HALIFAX, MONDAY, APRIL 7, 2014

 

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON SUPPLY

 

5:30 P.M.

 

CHAIRMAN

Ms. Patricia Arab

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I believe we have quorum, so we'll get started. Welcome, everyone. This is the Subcommittee on Supply, the estimates of the Department of Agriculture. I'd like to welcome the minister and his department.

 

Resolution E1 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $60,968,000 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.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable Minister of Agriculture.

 

HON. KEITH COLWELL: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I'd like to greet my colleagues from my caucus and the Progressive Conservative caucus here today. It's a pleasure to be here and to talk about a very important topic in our province.

 

I believe that most of the members here are familiar with my staff with me today. On my right-hand side is Alan Grant, executive director of Agriculture and Food Operations. Weldon Myers is director of Financial Services, on my left, and Deputy Minister Brian Rogers is sitting back here, as are several other departmental staff.

 

Thank you for this opportunity to speak about our government's commitment to work with farmers and agri-business, create good jobs, and grow Nova Scotia's economy. Agriculture is an important industry in Nova Scotia, and in 2012 farm cash receipts reached a high of $582.2 million, an 8 per cent increase over 2011.

 

Dairy continues to be the top revenue-generating sector with $127.9 million, followed closely by fur, primarily mink, of $116.8 million - significant industries indeed in the province. Poultry is also a very important sector. Other major contributors' farm cash receipts include eggs, blueberries, cattle, field vegetables, and apples.

 

According to the 2011 Statistics Canada census on agriculture, there are approximately 3,905 farms in Nova Scotia. That's an increase of 2.9 per cent over the 2006 census. We're the only province experiencing an increase in the number of farms, which is very positive for our economy. Those farms employ a lot of people. Primary agriculture employed 5,300 people in 2013 - 4,300 full-time and 1,000 part-time employees. Food and beverage manufacturing employed 4,658 people in 2012, in addition to the primary resources on a farm. In 2010, the most recent year for statistics, primary agriculture contributed $219 million to our gross domestic product. Agriculture and agri-food manufacturing industries contributed $561 million to our provincial economy in 2010.

 

These industries are cornerstones for the province. Our government is committed to helping the agriculture sector grow in a sustainable way. They want farmers to make money, very simply put.

 

What we've done: over the past six months that we have been in power, we've achieved a lot in the Department of Agriculture. Growing Forward 2, a federal- provincial-territorial program: we are busy implementing the Growing Forward 2 bilateral agreement with the federal government that was signed last May. It's a five-year, $37 million program which is investing in innovation, competitiveness, and market development.

 

In Nova Scotia we have outlined our vision for the future through the Homegrown Success strategy. This is designed to help the agri-product industry rise to meet market opportunities and build on our natural competitive advantages. This year we've changed our application process for farmers seeking funding under Growing Forward 2 and Homegrown Success. Our new process challenges farmers and the industry to become more efficient and more profitable. We're asking farmers to explain how their project will benefit them financially and in the short and long term. Most importantly, projects will no longer be approved on a first-come, first-served basis. Instead, they will be judged on specific criteria to ensure the best benefit to farmers' businesses to their community and our province's overall economy.

 

I want farmers to make money. I want the agriculture sector to innovate, grow, and prosper. These changes are designed to help farmers do just that.

 

Our animal protection standards of care: I am committed to doing all I can to make sure that we have proper regulations in place so that companion animals are properly cared for and protected. As an owner of a very spoiled black Lab, I have a vested interest in this as well. My department has worked to improve animal protection and released drafts for standards for care. These regulations will strengthen and protect the companion animals. We consulted with Nova Scotians, the SPCA, People for Dogs, the Tuxedo Party, and veterinarians, among others, to help develop these draft regulations of care.

 

These draft standards address key issues brought up by the public, including companion animal restraints and tethering, improved care, outdoor care, shelters, companion animal pens or enclosures, adoption of companion animals, transportation of companion animals, and sale of companion animals, to mention a few things. The draft standards prohibit dogs from being tethered more than 12 hours at a time. The draft standards cover both cats and dogs. The government also added Animal Protection Act infractions and a list of summary offence tickets.

 

Over the past month we gathered input and feedback from Nova Scotians online and through the mail, and are carefully going through those now. There are more than 300 submissions from Nova Scotians, which I want to thank Nova Scotians for. I am hopeful that we can have new standards of care in place by the Fall.

 

Select Nova Scotia: another way we have supported the agriculture industry is by encouraging Nova Scotians to buy local with our Select Nova Scotia program. As you know, Select Nova Scotia was launched in 2007. Its goals are to improve, identify, and raise awareness of Nova Scotia food products; include domestic consumption and industrial opportunities for Nova Scotia food producers; and promote the benefits of eating and buying locally. Select Nova Scotia has grown to be a very recognizable brand. This past summer Select Nova Scotia sponsored 21 IncrEDIBLE Picnics, and in February and March sponsored eight community suppers held across the province to support eating local foods. IncrEDIBLE Picnics will be back again this summer, and the community suppers next winter.

 

Last November we partnered with the Devour! Food Film Festival in Wolfville to sponsor the 2013 Nova Scotia Food Truck Rally, which I attended. It was a wonderful event where everyone got to taste delicious foods, and it had a huge turnout. Select Nova Scotia had tremendous success with their website and social media.

 

Some of the things announced in our budget: as my colleague the Minister of Finance and Treasury Board, Diana Whalen, noted last week, we face significant economic and physical challenges. Our population is shrinking and aging, and economic growth is limited. The facts say what Nova Scotians really already know: the status quo simply won't work. We can't continue on this same way.

 

While there are some positive prospects on the horizon, we have a steep hill to climb. Last week's budget prepared the foundation for the hard work ahead of us and for the challenge that has to take place. We must make significant investments in our future. The private sector drives economic growth. Government has to clear the way and create an environment that sets the stage for business to invest, produce, compete, and grow. The Premier and my colleagues will keep a tight rein on our finances.

 

As you know, there are two significant agricultural announcements with the recent provincial budget. This year we worked with the apple growers to help them develop higher-value products. This $200,000 investment will leverage additional funds from industry. We will provide additional details about this program in the future. We are seizing an opportunity to help an important sector in the agriculture industry innovate and grow. We've learned from the Ivany report that there are industries that can help turn the economy around. A shared program like this is easier for business to grow and prosper.

 

The province's fur industry is growing rapidly, too, employing over 1,000 Nova Scotians and contributing significantly to our economy. To support research and innovation in the mink industry we will be investing $0.5 million that will leverage funds from the private sector. We will also take concerted steps to increase the number of new farmers entering the industry.

 

We'll expand and enhance the Agriculture in the Classroom program. When children learn about the importance of agriculture they'll make healthier food choices and they are more aware of the need to support our local economy. We are going to support farmers in the agriculture sector by working with them and our partners, the federal government, to give them the support they need to grow their business and the economy. In the future we will work with industry stakeholders to create a provincial agricultural land preservation plan complemented with easements through the Agricultural Land Trust to ensure the environmental sustainability and the protection of this valued resource.

 

I'm also committed to growing Nova Scotia's consumption of local food. Currently, Nova Scotians spend about 13 per cent of their grocery dollars on locally-produced food. My department will work to ensure that Nova Scotians spend even more of their dollars on locally-produced and locally-grown products.

 

Just a few of the issues that are on my agenda for the future, in closing. Agriculture holds a prominent place in the province's culture and economy. It is a diverse industry that makes a whole value-chain approach and focuses on markets, opportunities, and a strong Nova Scotia brand. We need to do things differently in order for the agricultural industry to find long-term success and growth. That's why my department is championing innovation and a strong focus on quality and profitability. Thank you for the opportunity to speak today, and I'd be very happy to address any questions the members may have.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you, minister. We'll open up the floor to questions beginning with the Progressive Conservative caucus. I believe you have one hour to ask questions.

 

The honourable member for Kings North.

 

MR. JOHN LOHR: I'd like to start out by saying that, as a farmer, I feel honoured to be here to be addressing this budget. I guess my first question would be in a general sense. As you've mentioned in your remarks, the Ivany commission has recently put our focus as a province back on our traditional industries, and certainly agriculture. As a new government you have a four- or five-year mandate to address this as the Minister of Agriculture. How do you feel that this budget and your government's goals will address some of the challenges that the Ivany commission has given us toward renewing our agriculture in the province?

 

MR. COLWELL: You made a very good point. I did meet with Mr. Ivany before the report came out, and when I sat across the table from him and we had a chat, it was like we were writing the report together. I had never met with anybody that had the same sort of vision for the growth and agriculture industry that I had, because I believe it's one of the backbones we have in the province. We have an opportunity to grow the industry in rural Nova Scotia - an industry that will be in rural Nova Scotia when all the other incentives are gone and all the other companies have disappeared to wherever they came from. The industry will still be there.

 

We have a looming shortage of food in the world that will start to be seen in another 20 to 40 years. That's all the more reason that we should be growing our industry a lot more rapidly, but the industry can only grow if it's profitable. I think for too many years people have been saying - that's an industry there, just leave them alone, don't worry about them - but we have to worry about them. We have to worry about the profitability, because if a farming operation is successful, they will reinvest in their business; they will grow their business; they will employ people.

 

The bonus for them as owners - and farmers don't get a lot of time off, I know - a very limited amount of time off, but at least they'll be able to do things in their lives that they want to do for themselves and their families. It may be a vacation now and then; it may be a university degree for their families, but just as importantly, they will grow the economy and pay taxes into the economy, and then we can afford to pay the other services that they need and all of us need, around health care and education, that are so important to the economy of Nova Scotia.

 

This is what I've been telling the industry, and it's quite unusual. I met with a group of farmers one Sunday afternoon on another issue around this, and the first thing I told them was, I want you to make money. There was a dead silence around the room - an absolute dead silence. One of the gentlemen spoke up and said, no one's ever told us that before. I said, why not? He said, well, we're not supposed to make money. I said, why aren't you supposed to make money? He said, that's the public perception - we're not supposed to make money. I said, well, if you don't make money in today's economy, you're not going to exist; if you don't exist, we don't have food.

 

The other thing we haven't talked about is a food shortage in the province. I believe about 20 per cent of our food comes from growing locally, in all of Nova Scotia. So if you look at that, and if for some reason the trucks ceased to travel across into Nova Scotia - and I say "trucks" because that's where most of the food comes from - an estimate I've heard is that in between two and five days, the grocery stores will be out of food.

People don't realize that, and unfortunately when you talk to some people they think food comes from the grocery store, not from a farm. That's something we really have to address, and that's why we're going back in the schools to talk to kids more about this and get them to understand, so they'll go home and talk to their parents about it and raise awareness of how important a farmer is to our community and how important that is to our economy in Nova Scotia.

 

I truly believe that with the resource industries that I represent we can grow Nova Scotia's economy in a long-term, sustainable way, and that has been overlooked for so many years.

 

MR. LOHR: This morning by chance I met a neighbouring farmer, Godfrey Poyser of Getaway Farm. They have the fresh meat store in the Halifax Farmers' Market. They're one of the most successful beef producers in the province. We were talking about the fact that only 5 per cent of our beef is produced locally. If you look at Nova Scotia you can see clearly that we are one of the best areas in the world to produce grass, and grass-fed beef - I know there have been a number of meetings and discussion about making Nova Scotia focus on grass-fed beef.

 

One of the things that Godfrey mentioned to me was the lack of infrastructure, the lack of abattoirs and that stuff along that way. What is your government going to do to promote grass-fed beef and the whole beef industry? That's my question.

 

MR. COLWELL: As you're well aware, there is a big discussion around grass-fed beef and other ways to raise beef. Whatever we do in the beef industry has to be profitable. It's that simple. It does come down to food supply. I think the conversion rate is one to eight: every eight pounds of food that a steer consumes is one pound of beef. That's a pretty low conversion rate, or a very bad conversion rate. If you look at some of the other industries, it's a lot better. In some of the fishing industry - and I don't want to talk about that here - it's one to one. So it's a very difficult one.

 

The beef industry is very important in our province. Abattoirs are a very serious issue here. If you have to ship the product outside of Nova Scotia, it gets cost-prohibitive. Our problem is that we don't have enough supply of beef to justify an abattoir - that's the problem. A few years ago there was some corrective action taken, I believe, and it went to - there's one in Prince Edward Island that was supposed to cure this problem, but you still have to truck it to Prince Edward Island, and truck it back out of there. For instance, if you're selling to Sobeys, you have to truck it to Moncton. It has to be done by a CFIA- approved facility to sell in the Sobeys stores, if it moves outside of the province. They have central warehouses in Moncton, so that means we can't supply our beef in that area.

 

It is a huge issue. It is not an easy solution. I think the solution is going to be long term. It's going to be longer getting more people profitable in the beef industry, if that's possible. I don't know; I haven't seen the business model around that. I know there are some people who are quite successful in it, and other people are not successful in it at all. It's time we have to really start working at costing of all these things and get people to understand what it costs to do something, to farm, so they know what they've got to get out of their end product to make money.

 

Again, I am stressing making money because if they can make money and they can prosper, that means they can expand their business and we can build an abattoir. It's that simple. It's a long way getting there, but it's that simple.

 

MR. LOHR: And I would say in response to that, I realize there are many, many challenges, but going forward, one of the things that you said, we are consuming 5 per cent of our own beef, so the opportunity is there. The other thing is on the feed conversion. We don't eat a lot of grass, but in terms of grain-fed beef, yes, that's correct.

 

I guess what I would like to do now is go more specifically into the budget. We have an almost $61 million budget, and I'm just wondering what portion of that budget is for the Dalhousie campus at the Agricultural College? It's not specifically mentioned in the budget.

 

MR. COLWELL: $20 million.

 

MR. LOHR: And are there any other sort of - like, what is the percentage of the budget for the innovation centre? That's also not . . .

 

MR. COLWELL: You're talking about Perennia?

 

MR. LOHR: Yes.

 

MR. COLWELL: We provide Perennia with $2 million a year in grants to operate with. Perennia Park costs us about $600,000 a year.

 

MR. LOHR: Just back to the Dalhousie campus, I'm wondering, what is the long-term plan for that? Now that that's part of Dalhousie University, is that funding going to continue for that campus? If you can let me know what the agreement there is?

 

MR. COLWELL: It's a long-term agreement. I can tell you how many years it's for - just one second. At the end of three years it will be reviewed.

 

MR. LOHR: So it's just a three-year cycle? It's on a three-year agreement, is that what you are saying? How long does the agreement last?

 

MR. COLWELL: It's a three-year renewable agreement. It has to be renegotiated each time, from what I understand.

 

MR. LOHR: Thank you. Just to jump to another subject, as you know, I am concerned that our dikes are not sufficient if there was a storm surge or a flood. I'm just wondering what provision - and you know we have almost 3,000 kilometres of dikes, I believe - is there any provision in this budget for dike land maintenance and how much is that? Is that up or down?

 

MR. COLWELL: A normal budget in a year is $600,000, which we have this year. We have another $800,000 for flood mitigation, and we have another $4.7 million put aside for the LaPlanche River aboiteau, so it's more money in it this year than there had been.

 

MR. LOHR: Which aboiteau?

 

MR. COLWELL: The LaPlanche aboiteau, on the LaPlanche River, so it's more money than we've had in a while.

 

MR. LOHR: Can you comment on whether this will be a priority going forward, or is it something on your agenda?

 

MR. COLWELL: Well, it is a priority to keep these dikes in very good condition. We have to raise the level of them because of the impending global warming, which is now being disputed by - I noticed on the news the other day - a professor at MIT who is an expert in this field. Whether global warming is real or not, regardless, we have to assume that it is, and the dikes are going to be raised over time to do that.

 

MR. LOHR: I apologize for jumping around on topics, but to another topic, the forensic audit for the Provincial Exhibition and Raceway in Truro - I was just wondering, when will that be complete? I'm just wondering how much that audit will cost, and will that cost be added to the debt of the raceway?

 

MR. COLWELL: I can answer the last part of it. It will not be added to the debt of the raceway.

 

MR. LOHR: Okay, do you know when . . .

 

MR. COLWELL: I'll get the rest of it. The approximate cost of the audit is going to be about $86,000.

 

MR. LOHR: When do you think it will be finished?

 

MR. COLWELL: I would say probably in about three or four months. We want to do this properly because there has been a long history with the raceway of not making money, and we're going to make this place make money.

 

MR. LOHR: Can you comment on why you had the audit done, in light of the fact that you did publicly state that there was no indication of any wrongdoing?

 

MR. COLWELL: Well, the audit is going to be done because we need to know exactly where they were. There has been a long history of not making money with the facility. We don't believe there's any wrongdoing, from that standpoint. Now, the audit may show differently, but I'll be surprised if that does happen. We just want to go through the systems of how the systems were run in the past, find out what the deficiencies were - we already have some indication of some of those - and then set up a system that we can monitor and make sure that the facility is on more than a break-even situation, on an ongoing basis, from now and well into the future.

 

MR. LOHR: Just a question about the overall debt. The debt to the Farm Loan Board - is interest still being accrued on that debt?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, it is.

 

MR. LOHR: Okay, just to jump to another topic. You mentioned the funding to the apple industry, and I know the apple industry is really pleased to hear that. I know you've said that you'll announce the details later, but is this one-year funding or is it spread over multiple years? I'm just curious about that fact.

 

MR. COLWELL: The $200,000 is for this year, to try to get more apple trees in the ground that will be high yield, same as the Honeycrisp and some of the other ones - Ambrosia. Some of the other ones are bringing really high prices and adding substantial value to the industry, making them a lot more profitable, and a lot of export opportunities.

 

I use this example all the time: I was at the annual meeting of the apple producers and fruit growers, and there was a gentleman there from the U.S. He was making a presentation about the apple industry. He put a picture up on the screen, and lo and behold, right in the middle of the picture were Honeycrisp apples from Nova Scotia, in Texas, of all places - $3.49 a pound. Beside it, he told us - and we didn't see it in the picture there - there were Honeycrisp apples from Washington State, organically grown - and ours are not - $2.99 a pound. Behind that were McIntosh and several other apples averaging about $1.25 to $1.65, $1.75 a pound, and Honeycrisp had the biggest display right in the middle of the floor of the whole thing.

 

It shows the kind of quality that the industry has developed in that particular apple, and there are many more coming of that kind of quality - how they've done it properly, how they make sure that they get the top-quality product to the market and get top-quality and beyond price in a market that really would rather buy stuff from their own growers in the U.S. than buy anything from anywhere else in the world.

 

It shows you what can be done in the industry, and it's a model that we have to perpetuate through our whole natural resources industries to add value, add quality, and make sure we get the absolute highest possible price we can, which translates into lots of economic growth in the province.

 

MR. LOHR: I would agree with you. I saw that same slide, and hats off to the apple industry. It's a major accomplishment on their part.

 

I just was wondering about another very successful industry. You announced that there was $500,000 in the budget for the mink industry, and I was wondering about your commitment to the Pictou County facility there. The research barn is part of that money going there. I just want to know.

 

MR. COLWELL: We may or may not put the money there. We need to see results in a lot of areas in mink. I'm not prepared to say exactly where this money is going to go at this time, but it's going to be well targeted at resolving some issues in the industry that we can ensure make that industry stronger, make the pelts of higher value. They're already one of the best quality in the world, if not the best quality, and they demand a high value. I give the industry a tremendous amount of credit for achieving that, and they went through a lot of really difficult years. So it will be aimed at that, to ensure we get our quality and our productivity up as high as we can.

 

MR. LOHR: I just want to ask you about the budget. Your department's budget has fallen 4 per cent over the past three years and is now down 1 per cent from last year, a cut of nearly $500,000. I notice that in your estimates for the coming year your salaries are up a little over $0.75 million. Can you offer any detail on why you would be increasing - would this be because there are 17 new FTEs - full-time positions?

 

MR. COLWELL: Most of the salary increases came from contract settlements and other wage increases, and some of the restructuring of the department that was carried on by the last department added to that cost as well.

 

MR. LOHR: Can you give us any information on where these 17 new positions are and why you are hiring 17 new staff?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes. There were vacancies that were filled, but from year to year, there is virtually no change in staff.

 

MR. LOHR: I think from the actual in the year just finished to the projected for the coming year, though, there is a 17-person increase.

 

MR. COLWELL: It was actually 17 vacant positions. They had been there before, which they planned to fill this year. It's not new positions. So when you take out the vacant positions, it's just status quo, no increase in staff.

 

MR. LOHR: I was just wondering, in general, how many of your - I know there's a food inspection branch, there's the straight-up Department of Agriculture, and there's the Dalhousie campus. What is the breakdown of full-time equivalents between those three areas? I'm just wondering that, how many are involved?

 

MR. COLWELL: We have no staff with Dal, but we have food inspection staff. We'll look up the number here. We have approximately 25 food inspectors in the province.

 

MR. LOHR: So of the full-time equivalents listed for this brochure or this book, this budget, the $20 million going to Dalhousie campus, none of them are listed in that?

 

MR. COLWELL: That's not part of it, no.

 

MR. LOHR: Okay, all right. I noticed in the document that there was a decrease in revenue forecast for the Department of Agriculture of $158,000, I believe it was. I was just wondering if you could comment on that. That's on Page 2.1. The revenue was decreasing from an actual - well, estimate - of $1.926 million, and the 2014-15 estimate is $1.693 million. I'm just wondering if you could comment on what triggered that decrease, or why that's there.

 

MR. COLWELL: We had a program that wrapped up with the federal government called AgriFlex. That's why the income is down. That ended last year, so that's not in the books anymore.

 

MR. LOHR: So that wasn't revenue from farmers for check-offs or anything like that?

 

MR. COLWELL: No, it was actually a federal contribution to that program. That has now ceased.

 

MR. LOHR: I noticed on Page 1.5 that there was an increase in capital spending. I just wonder if you would comment on that. What is the increase in capital spending on Page 1.5, of $3 million? I might not have the page right, but there is - you show an increase in capital spending of $3 million. I was just wondering if you could tell us what that is.

 

MR. COLWELL: That's the LaPlanche River Aboiteau that we've been working on.

 

MR. LOHR: Okay, so you show that as an increase in capital spending on that aboiteau?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes.

 

MR. LOHR: Is that the entire amount or are there other things in that increase?

 

MR. COLWELL: There will be other costs associated with that as we move forward.

 

MR. LOHR: Thank you. I'm wondering about the new entrants program, FarmNEXT. I'm wondering if you could tell me what your plans for it are, and maybe give us an idea what the details of that are, and where you are headed with that program or where you see it going.

 

MR. COLWELL: We're going to keep our budget the same as we had it in the past year on that program. It's an important succession tool and a new tool for entrants to come under the system, so the overall funding for the program will be kept the same.

 

MR. LOHR: I'm just wondering, given that the average age of a farmer is - I'm not quite sure, but I'm sure well over 50 - it probably mirrors the demographics of our province. It's easy to foresee that in the next few years or the coming years, we're going to have quite a turnover of agricultural operations, so if you wouldn't be considering to increase the funding for that program.

 

MR. COLWELL: At the present time we're holding at that, but we are very aware of that problem. It's a serious problem in the province. It's a serious problem in everything in the province, but in farming it's even more difficult, especially if they're going to transfer ownership to a family member. We've been looking at the issue around that, where you have a substantial tax problem. We've been coming up with ideas and trying to work with Revenue Canada to see if we can't get some kind of system that will work so that at the end of the day they don't have to not only buy the farm out - or the equivalent to buying it out - but then pay all the tax on it as well.

 

It's a really difficult problem - one beyond our control at this point, but we're going to lobby the federal government very aggressively and see if we can't get something done with that to help the transition. Our industry is too important to lose farms, because the young people who want to take them over - especially in the family - can't take it over, just because Revenue Canada makes it impossible.

 

MR. LOHR: I'm just wondering about the Homegrown Success program. I would like to commend you on fixing the timing of the applications so that the applications didn't come in in June. You bumped up the dates for that, so I commend you on that. This is a $2.6 million program and a key program for the agricultural industry. I'm wondering if you're looking at increasing funding in that Homegrown Success program.

 

MR. COLWELL: That's a federal-provincial program, and at the present time we're going to keep it the way it is. I would like to see that grow. This is the first year, as you're aware, that we have announced - this is something I initiated when I came to the department, that you have to put a business plan together. It doesn't have to be a very complex one at this point to access those funds. It's very critical.

 

In the past, it was first come, first serve. Whoever got their application in first got it. It didn't have any accountability around it. When I came to the department I identified very early - after being on the Public Accounts Committee for so many years - that it's not acceptable in government. We've changed the program. This is the first go at it that we've had. The staff has to fully understand what I'm looking for, but basically we want people to come forward with things that will make a difference in their operation. It could be anything from an improved pump on a dairy farm to more fencing for a sheep farm, because if they get more acreage in, they can put more sheep in, and ultimately those 20 extra sheep they put in may be the difference between making money that year and not making money. That's the sort of thing we want.

 

We really want a mini business plan so that they have to think about this and say, okay, this makes sense to me. If someone comes in and says, well, if I spend whatever the amount is the farm is going to spend on their contribution to it plus what we might be able to put to an incentive, and they say, well, if I do that, I might be able to grow corn, that won't cut it. We want to know if they're going to grow corn or if they're going to have a value-added product of some kind - what they feel is the reasonable return on that investment. I think it's a major step forward.

 

We've had exceptionally good response from industry on that. The federation has been asking for this in the past, and didn't get it. It means that you can put your application in in the middle of the month now, and it will be looked at just the same as the first one that came in. Maybe the first one that came in won't be approved at all, if they don't meet the requirements. I've asked our staff to go out to anyone that doesn't make it this time and explain exactly what we're looking for.

 

I think we'll have some hiccups this year and until we get it smoothed out, but the bottom line is accountability and profitability. That's where we're headed with everything we do in the department. The message is getting out there, and people are starting to realize that if we're going to make our economy grow we need these industries to be profitable, and we've got to help them do that.

 

When I say help them do that - make them aware of how important quality is, how important cost control is, and how important it is to record that information so that you know exactly what you are doing. So if I have a steer, for instance, and I sell it for beef, I should know right to the penny what that steer has cost me per pound and what I've got to sell it for to make a profit. Those are the things that they have to calculate, and a complete track of that animal as you go through it, too, so every time you inoculate it for something, or whatever you have to do with it, it's all traced and trackable. That will help the industry, as well, when they sell a product and they're trying to add value - and when I say add value, to put consumer confidence in what you're doing and can trace it back to the farm.

 

I think there is a big move - I can see it now - into knowing where your food comes from in Nova Scotia. That's a worldwide movement, and I think that's very positive. It would be nice to know that someone from your farm bought something you've produced and there's your website with your picture of it, and they've got confidence that it meets certain standards at the end of the day. And you've got confidence that it does meet that standard, as well, so if someone calls up and says something you've supplied is no good, you can say for sure that you know it was good, something must have happened to it afterward, or you're not talking about my product - one or the other.

That's where we're heading. That's where we have to be in the province, and until we make that happen right across the board in everything we do, the economy won't grow. We've got to grow the economy, and we've got to grow it soon. We've got to start this process soon. That's the reason I insisted that we do it this year, and it has been a difficult thing for our staff, because it's a whole new program, the way that we're rolling it out. If we don't have enough qualified applicants the first go-round with this, what we're going to do is put it out again, and we're going to put it out again until we get enough. We'll work with people, and as I've already said, when people are turned down, our staff is going to go out and talk to them and explain to them why they were turned down and how they can improve their application form to show this, and we're going to check it afterward.

 

If someone says they're going to put another 10 acres of fencing in and they're going to put in - I'll just use sheep as an easy example - 20 more sheep, we want to see the 20 sheep there and we want to see the 10 acres of fencing there, and we want to see how it actually impacted them to see if their estimate was close to where they might have been. Now, their estimate may be off because they hadn't done this before - it may be worse, or it may be better - but at least they have to go through that process. Every single person I've talked to in the industry is in total buy-in with this, and they say it's long overdue. I think it's one of the things where we start to restructure industry from a standpoint of making them profitable and better understanding their financial part of it.

 

I ran a business for a long time. What makes a successful business is to understand your financial part of it. You know exactly what it costs to do everything that you do, and then you'll soon sort out - either number one, you'll fix it so it costs you less to produce it, or you'll decide that it doesn't make any sense to be in that business, and I should be in this business, because this thing I didn't think was making money - but I'm really making money in it. That's the kind of business decision people have to start making, and they have to do it themselves. We have to create the environment for that, and as we create that environment, they will get very, very good at it.

 

That's one thing I will say about the farming industry: they're very well organized, and they're very, very capable people who know where they want to go, but they don't really understand some of the tools that they need to get there. They've been sort of doing it over the years, I've always done it this way, and in some cases that may be perfect, but 99 per cent of the time it's not, because they don't know right where they are.

 

You go to some of the farms I've visited so far and they know exactly where they are - they know what everything costs them, right to the penny - and some of them don't. Some of the very large farms do not know what it costs to produce that particular crop. They have a general idea, but not right to the penny. To the penny is important, because as you go through this and you learn how the process works - and they're in sort of a manufacturing environment, and in manufacturing you've got to know right to the penny what every single item costs you and what all the costs are made of. The farm would be labour, fertilizer, equipment maintenance, equipment. You would have to do that, and all those things rank up to make this item worth so many dollars. If you can't sell that so many dollars for 30, 50, or 100 per cent more than that, you're not making money and you'll never make money. So those things you have to know.

 

That's one reason we changed the program, plus I want to be able to go back to my colleagues in Cabinet and say, okay, this program works well, and here's what it did to Nova Scotia's economy. Now I want more money to do it again. Back to the federal government and the federal government program, we say, this is what we did and how we held people accountable, and this is how they were there. So they don't have an issue with it, so we can go back and work with them and build on a relationship. We've really started strong relationships with the federal government since we've been elected, because we do need them to work with us to make sure our industries grow.

 

I'm committed to that, and it's working very well so far. We continue to do it. I don't care who - what the government is in Ottawa. It doesn't matter to me in the least. What I need are the tools to work with to make sure that our industry gets everything we possibly can to help it grow and prosper, so that's where we're headed.

 

We are going to work on that and get more and more diligent on it as we move forward. We've really started to turn a page in the department now. We're going to hold everything accountable and make sure that we do everything so that down the road the farmers will be profitable. Once they get onto that, there will be demands on us that you would not believe, and not for money. It will be for service.

 

That's the other thing that we're going to improve: service to farms. We've got a great staff, a really good staff that works for us. They just need to be given freedom, and I want ideas back from them, too, to tell us how we can improve. I've been really impressed with the staff. As time changes and things go on and they see the improvements that we're getting from the industry itself, it's going to be very, very good for Nova Scotia's economy, and that's where we've got to go. That's the thing we're looking for, to grow our economy in rural Nova Scotia, and the farming industry is where we're going to go with it.

 

MR. LOHR: Thank you. Recently, Greg Gerrits of Elmridge Farm was quoted in the newspaper as saying that there was about a $20,000 per year cost on his farm to meet all the regulatory requirements. I don't know if you know Greg, but he's one of the more successful - maybe one of the most successful - vendors in Halifax Farmers' Market. Those requirements are food safety requirements and regulatory requirements relating to occupational health and safety. It represents a major challenge.

 

I'm just wondering, what do you see this budget and your department doing? Maybe you already answered some of that, but what do you see your department and where are you going forward with trying to help the farms deal with some of these regulatory challenges and red tape? I do believe that it was in your platform that you were going to reduce red tape. I'm just wondering if you see any sort of reduction in red tape coming for a guy like Greg Gerrits.

 

MR. COLWELL: Well, the important part - these things would have all been put in place at one time or another for food safety and for farm safety. Now, we've invested quite a substantial amount in farm safety, and we're going to continue to work on that. If you lose an employee for a month or a day, it really affects your bottom line, because usually the employee you lose is one of your better ones, and if it isn't, you still lose productivity, so that's a problem.

 

The regulatory things on food safety have to be done. We have to look at ways to streamline it and make it easier. A lot of the farming operations aren't computerized. That's one thing we have to look at and use computers as a tool. It's as important as a tractor they have there that they rely on every day. I think it's all part of a re-education process. Some of these things could be made very quickly, changed so they don't take as much time to do.

 

We're going to look at things that are out of date or not appropriate anymore to see how those can be resolved and help the industry so they can spend more time doing the things they do to make money.

 

Again, it comes back to training. We're doing some of that now, and we'll be looking at more and more of that. Any ideas you have around how we can cut this red tape, I'd like to hear them, and we'll implement them, quite simply, but we won't do anything to sacrifice safety issues or quality issues or food safety issues. Those things have to be in place.

 

Now there's a great thing that has happened with the federal government's negotiated trade agreement with Europe. It's going to be a great opportunity for us, but that means more regulations around registrations and all those sorts of things, but if you get these assurances in place it will help you make money.

 

I can tell you I ran a manufacturing facility, and we put a quality assurance in place, which was extremely painful. It took two years to get it in place, but once you got in place it just turned the tap on. It went down to zero rejects; safety went up; the customer base went up. It was a very rigid quality system I had - a military-level one - and it got us some opportunities to manufacture products you could not do any other way and some very high-profit margin products, because the quality was there.

 

So these things, they do pay off. It's hard to get someone who hasn't done these things and seen the benefit of it themselves to understand, to explain it, but you have to do these things, and quality is key. We talked about the Honeycrisp apple, which is a prime example of that. The industry really came along and they really worked with it. They understood how they've got to store it, what they've got to do with it, and they make sure that anything that goes to the export market is number one quality.

 

Industry did it themselves, and I give them a lot of credit for that, but we have to do that right across the board with everything we've got. If we do that, Nova Scotia will be known for high-quality, top-quality product that you can get a premium price for, and that's where we've got to go. When you get the premium price, you can afford to hire someone to do the work, the regulatory stuff.

 

MR. LOHR: I would contradict you on the idea that the agriculture industry isn't computerized. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a farm in the province that didn't have a computer, if not one or two.

 

MR. COLWELL: I can tell you from talking to them that maybe they don't have the right programs.

 

MR. LOHR: I guess what I would say is that I think there is a role that the department can play in creating a template - a lot of the farms would have the same issues across the industry, right? So rather than helping one farm to deal with these regulatory issues, if you created templates and helped sectors deal with the issues, I would think that would be beneficial - and maybe you are doing it. Maybe you can comment on that?

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Just to let you know, Mr. Lohr - 15 minutes left.

 

MR. LOHR: I was just looking at that, too, trying to figure that out.

 

MR. COLWELL: We do put $1.4 million a year into helping farms deal with regulatory things, and also the tax review that we're doing, the regulatory review we're doing province-wide, the farm industry would be under that as well. But I totally agree with you that if we can come up with a template on particular things, that's the way to go. If you go to quality, some of the stuff is quite complex, but anybody in that particular industry would be all the same - the quality system would be all the same, slightly tweaked for different industries. But templates on those would make a lot of sense, and we will pursue that for sure.

 

MR. LOHR: I'm just wondering if you can comment on or let us know what part of this budget is going to 4-H.

 

MR. COLWELL: We put $800,000 a year into that. It's an incredibly good program.

 

MR. LOHR: Do you see that - is that holding steady or going up or going down?

 

MR. COLWELL: It has been a stable budget for a number of years now.

 

MR. LOHR: Okay, it has been stable. I'd just like to ask a little bit about - you mentioned your draft regulations on animal control, and I guess I would like to ask why, when you mentioned that they would be implemented in the coming year at some point - I just wondered if you could let me know why that lag of time in the implementation of these draft regulations, and maybe just refresh my memory - when will they be implemented?

MR. COLWELL: This is something that has consumed quite a bit of my time since I became minister. It's an important topic to pet owners such as myself. I love pets. They're part of the family, as far as I'm concerned, and most people feel the same way on companion animals. We're just talking about companion animals, because farm animals are a different issue.

 

The regulations were out already. We put them out again to look at them. We got the initial feedback. I had met with all the animal rights groups that had contacted us personally - sat down with them and talked to them about the issues that they found. We got a lot of common ground on that, and it looks like we'll have something that will be pretty close to where we need to start.

 

The delay in the problem is we've also decided to do cats. In order to do cats we have to change the legislation, because it's not specifically named in the present legislation. We're also looking at other things like providing SOTs to enforce the regulations instead of going to court a lot. It would be the same as a speeding ticket. We have to look at ways to make sure we can collect that money. That's a big issue. We're entertaining some of those ideas now. So it's a lot of regulatory things that we have to go through in order to make it work. That's an issue.

 

As we move forward, we've had a buy-in so far with all the groups. When I first was elected there were a lot of very angry people out there about the companion animals. We managed to talk to them, settle them down, and let them know we're willing to talk to them. I will be doing that on an ongoing basis. I'm going to set up some kind of formal structure to do that, to see if we can put out what we have; see how it works; see how many enforcements we've had to do; see how that process is working; and then work on better coverage of how we can do that.

 

It's coming along. It's something I'd like to have done now. I would really like to have it done now, but unfortunately to get it done right and get it done so we have some teeth in it - teeth are the biggest issue here - to make sure we can enforce this thing. How it's enforced - that has become an issue as well, that wasn't obvious at first. We're working on all of those issues, and it's just a matter of time and getting it done. It just takes quite a while to get all this stuff in place so it works right.

 

We're getting very close, but we're not going to say we're going to have it in a month or so, because it will be this Fall before we have it in place. We may not be able to bring the legislation in until next Fall - I'm not sure.

 

MR. LOHR: I know that when you do bring in legislation and do put teeth in it, the enforcement of the legislation will largely be in the hands of the municipalities, as I understand it. So in a sense you're adding to their enforcement burden. Will there be any funding to the municipalities to help them with this added burden of enforcement of these regulations?

 

MR. COLWELL: The municipalities are going to be asked to join if they want to. It's not going to be mandatory. They can join it. In return for that, we're hoping to be able to turn over the receipts from the SOTs that would come out. We will be offering them free training on how to do the enforcement.

 

This will be a natural transition for some of the municipalities, because they're already doing animal patrols of barking dogs and biting dogs and all those sorts of things. These tools that we will provide for animal cruelty may allow them to do things that they can't do now under those enforcement things. It should not cost the municipality any more money. In some circumstances it may, but we're going to try to get that in place. Again, it's going to be totally voluntary for the municipalities. If it makes financial sense for them to get involved, or operational sense or whatever the case may be, they can opt in.

 

If they decide they don't want to opt in, that's fine. We're hoping that they will, but again, it'll be up to each municipality to decide. We're not going to legislate that or mandate it or anything. We're going to make it allowable for them to do it.

 

MR. LOHR: To sort of go off the topic of domestic dogs and cats a little bit, two years ago when there was that tragic incident in northern New Brunswick where the snake dropped down and killed two young boys, New Brunswick brought in legislation on those types of exotic species. I expect that would be part of your department's jurisdiction. I know at that time there was a statement that Nova Scotia was going to bring in similar legislation. Will that happen? Do you have any plans to bring in legislation on that front?

 

MR. COLWELL: It's not in the present things we're looking at right now, but it's something we're going to look at. It's an issue that goes beyond animal cruelty. The bill we're working on now and the information now are strictly around animal cruelty for companion animals.

 

MR. LOHR: I know that one of the more controversial pieces of this bill that you're working on right now is the 12-hour tethering limit. I know there are probably people on both sides of that point of view, but many people would feel that's too long. Can you comment on how you came up with that number?

 

MR. COLWELL: Oddly enough, it was recommended. I believe Newfoundland and Labrador has that requirement, and the SPCA requested that amount of time, with some breaks. There are some other things around the 12 hours. It also looks at weather conditions, the environment around weather conditions, and the housing of the animal, to make sure it has satisfactory, safe housing - that if it's in the wintertime, they get into a place that's warm and dry. It's quite a complete list of things there that go around this.

 

Some people would like to have zero tethering, but then you're going to have dogs running loose, potentially, and biting people and causing all the difficulties that the municipality now has to enforce without that. So we have to have a balance in there, and the balance seemed to be at this point - again, nothing is settled yet - 12 hours seemed to be a reasonably good time, with no tethering in bad weather conditions. The animal would have to be taken inside, to make sure it's warm and safe. We don't want any more of these stories in the news where we've seen dogs frozen to death this winter. We don't want to see that, although it probably will happen because it really comes down to responsible owners. We can put all the rules and regulations in place, and all the laws we want, but if owners aren't responsible and if the people living next to them aren't responsible enough to contact us and let us know there's a problem, we can't fix it. So that's what it comes down to.

 

At this point, it looks like that may work. Again, we have issues around some dogs. I know there was an issue with one dog that nobody has talked about. It was actually in my riding. It was tied out, and everybody was all upset about this dog being tied out all the time. The dog was tied out for a good reason: it was there because that's where the dog has to be, is outside.

 

We approached the owners of the animal, and they said, no problem. It was a rescue dog to start, and they could not keep it inside the house. The dog just could not stay inside the house. They said, we'll give the dog freely up to the SPCA.

 

So the SPCA took it, and one day later they tied it outside because the dog could not stay inside. So you've got to really look at reality in these cases. People drove by every day and saw this dog tied out. The dog was as happy as could be in the environment it wanted to be in. The dog was well fed, well looked after, had a really good doghouse and everything, probably to or above where we're going to be with the standards when we're done, but just because somebody saw it and thought, that dog shouldn't be tied out, they made a mistake. So this dog, whoever adopts the dog - hopefully somebody does, if they didn't have to put it down, because it was a beautiful dog. Somebody complained about a problem that wasn't a problem, and action was taken, and the action might have ended up with the dog being euthanized. I'm not sure. I didn't follow it past that point.

 

We have to have sensible standards in place that ensure that the animals are protected the way they should be. We don't want to see dogs that are not fed properly, not enough water, that are out in bad conditions, don't get a chance to socialize with people and, in some cases, other dogs, or whatever the case may be. Certain dogs can't socialize, of course, but all those things, you have to take those things into consideration. We have to find a middle road that addresses the real safety of that animal and good stewardship and care of the animal. It's a hard road to walk, because everybody sees something and they assume that there's a problem, and there may not be a problem at all - and no matter what you do, you can't convince somebody that there is not a problem. It's tough, so there has to be accountability by people looking at this and doing the research before they actually - after action has been taken, judge what has been done.

 

Now maybe we've got to do a better job of telling the tale afterward on exactly what happens, too, because if people reported this dog - and again, I don't know if it has been euthanized or not, but I can find out. If that dog was euthanized, was the dog better served? No, because it was a good animal, and an animal that liked to be outside. The people who owned it really looked after the dog, so how can you say what's right and what's wrong?

 

That's the difficult part with these animal rights things. Some people get way overboard and think everybody should be a lapdog, and a lot of dogs aren't. I love all dogs, no matter what kind they are, but some aren't. I can remember one day in a guy's house, sitting in his house, and I was met by the door with two Rottweilers. Now, I'm not afraid of dogs. So anyway, these two dogs were growling and snarling and going on, so that wasn't too bad. The dogs were in beautiful shape. The house that the guy probably even shouldn't have been living in, quite frankly, but the dogs were well looked after. I sat down in the kitchen chair, and this guy did intentionally, I'm sure, right in the middle of the floor, with a Rottweiler on either side of me sitting there, and if I didn't pat them they'd nibble you on the hand.

 

Those dogs are well looked after, but they're not dogs I want running around the community, so they'd better be tethered when they're out, or kept in the house. It just shows you how they have to have that combination of things that make sure that the animals are properly cared for, but it has to be sensible too.

 

MR. LOHR: How much time do I have left?

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: You've got about a minute and a half.

 

MR. LOHR: About a minute and a half, okay. I do have more questions. Maybe you can just start in on it. You know Kings County has farmland preservation rules. I don't believe any other counties in the province have farmland preservation bylaws. I'm just wondering if your government has any position on that, or what you think - where that's going in the province on the preservation of farmland?

 

MR. COLWELL: I think it's absolutely critical that we have preservation of farmland. As I said in my opening remarks, within 20 to 40 years there's going to be a world shortage of food. Now if we have our farmland covered by houses or other developments, that means we're not going to be able to supply our share of the food supply that we're going to need for our own province and also in our country. So I think it's critical that we preserve these lands.

 

We've been looking at different ways to do that, different ways to get land back in production again, and maybe some penalties for that if you don't have the land in production. We've been tossing around ideas, and quite frankly, with your background in farming, I'd like to hear any ideas you have, to see how we can move that ahead sooner than later and get some of these lands - not some of them, but every acre of land we can get protected that we possibly can - looking at the future for our children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren as they move forward, that they have a place to farm when they are going to need the food supply that you can't get shipped in by truck in the U.S. because they need it to feed their own population and they're exporting it to Europe or Asia or wherever it's going to go. It's going to be a critical issue for us.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Thank you, Minister Colwell. That's time. Thank you very much, Mr. Lohr, and we'll pass it on to the NDP caucus.

 

MR. LOHR: Thank you, minister, for the answers to the questions.

 

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Truro-Bible Hill-Millbrook- Salmon River.

 

MS. LENORE ZANN: Thank you, Madam Chairman, and good afternoon, minister. How are you doing?

 

MR. COLWELL: Good, and you?

 

MS. ZANN: I'm doing well, thank you. First of all, I'd like to say thanks so much for coming to Truro last - was it last weekend? - before I got sick.

 

MR. COLWELL: Weekend before last.

 

MS. ZANN: I hope you didn't get it, because I did say hello to you and then I got sick right after.

 

MR. COLWELL: I hope it wasn't my visit that did it.

 

MS. ZANN: No, it wasn't, but anyway, thank you for coming.

 

The Truro Raceway - I'm going to start off there. I just want to say, first of all, thank you so much. I really commend what you're doing. I feel like you're basically following along in the path that I had always wanted to take, and of course with my particular path it started off about four and a half years ago when I first became an MLA. People started talking to me about the raceway and how they felt it was being mismanaged. They weren't quite sure where money was going, and nobody could get through to the board, and the board didn't really want to share anything. There wasn't much transparency, and there wasn't much accountability.

 

I was able to put together that private bill at one point in time to be able to open up the board so that other members could at least join it, including different levels of government, so that we could have some accountability and some transparency and have a say in what exactly was happening and how it was being used. The town, the village, even the county hadn't really been involved for many years - since 1992, I think, when that other private bill by Ed Lorraine had been legislated.

 

So last summer we had a crisis situation where I got a call saying that the board was basically threatening to close the racetrack overnight after 138 years of existence. They were telling the horse owners that after that race on Sunday they were not to walk their horses on the racetrack - not even on the Monday. They were given two weeks' notice to find alternate homes for their horses, because they were being stabled in the stables that were on the property.

 

It came out of the blue, and of course we all know that there was an election coming, and it was so upsetting for people. It just took them by surprise. It pulled the rug out from under their feet. A lot of these people don't have pensions. Many of those drivers and the trainers have done this all their lives. They're in their 60s or some even in their 70s now, and they have nothing to fall back on. I felt it was completely unfair, and I felt it was using people for possible other gains. Even if it wasn't, I just thought, not on my watch, which is why I came out of the gate and said, over my dead body. That's when everything ensued. All hell broke loose.

 

Luckily, after however many emergency meetings we held, we were able to come to an agreement where they bought some time. I found myself in the middle of a lot of very loud men with very loud, big voices - some shouting at each other - talking about what happened 19 or 20 years ago. I had to keep bringing them back to the table and going, no, but what are we going to do now? What are we going to do now? In that sense, I felt like I was the person who was able to bring them all back to the table and go, okay, where is the future of our raceway and our Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition?

 

Fast forward, of course we bought the time - thank God. We brought in Brent McGrath and a few of those other business people from Truro - Stu Rath and some of the others, who I believe have taken some meetings with you now. They have said that they are very interested in putting money into the raceway if indeed there is a good business plan and if indeed there are some people in place who could help to manage, and perhaps a very good general manager would be a good place to start. Yet they didn't have any money and they owed $0.5 million, and then they owed another, I think, $362 million - something like that - around the province to other people, including the people who have the sportscasters that are being played on television.

 

So thank you for stepping in and saying, enough is enough, and calling the loan. I know you say that you want it to be successful, and I'm so pleased to hear that. Would you mind maybe walking us through a little bit of what you foresee as happening and how you intend to try to help them make it successful?

 

MR. COLWELL: To sum it all up really quickly, it's going to make money.

 

MS. ZANN: How?

 

MR. COLWELL: It's going to make money. We're going to ensure it makes money. The number one thing we're going to do is we're in the process of starting the audit. We didn't announce it, but it will be a forensic audit. I didn't want to announce a forensic audit, because I didn't want the press jumping all over it and saying who did what and what's wrong. You would know this better than I, but I don't think, on the surface, that there was really any wrongdoing - in other words, somebody stealing a whole pile of money or whatever.

 

When we do the audit we may find some irregularities. We're not looking for that, but if we see it, it will be taken into account, and we will take the appropriate action and set an example so that doesn't happen again.

 

Once the audit is finished, we will implement the suggestions or recommendations they have for more accountability in the process. We are in the process now of putting criteria together to hire a general manager. The general manager will be given a one-year contract, but I may extend that to 18 months, because it wouldn't be fair to them to do that. Part of their contract will be if they don't make money, they are fired. I'm not fooling around with this. We have to make this facility make money.

 

When I say "make money," if, say, they make $100,000 next year and they take the $100,000 and invest it back into the facility to upgrade it and to make it more profitable or make it easier to maintain or whatever the board decides to do, that's making money as far as I am concerned. So we're not looking at the raceway to give the province a whole pile of money. They're going to have to pay the loan board bill. They're going to have to pay that bill.

 

MS. ZANN: Wait, who has to pay the loan board?

 

MR. COLWELL: The loan board, the $400,000-and-some that's owed. That's going to have to be paid, but we'll work on arrangements for that. We're not going to do that to cripple them.

 

MS. ZANN: I was under the impression that the province is now going to own the whole land.

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, it will own the facility, but not operate it. It's going to be operated by a board, and it's still . . .

 

MS. ZANN: You're going to own it, but you still want them to pay back the loan?

 

MR. COLWELL: The loan has to be paid back.

 

MS. ZANN: Oh, see, I didn't realize that.

 

MR. COLWELL: That's the way it's going to be, but we're . . .

 

MS. ZANN: Do they know that?

MR. COLWELL: . . . going to set that environment up so they'll have the resources to do that.

MS. ZANN: And who is going to pay the general manager?

 

MR. COLWELL: Originally, I think initially - just one second, I'll make sure here. They have enough resources at the board to pay a general manager now, and that will be the case.

 

MS. ZANN: Do you know what amount that will be?

 

MR. COLWELL: It will depend on the individual. We're going to hire somebody who has the ability to do it.

 

MS. ZANN: That would be good.

 

MR. COLWELL: We're going to go through a proper human resources system. It won't be a civil servant. It will be someone from industry who has experience in his field and has a vision for moving the facility forward that the board would share. So the board and my assistant deputy minister are going to be on the hiring committee for this. The board is going to have a big impact on who we hire.

 

The interim board I have in place now - I have two people, as you know, and I'm going to appoint a third one. I'm just having trouble finding somebody, because I want somebody from outside the community who has some business background, who will volunteer their time to do it, because we don't want to incur any costs in that area.

 

MS. ZANN: One quick question there - sorry to interrupt. I had originally thought it was going to be three, but the other night you said it was five.

 

MR. COLWELL: No, the interim board is going to be three. That will be the interim board that will operate the facility until we get the legislation changed and all the other stuff in place that we need to do. In the meantime, we have to run this thing and get it started making money.

 

When we finalize this thing it will be five people, all from industry, all with business backgrounds, and I will be appointing that board.

 

MS. ZANN: And they will be called the Board of the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition?

 

MR. COLWELL: I don't know what the name will be, but they will be responsible for the day-to-day operation of that facility. It's going to be based on the ability to make the thing successful.

 

MS. ZANN: With the general manager.

 

MR. COLWELL: As will the general manager, or whatever they want to call him; I don't really care.

 

MS. ZANN: And he'll be accountable to the board?

 

MR. COLWELL: They will report directly to the board. Then the board is going to have to report to me, on a quarterly basis, exactly where they are.

 

MS. ZANN: It sounds good to me.

 

MR. COLWELL: That will be made public. So we're going to have total accountability and we're going to have it totally open so we can have the opportunity for this facility to move forward. You weren't at the meeting, because I closed it so just the people were there - no press or anything were there. I told them at that time that I wanted ideas from the people there. There was some pretty shocking stuff that came out. When I say "shocking stuff," just not proper marketing, that sort of thing.

 

I've asked the community who use the facility to come forward with these ideas. They're now bringing them forward to the operating board we have at the present time, and those are going to be implemented very shortly. Anything there that will help us - a better profile, more profitable, more input that can help us make the facility.

 

I just want to back up a little bit. When the Premier called me and he said, we're going to make you Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture again, I said, that's great, I've got some experience doing that - Minister of Agriculture. I said, that's great, that shouldn't be too tough. Little did I know. But then he says, by the way, you're going to be responsible for the harness racing in the province, and I thought to myself, good God, what did I do to the Premier?

 

But actually it's a wonderful industry. It has a tremendous opportunity to help grow our economy in the province in a very positive way. When I was at the function the other night one thing I didn't realize, because I don't know anything about harness racing whatsoever - to me it's business, right? And business is business, no matter if you're selling widgets or you're running horses.

 

It's a family affair. I didn't really realize that, and that's critical, because that's one thing we've seen - the family structure breakdown in the province because of all kinds of things. It all goes back to the farming and all those values that are at the farm, so I think that's ultimately critical, that we maintain that. Plus it's a huge economic impact for Truro-Bible Hill-Millbrook-Salmon River and the surrounding area and the province.

 

MS. ZANN: Well, we have 40,000 people come to the provincial exhibition every year.

MR. COLWELL: We need 25 or 30 functions like that a year there, and I think probably it's realistic. Maybe we can get more than 40,000 coming if we market it right and work with it. I think this could be the showpiece for the province when it comes to that type of facility. We've got a lot of good facilities in the province.

 

MS. ZANN: They certainly need a lot of painting and fixing up. There are quite a few million, I think, that need to be invested in the infrastructure of it. I've seen some figures that people have put forward of the different buildings that are falling down and things like that now. Is any of that in this budget, or are you . . .

 

MR. COLWELL: The first thing we've got to do is we've got to get this thing's proper management structure in place. We've got to get the audit finished just to see exactly where we were and where we've got to be. We know where we've got to be.

 

MS. ZANN: And when did you say you think that audit will be done, be finished?

 

MR. COLWELL: I'm not quite sure, just one second.

 

We hope to have the audit done by the end of June, but in the meantime we've got to run the facility and get it tightened up as much as we can - and that's happening, as you're well aware. Every day they're making improvements as we go forward.

 

MS. ZANN: Yes, and I believe you've got the right people doing it too. Bruce Kennedy is a hard worker. He cares about the raceway, and I believe - if rumor has it right - he was kind of pushed out of it quite a while ago and he is very happy to be back. These are the types of individuals we need there - people who understand harness racing and care about the industry.

 

When it looked like it was going to be going under this past summer, I was travelling out and about to my parents' cottage, for instance, out in Seafoam. I popped into little corner stores, and I had been on television a couple of times. Farmers were stopping and saying thank you so much for standing up for our rural way of life, because we provide the feed for the horses that are racing there and all the little - the trailers, the saddles, all the leather shops, even just the corner stores in that area. They all serve a purpose. It's not just the direct benefit. It's all the little spinoffs right across the province.

 

I'm very keen to see that place succeed. Do you have any idea at all when you think it may start to turn a corner and start to make money?

 

MR. COLWELL: I really don't - I shouldn't say that. I think we've already started to turn the corner. We put accountability in place; we put some people in place who are very serious about what they're doing. There have been some in-kind donations made that I really don't want to put on the record, which I'm very surprised and pleased about.

 

It shows you how there's more than just you and I - some people in the community think this is a very important place to have - but it shows that there are people out there who are willing to step forward once they see the accountability. People were nervous before because it's like putting money in a big black hole, almost like the Department of Finance and Treasury Board and that sort of thing.

 

MS. ZANN: Yes, and unfortunately when we were in government that's what they were coming to us and asking us to do - is to keep giving them money, giving them money, giving them money, but we had seen over and over again that there was no accountability, no transparency, so why would you - I mean, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

 

I think that we're on the right track here, so to speak, and yes, I'm really glad to see you in Truro and thank you so much for doing this work. I'm going to move on to a couple of other things I wanted to ask you about.

 

This past summer the department had committed about $400,000 for soil management, which at the time was recommended by the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture. The purpose of the funding was to support the installation of tile drainage, soil amendment techniques - limestone - and the development of a nutrient management plan. Can you tell us when that money is going to be disbursed?

 

MR. COLWELL: This is a program I described earlier - the Homegrown Success plan. One of the things we changed since - I'm a big believer in liming, not only for this industry but also for our sports fish. So we've taken the subsidy up on our lime to 75 per cent for trucking, which is a significant input as far as the farmers are concerned. We used to have a policy - if you were too close you didn't get a subsidy, but that farmer may move a pile of lime so he's going to get a subsidy too.

 

So it will be across the province. It will be based on a new system we're putting in place. It will be on the trucking rates, the same as the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal pays for a dump truck or a trailer-truck to haul it. So we want a standardization that wasn't there before.

 

The benefit of the liming has been that every area - and the one thing I asked was sort of on - I couldn't really believe the answer at the time. We were having a briefing, and Allan was there and our former assistant deputy minister for the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture was there and I asked the question. Of course, Agriculture would never ask this and Fisheries would never think about asking this: in the areas where there are farms, are the pH levels properly in the brooks and lakes? The answer was yes because they lime.

 

MS. ZANN: Right.

 

MR. COLWELL: So it makes sense - the more lime we put on it will help that very important industry plus help the farming industry, so it's a win-win situation.

 

MS. ZANN: It's usually a 60-40 per cent federal and provincial, isn't it, the Homegrown Success?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes.

 

MS. ZANN: Is that going to stay the same?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes.

 

MS. ZANN: So right now, at this point in time, it's just the 75 per cent for the limestone that's going to be increased?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, there was a subsidy to haul wood ash and we've dropped that. We've just strictly upped the subsidy on freight on the lime to help encourage more farmers to use more lime.

 

MS. ZANN: Right. Is that where the $400,000 figure came from?

 

MR. COLWELL: No, that's all part of something else - just one second.

 

The $400,000 that we have there, part of that is the subsidy we pay on freight. It used to be on the wood ash and the lime but the federation, and the Department of Environment as well, wanted to make sure that they had the science around the wood ash. There are some concerns around that with some new standards that have been set.

 

My concern with it at the time is we were putting this wood ash on the land and it has some nutrient value and has some pH correction value, as well, we're well aware of that, but what other chemicals are there? It could depend on the day that they run the facility, what they put through it. What would happen in 20 years or 50 years they found that this wood ash had some kind of a chemical that's residual in the soil and all of a sudden you can't grow the crop again. So it's something that we took very seriously and we work with Environment very closely and we made the decision to stop that.

 

The money that we were paying for the wood ash and a lower subsidy at that time on the lime, we're going to put all that money back into the subsidy on lime.

 

MS. ZANN: So will it equal the $400,000 or is it going to be less than that?

 

MR. COLWELL: It's hard to say what it will - you know, at the end of the year it depends on each individual farm and how much they utilize it.

 

MS. ZANN: So the last I looked, there are approximately 3,900 farms in Nova Scotia.

 

MR. COLWELL: I just want to make one correction on that. This liming/wood ash thing is only provincial money; it's not anything to do with the federal. It's a program that's that important to the province that . . .

 

MS. ZANN: That's not the 60-40. And what do you call that program particularly? Just Homegrown Success or is it part of Homegrown Success?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, it's part of Homegrown but it's only funded by the province.

 

MS. ZANN: Okay, thank you. The last time I looked, there were approximately 3,900 farms in Nova Scotia. Is that about the same now - approximately?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, it's about the same.

 

MS. ZANN: And in the last, say, four to five or six years, 236 farms have grown, as part of that number?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes.

 

MS. ZANN: Do you see the trend continuing up at this point in time, or are we flat-lining or are we dipping down? Does anybody have any idea where we are with the growth?

 

MR. COLWELL: We're hoping that it will grow but we don't know at this point. It's very expensive to get into farming, as you can imagine, and to grow that. I know we've had some inquiries from people, a lot of inquiries from people who are very interested in getting into farming but they also have to realize what a commitment it is and how expensive it is to get initially into it, with all the investments. We're hoping that it does.

 

The other thing is we want to make sure that we expand our existing farms as much as we can by making them more profitable, pursuing new markets and new things that will really grow the economy in the province. That's where we're headed.

 

Once we get to a point that the farms can make money and they know they're making money, it would be no problem for it expanding; it will expand on its own.

 

MS. ZANN: So are you talking about big farms, turning smaller farms into big farms?

 

MR. COLWELL: Smaller ones turning bigger, not necessarily big ones but bigger, diversifying their crops, the big ones maybe getting a little bit more integrated, maybe put more value added into the product they have, all kinds of different scenarios. It would have to be farm by farm and decide what their business plan is, how they want to approach it and how they want to get from where they are to where they would like to be in, say, a year, five years, or 10 years.

 

MS. ZANN: That's good. I really like value added for the farmers because I believe when I did a tour of the then Agricultural College, now the Dalhousie A.C., one of the things we were talking about with the research and everything is trying to find ways that farmers can make money and not just sell their product, as just wheat for instance, but to actually make money from the value-added product made from the wheat or blueberries, or whatever. So are you going to continue with that?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, definitely. It's not only Dal but we have Perennia and Perennia's idea, the idea of Perennia is to take an idea and to turn it into a commercial product. That's where we can tie in. There have been a lot of success stories already, so we can take that product and turn it from a dollar value to maybe a five dollar value. They've been successful with that and we're going to expand their operation to make sure we can do more and more of that.

 

In my past life I was on all ends of that. I worked on product development, commercialization products, and then actually manufacturing products on my own. It's a difficult transition, very difficult. Typically the universities don't understand how to do it. They can come up with exceptionally good research, some practical research sometimes, sometimes not. So Perennia is there to bridge the gap between the university and I would say the end consumer or the producer of the product. They've got some really good ideas, a lot of good projects on the go.

 

MS. ZANN: Well TruLeaf is doing really well, aren't they?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, and we're going to try to make them even more successful, we're going to expand them to do some stuff in the other industry I represent, in fisheries as well.

 

MS. ZANN: Oh, that's good.

 

MR. COLWELL: So I think we need that critical mass there, we have a great facility, great location, and it's an opportunity that we haven't really fully utilized yet.

 

MS. ZANN: I agree.

 

MR. COLWELL: And we're going to utilize it.

 

MS. ZANN: I think it's just starting to grow now.

 

My next question is about the FarmNEXT program, farm succession. Now I know you said it's expensive to get into farming and I know you had mentioned earlier to my colleague that the taxes, federal taxes and things like this, get in the way but I have a question that - I mean farm succession, the FarmNEXT program was really successful and was based on interest forgiveness, so I believe an additional $100,000 had been promised to the Federation of Agriculture. Is that actually going to be happening, do you know? I know the federation had asked for it and to ask for another $100,000, I'm just wondering if that, indeed, is part of the budget or not.

 

MR. COLWELL: Actually this is not run through the federation but the Farm Loan Board and they didn't spend the whole budget last year but . . .

 

MS. ZANN: Yes, within two weeks I heard.

 

MR. COLWELL: We're anticipating we'll spend another $100,000 on it this year in addition. So we're very committed to getting these transitions done, because if we don't get them done the farms will be out of farming and we want to keep them in farming.

 

MS. ZANN: I heard that it was so popular that within two weeks it was all eaten up, what was all promised.

 

MR. COLWELL: No, actually, we didn't spend all the money last year.

 

MS. ZANN: So how much is it going to be all together then?

 

MR. COLWELL: The total budget last year was $540,000 and they only spent $360,000.

 

MS. ZANN: So is the budget still the same amount this year then, $540,000?

 

MR. COLWELL: The budget will stay the same this year, yes.

 

MS. ZANN: Thank you. Let me ask you this as well. I know that there had been talk among some of the farmers in the Federation of Agriculture that they were hoping that perhaps the FarmNEXT program could be opened up for other lenders - not just from the Farm Loan Board - to be able to come on board and for the farmers to get loans from them. Is that going to happen or not?

 

MR. COLWELL: Presently it's only through the loan board and it's interest forgiven on the loans through the loan board, that's it.

 

MS. ZANN: Okay. Is there any interest from the department at all in changing that?

 

MR. COLWELL: We're willing to look at almost anything, but at the present time we're going to leave it the way it is through the loan board because it's a lot easier. We'd have to have some pretty stringent controls in place if we're going to start forgiving interest on bank loans. We'd have to know for sure what they were for and it would be very complicated. At least with the loan board we have complete control over what the money is for and what the loan forgiveness is.

 

MS. ZANN: Okay, thank you. Moving right along, I have some questions. I had briefly read an article about the apple industry and about apple farmers being concerned about GMOs, GMO apples. Do you know anything about that?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, genetically altered - there was quite a concern about that.

 

MS. ZANN: So what's your status on that and where does that lie with the province right now, those concerns by farmers?

 

MR. COLWELL: The GMOs, number one, is federally legislated and typically the industry groups through the Federation of Agriculture would make a decision based on a business decision, whether the customer wants them or not, and we would support their view on it as the apple industry has - we support their position on that.

 

MS. ZANN: But at this point in time would you say the apple industry of Nova Scotia is against having GMOs?

 

MR. COLWELL: It appears that way.

 

MS. ZANN: It does, doesn't it?

 

MR. COLWELL: We haven't discussed it with them in detail to make sure that that's the case but it appears that way and it seems to make sense with the business structure we have in place around the apple industry. We're very successful, and hopefully we're going to be more successful in the future as we grow the economy and make these farms more profitable.

 

MS. ZANN: Right, and they have their own like Honeycrisp and all of these different types which are unique to Nova Scotia and traditional and old.

 

MR. COLWELL: Well the story, from what I understand in talking to them and talking to the people in the industry, is that we have a very unique climate and soil conditions, and no one can duplicate our growth of the industry and the quality we're getting. They've realized that and they understand how to manipulate that to make sure we get the maximum benefit we can, and I think anything that would go in there and upset that at this point would be inappropriate.

 

MS. ZANN: I agree.

 

MR. COLWELL: As we move forward it will be interesting to see how they do but I'm pretty excited about that industry - very excited about it actually.

 

MS. ZANN: The growth of it?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes.

 

MS. ZANN: That's good, and probably more freeze-dried and value-added products, these kinds of things as well.

 

MR. COLWELL: All of that, but do you know what the most valuable one is now?

 

MS. ZANN: Which kind.

 

MR. COLWELL: The apple.

 

MS. ZANN: Which one though.

 

MR. COLWELL: Just the apple, the apple itself, the Honeycrisp, because those sell for a premium price to the consumer directly whereas a lot of the other ones, they get very little value for the apple that's going into juice or made into applesauce, or whatever, and that's still part of the value chain and it's important because they do add some value that way. But over time, I think those will be reduced and let them produce them somewhere else and let's get the high-value ones that we can get there and make the maximum impact on our economy.

 

MS. ZANN: And are there plans to export them a lot too?

 

MR. COLWELL: Oh yes, a lot of the Honeycrisps now are exported.

 

MS. ZANN: So who would you say would be our major customers?

 

MR. COLWELL: I believe it's the U.S. now, at the present time.

 

MS. ZANN: For the fresh apples?

 

MR. COLWELL: And I would think that with this new free trade agreement with Europe, when that hits the case and we get all the certifications and qualifications done, I think that will be another huge market for us, as well as in Asia.

 

MS. ZANN: Just while we're on about GMOs - I know it's a federal issue but I know that it does affect our farmers and our fishers and I know that there is also a lot of concern about the GMOs with the salmon farming in P.E.I. Do you have any particular opinion on that right now?

 

MR. COLWELL: I think you should ask me that when I do my Fisheries file on the GMOs and fisheries, if you wouldn't mind, because I'd like to keep the two departments totally separate.

 

MS. ZANN: Okay, sure, no problem. I'll move on to - in the Fall, I know that your Leader had told Nova Scotians that a Liberal Government will make certain that local products are present in our academic and health facilities. Could you please advise me which line item that falls under and how much has actually been allocated to this in 2014-15?

 

MR. COLWELL: We have no specific line item for that particular initiative but we have been through Select Nova Scotia, we put sustainable funding into that for this very purpose. We have held meetings with Capital Health to discuss some successes they have had in that area and will continue to work with them to get local food in there. We also met with the Ecology Action Centre and they have a program now doing exactly this and we're going to work with them very closely to make sure that that moves forward and help them in any way we can. We will put the resources in as needed, as we move forward with this very important topic because it would be ideal if we could supply 100 per cent of all our institutions. I know successive government - your government, the previous government - all had tried to do this with very little or no success, in some cases more success than others.

 

MS. ZANN: Well, we kept being told it was about trade barriers and trade agreements and all of that kind of stuff.

 

MR. COLWELL: But there are ways to tackle that so we've got to find ways around that. It's also a cost issue, so we have to make sure we get our farms very efficient so that they can supply stuff and make money to those institutions with better quality than what we can bring in.

 

MS. ZANN: And they need it to be consistent. They need enough and they have to be consistent.

 

MR. COLWELL: They have to be consistent year-round, which is an issue, so all those things have to be addressed. It's a complicated issue but we have to get everything we can in there locally because it does help build our local economy.

 

MS. ZANN: Exactly.

 

MR. COLWELL: To eliminate our trade deficit, it's not only just exporting but it's also deferring imports. So if we can stop somebody shipping, I'll say, apples into the province - which doesn't happen much - and we produce them ourselves, that's the same impact as selling our apples outside of Nova Scotia. Outside of Nova Scotia can just be to New Brunswick or Prince Edward Island, or it can be to Asia or the U.S. or wherever it might be. We're very, very cognizant of that and very concerned about that.

MS. ZANN: I mean you hear people all the time, and of course most people don't really understand all the little ins and outs of government and all these trade agreements and everything, but people say why can't we get locally grown, healthy food in our hospitals and in our schools - do you think we can change this in the next few years?

 

MR. COLWELL: I'm very optimistic we can. We just met with the Ecology Action Centre the other day and I was very impressed with the approach that they're taking. I'm very impressed with what Capital Health has been doing; they've really been ahead of the curve on this, so we're very happy with what they're doing. Now we have to get our industry tied in to what this is, and the program the Ecology Action Centre is doing is they're going the whole chain, from the farm right through, so we have to educate the farming industry on what they need to provide to do this at a cost-comparison basis. And also the quality because we have the quality here, there's no question that we've got really good quality, so we have to get that all put together.

 

It's going to take us a while to do that, I mean it has probably been 10 years or more that people have been trying to do this with various levels of success, and lack of success from time to time, so it's going to take us a while to get this in place. The indicators are now that it looks like it's time to do it. There's a lot of interest from everybody to do it. People are getting more and more interested in buying local food. We have issues of labelling to make sure that even in the grocery stores it's from Nova Scotia. There are some distribution issues with that for the big chains, although it's not the institutional thing but it's the same issue, to make sure we consume more Nova Scotia products.

 

MS. ZANN: I think one thing we'll have to be careful of, though, is lawsuits, correct? I mean that's why when you mentioned about the prices because if somebody from Edmonton can package meals to hospitals for $5 cheaper than we can here, then they will say well, this is unfair; we've got the cheapest price so you should buy ours. We're going to need to get around that somehow, maybe even with subsidies to some of the farmers so that we can actually afford homegrown food in our institutions.

 

MR. COLWELL: We've already been talking about this. We can, as the contracts come up for renewal because some of these contracts have been in place for like several years, as they come up for renewal, then those things we can put in place to make sure they look at local. When we get the structure put in place we can supply locally.

 

Also quality is the key too. I can supply something from Edmonton, for instance, that may not be the same quality that we could supply here. The price may be a bit lower but it may not be the best nutritional value or the best quality overall to do what we need to do. We have to look at the whole picture as we move forward, so that's important. We will be doing that and we will be insisting on that.

 

MS. ZANN: Along that line, I did notice that there was one line item on Page 3.4 of the estimates, Food Protection. Apparently now it's going to be given $0.5 million less this year. It just seems to me that this is an important category, so can you explain perhaps what this encompasses and why the budget has been decreased by over 10 per cent?

 

MR. COLWELL: Actually it was part of the restructuring. Just the way it's shown, we've actually added another $300,000 to food protection this year that's not reflected here because when the department was restructured, they moved some money around in different places, but at the end of the day we actually added $300,000 to food protection and inspection.

 

MS. ZANN: Okay, but it's not there in this . . .

 

MR. COLWELL: It's just the way it's shown - we've actually increased the budget instead of reducing it but it's just the way it's reported and how it's done.

 

MS. ZANN: Is there somewhere else there in the budget, is there a number that I could refer to?

 

MR. COLWELL: Some of it's reflected in Agriculture Protection.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Zann, I just wanted to give you an update - you have 15 minutes left.

 

MS. ZANN: Thank you very much.

 

MR. COLWELL: What it is, is agriculture protection and food safety were just separated in accounting so the two of them together should be $300,000 less last year than they are this year. It's just the way the accounting is done on it.

 

MS. ZANN: So you've added $300,000 to the food protection.

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes.

 

MS. ZANN: But it's under agricultural protection now.

 

MR. COLWELL: Well it's under food protection and agricultural protection. There are two different items and there used to be one.

 

MS. ZANN: I see, okay. I'll take a look at that one later. Also on Page 3.1, the Estimates and Supplementary Detail document shows that a number of administrative changes will take place within the department in the upcoming year. Could you just elaborate a little on what these changes will actually be?

 

MR. COLWELL: There are three items there. There's the operational money for Perennia Innovation Park, which wasn't shown there before. It's another $150,000 for meat inspection that was recommended by the Auditor General, and the operating money for food safety.

 

MS. ZANN: How much was that?

 

MR. COLWELL: That was the additional $300,000 for the food safety.

 

MS. ZANN: So these are the changes that you're talking about - the number of the administrative changes?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes. We've actually invested more in safety and inspection than we had before overall.

 

MS. ZANN: The Perennia operating expenses?

 

MR. COLWELL: I think that's about $600,000 for the park itself.

 

MS. ZANN: Does that include the pool? (Laughter)

 

MR. COLWELL: No.

 

MS. ZANN: What's happening with the pool?

 

MR. COLWELL: What has happened with the pool? I'm glad you asked that question. What's happening with the pool is the people who operate the pool now approached me shortly after being elected and said they need a long-term lease on the facility in order to raise money to do the things they need to do. I agreed with them. What we have done is written them a letter offering them a 10-year lease for a dollar a year, and we're still working on all these terms. We will maintain the grounds, the parking lot - do all of that work.

 

MS. ZANN: Snow.

 

MR. COLWELL: We will do those things on an ongoing basis so that they don't have those costs. We will insure the building, but they have to put liability insurance on because that's specific to what they do. They have to come back to us - and we're just negotiating some more items in that now to see where they stand.

 

Then they will have to come back to us with a business plan showing how they can financially - what's the best way to put it? - they don't need to make money from our standpoint. They have to be financially sustainable over the next 10 years. They felt, when they came forward with this, that concept with a 10-year lease - they can go out and raise some money. They may have some corporate donors that want to put some money in. Maybe some other government departments besides ours or the federal government may put some money in to upgrade the heating system or whatever they need to do to make it more economical.

 

MS. ZANN: So you didn't tell them you were going to blow it up or anything like that?

 

MR. COLWELL: No, we didn't tell them that. Maybe your government in the past told them that - I have no idea. (Laughter) That could have been.

 

MS. ZANN: Somebody might have.

 

MR. COLWELL: I'm hopeful that they will come up with a plan that they'll be supporting. From what I understand so far, the usage of the pool has increased, which is a very good sign. They've started raising money in some innovative ways, like putting signs up - it may be a place to put one of your signs up - advertising signs just to pitch for the pool, that sort of thing to sort of get innovative again, so that they can have the facility there and enjoy it for many years to come.

 

MS. ZANN: That's great. When do you expect to hear back from them?

 

MR. COLWELL: We're hoping to hear back around the end of July.

 

MS. ZANN: I hope for their sake that they're able to come up with something, because I know a lot of people use it and a lot of people really enjoy it.

 

MR. COLWELL: I'm of the same opinion as you are and so are a lot of my colleagues - a lot of support for the operation of that. Unfortunately, with the initiatives - I'm going on some very aggressive initiatives in agriculture to try to grow the economy and I can't be bogged down in trying to fund a pool that doesn't add anything to our economy. I know it helps the community and all that stuff, so if they can structure it so they can operate it at a break-even point and do the things they need to do and keep the facility safe and make some minor inner structure improvements as they need to, to keep their operating costs down, we'll all have won. I think they can do that, I really do. I think if they approach some other departments they may be able to get funding to upgrade the heating system, which is a huge cost for them, and some other things.

 

Some of the things they were concerned about being costs aren't costs at all. Like the insurance - we just found out recently the building insurance structure is covered under our policy and we wouldn't change that, but the liability insurance is their problem, that's what happens inside. So that's significantly less cost than insuring the whole building. There were some rumours that they were going to charge a fortune for a lease, which is not true. It's going to be $1 per year.

 

MS. ZANN: Okay, that's great, that's fair.

 

MR. COLWELL: So we'll set the structure up the best we can. We just don't want it to cost us anything.

 

MS. ZANN: I understand completely.

 

MR. COLWELL: Past that, anything we can do to help them we will.

 

MS. ZANN: I think that's great. We helped them out for about a year there - gave them $100,000 to tide them over so that they could try to figure out ways to make it sustainable. Again, it's like the racetrack. At one point it was going to be gone and then we gave them a little bit of room so they could try to figure things out, and I'm really hoping that they can.

 

MR. COLWELL: I do too.

 

MS. ZANN: It really helps a lot of the people who have arthritis. The warmth of the pool they say is much warmer than the pool at the rec centre, and the rec centre has a steep slope, whereas the people who are doing their little exercises in the pool need straight ground. Let's keep our fingers crossed on that one.

 

MR. COLWELL: I sure hope so, too, because it's a valuable community asset, but again, if I'm going to grow the economy, if I spend $200,000 there it means I can't put $200,000 this year in the apple program, which will probably benefit us by several million a year in five or six years' time on an ongoing basis.

 

MS. ZANN: I understand. I have a bit more time here so please pardon me for some more questions.

In August, the Department of Agriculture announced $220,000 would be available in this new fiscal year to support the Community Shared Agriculture, which as you know is CSA, but if my memory is right, I believe that the money to help the CSA was to better market themselves to Nova Scotians and do research into the possibility of establishing a farm share rebate program. Has this already-promised funding been distributed to the CSAs, and if not, when can they expect it?

 

MR. COLWELL: The program you're talking about is a tax credit program that was never put in place. It's one that we have to work with the Department of Finance and Treasury Board to see how that could be structured. If we do it in that one, we may be - I know the Federation of Agriculture has been very interested in a tax credit program overall. It would be a significant impact on the finances of the province, so we have to look at that very carefully.

 

As far as the program itself goes, and the approach that is taken in that field, they can apply under the regular programming we have to help them - other than a tax credit. We're investigating that, but again, it has significant impact.

MS. ZANN: So even the $220,000, because it was announced.

 

MR. COLWELL: It was announced by the previous government, but it was never structured and it was never investigated to see exactly what the economic impact of it would be, and we have to go through that whole process. I can tell you we've been approached very heavily by the Federation of Agriculture on tax credit investments, as we have by other industries that we represent. So it could be a significant hit to the province's bottom line and a deficit position, so we have to look at it carefully. We're not against it at all, but we have to look at the overall picture before we move forward. Sometimes these things sound good on the surface but when you really investigate the cost of it - it may be prohibitive, it may not be, so we may be able to put something in place that makes sense.

 

MS. ZANN: I know a lot of different professors at the NSAC have suggested that that would be a really good thing for Nova Scotia to have. It's a progressive way of thinking of the future and farming, and I think just a way of looking at our quality of life in the rural districts and trying to build up our rural communities instead of losing all our young people to the cities and heading out West. But I've looked into it and I think it's a really good idea so I would hope that you will consider it down the line. I know that Finance and Treasury Board isn't very happy about most tax credits; they always look at the bottom line and think of it as a cost instead of looking at the bigger picture.

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, but you can look at the future - and I agree with you, it's a good program. We just have to make sure that we cost it properly and it's effective because if it's not effective - we may be just as effective to work with those small farms and make them more profitable so that you don't have to have programs like this, and let them expand to a point to where they want to - not huge, because it is a lifestyle choice. I think it's a wonderful lifestyle choice to get to a point where they can be self-sustaining and if they get to the point that they make this kind of income a year, they're happy with that and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that, but it still adds to the agricultural products in the province. I think the way they market it would be very important too.

 

MS. ZANN: And also just again, to have people out in the country - to have small families and small communities and small co-ops, people working together outside of the city. Not everybody wants to live in the city - it's funny because I lived in New York, L.A., Chicago, London, England - you name it - and I moved home to Truro, Nova Scotia.

 

So not everybody wants to live in the city and I think any kind of program like this that can help us bring people back home to Nova Scotia is always a good one.

 

One quick question since I probably have a minute and a few seconds. The flooding program that our government put in place for the Truro and Colchester area, to protect our area from flooding, is that still safe or has that money been taken away? Also, the $15 million that was promised for the whole province to protect against flooding, is that still there or has that been taken out of the budget?

 

MR. COLWELL: We have $10 million over five years for flood mitigation. We're not familiar with the programs you're talking about so if you could supply me with that information, we would be only too glad to have a look at it. As far as I know nothing has been cut on this, because it's a very important issue.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: I'm letting you know that that's time. Did you want to finish it?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, I believe I can still answer but she can't ask any more questions. It's my chance to get even, right?

 

There has been no cut in programs around that. I believe the work that was done by the previous government around the Truro area in that flooding issue is not our problem anymore. We've done all the things we're supposed to do; now it's more the town issue. So I think all that mitigation was done. If I'm wrong with that, let me know and we'll investigate it. We don't want to see the area flood, needless to say.

 

I know your house floods almost every time but I know you're not asking for that reason. It's an important issue for us but there is $10 million over five years to work on this as we move forward, for the province. We have an ongoing budget, as well, for it.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: We're going to go back to questioning by the Progressive Conservative caucus.

 

The honourable member for Kings North.

 

MR. JOHN LOHR: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I commend you, Mr. Minister, on answering the questions. I know that it's a lot for us to ask but you've already gone for two hours, so we'll start you in on hour number three here.

 

My question is about the Crop and Livestock Insurance Commission and it's on Page 74. I'm just wondering if you could tell us why - I guess for insurance premiums paid by clients, the actual this past year was $792,000 and you're projecting an increase up to $868,000. I'm just wondering where the logic is in that increase, if you can explain that to me.

 

MR. COLWELL: It's based on the market price and the value of the product that has gone up. We cover 40 per cent of the cost of the crop insurance, as you're probably aware. We feel that the value of the crop and as the crop increases, that's where the increase will come from.

 

MR. LOHR: So were there increases in premiums? Maybe I should know that, but I honestly don't.

 

MR. COLWELL: From what I understand - my staff may have to correct me here if I'm wrong with this, and please do if I am - the value of the crop is going up. That's why the premiums are going up, to cover the added value in the crop.

 

MR. LOHR: Then I go down to the expenses line, indemnity claims, and you're projecting a 10 per cent increase in premiums and you're projecting almost a 10 per cent - or maybe more than a 10 per cent - decrease in claims. I'm just wondering why you would project a decrease in claims when you're projecting an increase in premiums.

 

MR. COLWELL: Well the claim is averaged over a period of time and that's what the claim rate is based on, and the premium rate is also based on previous years' claims. A few years ago we had a big loss in the blueberries and some other things, so that's why the insurance rate has gone up and the claim rate is an average over several years. That's sort of the simple explanation of it.

 

MR. LOHR: Just me reading this I think, okay, you wanted to show us, you know, go back to - well this year you're forecasting a $262,000 actual loss and next year you're forecasting a $215,000 profit, as I see it in net income from insurance activities. So you wonder about those numbers, where you're projecting such a big increase in premiums but yet a lower cost. So I just wonder if you could comment on that - it looks like favourable projects is what I'm saying.

 

MR. COLWELL: I think if I have this right - and the staff will have to correct me if I have it wrong - again, we're basing the losses on the projection for losses over an average, and then the premiums now are based on losses that were in the past so we're trying to recoup that money. That's the difference. So the premiums will go up, hopefully the losses will stay on the average or around the average mark, and if it does that, we should be good and the projection should be right. But who knows, anything could happen. We could have a hailstorm in June or July in Nova Scotia and wipe out a whole crop.

 

MR. LOHR: I just have another question about the Crop and Livestock Insurance Commission. One of the targets they have is for 50 AgriInsurance products available and currently you're at 47. Could you comment on the three new products that you're considering in that?

 

MR. COLWELL: They're actually set up as a possibility for the future. We have to hold more consultation with industry and see exactly where they want to be with this. It could be something around strawberries or the mink industry, for instance, to cover those, but again, there is ongoing discussion with the industry and we set it up to make sure we didn't leave it out in the budget.

 

MR. LOHR: So you don't have a specific one in mind, you're just waiting - that's a goal, but you're waiting to see what industry . . .

 

MR. COLWELL: There has been some discussion on several, so if it makes sense in the industry, we're going to work with them to put a product in place.

 

MR. LOHR: Can I just ask, I know that you had been adding new products - have the new products generally been more profitable or less profitable. As you get into new products there's always sort of a sorting out of where the risk is, I understand that.

 

MR. COLWELL: The idea of insurance isn't to make money, it's to break even. It's to mitigate the losses that a particular industry might have, and I'll use an example here: the maple industry - maple syrup and all the stuff around that. We put a product in place a few years ago which is getting very well accepted, and as more people in the industry sign on to the insurance, it will keep their costs down because the risk goes down overall. It's an evolving process that really is intended to break even and provide assurance and insurance to the industries that are willing to participate in it.

 

MR. LOHR: Can you comment on the actual claims for 2013-14? The projected was $1.8 million in losses and the actual was $2.241 million. Can you just comment on where those losses showed up this past year?

 

MR. COLWELL: It has basically been sort of all crops in different areas but there was a frost problem with blueberries and some with apple blossoms this year that were extraordinary, but it's just basically across all crops, it's not one huge thing that made that $1-plus million evident.

 

MR. LOHR: As I recall, last summer I think we had - well Ontario had - we had a pretty wet June, I mean maybe that contributed to it. That was a month's worth of rain in one week, I recall. Other than that, I don't recall that many adverse weather events last year.

 

MR. COLWELL: With the insurance, it seems to be that it is very localized so you might have a drought in one area or you might have a hailstorm or some other thing that happened in just one area that would take out one type of crop and then a short ways away it may be fine, or in the rest of the province it may be fine. So that's sort of the thing that they've seen in the last year.

 

MR. LOHR: Okay, thank you. I want to ask about the Farm Loan Board. I notice in the business plan there's mention of a memorandum of understanding with the Nova Scotia Co-operative Council under the Small Business Loan Guarantee Program. I'm just wondering if you can comment on that and how that MOU has worked out and how that program is working out.

 

MR. COLWELL: We'll have to get that information back to you, the Farm Loan Board. We don't have anyone here who can give us the information at the present time. We will commit to do that.

 

MR. LOHR: My next question is along the same vein but I'll ask it anyway. Down a little further, on Page 84, it mentions the risk manager function initiated during 2011-12. I'm just curious what this risk manager function is that is referenced and if you can enlighten me a little bit on that. That may well be the same kind of category question, I realize that.

 

MR. COLWELL: It was actually to hire a risk management consultant at the time. I don't know if "consultant" is the proper word but it's a standard process with financial institutions to look at the risk management. We're actually going to hire a full-time risk management person to do both - I don't want to talk about the two loan boards here - the loan board for fisheries and agriculture. So it's just to try to minimize our risk and there might be some things that we shouldn't be investing in that we maybe were considering investing in or some things that we're not investing in that we should be, just to make it more accountable and more important. That individual is hired by the board.

 

MR. LOHR: So that term risk manager function refers to an individual.

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes.

 

MR. LOHR: Okay, I didn't understand that. So that individual has the task of determining whether the risk is acceptable or not.

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, the risk in different categories, to make sure that we're getting good value for our dollar.

 

MR. LOHR: Did you say that was a consultant or is that a full-time employee?

 

MR. COLWELL: It will be a full-time employee in the future. Last year they hired a consultant to do this and we found a position internally that we can actually fill this with, which will actually save us money going forward, but what it does is they don't look at individual loans, these people don't look at individual loans, they would look at possibly something like the milk industry and say, okay, that's a good risk - that's an obvious one, but there might be some other new things that they're looking at that they have to base a risk on and see if it's a good investment, not a good investment, and advise the board as to whether or not this is a good way to approach it. Now, the board may decide that they are going to do it anyway based on what they need to do in the economy, but it gives them sort of a sober second thought about the whole thing and an overall picture of the loans and the structure of the loans - not the individual loans but it would be more the sector loans.

 

If you look at the risk management of agriculture, it's a hard one to compare it with, but say if they're going to grow a new crop that isn't done in Nova Scotia or isn't available in Nova Scotia, should we invest in that, and they would look at the risk associated with that in other parts of the world and see what the failure rates are and the success rates are, and they would come up with the risk management of a whole pile of different parameters that an expert in that field would do.

The good news is that we're going to fill that position internally, we had the budget already there for it and have had, so we're going to be able to do that and it costs us less money and still provide the service we need - just another level of accountability for the process.

 

MR. LOHR: Just to drill down, I'm still curious, I mean what types of skills would that person have to have then to be - what type of person are you looking for, or where did you find that out in the industry? I mean you must have gone to Ontario; I'm just curious where you got that expertise.

 

MR. COLWELL: The gentleman they used last year came out of the private banking industry in Nova Scotia. There's a lot of expertise around and it's not the sort of thing that you would normally see in the day-to-day life if you're going to the bank to buy a new car or anything, but they're there and they're behind the scenes looking at all the risks of the different loans they may put out or guarantees or whatever they do.

 

MR. LOHR: So the risk management function was more related to sort of the technical risks of the loan itself rather than the crops. I mean a banker would obviously understand banking risks.

 

MR. COLWELL: The risk would be overall that type of industry. So it may be a general farmer, a dairy farmer, a mink farmer, a chicken farmer, what the risks are around that for a loan, and some of them are pretty obvious and some of them aren't.

 

MR. LOHR: I'd like to move on - I just noticed on Page 88 of the Nova Scotia Farm Loan Board document, under life insurance revenue, I'm just wondering, the amount forecasted, I guess it was $432,000, and the actual was $20,000. What accounted for that large drop in life insurance revenue last year?

 

MR. COLWELL: Really a simple answer - we're not in that business anymore. We outsourced it to Sun Life.

 

MR. LOHR: What accounts for the $20,000 then?

 

MR. COLWELL: That was probably just the residue from the transition time. So probably next year it will be zero.

 

MR. LOHR: I think next year you're forecasting $20,000 again.

 

MR. COLWELL: I'm smiling here - it's sort of good news. We get $20,000 revenue from Sun Life every year, that's why. It's good news - unexpected stuff. We need to make more deals like that.

 

MR. LOHR: That is good news, yes. I'm just wondering if you could comment on what happened with East Coast Organic. I know we've all been very disappointed to have the loss of that processor. I'm just wondering if you'd make a comment on that.

 

MR. COLWELL: Do you want the short story or the long story?

 

MR. LOHR: Well, either one - the long story probably. Well, I'll get to the long story - you can give me the short story.

 

MR. COLWELL: Some of it I can't comment on because it's confidential information with the company. The bottom line with it is it was a poor business model. They recognized that. They realized they could not make money. I had some extensive meetings with them, discussed it in detail and we talked about the business plan they have in place. They recognized that it just wouldn't work. They had a serious transportation issue. The product was not always available on the store shelves. There's a whole litany of things that went into the failure of that, which we're very disappointed about.

 

I can say that very capable people were running it that understood business. They just couldn't put it together in a location that would work. There were just not the facilities in the province to do that in the proper location. The facility's there; at one end of the province they were producing the milk and another end, by the time they transported it, it was just not economically sensible.

 

If anyone could have made it work I feel that the group of people who were there could have made it work. We had pretty frank discussions about the business case around it. I think they were surprised that we had as good knowledge of their business as we did have when we talked to them. It was pleasant to have that conversation, although not really the outcome that I had hoped for. I had hoped that they would have been able to adjust their business case and work more closely and maintain that facility. The good news is that at least one - maybe more - of the farmers is still going to produce the organic milk. I'm hopeful they'll be able to make a deal with one of the two dairies now that operate in the province to sell their product to.

 

They're going to keep on that venue. They can still sell on the regular value chain - sell all the milk they can produce. We're hopeful that's the case and there are other market opportunities for those other products that can be produced as an organic product. I'm strongly in favour of organic products, especially as we move forward into new markets and we expand and try to make businesses more profitable.

 

That's the bottom line - their business case just did not support the investment they had and they just couldn't make money with it, and they realized that. Again, I can't stress enough that they're very capable business people - the right idea, just not the right circumstances around making that thing work.

 

MR. LOHR: Was there any looking at moving the actual dairy factory, the pasteurizing factory - Cook's, I guess it is - from down in Yarmouth? Was there any consideration of moving that closer to where the dairies themselves were?

 

MR. COLWELL: They tried that, but they weren't successful - over a long period of time they tried that scenario. We made some suggestions to them in some areas that they might have been able to readjust some equipment that was there. They didn't think that could work. We would have helped them in some ways to do that, but we were not going to invest in a facility that wasn't making money. We're just simply not going to do that anymore.

 

MR. LOHR: I know that what the diary would provide is pasteurization and homogenization of the milk, so I'm just wondering was there any consideration of allowing them to sell unpasteurized milk?

 

MR. COLWELL: They never approached us with that and we would have to look at that very, very carefully before we decided to go that route.

 

MR. LOHR: I guess that leads me to the free trade agreement with Europe. I know that there are opportunities for us but one of the issues is that there will be cheeses coming in from Europe and I'm just wondering if you can comment on how you see that impacting the Nova Scotia cheese industry.

 

MR. COLWELL: We've been concerned about that, as well, but we have some internationally award-winning cheese makers in the province which I don't believe will have any problem at all competing in Europe, and actually it might open doors to them that hadn't been. If we're going to talk about the bulk cheese market, I don't think we can be competitive in Nova Scotia, and that is a fact. I think we're going to have to work on the business models with the cheese producers we have, make sure we help them promote their product, and work with them to make sure we get that - again, it goes right back to the costing: get the costs down of producing that product but keep the quality high.

 

I think there are some opportunities there. We've been discussing that there are some real opportunities but it's going to be the niche market, the high-quality product, the product that you get extra money for that will sell, and in the European market there's a big market for that type of product, especially if we can use the organically grown milk. Anything like that is a marketing tool to make a superior product and I think it would be an adjustment period - I can't say we're not concerned about the adjustment period, but there will be an adjustment period. When the adjustment period is over we should see some growth in the markets for Nova Scotia products in the European market and the Europeans will be here with products, no question.

 

MR. LOHR: I know that European cheeses are made with unpasteurized milk and it's considered - whether that's correct or not - to be one of the factors in their high-quality cheeses. So that's why I was asking, I wonder if there is any consideration in allowing Nova Scotia cheese makers to use unpasteurized milk in their cheese production.

 

MR. COLWELL: We would be willing to look at that, of course, but we'd have to make sure it's from a food-safety perspective and that there are protocols in place to make sure it's safe for people. Human consumption - we don't want to take a chance on, especially exporting something we might have a problem with down the road, but again, we'd have to go through that whole protocol. That would have to be worked out with individual producers or the whole industry, however they want to do it, because someone may be interested and some people may not be. If they're interested we would definitely work with them.

 

MR. LOHR: I know you know there is a considerable amount of what we call offshore labour in the Annapolis Valley. I realize that's largely a federally regulated thing, but I'm just wondering about what your thoughts are on that program.

 

MR. COLWELL: It's not only the Annapolis Valley, it's all over the province, and not just in the agricultural industry, but it's a program that provides hard-working, effective labour that's willing to do the work when sometimes we don't find people in the province that want to do this kind of work anymore. It gives the farms, especially the bigger farms, the opportunity to compete with outside companies or farmers in the U.S. or Europe or wherever the case may be. I think it's a good marriage of really highly skilled people that want to work and are capable of working in the community, especially with the lack of interest in people locally working in those industries, especially when they're seasonal, and the changes that were made in employment insurance by the federal government have not helped that situation for local workers. It's a good set-up, it is working. I know I've talked to several farms that have those migrant workers in place, they're very happy with it, they're very happy with the work they do, and it's a very cost-effective way to work.

 

MR. LOHR: Thank you. I know we were on the Farm Loan Board a little bit earlier, but I guess there's also something called the Timber Loan Board, is that correct?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, that's within the Farm Loan Board.

 

MR. LOHR: Just what is the division of the loans between the two? What percentage would be farm loan business and what percentage would be timber loan business in the Farm Loan Board?

 

MR. COLWELL: It would all be farm loan business but the percentage of the timber loan, I'll find out.

 

MR. LOHR: Yes, that's what I'm asking.

 

MR. COLWELL: The percentage of that we'll have to find out for you. We don't have anyone from the loan board here today, so we'll find out and we'll provide it - hopefully tomorrow.

 

MR. LOHR: Sorry, I'm going to ask another Farm Loan Board question. You may or may not be able to answer it. The bad-debt expense last year cost the board $400,000 and this year it's forecast at $253,000 - which is good news, I guess - so why would you have lowered that bad-debt expense this year by $147,000?

 

MR. COLWELL: Basically it's because we figure the risk is lower this year, based on past years and average. That's why we dropped it to $200,000-and-some.

 

MR. LOHR: I guess what I will do is hand it over to my colleague now, Mr. Chairman.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Hants West.

 

MR. CHUCK PORTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's good to get a couple of questions in the debate tonight. Minister, first of all, congratulations on your appointment as Minister of Agriculture, I'm sure you're having some fun with it already.

 

There are just a couple of questions that I'm interested in. One is with regard to - and John mentioned a few minutes ago about offshore labour. You said this was a program that seemed to be working well. I have Mason Apples in my backyard in Hants West, have a number of staff that used to work there and some that no longer work there. Of course the issue of offshore labour is raised, why is it that they are seen as taking jobs - I just wonder. I know that in that industry it's time-sensitive at certain times of the year. You know the apple crop has to get picked, there's no one going I'll work six or eight hours today and come back tomorrow, I realize that piece around it.

 

What are the measurement tools you're using out there? You say it's successful; you're obviously talking to the employers. Are you talking to people who work there, by way of staff and things like that, trying to get a - you know we get Nova Scotians looking for jobs, there's an EI percentage of whatever it might be in different parts of the province. Some are of the opinion - and I agree to some degree - that as long as there's one Nova Scotian unemployed, we would scratch our heads as to why we would bring others in to go to work. If there are jobs out there and there are people qualified to work, why aren't they working first?

 

MR. COLWELL: That's a good question. I can tell you that in my riding we've got a lot of people unemployed. When I ask them about a farm and tell them they can get a job on a farm tomorrow, the answer is unanimously no. So we can't fix that but let me just find out what we do the measurements with.

 

As you're probably aware, it's a federally administered program so they measure how effective it is. The problem here, as you're well aware, is that a lot of these jobs are very tedious jobs, let's put it that way. They're short term, during crop harvesting - a lot of it. There aren't a lot of people in Nova Scotia who want to do the jobs, that's the problem. That's basically what the industry has been telling us and it looks that way.

 

Now if there's a particular issue with someone who wants to work like that and they don't have a job, that's a different thing. The new Employment Insurance Act, where you have to work longer to get benefits and stuff, has really been detrimental to the industry, as well, because in those particular industries where someone might work six months a year or eight months a year and then have unemployment the rest of the year, has been very negative. Employees don't want to take the jobs anymore for six or eight months, because then they've got a long period of time in between to the next year so they don't get any income, which has caused a problem. The industries that I've talked to have pretty well unanimously cited that as a major problem for that type of industry.

 

I think when those corrections were made, they were made for other reasons, but it captured that group of people. So now people who would typically live in the rural communities and stay there have to find other longer term jobs, if they could have a combination of a job and unemployment. I think all of that has contributed to it.

 

MR. PORTER: Thank you, that's fine but it doesn't really answer the question I asked, which was how you measure that. It's easy to say that and we know that most farm work is seasonal, I think that's fair to say, that even in the apple industry they'll go back and depending on the Spring we're having - maybe not this Spring - generally they're going back and pruning in March and they're getting ready and doing the necessary work. Of course they're picking right up until the late part of the Fall.

 

Many people in my area - and I'm sure in yours, as well, and in all areas, as far as that goes, where there's any kind of agriculture - depend on that work and some of them have been there for many, many years, especially the pickers. There are certain groups that just go and all they do is pick, they don't do anything else. Some pack and some drive forklifts and some prune, et cetera, and some do all kinds of stuff.

 

What I get at home is, and it is really - I'm trying to think of the best way to put it but I guess I'll just be blunt and put it that they're taking the jobs away from local Nova Scotians. Now I realize what you said and I also realize that people do not work the same and when we see folks from Jamaica come in - and it's no slight to anyone, they come in and they do good work and all you need to do is talk to the employers and they'll tell you that these guys and gals are out there and they're working hard and they're doing their piece and they're working day and night, probably a lot of them, many, many hours, and that's what it takes due to the time sensitive.

 

Again, I want to come back to how do you really measure that? How do you know that a certain number - you said unanimous, you talked to people in the area, it's unanimous that nobody wants to work on the farm today.

 

MR. COLWELL: It's a fact.

 

MR. PORTER: So everybody - the numbers are getting smaller that want to do that. I guess, minister, there would be a core group that have worked - that I described - for years; those people, I guess, are my concern more than anything else. I know there aren't a lot of new people going into this business; certainly they're looking for better paying jobs, secure, long-term, not unemployment. But people have been there 20-plus years who are not getting called back. I'm sure you can understand that frustration, certainly, when it comes to the economics.

 

MR. COLWELL: I agree with you. If you have particular ones, I'd like to know about them - after this, of course. From what I understand from the people I've talked to in the industry that use quite a few workers because of the size of their operations, they very proudly say this lady has been with me for 20 years and this gentleman has been here 20 years and so on. The problem they're seeing is those are really good employees - and I believe they're even treated a little bit differently than the migrant workers. They may work eight hours a day or 10 hours a day, whatever the case may be, just to keep them working there because they're valued employees and highly skilled at the work they do.

 

I have no knowledge of anyone not hiring that type of individual back because they would prefer to have someone local if they can get them. The problem is a lot of these workers are getting older and when they retire there is nobody to replace them, and that's what we're hitting. It's in the agriculture industry, it's in the fishing industry, it's in almost all the processing industries where we need labour - not highly skilled labour but some skilled labour, an element to it, and that's what we're seeing. How we fix it, I don't know. The trouble is the jobs aren't long enough to give someone a full year's salary so they can't be the main bread winners in the family. It's a good way to subsidize a family's income and work part of the year and they're good jobs - I mean these are good jobs.

 

Again, to convince people that they want to do it, I know I have a few people that are retired actually and go pick blueberries and they just love every day of it but they only pick the blueberries, that's the only time they work, they don't bother with anything else - which is good, because it just supplements their yearly income and it's easy for them. If they don't work today, it doesn't matter, the next day is good. But there aren't a lot of people in that position when they have bills to pay and try to look after their families.

 

I can't answer that question because it's something that I'm not aware of but I just know the symptoms of it and what has been done to try to keep these operations profitable. But we want them profitable using Nova Scotia employees wherever possible.

 

MR. PORTER: It's interesting that you mentioned blueberries because I want to go there for just a few minutes. In recent years, and more specifically the bees that help to do the work around the berries, we've brought bees in through - I don't know, I'm trying to think back and I don't have my notes in front of me, minister, but it was some sort of agreement that bees were brought into the province from another province where there were rules around, you're not allowed to bring bees in. Where are we with that; have things changed a lot there and is the percentage higher now than it was before?

 

MR. COLWELL: Well there was a problem with a shortage of bees, and the shortage of bees means the crops are not as good so it goes to profitability. From what I understand - and the staff can correct me if I'm wrong here - they're only bringing queen bees in from California now - that's all, just the queen bees - and a group of those to try to get the bee population up in the province so we can get better pollination, ultimately better crops. So there is an issue with bees, a serious issue: we have a declining population of bees in the province. We're not sure why but there is a declining population, it's a serious issue.

 

MR. PORTER: Wasn't one of the concerns of bringing in bees the disease, or whatever, they would bring with them? In recent years that was quite the problem.

 

MR. COLWELL: The mite disease. There are very strict rules around importing the bees, they have to be inspected to our standards, the Nova Scotia standards, before they leave the place of origin, and when they get here they're inspected again by us to make sure they meet the standards. Last year they imported about 5,000 hives. This is not just a problem in Nova Scotia; this is a problem right across North America. It directly relates to the productivity on the farm, very directly.

 

I was watching a program on Oklahoma last evening and they said the soybean production goes up anywhere from 10 to 30 per cent if you have bees on-site, something they didn't even know before, so it shows how important they are in the food chain. I can tell you the blueberry growers here are very familiar with that and they have made significant improvements in productivity because of what they have done around bees and other things they have taken to improve it.

 

MR. PORTER: A very successful industry with a lot of value added in it, as well, and we certainly appreciate that. Around 5,000 you said come in - what's the total number used in the province? I forget - it's in the thousands obviously.

 

MR. COLWELL: What's that?

 

MR. PORTER: Bees that are used and hives - I guess that's what I'm looking for - 13,000 rings a bell, but I'm not sure if that's the right number or not.

 

MR. COLWELL: We don't know the exact number. Guessing, we think it's about 19,000. We'll look it up and provide it.

 

MR. PORTER: I was just curious. I know that we had some discussion in the past. I was more curious as to whether it has grown or not. Perhaps it has grown. If there was a problem obviously with bees in Nova Scotia, it must have a percentage of growth - I don't know what that is.

 

MR. COLWELL: There is an incentive in the province for local beehive operators to grow more beehives and make them local. That would be the ideal situation for us; that has had limited success, but some success.

 

MR. PORTER: I just want to ask, while we're still on it and before I move off - you talked about a Nova Scotia standard of inspection. Can you go into a bit of detail about how that's done? You're inspecting them prior to coming in and prior to leaving?

 

MR. COLWELL: No, prior to coming into Nova Scotia and when they arrive, to make sure nothing has been changed or nothing has happened to them in between.

 

MR. PORTER: How is that inspection carried out? What does that actually consist of? You just have a look and, hey, everything looks great - the bees are all docile and everybody's happy and off we go? I'm sure there's more to it than that - I shouldn't be sarcastic. What does that consist of?

 

MR. COLWELL: We have bee health inspectors, and so do other provinces. What happens is, before the beehive leaves Ontario or California, for instance - it doesn't matter where - there is a whole protocol that they would have to check the bees and it includes opening the hive up, looking for visible signs of any kind of disease. They would know what to look for, of course. They also put a mite trap on them to make sure that there are no mites available. That's placed on them before they leave for their initial destination. That is checked and kept in place by the local be expert here. Plus they open the hive again and double-check everything to make sure there are no diseases before they actually allow them to be used.

 

MR. PORTER: How long as a rule are they here? How long are they visiting us, these bees? They come in, they do their work, and they're turned around and sent back home, we'll say, or off to another location. How long are they traditionally in the province, do we know?

 

MR. COLWELL: Typically five weeks.

 

MR. PORTER: Thanks very much for that. I just want to leave the bees and move on to the hog industry a bit - something that has been on the decline, as we both know from our years here, talking about it in many ways and asking questions over the years.

 

I don't know if levelling out is the right term, but where are we right now by way of that? I realize there's also an issue - PED. Can you update us on that?

 

MR. COLWELL: The industry is quite small in the province compared to what it used to be, as everyone is aware. There is serious concern about BSE. I met with the hog producers recently, and they're taking some pretty stringent protocols themselves, in addition to what is suggested by our department and the federal government. The number of hogs - I can't remember right offhand, how many producers - there are more than we think but they're not large.

 

Most of the production now, if I remember right - and staff can correct me - is in piglets, and they export most all of them out of the province. That's a pretty good industry and I think one farmer told me he was one of the largest. He had over 1,000 piglets in production at any one time.

 

MR. PORTER: Is that Terry Beck from down Kingston way? Is he still doing that? He had quite an operation where he had a contract to raise to a certain - however many weeks old. They were piglets. They were being shipped off to Ontario at the time. I was down there visiting him. It seemed like that part of the industry, as hogs go, was a place where you could make money. You talked earlier about trying to be viable, trying to make a dollar in this industry. After all the challenges the hog industry has had over the last number of years, it seemed to be one way for success, if you will. Is that still going on?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, it's still going on. They're actually kosher approved. That's why they can send it to Israel and any other place that needs kosher approval on the product, which was quite expensive and quite an undertaking - a continuing expensive operation.

 

MR. PORTER: I'm sure it's probably more than just Terry doing it. Do you know how many are doing that? Most of them are raising them small and then off they go, as opposed to actually killing and providing some supply here other than the local market - probably not much, but I'll leave that to you.

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, some go to the local market. Again, we have a problem with abattoirs to process them here - a federally inspected one. The issue with the hog industry has always been feed costs so other areas that have lower feed costs, it's easier to buy the piglets, take them to a certain level that's profitable, ship them and let someone else finish them, and then we buy them back literally as a finished product. At least we're in the value chain and the best part of the value chain - the people that I've talked to in the industry here are very happy with where they are now. It's a small industry.

 

I think if they can continue doing what they're doing, they're doing it very well and profitably, they said they can expand, but on a very cautious and not go-real-fast basis. They feel they can expand the industry because this disease they have now has actually been a big bonus: they can't produce enough piglets for the market because a lot of the other ones have died all over North America.

 

MR. PORTER: Has that been tracked as to where it came from? Am I to understand that's somewhat - or maybe more than somewhat - under control now in trying to eliminate it and move on fresh?

 

MR. COLWELL: They're working on it. It's a serious issue. I had a couple of conference calls with my counterparts across the country and the federal minister regarding this. It's spread very easily. It can be someone who visited a hog farm that has it, didn't even know they had it, walked onto another one, and it's there. It can be from the transport trucks. It can be from anything.

 

What the local people have been doing - and they won't let any of these people on their farms or near their farms, none of the equipment - is they put a ramp between their truck and the truck that's transporting them, and won't even let the driver out of the truck, to even walk around or be anywhere near anything that can touch their stuff. They disinfect the ramp in between and the truck after they leave there, before they go back to the farm.

 

It seems to be working quite effectively so far, but again, it takes just one little slip by somebody who doesn't say they were on a pig farm. They had one case in Prince Edward Island; it's the only one in this part of the country that we've seen so far. That has been one isolated case. Hopefully it stays like that and we don't get any more here. We just don't need another blow to the hog industry. Basically what they've told me is that if we get this in a big way, it will permanently wipe out the industry, which we don't want to see.

 

MR. PORTER: And years back, obviously when we had the issue with beef, we were stopped at the border from shipping. Has that become even a concern of topic, of debate in your conversations with your counterparts?

 

MR. COLWELL: There are some issues around this disease. Number one, it's not a reportable disease, and because of that there are certain protocols we cannot put in place; we don't have the legal authority to do it. The industry here locally is very proactive and we've been working with them and assisting them every way we possibly can to help prevent the disease travelling here. We can't close the borders to anything coming in at the present time, but I'm telling you, it's an issue that the industry is taking very seriously. After the downturn they had and all the failures before, they don't want to take any chance of their farm having a problem.

 

Just to give you some more information here, we have nine commercial producers in the province; we have about 8,700 finished pigs that we supply in Nova Scotia and sell here locally, annually; and we have 47,300 piglets that are moved out and sold. So it's about a $5 million industry in the province now. With proper management and with what's happening in other places in the world, it could grow as long as we stay clear of the disease - it's like everything. It's good, but it's sort of a minor success story based on where we were a few years ago and we had that problem and everything basically shut down.

 

MR. PORTER: Yes, those numbers are probably higher than what most people who maybe aren't paying attention would really think they are. Actually, they're probably higher than what I thought they would be. Even having travelled around a bit in the last couple of years as critic, and met with some of the farmers and such like that, I wouldn't have thought the numbers would have been maybe quite that good, but that is a positive sign. Hopefully it will continue to grow, but again, it is about rightsizing, if you will. That was the issue back a couple of years or so ago.

 

Mr. Chairman, how much time do I have left?

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: You have about a minute and a half.

 

MR. PORTER: Not much time. I just wanted to ask quickly, move to the wildlife side of things in this province, being from rural Nova Scotia. Coyotes and the control of them has been a big issue over the last few years now, as you know, and there have been some incidents, and probably more than we hear about from those generally out hunting who probably see them all the time and such. What's your government's plan as we move forward, or your plan as minister?

 

MR. COLWELL: Coyotes - you would have to ask Natural Resources about those guys.

 

On the pig issue, I really want to give a lot of credit to the farmers that stayed with this because they have developed, in the face of all adversity, a really positive business plan, so I think they should be commended. If we had all our industries in Nova Scotia, not just farming, as diligent and as effective managers as these gentlemen and ladies have been, we'd have a really strong economy in the province.

 

MR. PORTER: Thank you very much, minister. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Queens-Shelburne.

 

HON. STERLING BELLIVEAU: Thank you, minister, and first of all I want to congratulate you on - this is my first time to officially greet you as a new minister and I know that I don't want to call you a senior MLA, but I'll use the words "most seasoned" and I want to recognize your longevity in your role and congratulate you on being appointed minister.

 

MR. COLWELL: Thank you.

 

MR. BELLIVEAU: I have a number of questions, but I want to just give you a brief outline that I'll be reviewing some of the questions that my colleagues asked you and hopefully you can expand on it. One of your opening statements, I believe, or to my colleagues, was the Ivany report. You talked about the primary industries and how that report basically brought that to the forefront and how important that is to Nova Scotia. As you're well aware, rural Nova Scotia depends on these primary industries.

 

Quickly, I had an opportunity to travel to Copenhagen a number of years ago - and I may have raised this with you in a private discussion - but I was impressed when I went to a power generating plant and I saw that the local farmers were actually contributing to their energy source - I believe it was 5 per cent of their production a year was coming from straw that the farmers grew. Can you reflect on that and comment, and what's your opinion on that topic?

 

MR. COLWELL: You bring up a very good point. The member may or may not be aware that the mink industry has put together a program using waste from mink, manure from mink, and with the municipality using compostables to come up with a biogas, they actually generate enough power to run the mink processing facility, which is a huge user of power for the year. They would run that year-round, this facility runs year-round - of course, the processing facility doesn't, but they would sell the power off through Nova Scotia Power in the seasons that they're not running their facility.

 

The situation is that they're using a waste product to fully power their thing, average over the year, even though they sell some and they have to buy some back. But it's one of those things that really takes waste and turns it into a good product and generates power at the same time. So that is starting, and we're looking at several other projects like that across the province in the agriculture industry to move in the same direction so it's a very, very positive story.

 

MR. BELLIVEAU: The other topic is that I'm surprised when I talk about the vineyards that are actually in Nova Scotia and the expansion of that industry. You know my background but I'm surprised that there seems to be a growth. Can you expand on that industry? Is it something I'm just observing for the first time because of my job, or has that just kind of blossomed out of the woodwork here in the last decade?

 

MR. COLWELL: Well it sort of slowly evolved and we're to a point now that we simply do not have enough grape plants in the ground to grow enough grapes to supply the industry. It's becoming a critical issue. We have to move forward and put some systems in place to get more grape plants going.

 

The problem is that it's a three- to five-year turnaround. The reality is about five years from the time you plant the vine until you can actually get enough quality grapes off it for the industry. It's a good-news story from the standpoint that it's a huge growth potential; it's a bad-news story in that it's five years out. That's a bad-news story, especially with the economy the way it is in Nova Scotia.

 

We need several thousand more acres of grape plants in the ground to go forward, but it's going to take some time to do that. We have to build a business case for the farmers who may have the appropriate land because it's only a certain type of soil. It has to be south-facing and there are all kinds of other criteria.

 

One reason it has gone so well - again, it's the same as our apples - it's an ideal environment for the grapes and the soil conditions are ideal. From what I understand, it's almost the same conditions as Bordeaux, France, and Bordeaux, France, makes some of the highest priced wines in the world. We've already seen some results of that; we've got some of the bubbly wines that have won international awards and are selling for several hundred dollars a bottle, from Nova Scotia, that most people don't realize is happening. They can't get enough grapes, so that is an issue.

 

There are some policies that we have to change around that because if you only need 10 acres of grapes to start a winery, it's not enough to run the winery. We have to change some policies and get realistic about the drive that we're going on to make money in the industry. Every industry we have has to make money and the wine industry is starting now. It started as sort of a cottage industry and it has grown, it's really getting exciting. It's an industry that we talked earlier about migrant workers. It may not need migrant workers because there's a lot of year-round maintenance on these vineyards, plus the value added from the winery itself. It's a very good industry and we could probably have a lot of full-time jobs as we go forward.

 

I can't remember right offhand - I went through the numbers the other day but I can't remember the numbers that the winery brings to Nova Scotia, but it's quite substantial for the small industry we think it is and there's a lot of success.

 

I can tell you about one of the larger owners here who went to China with some wine that they couldn't sell, so he figured he'd take it and get rid of it. He took a few cases over there, they sampled it, and he got a call when he got back that said we want to buy some of that wine. He said, how much do you want? Ten container loads. Uh-oh, I don't have 10 container loads. How many can you ship us? Two. Good, we'll take two. This wine was out of production; they weren't going to make it anymore. So what kind of grapes do you need for that? He told him and they said how many grape plants do you have? He told them that too, and they said, we'll buy the grapes now, send you a cheque for all the grapes that will grow that wine, and we'll take everything you can produce. We'll send you another cheque when the wine is ready, so it's pre-financed. That's the kind of reaction we're getting to Nova Scotia wine. This is new but it's sustained.

 

I had a meeting with the wine industry - a couple, actually - sort of a brainstorming session about how we move forward. We need some regulatory changes. They have identified some really common-sense things that we should be doing, because the industry has now grown beyond sort of a cottage industry into a real industry. Now there will still be the cottage industry part of it and the specialty products, and that's fantastic, and there would be the larger people that come in and do all kinds of other things. We really have to make sure we keep the wine content or the grape content as high as we possibly can to keep it in Nova Scotia because that's where our value added is. We have only a few farmers that actually grow the grapes and we have to grow on that, let the farmers do the work that they know to best grow crops, and that's just another crop.

 

The thing with the wine industry is we put these plants in the ground, and hopefully in 200 years' time they'll still be using the same plants if that particular grape is still in favour when you actually make the wine out of it, so it's a long-term investment for huge gains. If we could have the plants in the ground now that might have been in place five or six years ago, we would already see a huge change in our economy. It's a sexy industry for someone who wants to work in it; they are to the point that it's a good industry, it's an exciting industry, and it has all the positive things that we need to see. There are no environmental issues; there are no negative issues around neighbours. They all like to live next to wineries; their homes are probably worth more if they live next to a winery or a vineyard. It's all those very positive things that are there, it's an area that we can really grow Nova Scotia's economy, but it's going to be a slow process with five years out before we can see any benefits from the grapes.

 

In the meantime we have to suffer through that and do it, so we're looking at options of putting incentives in place to get more grape plants in the ground. I don't know where that's going to go or how it's going to work, but we're looking at some different things that we're talking to industry about. They've got some ideas on how we might want to do that, so as we move forward we'll be looking at everything. If you have any ideas in that regard, let us know; we'll entertain any idea to help the economy grow.

 

MR. BELLIVEAU: In your earlier comments to my colleagues you suggested that there are 3,900 farms existing and 230 new ones in the last year or two. Can you explain to me where the new ones are going, and what species, what crops they're interested in?

 

MR. COLWELL: Before I check with my staff, I think it's probably a whole mix of things. I know we have - I'll just give one example. There are some of the - your colleague mentioned about the small farm and how valuable that is in rural areas, and I couldn't agree more, but there are some people growing hops now, which is sort of an industry that hadn't been here before, and some of those are evolving into a beer-making operation which, again, is value added.

 

Every beer maker that we've talked to, the local small company, there's unbelievable growth in their product, some to the point where they can't get enough raw materials to supply the market demand. I think it has taken - and I'd have to check with staff here - about 2 per cent of the beer industry away from the big producers, which is very significant. It doesn't sound like much but if I remember correctly, years ago when I was minister responsible for alcohol and the Liquor Corporation, a 0.1 per cent improvement in your bottom line or your share in the market was a huge change for these big companies. So they've lost - I believe it's 2 per cent, to the local beer makers, and that's significant. It's growing every year so they're starting to become concerned, as they should or shouldn't be, but that's a business decision for them.

 

It's good because if we're growing the hops here and we've got to start growing some grains and barleys that are particularly needed for the industry, I think it brings up a lot of opportunities for these small farms to move into those specialized areas. They might only have five acres of a special barley that's needed by one or two breweries in the province, or outside the province, rather than bringing them in from western Canada. It's a high-value crop. It's not the sort of the stuff that you feed to your stock - your beef cattle, or whatever - it's something that's used to make a high-value product, and it is high value.

 

I'll give you an example. The one beer producer I talked to has needed hops with two years' time delivery. He has to pay in cash now to get the guaranteed delivery in two years' time. That's what you're seeing and that's from outside of Canada. So if we can produce that same hop here, that means he doesn't have to go outside the country and that value can be here in Nova Scotia.

 

There are a lot of opportunities like that. It doesn't really answer your whole question, but I think you're going to find that a lot of people are doing a lot of different things in a mixed farming environment instead of one thing, but I'm going to just check and make sure I'm correct on this.

 

Yes, the other one is mink. Mink is a growing industry so a lot of the farms are mink farms, so there are some very specialized ones. The message was really simple here - mink.

 

MR. BELLIVEAU: You talked about the grape industry and basically in your words - I'll use your words - people want to work in that because it's a sexy industry. Earlier you said that nobody wants to work on a farm. I'm a bit confused by that. Maybe you can clarify because what I hear you saying is that - to me, when I was a young man, this was part of actually supplementing your income. What I heard you say was that nobody wants to work on a farm, yet the grape industry seems to be the new kid on the block that wants that. I'm confused because people need jobs - can you explain that?

 

MR. COLWELL: It's easy and not easy to explain. For some young university student to work in a winery and sell wine all summer - that's a pretty neat job. The same person, if you were to ask them to go pick strawberries and weed and do all the other things you need to do that's back-breaking work - no way they'll do it. That's the difference.

 

A winery would be towards an education that would potentially be a very high-paid job. I know that one winery here - at least one in Nova Scotia - has advertised for a master wine maker. There are only a few of them in the world - 50 applicants came to Nova Scotia because they see what the potential here is in Nova Scotia and seeing the wine that's coming out of here now without even having that expertise. So they're going to hire that expertise - one company is - and I would think there will be more that will follow.

 

I think what will happen is, once one of these experts get here, one of them will come along and say, I want a winery and I'm going to come to Nova Scotia and buy a winery or start one, or whatever the case may be, and then away we go. It's just poised to move forward and this is a very positive story. It's pretty well like our mink industry. That struggled for years and years, and now it's doing very well. We have to do more things to assist them to make sure they keep going well and see if we can add some value.

 

Like I say, I think an appropriate approach to it: it's a sexy industry. If I go to a university student and say I worked at Jost winery - whatever the winery is - all last summer, and the other guy says I worked at Walmart. Guess where the guy who worked at Walmart wants to work next summer? At the winery. That's the difference - even if it's pruning vines or running the machinery that has to do that - it's an industry that's fun. A lot of the things we do in agriculture are not fun; it's just plain hard work.

 

MR. BELLIVEAU: Our local industrial commission was in the process of putting together a climate change study. I'm trying to pick the wording here, but the end result, my observation was that in southwest Nova Scotia there was actually a unique climate that was comparable - and I'm not here to rain on the Annapolis Valley because I know how fertile that land is, but it compared it to the Annapolis Valley in saying that unique climate in southwest Nova Scotia was possibly even better than the Annapolis Valley. I was amazed at that.

 

My question is - and I'm not trying to put one over the other, I'm just saying this is a unique area that probably needs to be taken advantage of. Our forefathers went in other sectors - timber, fishery, or whatever - and they farmed where it was appropriate, but there are other options out there and other opportunities. I guess my first question is are you aware of that climate change report and - I'll tie it into the second part of the question - you talked about these other species, hops and grapes and stuff, is that a possible option for this particular area?

 

MR. COLWELL: It very well could be. I can't comment on the particular area because the area has changed in very small - how can I put it? - very small climate changes in a very small area. You might have an area that has a south-facing hill that's great to grow grapes on. That same individual may own a lot of land and that's the only place they can grow grapes on this piece of property because it just happens to be the right soil, the right drainage, everything is right.

 

One thing that's very exciting is - and I don't know if you're aware of it; I wasn't until I got into this job - the community college is doing a remote climate study, and we're going to participate in that. We're helping to assist by having remote monitors and they're actually mapping large areas in Nova Scotia, especially down in southwest Nova Scotia where there's really good potential for agriculture. It's surprising some of the locations; they're even surprised that some of the areas you're talking about are ideal for certain crops. But it all comes back - one thing I learned very quickly with farming is it used to be, you know, you take a tractor out, plow the ground up, put some fertilizer in it, maybe some manure as fertilizer, plant something, let it grow, harvest it, and sell it. It's all science now.

 

It's all science. The growth of the crop is so dependent on the climate in the area, on the applications of fertilizers and materials to grow, the soil condition itself, what kind of soil it is - it's all science. As we move more and more forward with this and we look at the overall climate over a period of time, we get an idea of what area might be good for certain crops and some that aren't good for that crop but maybe another crop.

 

It's important that we do this, and as I said early on, there's going to be a world shortage of food in 20 to 40 years, and it's something we have to utilize our industry more and more and we have to protect those resources and get them in the most productive thing that we can that's really suited to that location, but also makes good business sense because it's no good growing wheat in Nova Scotia, we just don't have the land for it. Maybe some barley crops, like I already talked about, may make a lot of sense in some areas, a limited, very specialized market, and those are the things that are high value.

 

We have to look at all that, so we have to look at the science today, it's all science, it's all like the climate change, and now I just noticed on television the other day that one of the top climatologists in the world, I guess, from MIT says that - he didn't say the people that were saying about global warming were crazy, but almost. He said they've got to get back down to earth and really look at what's happening here and he doesn't agree with them, and he's one of the foremost authorities in the whole world.

 

So now whether he's right or the other guy is right, who knows? That's why we have to gather the science and do the things such as the monitoring that's going on now through the community college, I was very impressed with the results they've got. We have to merge that with all the information that Natural Resources has, any other studies that have been done so we can actually see where the best place is to grow particular crops or to use for other reasons - maybe forestry, maybe blueberries, it could be anything - or maybe it's a place that you don't grow anything; just turn it back into subdivisions or whatever you're going to do with it.

 

Those decisions can't be made anymore - I've got a nice yard and I want to grow these things - because they don't work that way. I've seen it in my own yard. I planted some apple trees; I planted a Honeycrisp tree - that's my job: I plant them, my wife buys them. It grew like crazy and had all kinds of apples on it last year, and I have another tree just about 20 feet or 30 feet away from it that has been there for seven years and it's the same size as the day I put it there. Maybe I'm doing something wrong because I don't understand the science of all this. Now maybe Mr. Lohr could help me with that and get that little tree to grow too. It just shows you how a minor change in where it is - it's probably from when the property was backfilled. There's some good soil in one spot and not good soil in another, that may be all it is, and I haven't fertilized them properly.

 

Anyway, I keep busy planting trees. I don't mind doing that at all. That shows you how much the science - not that I've been to science in that regard, but how important it is that we do this research on exactly what you're talking about, find out what will best grow there and there has been a lot of research done all over the world on the different products, the different crops for different areas. We have to really, really listen to that science, we have to get more of it in place, and we're going to move forward with some projects and get more mapping of areas that can do that.

 

I don't know exactly what we're going to do around that area but we're going to do some stuff, we're going to start this year, to see if we can't get better information. So when we decide to move forward, or say someone decides to make an investment in the grape industry and the wine industry, that they know where the best place is for success so they know when they plant this crop, in 50 years' time it will still be producing, because we made the right choices based on science at that time, and not just sort of planting them and hope. We can't do that anymore.

 

MR. BELLIVEAU: Thank you, minister. I think part of my education in this House was actually sitting the last term next to the Agriculture Minister, so I appreciate your comments. It goes right into the next question; you talked about the science and understanding what's going on in the earth and it leads me to my next question: is your department, is your government committed to putting the money up for science and for this knowledge to be accessible to the agricultural industry?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, we are. I can't give you details on it right now because we're going to participate in the study that the community colleges have in place now, because it's a very effective way and not really an expensive thing to do but the outcome will be incredible. We're working on other things too. The $500,000 we announced for the mink industry in our budget this time, that will be science-based and a lot of other programs. We may have some other ones here too.

 

As you're probably aware, we're co-located in Kentville with the federal research station there. We do exchanges of information and co-work there. As you would be very aware, we have $20 million that goes into DalTech in agriculture, specifically for science around this. We do have funds for science on a go-forward basis, so it's a substantial investment and we will continue that, if not grow it.

 

MR. BELLIVEAU: Mr. Minister, in your earlier comments to some of my other colleagues you talked about immigration, definitely our need for labour, especially in the agricultural industry - our farms are requesting that particular workforce.

 

My question around that - you know that some Nova Scotians have some issues regarding EI and some of the changes. My question is, I know that most departments have an opportunity for each minister to travel to Ottawa twice a year, have you considered doing that? I know this is a new time, just the beginning of your mandate, but have you considered doing that, taking some of these issues, like immigration labour and the EI issues around that whole access, for support?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes. I haven't been to Ottawa yet but I've developed a very good relationship with the federal Minister of Agriculture. I actually have his home phone number and his personal cellphone number that he doesn't give out, and had some really good discussions with him - very co-operative and very interested in making our industry profitable and grow here in Nova Scotia. We will be having meetings around agriculture in the future in Ottawa and in other places in the country. We have a very hectic schedule; I'm actually booked now until, I believe, the end of July already. I really want to get around more to the local industries here, talk to them before we move to Ottawa for any further asks - not that I'm afraid to ask for money, don't ever worry about that. But we've got to make sure it's concerted and we've got to make sure that we fit into a program that they have, or help them create a program that will help us and the other provinces.

 

I've met with my counterparts in New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island already on more than one occasion - a very, very good relationship there. We have to build relationships - and you would understand that as a former minister - with the federal government and with our neighbours so that we can jointly work on solutions for our industries. We're committed to doing that and we're in the process of doing that as we talk.

 

MR. BELLIVEAU: Okay, I just want to take you in a different direction, if I can shift gears and go in a somewhat different direction. Most recently in the last few months your government, yourself, your department introduced the animal tethering laws, or the dog legislation. I have to publicly acknowledge, first of all, that I'm a dog lover so I attended some of the rallies or groups that - I believe it was a day in February but I haven't got my calendar here, but there were six or seven events across Nova Scotia and, minister, I believe you participated in one in the Bridgewater area, if I'm correct.

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes.

 

MR. BELLIVEAU: I'm a dog lover and I recognize you and I commend you on that legislation, first of all, but I do have a couple of questions regarding the tethering. I know you picked that 12 hours and my concern is around how that decision was made, first of all.

 

MR. COLWELL: We looked at several different things. I believe they are the same rules that they have in Newfoundland and Labrador, and that seems to work quite well. It was based on talking to several of the animal rights organizations in the province - we've got several of them - to sort of come to a compromise on where we should be with this. The SPCA had actually come forward with a document they had and made the suggestions and we followed their suggestions on that, but I think since then they've changed their mind on what the suggestions are going to be, so that's a challenge.

 

There has to be something sensible around that as we talked about earlier. We can't have dogs running loose and biting people, because then it becomes a problem for the municipalities and their enforcement on that side of the Act, which is not animal cruelty but protection of property and people. It has to be a balance. At the end of the day we may not settle at 12 hours, it may be something different - it may be more or it may be less, maybe 12 hours, I don't know at this point.

I've managed to establish a very good working relationship with all the credited organizations in the province, and they could be somewhere from three or four people to very large organizations, which we have in the province. Through that medium we're going to meet on a regular basis, see whatever we put in place, what's working, and we may adjust it in a year or two years' time, or we may not adjust it. That invitation is out to them, to work with them, and I think that's the first time that has ever happened - that's what they tell me, anyway - that we've actually sat down with all the groups; usually one or two groups have been put together.

 

Everybody has the same goal, they want to have the companion animals looked after like they should be. I know I had my dog on the walk in Bridgwater when it was there and she behaved quite well and she had a great time, as I did, and it was a wonderful day. I really commend the people that started that whole process, and I believe the people in Bridgewater initiated that - great people to work with, very concerned about animals, and they were quite pleased to know that my dog sleeps in the bed, so that's spoiled rotten as dogs should be and cats should be, but we have a group of people out there that don't properly look after their animals and we have to make sure that we set a standard that we can at least police properly.

 

It's not just the regulations that we have to worry about. We have to set the regulations, which we can adjust from time to time as we see incidents occur. We also have to have proper education for people doing the enforcement to make sure that when we issue an SOT or we have to go to court, everything is done right so we can get a conviction. We have to make sure the penalties are high enough that people take notice when it happens. We also have to educate the public on what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable.

 

I don't know if you were here when I talked about the dog in my own riding that was taken by the SPCA - it was outdoors. I don't know if you were here for that conversation or not. They took the dog away and actually the people volunteered to give the dog up. It was a rescue dog to start, but they told the SPCA, this dog has to stay outside. Lo and behold, the SPCA didn't believe them, but sure as old heck, one day in the kennel and they had to put the dog outside on a tether.

 

I'm not sure what happened to the dog. I hope they didn't have to euthanize it - I hope, because it was a really good dog. It just enjoyed being outside. It was well looked after; had a wonderful, huge doghouse. It was properly looked after - had the proper food and everything. It was just there. When the bad weather came, the people would take it in the house, even though it didn't like it in the house, would take it in for bad weather and then put it back out on the tether again. So there has to be some common sense around this whole thing.

 

We have issues with working dogs. We have issues with enforcement too. I took a lot of heat about Breighmara farm where they had horses stored. I didn't say anything at the time, but those horses were put there by the SPCA - a very deplorable situation. They did that when they were doing farm animal protection as well as the other one. They left them there - never checked on them, never saw if the people could still maintain them or not. Two of the horses, if I remember right, had to be euthanized because they were just not fed properly and looked after properly. Most of the other ones had been removed from the facility - not because the owner didn't care, they just didn't have the ability to do it anymore, either financially or otherwise, which I don't really want to talk about.

 

It shows you - it's not just the Act here. We've got to make sure that we follow through down the road and make sure we get things put in place that those animals are protected now and in the future. In that case it didn't happen. So an organization that's well trusted for the most part put an animal in harm's way and never checked on it. We have to have the whole gamut of what's going on here.

 

Farm animals are under the Department of Agriculture now and they have nothing to do with them anymore, which is positive, but in companion animals we have to be careful of how we do the enforcement, what we set the standards for. I think the standards are going to have to be a moving target over time until we get them just right with a balance. We need a balance because we have working dogs. I don't know if you've ever seen a husky in the far north - you cannot take them in the house because if you do, they can't survive.

 

I remember getting up one morning and it was 45 degrees below, 120-mile-an-hour winds and snowing, and I walked outside my door and the guy who lived next door had this husky there and all you could see was his nose sticking up out of the snow, all curled up, absolutely happy as could be. He was fed frozen meat, but that's normal for the dog and the dog is healthy as could be, happy as could be - didn't go near him because he was not safe to be near because he was a working dog.

 

They had them staked outside of town on big chains because small chains would break - they'd just break them. The guy who owned the team said you can't go near them because they'll literally chew you to pieces because they're working dogs. They were well looked after, well maintained. They had a vet there to check them. Every time a vet was in town they would check out all the dogs to make sure they were okay because they didn't want anything to go wrong with those dogs.

 

We have to really look at this sensibly. Some people would think that every dog should be like my dog and your dog - they're members of the family, but in reality that's not the case. In some cases - I'd like it to be the reality in every case but it's not. We have to balance it all out and, at the end of the day when we get this done, hopefully we get people down to earth and understand where we should be and where we have to be with this, and at the same time protect the animals so that there's no animal cruelty. That would be my goal: no animal cruelty in the province in companion animals, or any animal.

 

MR. BELLIVEAU: If I could, I was trying to get clarification on how the decision was made on the tethering of 12 hours, because I know you made the example of extreme conditions like with the husky dog, I understand that, but to me an average animal or dog, if that's a normal dog, what you describe with the husky is extreme for that individual dog, or extreme sunlight. Somebody might not be conscious of how much heat could be built up in a car and have the windows closed up. To me they're not responsible owners.

 

The other one is seeing an animal in distress in heavy rain; there are a number of different conditions where a normal animal can be in distress. My question is, is that going to be part of that tethering legislation, to include that in there, when the animal enforcement officer has to enforce that?

 

MR. COLWELL: You're absolutely right, that's going to be a major part of it because if you have a major storm going on, you don't want the animal outside and that will be the issue. Maybe it's too hot that day to be outside.

 

There are all kinds of conditions around that and if they're tethered, they're going to have to have the proper kind of shelter. There's a very, very strict outline of how that shelter can be constructed. It would have to be insulated and it would have to be a certain size for a certain size animal. It is going to have to be clean at all times, you're going to have to have water that's not frozen in the wintertime available to the animal all the time, proper food, a proper size restraint - a chain or whatever they're going to use, that can't get tangled up.

 

There are several things, you're absolutely right, that are going to be part of the tethering requirement. They'll probably be the things that will be enforced more than the hours because the hours are going to be quite objective. It doesn't matter if you make it 20 minutes or 24 hours, how do you enforce that? How do you prove that it was that long? Someone in 19 minutes could come out and take the dog off and put it right back on again. We have even the 12 hours, so many hours that they cannot be tethered during the day. That would mean hopefully that the dog - or the cat, it could be a cat too - would be inside certain hours of the day, which in the wintertime in particular would be coldest time, at night, but may not be.

 

It's around all those things, it all has to go together to make it humane and safe for the animal because that's the thing we're really trying to accomplish here, and a way to measure that so if an enforcement officer comes and says okay, this is not a humane way to handle this animal, this is animal cruelty and here's how we can enforce it. Once you get that in place, I think it will take a lot of this away.

 

There are a lot of things that have not been talked about that are a whole lot worse than a dog being tied out, I can tell you. It's unbelievable some of the stuff that goes on. Those things will be addressed as we move forward and that will be something that as those things come to light over time and we can find a way to monitor that, we will make adjustments.

 

The key to this is we'll get something in place that we can actually enforce and then we'll adjust it as we move forward and see different cases, because I'm sure there are going to be cases coming along from time to time that we've never seen before or have never been reported before, let's put it that way. As we become aware of those, then we will make the corrections in the regulations and go from there.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: There are about 30 seconds left, just to let you both know.

 

MR. BELLIVEAU: Okay, just quickly, you said about passing this, the enforcement issue of this bylaw, down to the municipalities. Can you understand how that's going to be their responsibility, if what I heard from your earlier comments?

 

MR. COLWELL: Yes, I probably will run out of time here because the four hours are up, but I would be willing to answer that for you tomorrow.

 

MR. BELLIVEAU: Okay.

 

MR. CHAIRMAN: And the time is up. So if we're finished with Agriculture, shall Resolution E1 stand?

 

Resolution E1 stands.

 

Thank you, everyone, for the questions and thank you, minister.

 

[The subcommittee adjourned at 9:30 p.m.]