 a year threshold in order to qualify for programs, as far as income. So the question is whether or not it's possible to develop a program that can either lower that threshold or use in-kind or something else.

 

I remember in Whitehorse last year we signed kind of an agreement in principle on Growing Forward 2, and have signed the multilateral agreement, which is the same across the country, for all the provinces. That has been to Cabinet, if I remember correctly, and so on. The thing we haven't completed to this stage is the bilateral talks which kind of allow us to develop a Nova Scotia-made program group.

So things like this kind of small farm notion are the kind of things we put forward to the feds to say, would you consider this as part of our group of programs that we might consider offering to Nova Scotia producers.

 

We haven't completed that suite of what that bilateral would look like so we are a bit hamstrung on what we can move forward with that's new. I'm not sure if - maybe Linda or someone can give me a notion of what our possible timeline is to do that - June. Anyway, hopefully if we have that signed off in June, that will give us a little more idea.

 

One thing I will say about the federal government is that they were interested in putting more dollars to innovation and research out of this Growing Forward 2, which we were very keen because that was a big component of Homegrown Success.

 

Anyway, I can't tell you that we have a lot that's different but that's the type of thing - I'd like to see if it's possible to have some kind of program that would enhance or help out on the organic side. Even though they have access to all the programs we have, I'm not sure that we see enough growth. I guess if nobody is interested, it's kind of like we can do the grass-finished beef project and if it's something that the industry doesn't really want to run with, we can't make them. Some of those programs, like genetic enhancement, I've been hoping that those would be programs that would at least be three years, possibly five years, so I don't know if you necessarily feel the need to go with something new every year but we take a fair bit of direction from the Federation of Agriculture and various commodities. I meet with the federation and the council leaders, and I also go to various commodity group meetings, I'm a sheep producer so I do try to get to some of those meetings. You kind of get a feel for what kind of a program might be necessary that would help them in a particular aspect of what they're doing.

 

Other than the genetic enhancement program - and every now and then there is something that we do get a request to provide a fencing program for sheep producers but it's one that I don't feel moves necessarily industry as a group forward and so that's why we kind of went with things like genetic enhancement which helps everybody. We're always kind of interested in that dialogue about what is the other thing that you think you could use that has broad reach across your whole sector. We just maintain that dialogue in the hopes that we'll get a nugget that something is necessary and not particularly expensive and that helps a large group of people.

 

MR. GLAVINE: I sort of moved quickly there into wondering about what possibly could be changed around which would have some emphasis in terms of new programs and so on. Before I look at what is very interesting - and that is Growing Forward 2 and your concept of a small farm program I find that very appealing - I just wanted to take a look back when you said there are vacancy reductions which look at the perhaps some of that $2 million less in the Agriculture budget. Have there been any actual reductions? I mean we have vacancies which line up during a fiscal period and will require less monies to operate but are there any actual reductions?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I'll have to get direction because I know that when we went from five executive directors to two, obviously that didn't happen all last year but changes within the department, that reorganization, probably has led to some change in that regard because probably the kind of thing that every department faces but I'll try to get it more nailed down for you.

 

MR. GLAVINE: I did want to look a little bit specifically there because as we all know the nature of programs are very much impacted by the personnel that are directing them and overseeing them especially for some period of time. If there are reductions I would appreciate an identification of those in terms of what division or what job they may be doing.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Something we'll get back to you with.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Okay, that will be great, yes. One of the areas you did start to move towards in terms of Growing Forward 2, as you know, Mr. Minister, again from your own agriculture involvement as well, looking at the provincial picture and the federal aspects as well. We haven't always been well served by some of the federal programs and we know especially during the BSE, which still has some lingering impacts on our beef industry in the province as you talk to those whose been there 20, 25, 30 years. Do you see a better accommodation for the Atlantic factors and features that are part of our certainly smaller farm size, the demographics now of our farmers, and is there some adjustment within those bigger formulas that, in fact, can give us a greater sense of fairness and equity in those programs?

 

MR. MACDONELL: That's a broad question. I'm going to try to answer it. If you were to think back 10 years ago, in 2003 when BSE struck, what the industry looked like, because it was basically a cow/calf industry. It was a grain-finished beef industry. I'm trying to think of what our capacity here at the time for federal kill capacity was. I'm trying to think if Hubs was still open - that's what I'm trying to get my mind around. I can't remember whether Hubs in New Brunswick was still open because I think we had lost Larsen's by that time.

 

The unfortunate thing about BSE - I don't know if it's the only thing - but if you were 30 in 2003, then you were 40 in 2013 and prices have really just started to come back to a place that is somewhat reasonable. I'm sure they'd say they're not getting what they need. The programs for Growing Forward 2 like - well, actually, AgriFlexibility funded our grass-finished beef program.

 

We probably have the best provincial inspection program in the country. Alberta might try to rival us. New Brunswick really doesn't have one. P.E.I. doesn't have one. In the Atlantic Region we have around 14 plants that are provincially inspected. Some of those would be poultry or one or two, but by and large they kill beef and lambs and some pork. We have been able to maintain a significant capacity there, although you would be familiar with O.H. Armstrong and now Tony's Meats is stopping their kill line as of May.

Coming out of that Growing Forward 2, we're looking at about $1.3 million additional funding into innovation and research that we never could get before. When the federal government had said they were interested in putting more money into this area then that's what the impact would be for Nova Scotia. We're quite pleased and we're hoping for enough flexibility that we actually can design the places where we want to spend it. Although if it's going to be cost shared - it's going to be 60/40 - then they'll have some say. They said there would be flexibility and we're hoping to get it and that's non-BRM. That's not business-risk management money; that's money for other initiatives.

 

MR. GLAVINE: As we take a look at the overall budget, I did want to know if there are a few areas where you see very positive and impacting things happening where, in fact, in those programs you have shifted some dollars to keep that momentum going. I'm wondering if there's anything in a couple of areas that you see happening there.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I'm just trying to get my head around the question - so things that we were doing but we moved . . .

 

MR. GLAVINE: In other words, for example, if we've increased - as we know from the census data - our farms, we also know that getting the new entrant into agriculture - I'm wondering if, in fact, we have something a little more specific there that says, yes, that is really a strengthening initiative that I'm going to participate in and I'm at this point now where I can venture on my own away from the home farm or in an operation with a larger farmer that you're getting some mentoring from. I'm just wondering if there is anything in an area where we do have a positive development taking place but, in fact, we could see that being enhanced by some department initiative or investment if you wish.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Of course the one that comes to mind, as far as the increase in farms, mink operations were one. On Buy Local, we have an extra $250,000 into that program. We have our new entrants - have you been on the Web site to see the Think Farm initiative that we have and FarmNEXT with the Farm Loan Board? I know the Think Farm gets a lot of attention, there are a lot of people looking at that.

 

I'll give you one example and I guess it depends on where you draw the line between farming - I guess I can give you two; one was in the paper the other day, I'm trying to think if it's down around - trying to get my Cape Breton geography - I was going to say down around the Mira but I don't think - Marion Bridge, I think, maybe in that area. There is a gentleman there who showed me a hops operation, he was growing hops. It wasn't a big acreage and he has just put in a - I don't know if it's a brewery or whatever down there, so I think he's somewhat interested in kind of the ecotourism, farm tour, a business as well.

 

The other one close by there is a milk cheese, feta, operation. I don't know if it's Ron Muise - have I got the right name? But anyway, he is a chef, actually who came back to Nova Scotia, spent a fair bit of time in France. He and his wife moved back to her family farm. He has a small flock of East Friesian sheep, I think they are East Friesians, that he milks and has been doing really well. Actually he encouraged some other sheep producers in the area to get flocks and milk them and he would buy the milk. You can freeze it, it's something that's quite easy to store until he needs it.

 

I know restaurants and farmers' markets, I think, are the biggest places that he has been selling but I think it brings a great deal of expertise. We helped put up his plant and so on there. Those are two kind of different things that are going on.

 

I think the biggest, and I know there have been a few - when I saw a presentation by the department on some young people doing things with solar power for various things they do on their farm operations, they're almost as variable as the people who are doing them. I tried to explain one day to somebody like when you say you're the Minister of Agriculture it's like someone tries to define it as one thing but agriculture is so many things, different people trying different things, kind of the thing you like to be the cornerstone of all of it is that whatever they're doing, they're making money and kind of growing the economy and fulfilling their own dreams for what it is that they want to do. Just because somebody wants to do this here and half a mile down the road there's somebody else who does not want to do that, they're doing something different. For us it's trying to have enough capacity to get expertise to help all of them to do what they need and still make money at it.

 

I don't know if that actually helps answer your questions but the growth I think in operations, if I remember from Census Canada last year, was - I think it was from small to large - they identified programs from the Department of Agriculture as one of the key things that did help and I think we've been fortunate in that we have a very diversified agriculture in Nova Scotia, part of which we can blame on the Nova Scotia Agricultural College. We have one of the best educated farming communities in the country because of the Nova Scotia Agricultural College.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Those were a couple of touch points that I was interested in. Very quickly, in terms of communications officers within the Department of Agriculture, I know we have one present today, how many would there be assigned to the department, I mean, we're talking about the IncrEDIBLE Picnic, new programs and so on, communication officers are an important part of that process?

 

MR. MACDONELL: We have one director and two advisors.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Okay. In terms of policy analysts, would there be a senior policy analyst in the department and several others? What is the structure of developing policy and analyzing how it's working out?

 

MR. MACDONELL: We generally start in the morning, somebody says what does the minister want to do? We have three economists, two senior policy analysts, and one researcher.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Moving to a few of the estimates, there are always changes and reasons for changes from year to year. I thought I would drill down on a few here. On Page 3.3 under Programs and Services for Senior Management, the 2012-13 estimate was $593,000 but the actual was $487,000 and the estimate was quite far off the forecast. Then for 2013-14 the estimate goes back up to $596,000 so if the actual came in more than $100,000 lower, what was the need for the increase?

 

MR. MACDONELL: We had vacancies that accounted for about the $100,000 drop but we're hoping to fill those so that's the reason for leaving it there.

 

MR. GLAVINE: On the same page, Policy and Corporate Services, there was a significant increase in administration and realizing the changeover from the Agricultural College to Dalhousie University, would this account for this? Is that probably why we have that?

 

MR. MACDONELL: The changeover to Dalhousie is the reason.

 

MR. GLAVINE: At that level, we all know that the research and that work is pretty significant to what we hope our future in agriculture will be around innovation and new programs and so on but how does the administration factor seem to be transitioning? That is a new model for government.

 

MR. MACDONELL: That's a good question. Our thought is that it will reduce our expenditure over time but basically we allow for about a three-year transition where - even though Dalhousie is obviously the administrator, but to try to make that move from government to them as seamless as possible. We certainly tried to fund it appropriately.

 

Your comment around the research side, also within that three-year transition and then moving, we'll have a re-examination in three years of where we each are. I think for us it's being very keen to support research that we believe is where we want the industry to go or where we think the industry has indicated to us. We don't intend to have kind of a carte blanche relationship where if we don't see agriculture being supported and moved forward in the 21st Century we're going to be a little more iffy on what it is that we want to fund, because it's taxpayers' money. Definitely we will continue that dialogue with Dalhousie, we're very keen to fund research with them and so we're open to the kind of projects that they might be interested in doing that we see would be beneficial and also ones that we would like to initiate from our end and have buy-in from them to do.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Mr. Minister, Administration went from $2.86 million to $3.11 million so in fact additional positions were created or was the department picking up some administration that it hadn't prior to the changeover to Dalhousie?

 

MR. MACDONELL: You say $2.8 . . .

 

MR. GLAVINE: $2.86 million going from $2.86 million to three . . .

MR. MACDONELL: Are you on Page 3.3 or . . .

 

MR. GLAVINE: That's, sorry, Page 3.4 under Agriculture and Food Operations year to year estimates. I'm sorry, so yes that's under Administration as well. That wouldn't be associated with Dalhousie, that's different?

 

MR. MACDONELL: No, that's us.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Okay, I jumped - I missed a line there, that's fine, my mistake.

 

In that same section, however, on Page 3.4 Food Safety and Protection did go up by $300,000 even though the actual forecast came in slightly lower this year. I'm wondering what the reasoning for that would be. Also is that tied in when we say Food Safety and Protection, is that tied in to our inspection services?

 

MR. MACDONELL: We had two retirements in 2013-14 and refilled for 2013-14 so that is the reason for the drop and then backfilled them again.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Does that area of the budget include the inspection services? Provincial meat inspectors for example?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes.

 

MR. GLAVINE: I was just wondering whether or not that would stay now at the same level if we're going to have two less plants to service. I mean it is fairly significant to have Armstrong's and Tony's out of that mix, will we still need the same level of inspection services?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Tony's isn't inspected by us, it's federal, so they pay for their own inspectors. I don't know whether it turns out that we're hair-splitting just on the amount. It's not my desire to reduce the service if we can manage it. Even though the veterinary side of someone going in when the animals - like the pre-slaughter or post-mortem work. Now certainly I know O.H. Armstrong is not going to happen but I think there would be inspection of the - because it does processing and so on so there's still going to have to be some look at that. I would think that would come within the department. I'm trying to think of where else there was a similar situation. Certainly the kill line work won't need to be done but depending on how much they were doing, if it was part of a week or whatever, we're probably not going to cut back on one person for that. But if you know of anybody who'd be interested in buying Bowlby's.

 

MR. GLAVINE: I wasn't driving at a cutback because, as you said and we had confirmed, except for a few smaller points, our inspection service is pretty sound. In fact, probably with the AG report there were a few of those areas that have been improved upon or have been corrected since that particular time.

 

Since we're on this area, one of the concerns now that I hear from the farm community is whether or not we have the capacity to look after what is required for beef slaughtering. There's probably some that can move to the Maritime beef plant but if we're going to do local and have that local connection - whether it's Reid's or the plant in Greenfield or the ones in Queens or Yarmouth - providing into our local markets, has the department looked at whether or not that smaller abattoir will look after the needs and requirements? People are talking about the need for local beef and they also want it inspected. That's the other piece.

 

If there isn't capacity, I do worry and fear that the home butcher shop may start in a way that was probably part of our past but not as desirable in light of what today can and sometimes does go on. Have we looked at the numbers of beef, especially during summer months? We know the barbeque season does put more demand - will we have the capacity to meet that local need?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Actually, I think we're in quite good shape on the local side. We're not in good shape on the federal - like outside the border of the province, to ship outside. That's an area that we were hoping to rectify with our plan through AgriFlexibility. We had two pilot projects, one was O.H. Armstrong that we were trying to bring to a federal designation and the other one was Brookside abattoir which is Northumberlamb in Truro and they're just about done that retrofit of their plant. They will be able to kill lambs and sell them outside of Nova Scotia's border, which is great for the retailers in terms of Sobeys and Superstore because they can haul to their warehouses and they can ship lamb now to P.E.I. and New Brunswick where before they couldn't do that. They can get a greater share of the Atlantic market.

 

In terms of the local capacity, we finish about 7,000 head of cattle a year. I think XL in Alberta does about 5,000 a day. We've had incredibly good safety protocols and have them followed by our plants quite well. I want to make this clear, there has never been a food-borne illness traced to one of the plants that we provincially inspect in this province. The Auditor General made the comment that we wouldn't know that but we do know it because in some provinces the Department of Health does this but in Nova Scotia the Department of Agriculture does it.

 

If somebody goes to the doctor, then that's reported to us - or it might go to Health and Wellness but it comes to us - we contact that person and we ask them, over the previous 48 or 72 hours, where they ate and who they were with. We follow every complaint that comes in. Because of that, we actually have very good records, at least on the complaints that we get, about how to trace that back to where the food came from. So if they ate at a restaurant, then we can see if that's one of the restaurants that is supplied by so-and-so's plant or whatever.

 

There has never been a food-borne illness that has been traced to a provincially-inspected plant in the Province of Nova Scotia. That doesn't mean that we don't worry about how many plants we're going to have. I mean if it turns out that producers, who think that they can grow beef and finish it on grass and make money, are going to do more of it, then I know it comes to the chicken or the egg, that at least you have the animals and if they set up independent arrangements with a particular slaughtering plant, then in general that's how these are done.

 

I think what people tend to forget is that even though slaughterhouses, those small abattoirs, are independent entrepreneurs, we only provide the inspection service and they don't pay for that, we supply that. In a federal plant you have to pay for that service.

 

In Nova Scotia we encourage people to either build a facility and if they're doing - I know you really didn't say backyard - but if they're doing - my father used to take our beef to a gentleman in Elmsdale who, well, actually in August he's going to be 102. This guy could tell you a joke, if you met him at Tim Hortons, which he's at every morning, I mean for becoming 102 is an amazing individual. He had a little slaughterhouse and he used to peddle meat out of the back of his truck years ago. Anyway, he kind of gave that up 40 years ago.

 

My father raised a few beef cattle and usually just sold those locally, a side of beef to somebody. So we would go to this gentleman, his name was Garnet Gilby and he would slaughter then in his little slaughter facility, it had a cement floor. I'm telling you, he never stopped wiping and watering and cleaning all the time he was working. So would I ever have a worry about a food safety issue from him? I never did.

 

With that said, we would encourage people who do that kind of work to think about coming into a provincially-inspected system and upgrading their facility, just for everybody's peace of mind. I think that's probably the reason that some of these kind of backyard operations shut down because they didn't want to spend the money, they didn't think they were doing enough business to pay for the changes. Some of them saw it as the ability to make other markets more available to them if they did spend the money.

 

These are independent entrepreneurs who are running their own businesses and we supply that service to them, so it's particularly difficult for us to say that we're going to have X number of facilities because they're not ours.

 

We try to make the service as easily available as we can. We encourage people to bring their plants under the provincially-inspected system. We recognize that having them in your local community where you don't have to travel extreme distances to take livestock to get them processed, all that helps create the critical mass of if you keep your plant, those four or five producers who have 20 head of cattle, they're more apt to stay in business than if the plant disappears.

 

It's a concern for us but we know that we're limited in trying because if it turns out that the person who owns the facility, if he's 67 and none of his kids are interested or the nephew isn't interested or nobody is interested in that for a career path, then more than likely you're going to lose it. We try to be helpful - if there's anybody at all who shows an interest, we'd like to talk to them.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Just one further question. You've addressed the capacity piece, but I think what you were alluding to in the second part there is exactly, perhaps, what I was more wanting to get at around capacity, is whether or not the geographic distribution of the small abattoirs across the province are going to be able to accommodate what is currently in that 7,000 beef system or, in fact, sheep that went into Tony's - whether or not now we may have some challenges when they finish their operation or at least for the time being finish their operation.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I think for the 7,000 or so head of cattle that we finish in the province, I think we're in quite good shape with the number of facilities that we have. There may be a bit of a wrinkle around Tony's shutting down their kill line for lambs because Northumberlamb is about to embark - I'm assuming they are going to pass, as far as CFIA's appraisal of their facility. Both of these facilities are doing somewhere in the range of 5,000 to 6,000 lambs per year so I'm thinking that Northumberlamb can pick up a lot of that - if Tony's doesn't do that, Northumberlamb can pick up that difference, but they have to have a place to sell it. As far as their capacity, I think they have significantly greater capacity now because of this retrofit.

 

I have to be honest with you - I would like to see someone show an interest in a kill line for beef - federal - in Nova Scotia. I know Tony's is doing a feasibility study right now on those lambs, pork, and beef, and there are all kinds of issues around a multi-species kill line, that whether or not you're still allowed to do that. It's really this global food safety direction that the retail world is going is the reason that they're looking at this.

 

Certainly we're hopeful that when they do their feasibility study it will show that it is worth investing in that plant and see it continue for the future. I don't want to let myself off the hook by just saying that these are independent entrepreneurs - we're concerned; we think we're okay; and we're interested. In order to grow the number of livestock to make it larger - I don't know if you remember a report done by the Ecology Action Centre - I'll say six years ago - around the nutrient levels of the soils in Nova Scotia. They said we needed more livestock in order to actually have the manure to improve the soils in Nova Scotia. We talk about our ability to grow grass; well we have cattle and sheep that are ruminants. We have a fair capacity to increase the numbers of both of those groups - bovines and ovines, and so we will just have to see, but as much as we can encourage people to do it, we'll try.

 

MR. GLAVINE: There are a few areas in the second hour - I wanted to look at some of the policies and programs, but specifically on line items as we take a look at the Public Accounts Volume 3, fiscal year ended March 31, 2012. One of the expenditures on Page 16 was for Athabasca University for $23,000 and I was just, out of interest, wondering what that payment would have been for.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Minister, before responding, I usually give a 10-minute warning when caucus time is about to end and it is exactly 10 minutes before the Conservative caucus will have had an hour.

 

MR. MACDONELL: That's an NSAC payment to Athabasca University.

 

MR. GLAVINE: That could indicate some research work that they're sharing or working on?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Possibly.

 

MR. GLAVINE: With Communications Nova Scotia I noticed Advertising $64,000; Graphic Display $63,000, Support Services $242,000, Don't you have your own people to do that or is there some exceptional video production or ad that needs to go out, is that where that expenditure would be directed to?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I'm thinking Select Nova Scotia, Think Farm, FarmNEXT those types of things.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Another area, of course, which always grabs attention, Icelandair $6,352; I'm wondering what that expenditure would be for.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I'm wondering myself. We'll have to get back to you on that Leo.

 

MR. GLAVINE: On Page 20, Purchasing Card expenditure $867,000. I had never drilled down on what would incorporate so I'm wondering what that expenditure is for.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Various expenditures and that's the department's purchasing card, every department would have one.

 

MR. GLAVINE: So it's supplies, et cetera within the department, I guess, is what a good part of that would be. Also on Page 21, Amortization Expenses $267,000; I'm wondering again what specifically that payment would be directed towards.

 

MR. MACDONELL: That's the amortization or depreciation cost of all the divisions within the department.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Then there are Chargeables to Other Departments and I know that is around $6.2 million, almost $6.3 million, could you give me an example of what would be included in some of those . . .

 

MR. MACDONELL: That is charged out to another department.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Yes.

MR. MACDONELL: So that's from the Department of Education to us but it was related to the NSAC for Nova Scotia Council on Higher Education, so it was money back to us.

 

MR. GLAVINE: It says Chargeables to Other Departments to it's money that came into the department?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Okay, thank you. There was just one other and when we talked about land lumber resources, North-Lumber-Land Resources Limited, $424,000. Just again, we're into agriculture, whether or not that's something that pertains to the Christmas tree industry, which I believe, minister, comes under your purview?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Are you in Public Accounts still? What page?

 

MR. GLAVINE: Yes. This was Page 19.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I'll find that for you later. We don't have that - we have the amount.

 

MR. GLAVINE: There are always a few of those expenditures or receivables that, you know, without some explanation seem to stand out there so I thought I'd drill down on those.

 

In terms of - I just had one question, I think - do I have just time for about one question?

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Actually you have time for more than one question, you have about five minutes remaining.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Very good, okay. In the Budget Address on April 4^th, the Minister of Finance stated the government would be investing at least $250,000 in Select Nova Scotia. Now this was the base amount for Select Nova Scotia when the initiative was introduced in 2007 and subsequently increased to $350,000. So why was this initiative reduced from $350,000 in the past to $250,000, when we saw this as one of the real change agents in moving us along the local food investment and education and greater amounts of local food from our home use to our institutional use? I'm wondering why that took place.

 

MR. MACDONELL: We took money from that to hire a staff person because it had grown. So even though it probably didn't occur on the same line item, the money came out of there. We've put an additional $250,000 in it again for this year so we've expanded it.

 

MR. GLAVINE: I guess I was also interested in the fact that usually budgets are pretty succinct and clear and concise and it says that the government would be investing at least $250,000, so is there a chance there could be more that would go into Select Nova Scotia budget, based on what may be available within the total department budget?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes, the budget now is $500,000, plus one more person.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Okay. So in terms of that program, have you reached a point where you've done some analysis to see what aspects are working and seem to be deriving benefits. It has been in existence now, I suppose about six years?

 

MR. MACDONELL: About six years.

 

MR. GLAVINE: About six years, so I'm just wondering if you've done some drilling down on how Select Nova Scotia, you know the kind of pickup that it is providing, you know, are the advertising, the IncrEDIBLE Picnic, are all of these as effective, I guess, as we would want to see the tax dollars of the province put towards? Has there been some analysis is what I'm really asking.

 

MR. MACDONELL: We have done that actually. Just in kind of queries out to the public, about 33 per cent of Nova Scotians recognize it, the brand and the social media sites - the Web site gets about 35,000 visitors, Facebook 1,800 Likes, Twitter 3,200 followers so I have to say among Nova Scotians they recognize it and I know just from being out and about, because we did do the InCREDIBLE Picnics but it is something that now people ask for, they're extremely engaged in. It seems the one that they raise the most seems to be beef, the part of the sector we think we can put some more work into trying to promote but people - and I'm not sure if people are aware - when you think about the agriculture produce, there is every likelihood that if you buy chicken it's Nova Scotian, if you buy eggs they're Nova Scotian, if you buy milk it's Nova Scotian.

 

So the supply-managed commodities by and large were 100 per cent sustainable in those. Even though we obviously have to have a fair amount of either western or Argentinian, or whatever, beef come into the province - because 7,000 head is not going to cut it - but people seem to be quite interested. Actually with something like the contamination of the XL plant in the West people started to look, in my constituency there is Withrows Farm Markets in Belnan and they did a much bigger business. I'm being directed by the chairman to be quiet so I guess the Liberals are running out of time.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, minister, you have taken that in the right fashion, the Liberal caucus has in fact had the hour expire but there will be another opportunity in an hour's time. We will turn it over to the Conservative caucus.

 

The honourable member for Hants West.

 

MR. CHUCK PORTER: Thank you, minister, and to your staff, I know that this is sometimes a long process, or it can be and I'm sure it's not all that exciting for some but it's always an opportunity for us to get a little more detail on some of the things that matter to local farmers in this province.

 

Just for clarity, in looking at the numbers, we're about $2 million less in the budget this year in investment, can you just overview what that really means. You know yourself, you've been in this a long time, you've travelled around as critic for a lot of years, you know the position a lot of the farmers are in in this province and the different sectors. They would look at cutting another $2 million out of this budget as not favourable in any way to them in all likelihood. Where did that $2 million come out of minister?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I know I should have the second number right here because I was asked this question earlier. The $1.3 million was associated with AgriFlexibility which was I think four projects, the Northumberlamb or Brookside abbatoir expansion was one, West Nova Agro pellet plant was another, I think our boiler at Perennia Innovation Centre was another. Our 40-cent dollar contribution there was the $1.3 million and there is about $600,000, I think, was on vacancy reductions in all parts of the department, all divisions which was about $600,000 so that came up to about the $2 million.

 

MR. PORTER: I guess when I just look at that quickly the $1.3 million which was invested in projects in the previous year we just - absolutely as a minister you couldn't find that in the Treasury Board and going through the budget again this year to put back into the industry. I know that it's always difficult and every department and every minister is there looking for money but given this industry in particular and having fought for many years to see the budget increased, your thoughts.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Well that was the gross amount, I'm corrected, so most of that was federal repayable so that the 60 cent portion which we funded, which was the federal part, that would be reimbursed back to us so it wouldn't be quite as high as the $1.3 million but it would be less than that.

 

We signed the multilateral on Growing Forward 2 and that AgriFlexibility was out of Growing Forward. On the bilaterals, we haven't signed yet. Until we know what that looks like, it may turn out that we - the feds have indicated they want to put more money into research and innovation. It's looking like Nova Scotia will get about $1.4 million more in that direction. That's still things that we're working on with the feds. The impact won't be as significant as what you see there, at least the $1.3 million number because it looks like it's pretty near going to come back in additional funding on research and innovation.

 

MR. PORTER: Do you know a time frame for that?

 

MR. MACDONELL: June is when the bilateral will be signed. We've signed the multilateral and that has been to Cabinet but the bilateral hasn't been completed yet so we're hoping for June.

 

MR. PORTER: That equates to perhaps the $1.4 million in the research?

MR. MACDONELL: Yes. Non-BRM.

 

MR. PORTER: Forgive my ignorance, that's not budgeted anywhere in the numbers going forward then, you're not showing that?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I don't know if you can until you get it. It's in the budget. The programs that the feds offered have a bit of a reduction in BRM but an increase in research and innovation money. It's a bit of a wash but not entirely.

 

MR. PORTER: I guess I was confused not only because you said it's not as bad, it sounded like there would be more to add to what the bottom line was there. At least that's what I took from what you said, but in fact it's already somewhere accounted for in the numbers.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes.

 

MR. PORTER: I have a variety of different questions I want to bounce around a bit on and one of them you spoke fairly extensively about was the grass pellet program and the fact that we've invested money as a province in Truro in the facility - Bible Hill I should say, for clarity. Not knowing really how to word it better, you can measure your car for gas mileage, if you will, do we have some idea, now that you've been in this for a little while, and some of the research being done, I'll call it mile per pellet, or hour per pellet or BTU per pellet - is there something there that says this is good, this is efficient and cost effective that would drive others to that when they compare it to oil or propane or whatever their other sources of heat might be?

 

MR. MACDONELL: A lot of that work was previously done, it doesn't necessarily depend on us, but we do intend to use this facility to actually have it set up so we can gather that kind of data. We can go out to tell prospective individuals who we might try to encourage to put a pellet boiler on a hotel or a municipal building or whatever that, here's the data we have from the facility that we've built and we have 2,000 square feet or whatever and here's what we were able to do and here's what it cost us. Those are questions that we can ask and get data for so that we can show Nova Scotia taxpayers this was a good thing to do when compared to oil or wood pellets or whatever. Then, also encourage others.

 

In my capacity as the Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, I wind up meeting municipal councils quite often, and in particular I think of Truro and Pictou as the two places I get this question around agriculture. Mayor Mills in Truro has raised this grass pellet thing with me more than once. I asked, are you interested in retrofitting your municipal building and try to do this. The same question comes from Pictou Council so I've tried to encourage some to look at it and now that we have an operation in the Valley that actually can make pellets, we can have them made in Nova Scotia. I'm hoping actually that will spur somebody else to put up a pellet plant as well.

 

MR. PORTER: Do you see that made-in-Nova Scotia product being cheaper than bringing it from elsewhere, if that were the case? I mean some would argue that not every time you grow something at home that it's cheaper, especially in this industry, but I'll just ask you that first and then I'll go to the next part of it.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Well I'm thinking that it's cheaper. I mean the big thing for the plants, they say it's not feasible to haul hay much more than 50 kilometres to the plant, so that would kind of give you some idea about how far apart you'd have to have them. But once you got the pellets and got them bagged or whatever, totes or however you move them, you can put them on a truck and go a fair distance. We know that from the wood pellet side of things.

 

Transportation generally is an issue but the research indicates for the BTUs you get out of grass, and the carbon footprint, which is minimal, that it is feasible to do it. As a matter of fact I think if you consider the cost of oil, like most people talk around the price of hay, just kind of what farmers are getting for hay but I think there's more capacity to pay them significantly more, in comparison to the oil, and have them still heat a building quite a bit more reasonably than you would with fossil fuels.

 

MR. PORTER: You mentioned a few minutes ago, in your capacity as Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, your meetings and obviously there's some interest in that, are these municipal units looking for a funding program to say this is a little incentive for us to go? I know that each of them in their own way struggle from their revenues, there's no question about that, but it does make sense somewhere - is there a loan program that's being looked at, minister, or anything like that?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Not through Agriculture.

 

MR. PORTER: But maybe I can ask that question, I know you're going to go on to that but it is part and parcel with Agriculture.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes, we're not. I think there's enough information for them to determine the analysis about the savings so if they deem - because they're buying oil now, we're not subsidizing that.

 

MR. PORTER: I understand that.

 

MR. MACDONELL: So if they can get their fuel cheaper, plus the cost of the retrofit, then they certainly don't need an incentive program. Just the fact that they're going to save money anyway should be enough of an incentive.

 

MR. PORTER: I guess I was thinking about the retrofit piece there, having the cash on hand to actually make that happen and probably every municipal unit may be a little bit different when it comes to their ability and debt ratio borrowing and things like that and that's what I was thinking about, I guess, that by way of programs, or more than anything, has that issue been raised, have they come to you?

 

MR. MACDONELL: No - well, I shouldn't say no. My impression certainly in Pictou was "We'd be much more eager if you're willing to fund something".

 

MR. PORTER : Well, they all would. Okay, thank you for that.

 

The Dalhousie-NSAC merger, of course is done. I know that, having been there and met with them, there were some issues at the time - and I guess maybe not issues - concerns, maybe, about the merger itself, the bargaining units and all of those sorts of things, contracts. Things seemed to run fairly smoothly there throughout the merger. Have there been any issues by way of that piece?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Well I guess I should ask you, you're in Opposition so probably if there were, people would be coming to you. I think it has gone really quite smoothly and my constituency is in a location where I had a fair number of employees from NSAC so I dealt with them more in my capacity as their MLA than necessarily as minister. Anyway, I think we were able - because I had easy contact with a lot of people who could answer their questions - I think we were really able to allay their concerns.

 

By and large, I think you and I would both have to agree that since that happened, we really have not heard much that would indicate that it didn't go quite smoothly, at least as smoothly as we could hope.

 

MR. PORTER: And I guess that was more of the reason I raised it, it wasn't about a complaint issue, it was more of the clarity around how it did go and knowing a number of students that go to that location, no one has ever brought it up . . .

 

MR. MACDONELL: As far as students go, I have one in my own house.

 

MR. PORTER: Yeah, you would be well aware. You talked a bit about the buy local campaign continuing on in your opening remarks. What's the plan for this year, are there any new additions to that, minister, or it is status quo, same amount of dollars into it, same opportunities?

 

MR. MACDONELL: We've increased the budget there, the money there, by $250,000, another staff person and I think I even have a helper in my caucus colleague that's taking this on as an initiative. I'm not sure if you're aware we've changed the logo so we've done some work in that regard. There's going to be a workshop where 400 stakeholders have signed up across the province on our Web site. There was an industry briefing hosted by Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture and staff to introduce industry to the new brand, the Federation of Agriculture as well as Nova Scotia commodities associations were invited to this event and throughout March there was an awareness campaign, a refreshed Select Nova Scotia logo which incorporates the provincial flag, I'm not sure if you've seen that, 15-second billboard spots during prime time shows encouraging folks to visit the Web site and choose local, on-line ads, Access Nova Scotia ads, and upgraded Web site and social media platforms with the new logo.

 

MR. PORTER: Just on that, it's always good to invest, there is no question about that, and this has been very successful over the years and I think it has only gotten better as people tend to be more aware and the suppers, dinners, picnics, or whatever they might be that we have in our respective communities are always good and well attended.

One struggle that continues, though, is that farmers' market piece and I know where I come from in the Windsor area, I could almost name you the people that will be there each week. They are very much a group of regulars and they're a small number, it just does not seem to grow for some reason. Is there some initiative out there that these folks have an opportunity to take part in to say how do we make this grow better? You know the picnic thing, the one-time event, that a great event whether it's an afternoon in the park or at the Civic Centre in Brooklyn, as an example that you'd be aware of, or in Summerville we've seen them done in a variety of ways, and you've seen them around the province obviously. They are successful, people do come out, and they take part in that one afternoon or evening event, or whatever it might be but they just don't seem to come to the farmers' market. Is there some philosophy that you've found in your four years as minister that might help increase growth at these things or is there some kind of investment that might help it?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Those farmers' markets - some of them are very strong but they are on our Web site, our Select Nova Scotia Web site so they're partners in Select Nova Scotia so they can use our Web site to advertise their farmers' market. It's a good question, I have to say. I don't have one in my area. There were a few very dedicated people who tried for - I don't know, I'm trying to think - four years to establish one. I'm trying to think if they started in Elmsdale and then moved to Enfield at the Enfield Legion and then were there for a couple of years or whatever, I think back to Elmsdale and eventually it didn't survive. What are all of the components necessary? Well, having vendors that are, I think, actually real farmers and the question then becomes what people are looking for. You know even the Seaport Market in the capital city of the province and so I think it's - there are so many things that I think people, when they go to their farmers' market, that they have in their minds what they would like. Probably a refurbished old barn would make a better farmers' market than a brand new facility that's all shiny and new. Sometimes it's atmosphere.

 

It seems to me that people are good for one day or two. Most of them are a weekend type of thing. I guess probably the more interesting thing is for people who are interested to go to the ones that are the most successful and see what it is that they do. These are - kind of like the question from the member for Kings West around the abattoirs - farmers' markets are retail operations of independent entrepreneurs or a group - you almost think of a co-operative - who put together the resources for a farmers' market.

 

So the question around what it is that we're able to do, our business development program, we offer support to them and farmers' markets are eligible for the Growing Forward program, so there is funding available to help people get their farmers' markets going. It's almost like saying agriculture and farmers - well they're not all the same, so depending on the location and the demand of the local area and the organizations; some are more successful than others. Probably using the most successful ones as a template to kind of either help or start other ones is the best way to go.

 

MR. PORTER: I want to move on to 4-H programs for a few minutes. We have a lot of 4-H in this province, which you're well aware of. I've met with a number of them over the last couple of years or so and one of the main things that kept coming up was the fact that there is a lot of administration, but there's not a lot of money invested in the program itself that's set aside for it. Can you talk about that a bit?

 

MR. MACDONELL: We supply staff to them for setting up their events and I think, across the country, we probably contribute more than most other jurisdictions. Some contribute almost nothing to 4-H. I'm not sure what they deem to be - if they're looking at our administration, that's the staff people we have to kind of help them with their 4-H program, so I'm not really sure what it is they're thinking.

 

I know we had asked them to increase their registration fee for children to cover their own insurance. Actually, in working with the 4-H Council, we've been trying to move them to take more control of their own programming, only because we're concerned about the sustainability of it. We didn't reduce our funding, but the problem we had was that we were taking money out of other areas of the department that weren't budgeted for that and so what we actually had for the line item stayed the same. So what we said to them was over time you have to start to take care of that funding deficit yourself. We can't be robbing other programs to support you, so things like their insurance they should be funding that themselves.

 

They've been quite good. Nobody likes to see their fees go up but if you were to think about hockey, if you think about Girl Guides, scouting and cadets and so on, the province offers nothing. We have department staff that help 4-H. These other leadership programs that are in communities and have been in communities for years and years, they do that all on their own.

 

What we're thinking about, what is the sustainability of the 4-H program and if we have X numbers of dollars - $700,000, we were spending more than $700,000 so that was where we said we can't be robbing another program because we can't fulfill the full commitment of that program because we're taking money from there to top 4-H up to $800,000 or $900,000. That's when we had a dialogue with the council that said there are some of these things that you have to raise your own inputs toward the program in order for us to maintain the programming that we do.

 

MR. PORTER: So I heard that correctly? You allot $700,000 in the budget for the 4-H program?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes.

 

MR. PORTER: Just to finish that up, I would ask what percentage of the $700,000 actually goes into real programs and the organization versus what goes into administration?

 

MR. MACDONELL: There's a manager and seven 4-H regional people and - do you want more of a breakdown? Do you want salaries?

 

MR. PORTER: Well, if you want to ballpark what that administration means in costs of dollars versus what's left for the rest of the program.

 

MR. MACDONELL: When they have their achievement day, the one in June, which kind of determines who goes into their show that takes them to the Pro Show, other than the leader going to that achievement day, I don't think we spend a lot of money other than ribbons and so on for that; so 65 per cent salary and the rest is program money.

 

MR. PORTER: I want to move on to flooding, something you've been dealing with the last while, we've been dealing with it for years and years, it has been an ongoing issue and Truro is one of those areas that stands out. Where I come from . . .

 

MR. MACDONELL: Stands under at times.

 

MR. PORTER: Probably better well put unfortunately. We all have these areas, I certainly have them where I come from, there are a number of areas and those things just can't be helped based on where they are. I often have asked the question, how could you have ever gotten a permit to put a home and/or business there in some cases? You look back and you really question at times, maybe people weren't thinking then but these same places have been flooding forever and a day. We still see things being built around that.

 

Recently you announced some funding to go toward the flooding and having had some of that in my area, everyday people who have homes in low-lying areas who have been flooded in the past, this Spring again with the snow lying on and the tides just not working right, lots of water in their backyard and in some cases, right to their homes with destruction. It does a couple of things - it says you can't sell your home anymore because nobody wants it because everybody sees it so we need to figure out what to do next.

 

The next thing you look at is that little brook that flows through behind their home for most of the year is now a raging river and the waters run high up through and underneath and ruin their homes and they go through the process of tearing out insulation and replacing and doing the work and now they can't get insurance. All these issues are common in different places. They're wondering, what are you going to do for us in this program? Can you talk a bit about how some of these people can get some sort of support, financially. Maybe the second piece of that, while you're on it maybe you'll capture it anyway, minister, is they've asked why can't we berm this section up? Is there something in there to cover that?

 

I know there are other things, you've got the Department of Environment around waterways and you've got Transportation. I think about them, they do ditching every year so it could easily be bermed. That's one section I think about, and prevent some of that issue maybe in years ahead. Can you talk a bit about that or how that could work or if that's just not something that's in this plan?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I'm not sure if I should talk about it, only because I'm not the lead.

 

MR. PORTER: It falls under your department, though, doesn't it?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Well, the dikes do, if you want to come back when we do Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, I think it may have more influence on this program. About a $3 million program, $2 million of which comes to Agriculture but it's for dikes maintenance, of which we have 270 kilometres.

 

MR. PORTER: Is that just maintenance of dikes? I don't mean to interrupt there but just for clarity, that's just maintenance? That's not creating new dikes, minister?

 

MR. MACDONELL: No.

 

MR. PORTER : There's nothing there for new.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Not if we can help it. Probably if we could get rid of some dikes we'd do it. So this is - I think I've indicated in the House - this is a gift from the federal government back in the 1960s. It was their responsibility so it has been an issue for the department. We do really well, we did really well with about $1 million and it wasn't always a line item. Anyway, now we expect to do much better.

 

The issue that I think you're referring to - this program, to my knowledge, was not designed to be a compensation program. This was a program that the Department of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations - and the money isn't there, the money has to be requested or TCA, so it's not sitting in my Department of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations. The $2 million, I think we have (Interruption) TCA, okay, same thing, but it's to be on the more municipal homeowner side because the dikes are to protect agricultural land, that's the purpose of the dikes. There's a lot of infrastructure on those dikes, believe me. If you look at the assessment of properties, like 10 per cent of it is agriculture and 90 per cent of it is municipal infrastructure, generally.

 

This money is supposed to be cost-shared money. In other words, the province contributes part of the funding and the municipality matches the funding for a particular project that they want to do. Like if you're talking about constructing a berm, then if that's the project the municipality deems would alleviate issues in the future, then I believe that would be one they could apply to and then the funding would go in a cost-shared manner.

 

MR. PORTER: But through Service Nova Scotia, though, if I'm not mistaken.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I'm pretty sure, at least the conversation I had the other day, because I asked about this program specifically because I needed to kind of get my awareness level but as far as I can tell you right now, until somebody tells me something different, on the other $700,000 or $1 million, that's led through Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations.

 

MR. PORTER: That's fine, you can appreciate where people come from about not knowing that kind of detail, nor do they care. What they know is oh, there's some package out there to fix some flooding issues and what they see is, how do I get some of this to help me fix my problem.

 

That's fine, we'll work with the municipal unit on it and perhaps they can look at the idea there.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Your world and mine are similar; we're on the Minas Basin, I have a lot of kilometres of dike land. People don't think of Hants East as having dikes but we do, so yes, the whole tidal world applies to a lot of the properties in my constituency.

 

MR. PORTER: You talked about having a couple of hundred kilometres there, or miles, one or the other, of dike. How much of that actually needs work, do you know?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Well, I don't think the whole 200-plus kilometres. We kind of do the worst first. We do some topping up on the dikes every year and work on the dikes every year and the question is are you just maintaining it or are you getting ahead? I don't know if I have an exact number, I would think if it were a kilometre or two kilometres a year that really needed it, but I don't know how that works.

 

Sometime over the winter, something seemed fine last Fall because of a particular issue in the winter, in Grand Pre in particular, a group down there wrote me and there was part of the foreshore ahead of the dike, I don't think it was actually so much a problem with the dike as it would be if you don't do something in the next year or whatever. My staff went down there and looked at it and we're quite sure we can do something to fix that this year if we haven't done it already.

 

Annual maintenance we do with our existing budget and the new money will address the topping issue. That would be like $1 million for that.

 

MR. PORTER: I wanted to get into a bit of the annual maintenance stuff that you're doing. Obviously you're aware of the causeway in Windsor, the gates there, you folks sort of manage that area. My understanding is that there have been some issues with the gates in the past. Can you give me an update on where we are with that? Are the gates going to be replaced or restored or changed? That will lead into another question with regard to the highway itself.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I don't know if I can give you an answer. I remember last Fall the warden, Mr. Dauphinee approached me. I was down to see council there and he raised this issue about the gates. I know that at the time we resolved it, we kind of allayed his concerns (Interruption) Oh, the work is done, it's fixed.

 

MR. PORTER: That's great, that piece had been fixed. The gates have been there since around 1970 and I think there have always been some ongoing issues and that's to be expected when you have infrastructure that old. Is there a time when you see that system being replaced with something else? I guess I think about that one section of highway not yet twinned, it would be reasonable that one would think that when that was done we would see a new gate or system or whatever might be required.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I think you're probably right. I'm not sure what the plan is, if they're going to build another causeway beside that, I would think that this is the "John MacDonell, I'm not an engineer" analysis; it looks to me like there's enough room on that beside - I don't know if you can take away that railway or what. Anyway, I would assume if it were to go the way you have indicated, that possibly they would put another causeway beside the causeway. I think it would require another dam structure and not meaning damn structure, but I think somebody else will be paying for it. I think that would come out of TIR rather than us.

 

The other issue you raise around the age of the present structure, we monitor that very closely and I would have to agree with you, at some point in time, I can only assume, you'd have to say that can no longer be there, we'll have to replace that with a more modern structure. I haven't had anybody come to me to indicate we're at that stage yet. But if you think about the job that's being done there, it is one that we monitor closely knowing that we cannot leave that until the last minute to entertain doing something about that when it needs to be done.

 

MR. PORTER: I guess that's why I raised the issue. There is no plan, as you know, in the five-year plan for transportation or anywhere else right now to twin that highway. This would only be the Chuck Porter version, the highway is quite potentially wide enough to even put a Jersey barrier, that we see through certain areas of metro, through there.

 

People that I've talked to over the years quite favour that actually. There's a little bit of straightening out and some work that could be done there and the issue of safety of course, that's the number one concern with the highways. But you said a moment ago and that was leading to my next question is the concern that it's 40-odd years old now, you can't wait until the last minute. When it does all of a sudden require something significant, and the last one was - some may refer to it as significant, there were issues with the closing and stuff. It has a vital role to play where it is, as we all know.

 

I think from what I heard you say probably it's safe to say that you don't have a plan right now or aren't looking out a number of years to, say, when it hits the 50-year mark in age if nothing has been done with the highway, we have to have a plan to change that based on just typical infrastructure aging.

 

MR. MACDONELL: We actually might. It's just that I'm not aware of it, I just know that it has ongoing monitoring and nobody has come to say we're going to need to make an application to Treasury Board, this is going to be on somebody's wish list. That hasn't happened yet. I just want you to know that if it was to be deemed that two years out is the lifespan of that gate, then I'd know it. We'd be on that.

 

MR. PORTER: I guess that was my next question, does the department have any idea what the age is? I know I don't and no one has raised it but knowing the infrastructure is getting older, issues increase as the age of that facility gets a little more worn. I don't know if it has a 50-year span or a 100-year span, I really don't know. Would I assume then as part of the monitoring, are there engineers actually out there doing the actual monitoring? I see your assistant shaking his head to the affirmative and how often does that happen?

 

MR. MACDONELL: We do have an engineer on staff who was involved with the monitoring of all our structures, that would be our aboiteaux and so on, on our dikes. This one is on a continual kind of monitoring program, there has been nothing, at least to this point, that indicates that we have to look farther out, but I can ask the question. I'm curious now that you've asked it to see what our people's analysis might be of a timeline that we might want to consider.

 

I'm thinking you don't order this at Home Depot. This would be one of those things that takes a little bit of prep work but I don't know necessarily when that was put in, whether that was just done as a Department of Agriculture, our own staff did the engineering. Whether that would be the case in the world today or whether there are a number of these structures around Atlantic Canada and North America, whatever, so somebody generally knows they're good for 65 years and when you get approaching that stage you'd better have it replaced.

 

The fact that you've raised it now makes me think I might want to ask a few more questions. Whatever I can find out on that, I'd be glad to let you know. But presently our monitoring indicates that it's fine and it looks to be fine certainly for the next while into the future but I'm curious now to see what the long-term impact on its wear would be.

 

MR. PORTER: Thanks for that, I appreciate that very much and I think that's certainly worth looking into. Maybe while you're doing that you can work with the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal and a long-term plan could actually be developed where both would be completed in some fashion. That only makes sense as well, all kidding aside.

 

I'll move on - I know my hour is moving along quickly on me. Is there a program of community pasturing? Maybe you can speak to that. You know why - some farmers just don't have enough land to go out and hay their own. How does that work?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I might need some education in this regard. Generally I think there is a pasture group or a pasture organization that kind of administers the pasture. Really how it's supposed to work is they're supposed to collect a fee from the people who want to use it and probably on a per head basis of the animals that go in the pasture to help cover their costs for fencing and whatever. You can imagine, like everything, where you have to collect money from people for something, that doesn't always go well.

 

With that said, we have - there is a Mabou pasture, there's Minudie, Cape John, Sainte-Anne's Marsh, Digby County. I know from - well you would know - I have memories of driving across the Tantramar Marsh and all you can see is cattle so the amounts of livestock in the province are down appreciably. I know the Cape John pasture we still get a fair turnout. I don't really have numbers. I've talked to people who - if I say Mabou, I think I'm right - I did talk to someone who still put cattle in the Mabou pasture. An interesting story because they came home on their own. When the first snow came, they showed up in his yard - had enough of that.

 

We have significant capacity - because I don't think there's a community pasture in your part of the world.

 

MR. PORTER: Not that I'm aware of.

 

MR. MACDONELL: The people who use them, who are close enough that it's an advantage for them, they like them. I guess if I was close enough I'd use it too.

 

MR. PORTER: You talked about fee for service, if I've got it right. Is there a funded program within your department somewhere? You don't do that.

 

MR. MACDONELL: We don't fund it as far as I know. They're all owned by the Farm Loan Board, but they're all run basically fee for service. We don't supplement.

 

MR. PORTER: You talked about the mink regulations, are they all now implemented fully?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes - well, I mean, the legislation is passed and the regulations are passed and I think as far as proclamation being in use, I think it is. Now anybody who was established prior to that would have three years to be up to snuff. Anybody who was one of the established producers, but if they make a change within a certain number, I think, on their ranch, then they have six months. They have to be up to snuff in six months; they don't have the three years anymore. Once they make a significant change on their farm, then they're not grandfathered.

 

MR. PORTER: What is a significant change, what would that reflect, do you know?

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Mr. Porter, just a reminder that you have about 10 minutes left in the time that is allotted for your caucus.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I'm not sure if it's 100 animals or - I'm trying to figure out what the difference is. I think there is a certain significance to the change you make, so that before you could put those animals on that ranch, you have to meet the standard and then we'll say yes, go ahead, you can fill your cages. We'll get that for you but I know there is - I don't think it's if you were to add six cages, you've got to hit the standard. I'm thinking it would have to be a fair move but maybe I'm wrong on that, maybe any move.

 

MR. PORTER: Okay, that's fine, I'm just kind of curious as to how big a difference, how big a shift. I know the mink breeders have had a fair bit of input over the years in helping develop and were quite happy. I talked to those guys, they seemed to be happy to have the input and favoured the strictness, if you will, on some of the regulations. They wanted it to be a non-issue, given some of the issues they've had. They want people to know that they're environmentally sound and so on.

 

I haven't heard from anyone but I'll just ask this question to you, as minister; have they been back in touch to say look, we're having some issues or are things actually running adequately, smoothly whatever the right term is?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I guess it could be such a thing that I could be the last to know. I met with the president and their executive director about three weeks ago, time kind of runs together, I think it was about three weeks ago. They seemed to be in a very good place. They recognize the need and they were not anti-government on the regulations. I think they were curious about where Growing Forward 2 was going and what the possibilities for help were for some of the environmental staff for them.

 

As far as them coming to us with a litany of complaints from mink producers, they didn't do it. We had a really good meeting and it looked as though they were heading for another banner year on price.

 

MR. PORTER: Is there a number there in growth opportunities? Is there a percentage that you would foresee or they foresee as being, or are they pretty much status quo where they're at?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Well, Mr. Chairman, if there's an issue on growth, it will be feed. If there's anything that holds them back, it will be availability of food supply for the mink. This is an industry that started out with people with a few mink in the backyard because they had this fish by-product in the south end of the province that really had no other value. As we've seen over time, lots more of this fish product, there's another use, you can make money with it, processing it and using it for something else.

 

That has put some pressure on them and obviously, I think it's for some years now, they've been buying - I was down to one of their feed kitchens, there's foodstuffs coming from Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec and they've kind of put together now. It's not particularly haphazard, they've put together a recipe, really a formula on what's kind of healthy foodstuff for mink. So if there's anything I think that will slow the growth, it will be availability of feed. I think that's one that they are concerned about.

 

MR. PORTER: The regulations also take in that feed kitchen section of all of this. Is that part of that . . .

 

MR. MACDONELL: I don't think we regulated the kitchen, we regulated the feed, the feed when it's on the farm . . .

 

MR. PORTER: But not the kitchen.

 

MR. MACDONELL: As far as I know, it wasn't part of the regs, no. They'd be subject to the same - they're a manufacturing facility that they can't pollute, the same as any other, under the Department of Environment so yes.

 

MR. PORTER: Okay, thank you. I don't have a whole lot of time left but I'll move on to this, can you talk a bit about the new entrants coming into the industry of farming in general? Is there one area or the other that has been a little more outstanding than the other? What's out there to get these young people to stay and to carry on the family farms that we're not seeing a lot of anymore?

 

MR. MACDONELL: There has been a bit of an uptake - well obviously the mink - there has been a bit of uptake on the sheep industry. Sheep flocks have grown and a few more of them so I'm kind of glad to see that. I don't know about necessarily how much growth - I met with cattle producers here a short while ago and I didn't see as many young people there. I think there are some other odder things like vineyards, I think the wine thing - now I don't know about new entrants, I don't know if I can say young people - but there are people who had made money in other things and are investing in vineyards. I mentioned hops, there's some interest in growing hops. I know when I was at Natural Resources there was a fair bit of interest in people wanting to lease Crown land for sugar bush and for blueberries. I think you probably would see some interest in both of those areas for young people who are interested in agriculture.

 

Off the top of my head those are kind of the main ones, I know the supply-managed commodities - but I don't know necessarily about the shift to younger people - are the ones that attract young people but because of the quota they're slightly more difficult to get into even though the income is somewhat more secure. I think probably those transitions of succession are more within the families. The other things that people can do that are not quota related that you can get a start at, there are still possibilities, like I mentioned about the sheep cheese is one where there has been a little bit of interest in milking sheep to produce feta cheese.

 

A number of different things, I don't know if any one of them are bringing people on in any great numbers but just places where we see some people trying some different things. A fair bit of interest in horticulture - there is an operation up in my area, actually up in Selma, that a young fellow took over his family operation with greenhouses and so on and really committed. Of course he has had kind of a lifetime of working with his parents so he's probably in a good place for taking it over.

 

MR. PORTER: You mentioned a bit of growth in sheep and a couple of other things. Is there a certain number by way of that, I mean a head count that works or doesn't work for an individual who wants to get into this, breakeven point or make-a-little-money point? You would have a little experience in that I guess.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I think you basically have two options, well probably three options. You can do the feedlot thing where you just basically flow through, you can buy lambs that other people have produced, finish them, and sell them. There are not a lot of those but I know of one and I guess they do a really good job. There was one in your constituency that no longer exists and those lambs went to Cumberland County so there is quite a good operation there.

 

Then there is basically keeping ewes, wintering ewes and lambing them out. I don't think we do much intensive lambing, there are operations in Quebec I know where they do three lambings in three years, they lamb every eight months. You have to be on your game to do that and be paying attention to your livestock, it's demanding, it's demanding on the animals.

 

I think the people that I talk to who do that are somewhere in the 800 breeding ewes range, 800 to 1,200. I never asked them but I'm thinking that that's probably the range where if you're going to make a living at it you've got to be somewhere there.

 

Then you have kind of smaller, purebred operations, kind of like the one I have which I can hopefully some day I'll have 50 breeding ewes. If I raise a lamb for market, I get $200 to $250 maybe from Northumberlamb and the price right now is down a bit, I think, from that. I sold purebred registered rams last year in Manitoba and Saskatchewan for $800 apiece and ewes for $500 apiece. So for me, and I'm selling a specific, purebred animal that is 100 per cent British bloodlines, so not every purebred Suffolk in the country is that, there's lot of people breeding purebred Suffolk who are not doing that. That gives you an idea of the difference in the price but I'm keeping them longer, or a little bit longer and I'm probably feeding them a little bit more, in terms of grain maybe, so there's a bit of an expense.

Certainly I think the margin is quite good. Now I'm not going to have 800 of those, I could supply all of North America, I think, with breeding stock with an operation that size. Anyway, really it's just whatever is manageable. You can't really relate what I'm doing to kind of full-time, make-a-living, even if I had 50 animals.

 

Anyway, I see that I'm being signalled. I think you'd need about 800 animals, roughly, to make a living, if you're going to raise lambs for market.

 

MR. PORTER: Thank you, minister, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: That concludes the Progressive Conservative caucus hour. We will move on to the Liberal caucus for another hour and there will be 25 more minutes remaining tonight and I assume that the Progressive Conservative caucus would want those 25 minutes?

 

MR. PORTER : We might.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, thank you for the suspense. We will recess for at least five minutes.

 

[7:33 p.m. The subcommittee recessed.]

 

[7:39 p.m. The subcommittee reconvened.]

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: We will resume the Subcommittee of the Whole House on Supply debating Agriculture. We will have one hour for the Liberal caucus, start time is 7:39 p.m.

 

The honourable member for Kings West.

 

MR. LEO GLAVINE: I wanted to start off with a topic that's a pretty hot topic in the Annapolis Valley at the moment and that is the statement of provincial interest in agricultural land. I know when Kings County recently held an information session this was pretty well the order of business at that public meeting. I know your colleague, the member for Kings North was present for that particular session.

 

I was looking at the report, Protecting and Preserving Agricultural Land in Nova Scotia, on Page 6 of that document it states, "The ALRC report suggests that the province regulate farmland where municipalities have been reluctant to proceed on their own." Minister, I wonder where you and your government are at the moment in relation to that statement?

 

MR. HOWARD EPSTEIN: Mr. Chairman, on a point of order. I realize that we're dealing with a matter that spans the minister's two portfolios. Here, where probably quite legitimately there's an interaction between the Agriculture function and the Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations function, I guess I simply wanted to point out that it's the custom of this committee to deal separately with the minister's two portfolios where a minister appears before us who has more than one portfolio. I thought the preliminary to the point that was raised was quite legitimately within the ambit of Agriculture but it just seemed to me that the question at this point seemed to stray into Municipal Relations. It was a little unclear. I don't want to object to the question because I think legitimately it does cover the two portfolios but I just did want to note that it was our custom to try and at least keep separate the multiple portfolios when a minister does appear in front of us.

 

I guess if we were to find ourselves in an extended excursion into Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations matters, then I might raise it again, but just a point of observation I guess at this point.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Certainly, we are dealing with Agriculture at this time and we will look at that resolution after we finish the questioning. We will proceed in that vein.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Thank you, I appreciate the comment made by the member for Halifax Chebucto. I can approach it from a little bit of a different angle.

 

I wonder, minister, where you and your government now stand in terms of a provincial policy regarding the protection of agricultural land? That strictly is the domain of agriculture as opposed to whether or not we get municipal governance at certain aspects of that. The protection of agricultural land, we know that we had a landmark document produced just a couple of years ago and it made a number of pretty strong recommendations so I wonder where the minister now sees at least the evolution towards the more prominent agricultural zones or province-wide policy? How do you see that emerging or developing?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Good question. I don't mind going here - if it turned out to be four hours, it might be different. But since my department prepared a briefing note on it, they deemed it significant enough. The land use report on protection and preservation of farmland was a joint report by my department and Minister Jennings at the time with Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations.

 

I'm not entirely sure how you would make the role more provincial in the sense - I think the province has some interest. If I had resources, I'd probably want to do a more comprehensive soil analysis across the province, for instance, and do that through the Department of Agriculture. Presently I don't have those resources. But the present soil maps - and probably the federal government would have some help in this - but the present soil maps were done in a way that the samples were taken quite a distance apart so there have kind of been newer ways of doing this to get a more comprehensive look at the soil type. That's something that I have an interest in and also the fact that the statements of provincial interests only applied to municipalities that have a planning strategy.

 

My other hat, my municipal hat, makes me think that if I had the resources I'd try to help municipal units that don't have a planning strategy to get that done. As much in that regard that I think then they could cover the whole province - since I feel it really is the responsibility of the municipalities to have control over their planning, like where they want to do things - that probably it's best suited to be left to them as to their determination and then when they do their planning to take into consideration. I think the statement was really, look, when you're planning consider this, what happens with agricultural land.

 

It probably seems a bit subjective, it's kind of harder to nail down because when it comes to water, even the Department of Environment, there are things that you can and can't do if you were building a house, putting up a factory, or whatever. If you want to protect farmland make it profitable to be farming and if farmers are making money their land will stay in agriculture. So we go down that road with programs to try to ensure that more and more farmers are making money and hopefully sustain their farms in agriculture. I'm not sure if I exactly answered your question, I gave you an answer but I'm not sure if it answered the question.

 

MR. GLAVINE: I guess what I was trying to move towards is a greater sense, or confirmation, that the province does want to make strong legislation, strong guidelines - whether it's for municipalities or for the province - that our farmland is going to be protected. We haven't seen, of course, the same erosion loss of farmland because we've had a decline in farming, let's face the reality in our province.

 

However there are Class 2 and Class 3 soils - and really a small amount of - when you're talking about a determination of a more up-to-date soils map for the province. I was wanting to see how strong you are, your government is, in protecting Class 2 and Class 3 soils because that's where I see a province-wide view could be stronger than breaking it up into 18 counties of the province. Also, in the provincial statement of interest there was the decision that four one-acre lots could be parcelled off for family that are on current active farms. Currently in Kings County you can have a 20-acre lot that farmers can sell or give to a family member.

 

The farmers that I spoke to thought that yes, it could be a more confined area of four lots, it could be a distribution of four lots. One of the strongest arguments that I hear is, of course, that fragmentation of farmland and the need to have the larger tracks, not just even for large-scale commercial operations, even a good-size family farm needs to have uninterrupted land to work on. What I was wanting to move towards or to try to get where the department seems to have some thinking in relation to a document on preserving agricultural land, how far are you along in either leaving it to the counties or will the province say this is our policy from this day forward?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Mr. Chairman, well I think what I was hoping to do, you see when the issue around Kings County and the Greenwich area landed on my desk, as Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations, I thought what an odd world that I'm making this decision. So it strikes me that probably the URB or some other body should be determining whether you're following the planning strategy in relation to those statements of provincial interest.

 

With that said, I thought the statement of provincial interest as it exists now was somewhat vague. So it struck me that Class 2 and 3 soil would be more valuable than Class 4. I'm not so tied to this in the sense that if people felt that Class 4 was - not more valuable than 2 or 3 but should be considered the same - I'd be willing to look at that.

 

I mean, you can grow blueberries pretty much on a rock pile, so it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to - you know I think we tend to think wherever you can grow carrots, it's good soil. So you have to have some consideration for the other things that are food that grow quite well that are not on very good soil.

 

Then also we have the issues of growing things like sods that are not food at all. So you may not be aware - you might be aware - that about 64 per cent of the Class 2 soil in Kings County is in agriculture, that's number one, because there's a lot of agriculture in Kings County so we've only served to tell you that there's a fair bit of Class 2 soil. The report would indicate how much of Class 2 soil is covered by non-agricultural, you know parking lots, shopping malls, whatever.

 

The Department of Natural Resources owns I think as much 2, 3, and 4 soil in Kings County as is in agriculture. So you have pretty well doubled that agricultural soil that's just contained by DNR, probably mostly forested land. I'd like for people to think seriously about what the availability of land to grow food is, to give a preference to the best soils that we have but not to rule out what the advantage would be if Nova Scotia had 2 million people instead of 1 million people and what impact that would have on our market for farmers if they had twice as many people to feed. Then they have to live somewhere, these other million people.

 

So if we could avoid putting them on the Class 2 and 3 soil that would be a good thing. But that doesn't mean that if you needed to build a hospital, you have to look a bit at what is the greater good that the municipality wants to do with the use of their land for their citizens. So it may turn out that having a hospital on five acres of Class 2 soil might be the best thing you could do with those five acres of soil.

 

I guess this is the way that I would like the municipalities to think about it; the issue around the four lots - now somebody asked me the question around if an operation owns five farms, if a family owns five farms, is it four lots off of each farm. I said no, it's four lots off of one farm or four lots, period.

 

I don't necessarily think I'm so tied to one acre because it has to perk test. I would definitely think that - now you mentioned about the 20-acre lots - I read an article where somebody had three acres growing horticultural lettuce, whatever, supplying restaurants, doing very well on three acres. So I would just as soon see it, if you have 20 acres and put a roadway up the middle of it and build your house, you're kind of taking that larger piece out of easy production. If it's possible to put housing along your roadways with your frontage and leave the centres between them free for agriculture, I would sooner see that than see houses in the centre of that land.

 

Really, what I want is for the municipalities to take a look at the statement, tell me what you're thinking. If you have things that you think might tweak it, make it better, raise concerns I'd like to hear from you. I think the Federation of Agriculture had asked me about extending the date, I don't know if I've sent correspondence back to them on that, but I'm fine with that. I saw something that was looking to the end of the year, they wanted the consultation period to go to the end of the year. I'm good with that.

 

Probably something else that should be considered is the whole notion of whether or not a municipality should set a limit on how big your farm can be. To me, you should be able to make a living. If they say you can only have six beef cows and you need 250, then that impacts the Statement of Provincial Interest on the preservation of farmland. If you could farm it you can preserve it. If the operations are so small that you can't make a living, that's a bit of a problem.

 

I think you got the drift of my view. I'm not so tied to anything that I couldn't think about it if somebody offered something different but I think preserving the best soil, as much as you can, is important. I think allowing farm families to be families is important. Beyond that, I'm kind of open to see what the municipalities have to say on it.

 

MR. GLAVINE: I know those in Kings County and parts of Hants County as well as Colchester and Cumberland farm communities are concerned about this. I've actually had a few calls from about four different counties, but I was able to tell a few people that right now there is no protection of farmland in your county. This particular Statement of Provincial Interest doesn't really apply to you and that's one of the parameters that were set out in this document. They thought it would impact on them.

 

But their primary concern was that family, or just selling a building lot, how do you do that fine distinguishing. One of the challenges for the farm community, as we all know, especially when we get the development of an industry like the mink industry and in Annapolis County it's kind of the recent landed retirees that wanted a nice quiet, peaceful, tranquil area and discovered that there was a farm operation that's not quite in symmetry with their view of a pastoral setting. As a result, when you break up farmland and who may even be occupying one, two or 20 acres, you may start to run into conflicts which the farm community sees as unnecessary to their way of making a living. That's why I bring up the precautionary note about any further fragmenting of farmland.

 

I'll move off of that and since I had mentioned the mink industry, we know that it has been a very successful industry in terms of what it has generated around totally new income into the province, labour and finally regulations. I know the regulations are very short-lived in terms of being put in place. Could you, from the point of view of both the mink producer and people who have been finding the advancement of the mink industry in their communities very controversial, I'm wondering if you've heard some comments from both sides about the regulations and how it will shape the industry in the future.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I've heard very little from the mink industry in a negative way. I think there was really only one producer who was of the view that it might be too onerous. It's hard to know in the sense of the broader community because I think there were people who were of the view that you couldn't correct it, like the regulations couldn't correct it. I think by and large they just didn't want mink in their neighbourhood.

 

I think the odder thing that I found - and I mean "odder" not "otter" if we're talking mink. I know an otter is a mustelid but we're talking mink. One case I can think about is someone who was a poultry farmer - so there was already a farm - and was interested in adding a mink operation to his farm. I was surprised at the resistance to that because if there had been no farm there and somebody wanted to bring in a mink operation you think people might say I don't want it but this had already been a poultry operation and was an ongoing operation, it hadn't ceased, and so there was some resistance.

 

My hope is that over a very short period of time, and I guess maybe in some cases it won't be until the three years is up, until everybody who is a present-day producer gets their operation on-line with the regulations. Some of those operators are moving ahead anyway, they're not waiting for the three years, some of the more progressive individuals. I'm as eager as anybody to show that this can work. I've been to one operation, well actually he told me that one day a carload of elderly women showed up at his farm and they wanted to buy plants, they thought he had a greenhouse operation. Right there in his yard there was no issue of odour or anything, I don't know if he tried to sell them mink coats or not.

 

I think I'm as eager as anybody, I think the regulations are absolutely in the right place and I think to have a regulated sector of the agriculture community on manure storage and water issues and waste it is quite a thing considering no other sector has it. I think we can prove that it will work and we'll allay a lot of concerns that people have now and clean up the environment which is paramount.

 

MR. GLAVINE: I do concur that having the regulations is in fact critically important to the industry and its future place in farming in the province. Has the same pattern of growth occurred over the last three or four years as what was happening, I guess, 2000 to 2005 or so? Are we still seeing growth in the industry or did we see a little boom perhaps prior to the regulations thinking that getting in and getting started would be a factor but we know the regulations are actually all encompassing, there is no grandfathering or so forth?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I don't know if my staff would even have those numbers because unless they have - well I guess we could find out who is registered as a farmer with the federation or something but those are their numbers. Unless they took out loans with the Farm Loan Board or something, which some of them wouldn't have. It's a really interesting question.

 

My perception of it - because I've got to tell you, prior to becoming minister, like this was completely under the radar for me. As a member of the Opposition, I never got a call about a mink farm in my life and when I became minister, I never got the seat warm at my desk before the phone was ringing off the hook about issues around mink farms. So it's a little bit of a shock.

 

I think there has been a fairly rapid acceleration in the growth of mink farms since 2009, mostly based on price, that has been driving it and in a number of cases, thank God, by younger people, but mostly connected to the industry. Those statistics that indicated the only province in the country last year where the number of farms had grown, there was certainly a portion of that that I would have to say was related to the mink industry.

 

I think it has been more recent than, say, the 2005 number you were thinking about. I think it has been quite a bit more recent than that, it's fairly significant. I think in 2009 there were about a million-ish mink killed, pelted. I think last - I haven't really seen the numbers but I'm thinking it's somewhere around 1.4 million or some such thing, which is a fairly significant growth in the number of animals in a short period.

 

MR. GLAVINE: How many farms at the moment - are you aware of the number of farms?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Well, within a range. I'm thinking of the 80 to 100 range but I could be corrected on that.

 

MR. GLAVINE: One of the real challenges, of course, I now we've had the environmental factor and we're all hoping, of course, that the regulations will meet that head-on and that the industry will be on a much smoother path, in terms of that controversy and opposition to what can be a sustainable and a good industry for the province.

 

What about research in the province with, what I think is a real challenge, and that is the Aleutian disease, which I know for the first time moved into Kings County this year and there had to be depopulation of some of the farms in Kings County for the very first time. In fact that was one of the areas that, in fact, attracted several farms to Kings County, that they were free of the Aleutian disease. We know it can be spread in a number of different ways but when you have to depopulate the herd and start over, it is indeed a challenge to the farmer.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I'll just make a correction, in 2011-12 there were 150 mink farms.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Wow, thank you.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes, I say "wow", too. To get back to your issue on the Aleutian disease, I don't have a number but we funded, we're helping to fund anyway, that research project in Pictou that Dr. Farid has been working on. Actually I think all of Canada is looking at that. I think mink producers across the country are eager to see and I think actually Canada mink producers I think may be helping with that, I'm not positive on that, so there is a lot of interest. Whether or not it's some way to come to a cure for Aleutian disease or actually to be able to breed animals that can have Aleutian disease but doesn't impact them, which I think is maybe where they're going with this.

 

I'm as curious as anybody, my background is biology. I find all of this interesting so I'm eager to see what comes out.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Speaking of things going on in Truro, a little bit of a look as well at the relocation of the department to Truro. We know that some of the programs around relocation of departments and employees was not favourably met by employees. I would think with what's available in Truro, from agricultural support systems and so on, maybe it did go very well. I'm wondering - were there some employees who simply were at a point in their career where they did not transfer? I'm wondering what kind of numbers actually have been borne out over the last number of months.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I just might read what I've got. I just want to make it clear that we had about 140 people in Truro anyway prior to that move. The new positions have been located in existing or renovated offices at the Dalhousie Agricultural Campus and Perennia Innovation Centre. Six positions remain to be filled for the Bible Hill locations. Recruitment is under way for positions to be filled over the next three months. This has been done in a way that maintains the department's capacity to deliver mandated programs and recruit and orient new employees.

 

Two staff voluntarily chose to relocate to Truro and the others are newly hired in Truro. Four people are waiting for placement in Halifax. We spent $1.7 million in 2012-13 in relocation activities related to the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

 

I think the response has been quite good. For some people this worked out to be something that worked well for them. We were really pleased that the quality of people who were not with the department, but came from another department that Truro worked for them or they lived in Truro, but they worked for ERDT, so working in Truro for the Department of Agriculture worked well. They brought the skills that we needed and another perspective as well, so we're really pleased about that. We still have some positions to go, but we think that we're in a good place for getting those filled and we've been really happy with the quality of the people we've been able to bring to the department.

 

MR. GLAVINE: I know that it was primarily focused on Truro-Bible Hill. Was there any integration of personnel with Kentville and the research centre through this change and new structure that was put in place for the department?

MR. MACDONELL: I'll say no, but we had been working with Kentville kind of - well we started, I think, a year or more ago to offer people. I'm thinking we have people connected from the department to the Kentville Research Station - not connected to this move. The Farm Loan Board is in Kentville and it seemed to me there was something else that we - it was more around research, but I'll have to verify that.

 

We've been very eager to partner with Kentville Research Station to convince the federal government that this is a facility worth keeping. You probably are as aware as anybody about various federal facilities across the country that they've closed and we were able to keep Nappan and Kentville. Perennia staff were moved back into the research station and research staff from Dalhousie Agricultural Campus is co-located at the Kentville Research Station.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Moving on to ThinkFarm, which was an initiative introduced in 2010, I'm just wondering at this point in terms of providing information about available programs and I'm wondering how that program is doing in terms of pickup and advantages that probably weren't there without this particular program.

 

MR. MACDONELL: It's fully subscribed, I'll tell you that, so the uptake - probably if we could have had it bigger we would have filled it, a lot of interest in it.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Then FarmNEXT replaced the new entrants to agriculture and I'm wondering how this program is going. One time we would talk about programs for young farmers but I think that is misleading, today we're finding that there is a very wide range of new entrants into agriculture. You have professionals who develop a small farm operation as you alluded to a moment ago with an acre or a couple of acres. There is a lot of produce that can be put through a farm market and other different ways of selling at the farm gate. I'm just wondering how that program has been picking up.

 

MR. MACDONELL: It's $600,000 in that program, we spent it all last year. I'm going to say some things and then Linda can correct me. Basically it's really two streams, $20,000 and $30,000; the $20,000 are toward people who have a background, I think, in farming mostly connected to farms. The $30,000, if I'm correct, has to do with people who are not as associated with farms and needed more mentoring and we offered mentoring in these cases.

 

The way the program works, if I'm correct, is that we offered really a paydown of your loan with the $20,000 or $30,000 so that in other words we kind of gave you that amount in relief off your loan so that if you amortized your loan over 20 years or 25 years with a reduction of $20,000, with a gift of $20,000. So if you took out $150,000 but we only charged you for $130,000 or a $120,000 over 25 years the interest advantage to you was greater than the $20,000 or the $30,000 amortized going into the future. The reason for trying to do this was we're trying to give as much of an advantage for our $600,000 that we could.

 

To give you kind of another example, when we try to develop a program, and I'll think about the genetic enhancement program for sheep, I said I want a new entrant component on this program because we're so limited in our funding for new entrants that if we can come up with another program but give a new entrant component, so somebody with a smaller flock that's a newer person can get the advantage if we set a flock limit. Like when it came to genetic enhancement for the cattle you had to have a certain size herd in order to be considered actually a beef farmer but we reduced that if you were a new entrant so we try to offer in other programs some way to actually enhance the program so that new entrants get an advantage that's outside of the new entrants program that we offer through the Farm Loan Board. Now before I stop am I close to right? Okay, yes.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Then yes it has been a positive program. Earlier on in our conversation I was talking about potential areas where some investment could in fact be a way of initiating stronger, not just interest but investment and growth of agriculture. I am wondering why new entrants didn't become one of those targeted areas. You also mentioned, which is one of the great assets in our province, and that is the Agricultural College and even though we have the Dalhousie attachment, for a generation or so to come it will still be the Ag College. It has been instrumental in engendering futures in the industry. Is that an area that you feel we should still be looking at to be able to invest in?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I'm not entirely sure I'm clear on what your question is. Are you asking me do we think new entrants is a place we should invest in?

 

MR. GLAVINE: In other words, yes, because if we have wonderful trained farmers with terrific backgrounds, to run a complex farm operation today of any size you need to have a diverse array of skills and Ag College is still one of the greatest areas to prepare you for this. Why wouldn't we make a stronger investment for new entrants to be able to either move off a family farm or while they're being mentored at an existing farm? A couple of the farms in the member for Kings North riding - Vermuelen's, the Rands, the Kidsons - all outstanding operations. A young farmer can be mentored on those farms but many reach a point where - gee, if I had a bit more investment I think I could get the land and I think I'm ready to go alone now. Why wouldn't this be an area that we would say does require a bit more support?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I don't think I should say it doesn't. As far as the Farm Loan Board, this money is not a gift necessarily, I guess in the sense of the $20,000 or $30,000 it probably looks like a gift in the sense that they're not paying interest on it. We had two years of interest forgiveness was the way we used to do it. But, I think I'll give you the answer I gave to a group of young farmers a couple of years ago, I said if you're going to go to the Farm Loan Board you need a business plan and if your plan can't survive without the $20,000 or $30,000, then it probably won't survive with it.

 

First of all, make sure that the plan you have really is a strong business case for borrowing, period. Then the $20,000 or $30,000 would probably be a help. We had a 2.9 per cent growth in agriculture in farm operations with the present program that we have. If we had had $1.2 million - if we doubled it - would we have had 6 per cent? Good question, I'm not sure. I can only tell you that it would be something I would be interested in looking at to the future for sure.

 

We came to balance this year, it would be my hope that moving off in the next year that we can actually think about places where - assuming we will have money, more money, that there are a number of places where I would like to think about, I actually have made a commitment that we would put some money back into land clearing and tile drainage so since I said that I think I'm committed to doing it.

But the question of more money in new entrants is should they get more money individually or should we just do more of them? If it's fully subscribed then are there more we should have given that same to but we ran out of money? Those would be the things we would look at, if it's fully subscribed every year and we can't kind of meet the need, we would probably consider expanding it. If it's not fully subscribed, then maybe we should consider increasing the amount. If it looks like it goes year after year and we don't get a full uptake, but I think it generally gets spent.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Is there any connection for new entrants with AgraPoint that provides some technical assistance and support? I know it's a fee for service and I wonder if there is any angle there where a new entrant could get that kind of help to get them through a real trouble spot - whether in animal husbandry or field crops or horticulture and so on.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I would be willing to stand to be corrected but I think that AgraPoint charges for the industry-broad things that it does, consultations. I think if Frank Jones calls with an issue on his farm, I'm not entirely sure that they charge, I think at least most of them are free.

 

The issue for new entrants, I think they would have the service available to them the same as anybody else, the question then is if Perennia has the expertise for whatever it is that they're doing. That's always the one that we like them to kind of keep their finger on the pulse. If they have to hire another specialist because they're starting to get demand for something that they feel they don't necessarily have the full background and the complement of expertise that they would like to have, then they have to make a decision about adding to their staff. We definitely would encourage that they do that.

 

If you're a new entrant, if it turns out there are new entrants that need service and they can't get it, we'd like to know that, I can assure you.

 

MR. GLAVINE: One of the areas that may very well be a topic in the House as the session goes along, there has been talk of legislation coming forward with regard to animal welfare and beefing up what already exists under the Animal Protection Act. I'm wondering why regulations were not used to accomplish what now may be brought back in through the legislative process. I always see when regulations are required at a point in time then part of government's ability and responsibility is to get those into place. We've had some serious cases of animal abuse, well documented, supported by the court system but yet we haven't moved in regulation to reel some of those in from further abuse. I'm wondering why you wouldn't have used regulation to deal with that.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Minister, before you respond, 10-minute mark for the Liberal caucus.

 

MR. MACDONELL: The use of regulation is to complement the Act. If the clauses in the Act require, like if it says a fee will be set in regulation then you can do that in regulation. But you generally don't say the offence will be set in regulation, you write that in the legislation, whatever the fee, if it's a penalty or whatever.

 

So far as I can tell there has been nothing about the actual wording in the Act that doesn't clearly indicate the intent and the power - and somebody can tell me I'm wrong - that we needed regulation for them to do something because in the example you used it went to court and because they went to court and were found guilty it's obvious that that indicates that's possible to do.

 

When you say it hasn't stopped the offences, well that's like saying our legislation for speeding hasn't stopped people from speeding. Well you know sometimes people speed more than once but there are different people. So somebody who is charged with an offence under the Animal Protection Act, well 300 miles away in another home, somebody else may be doing something similar or it doesn't even have to be the same thing but doing something that would fall under the Act as cruelty. That's the reason we put legislation in place, to get those people.

 

For some people they would never think of being cruel to their animals and maybe some people who are doing it may not necessarily realize it. Usually those things come from complaints by neighbours to cause an investigation to happen. It's one that because you have legislation in place, the legislation is to deal with them when they happen. You hope it might act as a deterrent, that maybe that will happen but generally I don't know if we have, to a point where nobody ever offends in a case of any law that we have.

 

In the case of - and I'm thinking you're thinking more around the companion animal thing - but in the case of the SPCA who does these investigations, I think 2012 is when the report was, they got 18,000 calls or complaints; 1,600 of those 18,000 they did investigations and there were five prosecutions that were successful. Now they say that they have 100 per cent success rate on their prosecutions so I guess they only had five that actually went to court, so out of 18,000 complaints, five warranted going to court. That gives you kind of the width and the breadth of the incidents in the province for that year.

 

MR. GLAVINE: I guess I was mainly focusing on the repeat abuser who truly does get identified and singled out that, in fact, the community becomes vigilant or whatever authorities are needed to make sure that person is not selling animals again, is not running a puppy mill or some variation of it. That's where I was targeting my thoughts in fact in that particular . . .

 

MR. MACDONELL: I think the courts can ban that person now, if the judge so wishes.

 

MR. GLAVINE: I just want to finish off with again on the local food issue. I think we've made some good progress in the province and I'm wondering what government now sees as some next steps. I mean, we're at about 13 per cent, roughly, give or take a little, of food produced in the province and consumed here because we also, of course, have export of our food so we may actually produce a bit more than that but in terms of actual consumption, around 13 per cent. I'm just wondering what you see as a couple of next steps that, in fact, may get us closer to the 20 per cent target, which I was really pleased to see your government put in the Act as a goal, as a target, and I'm just wondering now what you see as maybe the next couple of steps that will help along that path to reach the 20 per cent.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Before I do that I just want to let the member know that the North-Lumber-Land Resources Limited, the question that he asked was payment for the purchase of woodchips for the physical plant at the NSAC because they burn wood. Biggest part, about 80 per cent of the campus is heated by wood.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Oh, right on. I'm just wondering about that lumber connection so I appreciate that, thank you.

 

MR. MACDONELL: The Icelandair was a reimbursement of air fare for one of the professors at the NSAC for international travel costs.

 

MR. GLAVINE: Great, thank you.

 

MR. MACDONELL: So to get to your question. I think number one is that the further investment that we made in Select Nova Scotia because we can't legislate local, because of internal trade agreement with the rest of the country, we don't want them banning Nova Scotia apples in British Columbia even though they have an apple industry, and they don't want us doing the same here to theirs. Educating the public as much as we can to ask for local, to look for local, to tell those retailers and restaurateurs that they want local product when they look at the menu or when they're in the stores, we know that that is paying dividends so we've already doubled the budget line for Select Nova Scotia so we'll continue to do that.

 

I'm going to take issue with your 13 per cent number because when I think about dairy, chicken, and eggs, which are basically 100 per cent Nova Scotian, they're supply managed and they're based on our consumption. Then if you add into that we can't eat all the apples, we could feed all Nova Scotians with Nova Scotia apples, we grow more than we can consume. We grow two-thirds more carrots than we consume, we grow 30 million pounds of blueberries, wild blueberries, unless we're all going to eat 30 pounds apiece so I think you can have all you want. There are some areas like potatoes, I think, we don't - I'm always curious as to why, I think we have a soil type that can do it we just don't seem to have an industry. I think there is significantly more than that number.

 

The egg awareness for the work in schools, and I don' t know if you probably - I missed it because I was sick but generally we have an egg literacy program and I usually read in one of my local schools in the corridor there and I think I was going to go to Lantz this year and I was a little under the weather. Open Farm Day which we sponsor, farms and commodities associations. We try to have good communication with Federation of Agriculture because they do their own promotional work as well around the province. We support farmers' markets. There are lots that we do along with Select Nova Scotia that we try to get the word out on ask for Nova Scotia product, purchase Nova Scotia product because that money stays in the province and creates jobs and wealth. As mush we can do - and like I already indicated that for Select Nova Scotia or "buy local" we've doubled the budget from about $250,000 to $500,000.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you very much, minister, that concludes the second hour for the Liberal caucus. I'm not sure if the Conservative caucus is coming back or not. Apparently not but I know the NDP members do have some questions.

Minister your opening statement was 35 minutes we have had three one-hour sessions so we have 25 minutes remaining. How much time do you need for a closing statement? You need about a minute or less for the resolution.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes, probably two minutes or three. Beyond that I don't need much.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay, so three to five minutes would do it.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Yes.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Okay. So we will go to the NDP caucus for about 20 minutes.

 

The honourable member for Kings North.

 

MR. JIM MORTON: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wasn't really expecting that I was going to have time for questions but I'm glad that I do. You were just making some comments about buying local and I think in part referencing the Select Nova Scotia program.

 

One of the things I've been interested in for quite a long time is the Government of Nova Scotia's relationship with major food retailers in Nova Scotia and how programs like buy local or Select Nova Scotia might be playing out with them. I wonder if you could comment a little bit on what role the Department of Agriculture has played, I suppose in communication, not so much farm markets but with those larger retailers like Sobeys or Loblaw's and some of the new players that are perhaps entering the food retailing business.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Well the program is voluntary and there is a labelling component - I think it used to be Select Nova Scotia, there was a sticker. So really as far as just having a conversation with them around would you, there are no legislative levers to force them to do anything as far as local.

 

I will say there's a fairly good uptake, I think, from the two major grocery retailers who show a real interest in local product and they probably try to do that, I think, nationally; in other words, whatever province they have stores in, they try to promote that particular province. I don't hear as much angst from the Federation of Agriculture or the agricultural community as I used to once upon a time, around trying to get your product into stores. The one we all hear about was when Nova Scotia strawberries were starting to come on-line, that then the first thing one of the retailers, or both of them, would have product from somewhere else that they got cheaper and then say well we can get it here for so much less and that's what we're willing to pay you.

 

I don't hear so much of that now. As a matter of fact, I was in Charlie Keddy's yard one day with a group of young farmers and one of them actually told the story of being approached, I think it was by Sobeys, and told that if you will put in so many additional acres, we'll buy it. It was kind of a nice story that they were more interested in actually being able to advertise that it was local product, rather than a cheaper product.

 

I think Select Nova Scotia has helped and I think the way that Nova Scotians have picked up on the whole notion of the importance of their food being grown locally, and I think they probably think of that more - well some people think of it in terms of the environmental footprint, moving food halfway across the globe and I think some of them think of it more in terms of what the impact is on their community for farmers to make money and supply jobs and to maintain that rural bucolic nature of their community that they really like and they know that the easiest way to do that is for farmers to make enough money to make a living.

 

MR. MORTON: Are you saying that probably the important conversations that need to happen need to happen between individual farmers or agri-businesses and food retailers? I guess I'm curious about whether you think there is a role for government to play in that conversation.

 

MR. MACDONELL: I think the role for government is minimal. I think the internal agreement on trade handcuffs governments on what they can legislate in this regard. I met with some individuals from Loblaw just a short while ago. Their indication to me is that they're very keen on getting local. There was no gray area in their message. This is an important thing for them.

 

My staff meet with the retailers a few times a year; they have discussions. The produce buyers meet with the grocers twice a year and some of my staff attend those meetings. Before we bought those first six animals on our project toward our grass-finished beef project, I went to Stellarton and met people from Sobeys and told them what we were thinking about. We really hadn't even started but we had an interest in this grass-finished beef.

 

I think it was Mr. Potter who was the gentleman there at that time and he said, look, you don't need to go to Toronto if you have this issue. If you have something you want to promote, we can make that decision here - we don't have to send that up the line, we can do that. I think he indicated that his father-in-law had 100 or 200 head of cattle in Alberta, so I think the notion of grass-finished beef was - yes, well, come back, I'll talk to you.

 

The one thing he said was, in this building today there are 10 people making a pitch to us to buy a product from them that they've developed, and he said we're probably going to take one out of those 10; one of them will do a good enough job that we'll try it. He said, if you get this thing on your grass-finished beef pretty well ironed out that you have something to bring back to us in a while at some point in the future, we'd be really interested to talk to you. He said, something that I want you to think about is the impact to us - to the retailer - the cost of moving food across the country is significant. He said the more that we can supply locally and get rid of those transportation costs, we'd be very keen to talk to anybody around doing that.

 

As much as there is a marketing advantage I think, because their customers are coming in and asking them for local, but for them, the financial side around moving food long distances was something that he saw was imperative that they had to try to reduce those costs and whatever they could access locally and by reducing those costs, they were very keen to do it.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: If I could interject, I believe Ms. Raymond wants to have a question. We could come back to you, Mr. Morton, in a couple of moments - and others as well.

 

The honourable member for Halifax Atlantic.

 

MS. MICHELE RAYMOND: Thank you very much. Actually, I have many questions at this point, but just very quickly, I'm interested obviously in some of the issues around local, specialty and niche production and so on. I may not have been following this, but is the department pursuing any cross-marketing with Tourism?

 

MR. MACDONELL: I'll have to have somebody answer that for me, in a sense. I know a few years ago, I was in Opposition, but the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Tourism had put together a little tour, starting out in Rawdon Gold Mines in my constituency at Withrow's Farm Markets, and then they went on down to Stirlings in Hants West - just outside of Brooklyn in that area. Then we went on down - I think we went to the big greenhouse operators - den Haan's - I know I remember that that was another place we went, whether we stopped at, I think, probably Hennigars and those along the way, we stopped at several. They had a bus, I didn't travel on the bus, I had my own vehicle, so everybody else bailed out and went to a hotel and they started out the next day, but I went home and then came back and caught them. I'll just find out if we have kind of a link with Tourism and a program.

 

MS. RAYMOND: There is certainly a significant amount of international interest in specific foodways and Nova Scotia is on that map, I just wondered if it is putting itself there deliberately.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: We have about 10 minutes remaining and then the minister's summation. I understand Mr. Skabar has a question as well, but we want to finish this first.

 

MR. MACDONELL: We co-fund with Tourism's Taste of Nova Scotia and agri-tourism and food is a big part of that. We fund chefs tours, the restaurant and wine pairings and . . .

 

MS. RAYMOND: So there is some international outreach, is there?

 

MR. MACDONELL: . . . Restaurant Association of Nova Scotia, so yes, we do some things jointly with Tourism.

 

MS. RAYMOND: I'd be interested to know at some point what international marketing there is there. The other thing, I don't know if you can answer this quickly or not, I was interested in the conversation about new entrant subsidies. When I compare it to things like the first-time homeowner programs and so on which - the rebates - actually attach not so much to first-time homeowners as to new construction because people can be new homeowners every five years, they're not first time, as long as it's new construction. First-time homeowners can't actually get these rebates for renovations to existing stock. I'm wondering when the new entrant subsidies are necessarily attached specifically to the person rather than to the land or whether there is any consideration of combining so that you're not looking just at a subsidy which attaches to a person, but which is at some level attached to maybe soil type or whatever? What is the basis in attaching it to the person rather than to the terrain which might have a number of first-time owners?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Since our loans come from the Farm Loan Board, I think we attach it to your assets, the same as any other loan from the Royal Bank or whatever. It is actually attached to your land, your buildings . . .

 

MS. RAYMOND: It's asset backed.

 

MR. MACDONELL: If you go into default we get the farm, as much as we would just as soon not do that, but that's the backstop for the Nova Scotia taxpayer. We are one of the few - we might be the only one where the government actually has a loan board for agriculture. I'm thinking practically every other province in the country you're on your own, you're going to the Royal Bank or you're going wherever, and that doesn't mean farmers here don't do that. There is lots of operations going on where they don't have loans with us, am I right on that?

 

MS. RAYMOND: But there is that provincial backstop.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Alberta does, but basically, Alberta and us are unique across the country. Inasmuch as there are probably issues around trying to keep the politics out of our lending when people get into trouble, showing up at their MLA's door or the minister's door, because we have a board, the Farm Loan Board actually has a board and they make decisions that kind of act like an appropriate buffer, so the minister is not involved in the operations of the Farm Loan Board. We think it's something worth investigating, we think that it is appropriate for a government to have such an entity. We are just another offering in the marketplace really and people have the choice, quite often the banks may have a little better interest rate than we do but we think we are a more compassionate lender. Because we have a lot of expertise in agriculture generally, we tend to be more open to working with our clients if they run into issues to kind of help them through that more so than perhaps other lenders.

 

MS. RAYMOND: So perhaps business plans you expect are more responsive to lend than maybe the Royal Bank is.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you. We have about five minutes left for Mr. Skabar.

 

The honourable member for Cumberland North.

 

MR. BRIAN SKABAR: A short time ago you mentioned some issues, like we produce sufficient blueberries that we'd each have to eat 30 pounds a year, every man, woman and child in Nova Scotia. In the whole context of eating local and setting up what I deem to be artificial trade barriers - in Cumberland North, in Amherst and area, local means Westmoreland County, local means Moncton and area, far closer and more accessible than Truro or a lot of other places. Is there an appetite between the provinces to do more in terms of collaboration and coordination of our interprovincial trade barriers to that and other extents?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Actually there is. What we try to do is remove those barriers. New Brunswick cannot keep Nova Scotia product out and we can't keep New Brunswick product out because of our agreement in internal trade. There is an issue with New Brunswick not willing to let Nova Scotia milk in. There was an application to fight it in relation to Farmers Dairy and they won and they still never got their milk into New Brunswick.

 

I would say that the Atlantic Ministers used to meet, actually this year we didn't. I asked a few days ago to my secretary, could you find out what happened? The first year I was minister we went to Newfoundland, the ministers met, the next year was New Brunswick, the next year was P.E.I. and last year was Nova Scotia. We would have this meeting of our Atlantic Ministers purely to have a discussion around what are the things that we have in common, when we go to meet the federal minister at our federal-provincial-territorial meeting in the summer, is there a common front that we can present around the needs that we have? Is there anything we can have as a collective need that we can raise the case with the federal minister so we can try to speak with a united voice?

 

As much as we can try to do that, we do that. Although this year we didn't have one of those meetings; I'm at a loss.

 

MR. SKABAR: When you mentioned a short time ago that if we were 2 million people instead of 1 million people we'd have that much larger of a market and that much more people to buy local products. Well, I still think that we are closer to 2 million with Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, P.E.I and Newfoundland and that there are things that we do better than others and things that other people - although I can't think of anything right off - might do better than us. I understand then that dialogue to that effect has taken place but has broken down.

 

I know the issue with beef inspections - only federally inspected beef can cross provincial borders - that's correct?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Right.

 

MR. SKABAR: Even though Nova Scotia has a high standard of inspection and New Brunswick has none?

 

MR. MACDONELL: Right.

 

MR. SKABAR: And they still can't accept our beef.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Right.

 

MR. SKABAR: I find that so peculiar.

 

MR. MACDONELL: It's peculiar, but I think that's part of the reason why the federal government was willing and interested in putting together these pilot projects that we co-funded around trying to bring two provincially inspected facilities - actually, it could have been three. In other words, we put it out to the industry, is anybody interested in applying to this program that you want to bring your facility up to a standard where you could sell your product across borders? Only two facilities took us up on it and, as it turned out, only one of them completed it.

 

Yes, when I made the case, I think at my first ministers' meeting, to the Minister of Agriculture and I spoke to CFIA staff at the time there, I said look, the product coming out of Nova Scotia plants is healthy, it meets a high standard, we never have issues on the safety side and the fact that our drain in our plant is six inches and you guys want an eight-inch drain or our ceilings are 10 feet off the floor and you want 12 feet, is kind of ridiculous in terms of the product that we're selling that comes out the door. From both plants it's a healthy, safe product.

 

Anyway, the next year they came back with this pilot project to try to get 19 plants across the country up to a federal standard. As it turned out, I think only 13 actually joined the program and we thought we had two and it turned out to be one. So I mean the whole provincially-inspected program I guess is the result of the province. It's not the feds and that's just because we wanted a high standard for what was happening locally and the federal government said here's the standard we want if it's going to move across borders. So we have a united standard or a common standard from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, minister. I want to give you time to do your resolution. (Interruption) Okay, we'll keep going. We have two minutes remaining in our four hours for tonight and the resolution will not be read tonight.

 

MR. MACDONELL: We'll wait until tomorrow. Anyway, it might seem like an odd thing and I don't know if there's much point trying to beat up the feds on it. Probably their thought is correct, that whether you buy something in British Columbia or you buy it in Nova Scotia, that has met the same standard for the plant that it comes out of, that probably is a reasonable thing for a national government to think about.

 

I think what we wanted them to do was just say take a look at our facilities, give us federal designation B, let us sell from Nova Scotia to Quebec if you don't want us to go all the way across the country.

 

Anyway, I think they came to kind of a helpful compromise. I think in the end it turned out to be more demanding. We didn't expect them to kind of ask for quite so much change in the plants as they did ask for but anyway, I think Northumberlamb is soon going to be good to go.

 

Yes, the whole issue - because if you go home tonight and cook a potato, where do you think it probably was grown?

 

MR. SKABAR: Likely P.E.I.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Right, so the movement of product across borders is pretty well an open border for everything but meat. Everything else that you grow in the ground, there's not an issue.

 

MR. SKABAR: Eggs?

MR. MACDONELL: Well I don't know, I don't grow many in the ground.

 

MR. SKABAR: Well it's not meat, either.

 

MR. MACDONELL: Eggs move quite readily and I think actually the egg grading stations in the province - I'm thinking that's a provincial standard that we have so I think eggs tend to move quite readily across the province.

 

I think milk processing facilities are federally regulated or inspected, like Farmers Dairy and Scotsburn, I think they have a federal (Interruption) They are provincially licensed.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Thank you, minister. We've actually gone about one minute over tonight so we certainly did get our full four hours in. A very good job, minister. I understand we will be resuming with Agriculture perhaps for just a short period tomorrow, before moving on but that will be determined. So the resolution and final remarks and maybe some more questioning may, in fact, take place tomorrow. We do have our full four hours in so we will wrap it up for the night and thank you, minister, and thank your staff and all those in attendance. Thank you members for your patience. Very interesting, Mr. Minister, thank you. I liked particularly the 102-year-old story.

 

We are adjourned.

 

[The subcommittee adjourned at 9:05 p.m.]