HALIFAX, THURSDAY, MARCH 22, 2018

SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE WHOLE ON SUPPLY

1:55 P.M.

CHAIRMAN

Ms. Suzanne Lohnes-Croft

MADAM CHAIRMAN: I call the Committee of the Whole on Supply to come to order.

Resolution E1 - Resolved, that a sum not exceeding $49,615,000 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, the Nova Scotia Farm Loan Board, and the Nova Scotia Fisheries and Aquaculture Loan Board be approved.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable Minister of Agriculture.

HON. KEITH COLWELL: Thank you very much, I’m pleased to be here again. I think it’s my fourth time since I was elected in 2013 and appointed to Cabinet. I’m very pleased to be here with my Deputy Minister, Executive Director and Chief of Finance for our department - a very good team we have indeed in the department, along with other staff members who have joined me today.

            It has been an interesting year and an exciting year in agriculture in Nova Scotia. We’ve seen the wine industry begin to explode in the province in a very positive way. As we look at that industry, I can recall I set up a minister’s forum on the winery with the wine industry, and indicated to them at the first meeting that I wanted the industry to grow to five times bigger in five years - and I almost got thrown out of the room, and rightfully so. But I can tell you that in five years from that date, we will be five times bigger.

            I want to really thank the industry for that and the great work they are doing developing new varietals, really improving quality and, indeed, exploring and also achieving international markets. It’s an industry in which sales last year were $17.5 million, with $384,000 in exports. We have 94 grape growers and 21 wineries, and we have approximately 600 direct jobs in the industry in 2016 and we’ve grown above that number as of today.

            One of the wineries this year, a new winery, Lightfoot & Wolfville Vineyards, in Wolfville in the Valley, have advertised recently for 50 new staff - a winery that just opened last year. So that’s going to move our numbers up dramatically as we move forward. And the other wineries in the province are seeing the same type of growth.

            Many of the wineries have sold out of the varietals that they have early in the year and, indeed, it was a bumper year last year for all of them. The wine tours are really improving and they are sold out, from what I understand, a year in advance. So, the local communities are very interested in seeing the wineries we have in our province and it really has helped a tremendous amount with our economy.

[2:00 p.m.]

Benjamin Bridge, another well-known winery, had their sparkling wine added to the menu of Gordon Ramsay’s Michelin-starred restaurant in the United Kingdom which is quite an accomplishment - it’s a very difficult restaurant to get into.

We do need more grapes in the ground. It takes five years from the time the plants are growing to get into full production and, indeed, our sales are going to soon outrank our production capabilities. We have engaged researchers. We’ve developed a wine lab at Acadia University a couple of years ago to do the testing and the work that needs to be done to help the industry grow, as well as doing research in many areas. We’ve hired a viticulturalist with vast experience in viticulture in the province and that has moved us ahead dramatically as we grow our vineyards. In summary, with this industry it’s exciting, it brings tourism and creates exports, and is a great investment in Nova Scotia - a long-term investment. Some of these investments will last 500 years.

We’ve seen a growth in our farm income with cash receipts up to almost $600 million. Apple revenues continue to grow; this year, they’re worth over $22 million and almost $16 million of that is straight export. Indeed, a year ago, we sold out of Honeycrisp and some of the high-value products about two months before the new crops could be put in place - or available for sale, I should say. I believe that Honeycrisp apples still sell on the floor at around $6 or $7 a pound, quite a significant change from selling apples for $75 a bin.

Our maple industry is up $2 million, a 173 per cent increase over the previous year - and we’ve found something very interesting about maple. Our maple sugar in Nova Scotia has been proven to have medicinal values somewhat similar to blueberries. We’re the only province in Canada - the only place in the world actually - that has maple which has medicinal values. We’re going to develop that into a high-end product and market that all over the world. It will set us apart. We can’t compete with Quebec with huge operations, but we can compete with a premium product - not only complete, we can exceed our sales with no more inputs.

Our dairy industry continues to grow; our potato crop, this year, was up 40 per cent to $ 7.1 million, the largest since 2009; vegetables were up 4.3 million to $34.1 million, a 14 per cent increase. Primary agriculture employs just under 5,000 people and it’s up 4.4 per cent, overall, a very positive thing.

We’re working very hard to spur innovation in Nova Scotia. Our business development staff, working with industry, is finding new market opportunities in all parts of the world including Asia, Europe, and, indeed, expanding our markets in the U.S. We’re working with new varietals to increase our value-added products and do many things that we see opportunities for export in the province. Every dollar we export has a net value of $7 to our economic benefit.

Our exports now have reached in excess of $315 million and that doesn’t include the $16 million that Sobeys bought from us last years and exported out of the province. So, we’re really very close to $340 million, and the major markets are the U.S., Europe, and Asia, in that order. We’re very close to the Ivany goal of doubling exports in just four years.

Work in wild blueberries - this has been a major topic for us just in the last couple of years and the top export this year - $80.6 million in 2017 - and that will increase in the future years. Our export in baked goods is up 22 per cent and frozen vegetables are up 17 per cent. As we continue to look for more markets for our blueberries, we’re in the process of developing a high-end, high-value blueberry wine for the Asian market.

When we look at the opportunities in agriculture, there are many. We worked to secure a new five-year deal under the CAP program, which will be a total of $49.6 million, in conjunction with the federal government to replace the Growing Forward 2 program we had before.

We’re excited about the CETA trade agreement in Europe. It came into effect on September 17, 2017. It removes 96 per cent of the export tariffs - blueberries previously had 9 per cent, fresh apples had 9 per cent. Those are just two of the items, and there are many, many more.

We are seeing Nova Scotia companies competing internationally and doing very well, seeking new market opportunities for many, many products - too many to mention here today. Presence at a large hospitality show this year in China - we saw several thousand people view Nova Scotia products and some very lucrative deals signed by our industry. There is a lot of work continuing and it continues to develop our Nova Scotia ability to export products.

We have Perennia, which is an industry - I’ve signed that with an industry-led board. It’s the intermediary between the universities and the industry. The idea is to use that company as an incubator facility for new start-ups and testing, and value-added products that we can sell and put in place to help Nova Scotia’s economy and our exports grow.

We’ve been working with the bee industry. It’s the first time in the province’s history that there has been a close working relationship developed with the bee industry in Nova Scotia and ourselves. We’re very happy with that and very excited to see what we can develop with a total pollination that we need in the Province of Nova Scotia - we’re very near that now. That will also create some opportunities for exporting products and bees to other parts of the world, instead of us importing them all.

Select Nova Scotia is a real success in government. I can remember when I first came into the department we had some very serious concerns from the Federation of Agriculture about a film that was being produced by Communications Nova Scotia. Upon reviewing the film, I agreed with them. From that time that they sort of worked on their own and didn’t work with us, we now have an incredibly good working relationship with Communications Nova Scotia.

We actually put $250,000, as we did in 2013, into a program to encourage people to buy local. CNS since then have invested $450,000 on top of that - they saw the value in this really good project - and African Nova Scotian Affairs has also invested another $100,000-some for ethnic-specific foods. It’s very exciting the way government departments should work together. Indeed, it’s a co-operative effort and it’s getting significant results.

We want to encourage people to buy local. We want to talk more and more about food security; in other words, we have enough food to eat. In the case that there is an emergency in the world - and you look at some of the U.N. reports that indicate within a very short time we’re not going to have the capability to grow enough food in this world to feed the middle class, never mind the Third World. These are things we take seriously.

I think Nova Scotia is on the brink of really moving forward in agriculture. It’s an exciting time to be here, it’s exciting to see what our farmers are doing, and I want to personally thank them for all the great work they’re doing in all the industries.

With those few words, we’ll proceed from here.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: The honourable member for Kings North.

MR. JOHN LOHR: Thank you, Mr. Minister, for your remarks. I certainly do recognize the success of those industries - the winery industry and the apple industry. There are certainly challenges in Nova Scotia but, as you say, there are enormous opportunities in feeding the world and I’m very pleased to see the industries go ahead that have gone ahead.

            I’d like to get right into the questioning. You mentioned the Canadian Agricultural Partnership and I would like to ask if the Canadian Agricultural Partnership has been signed with the federal government?

            MR. COLWELL: I couldn’t hear you.

            MR. LOHR: Okay, I’ll lean into this, just hold on. My question is, has the Canadian Agricultural Partnership been actually signed with the federal government?

            MR. COLWELL: We anticipate that it will be signed no later than this April. The holdup has been Ontario and some issues they had with it. My understanding is that the minister will be coming to Nova Scotia and we will sign our section of it, and the other provinces in Atlantic Canada I understand will be the same, sometime in April.

            MR. LOHR: My understanding is that the start date on the CAP would be March 31^st, April 1^st - it would be the new year. It is intended that this CAP programming be available for the new year. Does seem like it’s putting it right to the wire?

            MR. COLWELL: We’ve pretty well developed all the programs. There are a few we’re still putting the finishing touches on, so as soon as the bilateral is signed, then within a couple of weeks we will be into the program.

            MR. LOHR: My understanding is the value of the CAP will have exactly the same value as Growing Forward 2, approximately $37 million federally and provincially. I think I heard you mention a few minutes ago, $49.6 million. So which number is correct - what is the total value of the CAP?

            MR. COLWELL: The total value this year is the same as the previous one.

            MR. LOHR: That would be $37 million?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MR. LOHR: Okay, maybe I heard you wrong in your opening remarks.

            So, this is a cost-sharing agreement, I understand - what is the split of the cost-sharing agreement?

            MR. COLWELL: If I remember it right, it’s 60-40; it’s the same as Growing Forward 2.

            MR. LOHR: It’s 60 per cent federal, 40 per cent provincial?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MR. LOHR: So, over the last five years, was the Growing Forward 2 program fully utilized at $37 million? Was all that money utilized?

            MR. COLWELL: As far as we know. We’re still cleaning up some of the claims that are coming in now, but we should be fully utilized.

            MR. LOHR: So, all of that $37 million was accessed and used?

            MR. COLWELL: As far as we know. Again, we have to wait until the end of March to see if there’s anyone who comes in at the last minute with their claims.

            MR. LOHR: Mr. Minister, in the National Post article you were quoted as saying that this agreement is a better framework than the last one. In what ways is it better than the last agreement?

            MR. COLWELL: Well in my opinion it’s a lot better because of the accountability. There’s going to be a lot more accountability on this program than there was in the past, and opportunities for some flexibility in each province that was a little bit more difficult although I’ve got to say that the federal government has been fantastic to work with them when we had to change different times or tweak programs once in a while to help the industry really address issues that they had.

The drought we had a couple of years ago was one of those. We decided we could expand the drilling of wells and equipment for irrigation that some of the farms would have been very seriously harmed by. We got a quick turnaround from them, it was something we had in place but not enough funding to do it and they were turned around in a couple of days. They agreed with it, so I’m very pleased with the co-operation through the federal Department of Agriculture.

            MR. LOHR: What I hear you saying is there’s more flexibility with the federal government on tweaking the program as you are going forward with the program - is that what I hear you are saying? If there needs to be a change two years from now, if some new problem arises - which undoubtedly it will as there always are new problems - there would be more flexibility?

            MR. COLWELL: A little more flexibility about that and we’ve also added in some parts around regional co-operation and collaboration on parts of the agreement. If there’s an issue in, say, all of Atlantic Canada, including or not including Quebec - it depends on who had the issue - we could work collaboratively on the thing to get best use of our resources.

[2:15 p.m.]     

MR. LOHR: Madam Chairman, I appreciate we don’t have to go through you every time - I really am just thinking that now.

            So, Mr. Minister, you said more “accountability” in the program - what did you mean? Is that accountability? Explain that.

            MR. COLWELL: To make sure that the money spent is spent where it is supposed to be spent and audited properly. In the past, before I was minister, there was a process in place that whoever got the fax machine first, got the grant. We’ve changed that over the years in Nova Scotia and, indeed, the federal government has also changed. So, now you have to put an application in that indicates what the benefits will be for your farm. They really want people to think about the money they’re investing that they’re getting from the program to help them grow their business. That’s really what we want them to do and, indeed, that they do spend the money on that and, indeed, that the work is done.

            We haven’t had an incident that we could say that it hasn’t happened, but we want to make sure we have, for the general public, and the credibility of the industry, again, building more public trust with everything we do, that that accountability is in place. That’s one thing.

            MR. LOHR: Okay, so I understand flexibility is flexibility between the provincial and federal governments, but you’re saying the accountability that you’re building into the program is between the provincial government and the farming community. Precisely, how are you building that in?

            MR. COLWELL: Well, for instance one thing we did last time, again in co-operation with the federal government - the beef and sheep industry came to me and said that the program wasn’t working properly for them. What I challenged them to do was to go away and come back with what they needed to help grow their industry, and they did that. We had a substantial of money in each one - how would we best spend that to make sure that your industry is getting the maximum benefit for that? That never happened before, ever, in the history of the program.

            They did come back with a program - each individual one was a little bit different of course, because they’re different industries. They utilized that system, it has worked very, very well, and from talking to them on a regular basis, they say this is what we need to continue that kind of feedback and input. We don’t want to develop programs that don’t work for them.

            MR. LOHR: All right. I’d like to ask you a question about AgriStability and I know there has been changes to the reference margin limits in the new agreement - can you just explain to me what the changes were?

            MR. COLWELL: Actually, there’s a change coming and there’s an expert panel that’s working on this now. That program still hasn’t been finalized, so when that’s finalized we’ll have more information on it. That’s been one thing that’s been holding the signing of the agreement up, but I think we’re very close on that.

            MR. LOHR: I understand that there’s a change in the late participation mechanism with that AgriStability program too - that would be true about that too then? 

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, late participation is going to be allowed.

            MR. LOHR: It’s going to be allowed?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MR. LOHR: Mr. Minister, I know that Christmas tree producers in southwestern Nova Scotia have had CFIA restrictions put on them because of an insect, similar to an aphid, that I can’t pronounce the name of, but do you know the name of it? (Interruption) I think it’s an adelgid or something like that. It was imposed on them in December 2017 for exporting outside the five municipal units down there.

So there’s an insect that’s spreading disease - what is your department doing to assist Christmas tree producers in western Nova Scotia?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, we’ve been working with the Christmas tree growers extensively. We met with them several times, and we’re looking forward to helping them grow exports and working towards better programs for them as we move forward. That particular incident you are talking about, I’m not aware of. It has not been brought to my attention before.

            MR. LOHR: I have the document here - this was December 19, 2017. There was the Hemlock Woolly Adelgid - I don’t know how to pronounce that, but it’s an insect similar to an aphid. The five counties I believe are Digby, Queens, Shelburne, Yarmouth, and Annapolis that have had CFI restrictions and they cannot sell Christmas trees outside of those counties.

            I was wondering if your department had done anything about that, or was doing anything about that?

            MR. COLWELL: Again, we have not heard of this. The Christmas tree growers, I think, have just slowly realized that their operation is under Agriculture now instead of Natural Resources. So, we’ve established a working group with them. We will work with them on any issue they have.

Again, that particular one has not been brought to our attention, but it sounds serious.

            MR. LOHR: Another CAP question. As the minister knows, farm land drainage programs are probably the most successful program that government has ever offered in terms of uptake in the past and, also, one of the most popular. Will the new Canadian Agricultural Partnership have monies to continue this program - will there be land drainage money in the CAP?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MR. LOHR: You mentioned buy local, Mr. Minister. The department has set a goal of 20 per cent of the money spent on food by Nova Scotians to be spent on locally produced food by 2020. Can you tell me where we are in that target right now?

            MR. COLWELL: We probably have met it, but in agriculture products it’s 16 per cent. If we add in the seafood, which is all part of food, we are probably over the 20 per cent now.

            MR. LOHR: In terms of agriculture anyway, can you tell me any specific programs your department is doing to help increase that number?

            MR. COLWELL: Select Nova Scotia, as I mentioned earlier in my introductory comments - we’ve done a lot of work with CNS, ourselves, African Nova Scotian Affairs now, to really put a plan together. We do on-site programs. We did a program this year with Sobeys around Air Miles - very, very successful, and we put the 15 per cent tax credit in for food banks, which was very, very well-received. A lot of different projects all rolled into the same goal of achieving food self-sufficiency.

            MR. LOHR: I would like to ask about the blueberry industry. I know that the blueberry industry had suffered from low prices. I’m wondering what you can tell me - in your opening remarks you mentioned blueberry tariffs into the United States at 9 per cent, I believe. I think that’s what I heard. Could you tell me what the blueberry tariffs are into China, and have those been renegotiated or changed?

            MR. COLWELL: The tariffs in Asia - it depends what country you go to - I believe China is about 30 per cent for frozen blueberries. It’s an issue we’re working on with the federal government to get those reduced and eliminated, but of course it’s part of an overall trade deal that’s long term and all kinds of implications with it way beyond agriculture.

            There’s a lot of interest in China and other countries in Asia to do free trade deals with Canada in particular. I believe that the TPP program has been signed by Japan and will remove some tariffs over time.

            It’s very positive. Even with the tariffs in place we’re getting pretty significant penetration into the Chinese market now, in particular. We’ve already had a substantial impact on the Japanese market for many, many years. The blueberry industry is a huge success story, and one that has a short-term downfall with prices.

            MR. LOHR: I’d like to go on to another topic. I know we’re trying to get through these a little quicker this year. We could go on about that.

One of your responsibilities is the management of the dyke system. I know that the Act says that you’re responsible for all dykes in Nova Scotia, and aboiteaux. It’s certainly a concern for many coastal communities. We see higher and higher tides; in particular, this last year we had a number of high tides in the Minas Basin - even on days when a high tide wasn’t predicted, maybe because of wind pushing the water up the Bay of Fundy.

            I notice when I look at your spending for 2017-18, there was $149,000 spent on dyke and aboiteau restoration by the department. If you track back the last four years you see that four years ago it was $5 million spent; then three years ago $2 million spent; and a year ago, $1.5 million. I guess I would like to ask why. I’m not sure the general public or people who are watching this situation think that the issue is declining in seriousness; it’s probably going in the other direction. Can you explain why this has become less of a priority for the department in recent years?

            MR. COLWELL: Well to start with, it’s not less of a priority, but I’ll get you the information on the funding.

            We’re actually going to spend over $3 million this year on the dykes and aboiteaux, and over the last several years spent - we bought the LaPlanche Aboiteau, at least $5 million that we put in one or two years budgets.

            Typically, what happens with our budget is, we work closely with the federal government and we manage to get extra money in the budget every year - thanks to the resourcefulness of our staff. Indeed, it’s the only department of government I know that you go to the scrapyard and buy steel to build new aboiteaux and they build it themselves. It saves a tremendous amount of money, so actually dollars spent on it don’t really reflect what’s happening.

[2:30 p.m.]

Also, oftentimes we’ll look for free fill. If there’s somebody doing a big project somewhere, we’d get free fill, and we’ll then use that immediately on a location that we need it in. We’re always doing that because that saves millions every year. It’s a really resourceful group of people we have with us who are doing this type of work, and it’s very exciting - and you see some of the prices we’re getting for the contracting now is a lot lower than we’ve seen in the past for the same amount of work.

I want to give a lot of credit to our staff for the work they’ve done and I understand the issues with the dykes and the aboiteaux. It is a problem, but to this point we’ve addressed it very well and we will continue to do that.

            MR. LOHR: I recognize that. I mean, two years ago there was $5 million one year and $2 million in another, and that was largely spent on the LaPlanche dyke. I’m pleased to hear that you’re investing more money in the dykes. That was my next question - how much is in the budget this coming year - and I believe you just told me $3 million. Can you tell me where that $3 million is being spent this year?

            MR. COLWELL: Well, last year we did some topping of the dyke and rock protection in Masstown; Central Onslow, dyke topping; Lower Truro we did reconditioning of some existing aboiteaux; Onslow, North River, dyke realignment project; Cornwallis River, dyke realignment project; Converse Marsh, again, dyke realignment project; Avon River Causeway, remote operating upgrades; and Amherst Point, rock protection. Those were the projects we did.

            MR. LOHR: I guess you’re losing me there. You’re telling me you did those projects last year?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MR. LOHR: So where in the note that I have for last year shows $149,710 spent in 2017-2018 - that doesn’t sound like that would cover any one of those projects.

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, it’s sort of misleading and the book does not intend it to be, of course, but a lot of these projects we’re talking about here are large projects that were started a year or two years ago and they’re continuing some of them into this year to finish them off , but they’re all funded and they have been funded from the beginning.

I can’t explain the difference in the book and what we had of a $3.1 million is actually what we spent or in the process of spending. If you’re looking, the only place we can find it in the book that’s $149,000 is the Masstown dyke which is $136,000 and the Central Onslow dyke topping of $13,000, to make it $149,710 - is that the same number?

            MR. LOHR: Yes, I have a number here for 2017-2018 of $149,710.

            MR. COLWELL: That’s what it is, but that’s just those two projects and there are several other projects on top of that so it’s over $3 million.

            MR. LOHR: I think that number comes from a request by our Party for a FOIPOP on total spending spent on the dyke system.

            MR. COLWELL: I can’t recall. When it comes to FOIPOPS, I have nothing to do with those.

            MR. LOHR: So, I understand what your saying then is that $3 million was spent in the last year on the dyke system, and you named about five or six projects - correct?

            MR. COLWELL: I’ll just give you a clarification. That information you got was as of November - what we have now is the end of the year so that may be the difference in the numbers you got in the FOIPOP. I have no idea - could you ask that question again?

            MR. LOHR: All right, it’s a pretty big difference. What I understand you saying was there’s about $3 million spent on the dyke system in 2017-2018 and you named about five or six projects you had done, including - I think I know what some of them are about in my terms of my area. The Avon River Causeway is no doubt related to the twinning of the Highway No. 101, and that has triggered the need for changes there, no doubt.

            I can understand that. I’m kind of disappointed that my information is not that accurate and it comes from . . .

            MR. COLWELL: If you go to Page 1.8 in your Estimate Book, you might get a better understanding of what it is. We had an estimate in agriculture of $2 million in 2017-18. We actually spent $3.3 million and the forecast for this year is $1.3 million, which we will leave it at that $1.3 million, probably up very close to $3 million with the federal government.

            MR. LOHR: Okay. And what are the projects anticipated to be done this year? That’s the question.

            MR. COLWELL: It is work that we are going to do this year in Truro, the Cornwallis River, and a few other projects.

            MR. LOHR: As the minister knows, when I drive home I drive over the Hantsport exit and I can see that that whole farmland down below that exit has become tidal now and sometimes the tide is in and sometimes the tide is out, but that was all farm up until this year. I would say it will not be farmed again for some time. Are there any plans to do any money in Hantsport at the Hantsport aboiteau, which has washed out?

            MR. COLWELL: That aboiteau and dyke area is privately owned. I can’t comment any more than that because of some legal issues around it and I can’t comment on anything that may have legal implications for the department.

            MR. LOHR: Okay. I’d like to ask the minister about the Nova Scotia Farm Loan Board. I understand there are still two vacancies. My question is, why are there two vacancies still left on the Farm Loan Board?

            MR. COLWELL: We’re in the process of filling those applications. We’ve been having a really hard time getting qualified people to apply and it’s the same in all the boards we have. We have some really good applications now and it’s just going through the process. It just takes a long time to get the process, and I don’t know how long it is from the time the application comes in before I see it, there’s a huge process to go through.

MR. LOHR: I understand that. Well I guess I should ask: How long has it been since there was a full board at the Nova Scotia Farm Loan Board?

            MR. COLWELL: We presently have six members on the board, which is more than adequate to handle all the loan applications we have. Typically, there always seems to be an opening from someone moving off the board and we are looking for new people. Again, the process is a long process.

            MR. LOHR: I understand there is a review under way to update the board’s regulatory and policy framework. Can you speak to that review and what’s happening there?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, it’s a review that looked at several things and the review has been completed. I was just told it’s on the way to my office so we can do some regulations on it to change the process.

            We’re looking at the limit at the loan board that they can loan without having to go back to Cabinet, a few other things that make it work probably a lot more efficiently.

            MR. LOHR: I know that the limit that has to show up in Cabinet, which I believe is that a $2 million loan has to show up in Cabinet. That has been asked for, for many years, that that loan level increase. What would you expect to see that increase go to, Mr. Minister?

            MR. COLWELL: Well it’s not just a $3 million loan but it’s $3 million total debt to the loan boards. So, if you are at $2.5 million and you borrow $600,000, that has to go to Cabinet, which is a little bit - I agree with you, it has to change, so we’re looking at that. I’m not sure what has been recommended in the report. I’m just waiting to get it now and start working on the regulations.

            MR. LOHR: Will there be legislative changes coming in this session for the Farm Loan Board - will you bring anything to legislation?

            MR. COLWELL: No, it’s not necessary to go to legislation, just regulation.

            MR. LOHR: I notice that there was $2 million in bad debt expense that was not planned for in 2017-18. Can you shed some light on what sectors that was in, the bad debt expense and what was going on there?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, most of that is for the mink industry, but it’s an allocation we put in place and it hasn’t actually been written off yet. We did a complete review of all our loans we have to see exactly what could have been and might be possible for writeoffs, but again none of these are certain.

As you know, the price of mink has fluctuated drastically. It appears it’s gone up again some now. So, some of that may be fine; some of it may not, but we set the whole thing up just to be sure that we had adequate space in the budget and that did happen.

[2:45 p.m.]

            MR. LOHR: Right. And my understanding is, I believe the latest information I heard was $30 for pelts U.S. and the cost of production is $50. So, they’re still in very serious conditions in the mink industry with prices. That’s what I heard only recently, but it moves all the time, so the industry continues to remain in serious trouble.

            I notice that there was a net loss of $2 million - $1,936,000 - for the Farm Loan Board. How is that made up for the Nova Scotia Farm Loan Board?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, that’s the loan board itself lost that year that amount of money. Typically, it’s a break-even average over time. Some years you make money; some years you break even - and the object of the Farm Loan Board is to break even.

            MR. LOHR: So, Mr. Minister, there is no requirement for an injection of $2 million into the Farm Loan Board to make up that shortfall there?

            MR. COLWELL: No.

            MR. LOHR: It just simply continues to operate.

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MR. LOHR: Okay. It was not until recently that I read in legislation that the board acquires holds, leases, subdivides, and disposes of agricultural land. I wasn’t aware that the board held lands. So, what, Mr. Minister, is the value of the board’s current land holdings?

            MR. COLWELL: Typically, we don’t hold land for a long period of time. If, for instance we had to repossess a farm - we hope we never have to do, but we have to from time to time - we’d want to sell that asset and get someone else into farming as soon as we could. Community pastures the loan board owns and will continue to own. I can’t really give you a number on that because it’s a real fluid number.

MR. LOHR: Could you provide like an acreage number or a location list of land that the Farm Loan Board owns?

            MR. COLWELL: We could definitely get you a list of acreage, what we have and we could put together. Again, this is a fluid amount, so we may have something now we’re selling and we might have it sold next month.

            MR. LOHR: So it’s not really the intent of the Farm Loan Board to acquire and hold on to land then?

            MR. COLWELL: Typically, no.

            MR. LOHR: I know that the last four years ….

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Excuse me, Mr. Lohr. Did you want to make that a formal request of the department?

            MR. LOHR: Yes, I would like to make that a formal request.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Okay. Thank you.

            MR. COLWELL: Okay, we do have a number here. As of March 31, 2017, we had $2.4 million in land holdings and we’re estimating $1.5 million this year of total land value.

            MR. LOHR: Okay. Presumably, a fair bit of that would be the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition Commission.

            MR. COLWELL: Some of it would be that, yes.

            MR. LOHR: I guess that’s the question. We know for the last four years the board has been leasing property in Bible Hill to the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition Commission. Where are the amounts of this lease reflected in the income statement of the Farm Loan Board? (Interruption)

Pardon me, did you answer the question? I did not hear that; I was looking at my papers, I didn’t hear you so I know we have trouble hearing each other - could you repeat that?

            MR. COLWELL: That’s roughly $2.4 million. It’s in the Estimates Book at $2.4 million. It’s on the balance sheet of the Farm Loan Board - you’ll find the number there.

            MR. LOHR: The value of the property?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, that’s the value of the land that we own, as of March 31, 2017.

            MR. LOHR: Right, and that would include among other pieces of land . . .

            MR. COLWELL: Everything we’ve got.

            MR. LOHR: I understand that you are leasing the exhibition grounds to the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition Commission. Where is that lease income shown in the income statement?

            MR. COLWELL: That’s pretty simple - there is no income.

            MR. LOHR: Okay. They failed to pay their lease amounts.

            MR. COLWELL: Exactly.

            MR. LOHR: We’ll drill down into that in a second here. So how much debt does the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition Commission have to the Province of Nova Scotia then? I presume it’s not just this year that it failed to pay its lease.

            MR. COLWELL: They have an outstanding loan for $471,000.

            MR. LOHR: I noticed that you had appointed someone to replace the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition Commission, right?

            MR. COLWELL: That’s correct.

            MR. LOHR: Where does the authority to do that come from - is that authority given to you in legislation to do that?

            MR. COLWELL: We have the ability to do it through the Loan Board for non-payment reporting, as they were supposed to under the Act.

            MR. LOHR: So that’s in the lease agreement - if they fail to pay the money that you can take over the lease, appoint your own . . .

MR. COLWELL: The Farm Loan Board has the ability and the legal right to appoint a caretaker for the property and that is what has happened.

            MR. LOHR: So how much was the monthly amount of the lease that the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition Commission was required to pay to the Farm Loan Board?

            MR. COLWELL: That was $471,000.

            MR. LOHR: That’s the total amount - what was the monthly amount? Like, how far back are we going here?

            MR. COLWELL: It was $21,000 a month.

            MR. LOHR: I understand the entire property is now going to be leased by the Truro Harness Horse Owners Association.

            MR. COLWELL: That’s not correct. The only part they will lease on a temporary lease for one year will be the harness racing track and the barns associated with that, the other side of the track. It’s all laid out where they will be doing that.

            MR. LOHR: And what is the monthly amount of that lease?

            MR. COLWELL: It is $100 a month.

            MR. LOHR: Okay, $100 a month. Obviously at $100 a month, I think anybody would - if I could lease a barn for $100 a month somewhere - where did that number come from? It’s not fair-market value.

            MR. COLWELL: It’s not, very much indeed. That’s why the one-year lease, because the whole facility was in really bad financial shape. We’re working with the Harness Racing Association to put in place a temporary lease arrangement that they could afford to pay, so we can get this whole thing all straightened out. I’m sure that harness racing is going to continue in the province and indeed that the exhibition will be operational in the future.

            MR. LOHR: This is a little bit of déjà vu for me because this is a conversation I think we had about two years ago and the entire board of the - I think it was the Commission then. The Exhibition Commission was changed, you took it over. There were many steps that you took, minister, so being here and discussing that again now means that much of that was not successful.

What, in your opinion, was the reason why we are again talking about this raceway in this situation?

            MR. COLWELL: Well I think the entity was put in place with great hopes that they would be able to get the financial situation straightened out there. It became painfully obvious that hadn’t happened and it’s very unfortunate because we hoped that they would accomplish that. They had a very difficult task ahead of them. There had been many, many years of the facility not being maintained properly - many years of mismanagement before they took it over that has caused a great deal of grief for the facility.

            Indeed, it’s a facility that the province wants to make sure that it continues and we really want it to continue because it’s the hub of Nova Scotia, it’s the biggest provincial exhibition, as you are well aware with your past history of working in the farming industry. We want to make sure that continues. It’s very important to us, as a province, that that happens so we’re taking whatever steps are necessary to straighten this out.

            MR. LOHR: So, this is Round 2 of trying to reorganize this and this is a fresh start. You attempted to reorganize it two years ago, I believe, and now we’re doing it again. What gives you optimism - maybe experience makes wise, not rich, is what my father-in-law would tell me - but what gives you optimism that this time you’ll have this reorganized successfully?

            MR. COLWELL: We’re going to approach it differently this time than last time. This time we’re going to make sure that the place is on solid footing before we do anything else with it. Again, I stress that we want to make sure this facility stays in place. It’s incredibly important to Truro and the county around there, and the Town of Bible Hill.

            We really have to put that in place and it’s going to take us some time to do it. This is not something that occurred two years ago or three years ago, or five years ago, this has accumulated after many, many years of - I would put it politely - very poor management.

            The scenario used to be a cheque presentation in Truro by successive governments once a year for $150,000 to $200,000 to pay off the mismanagement - let’s put it that way, at that point. But that was a long time ago. The group that was there working on it, they tried very hard, very prominent business people in the community, and I give them a lot of credit for what they did. They tried and they just didn’t have the resources to straighten it all out.

            It’s unfortunate, this situation. I would like to be here talking to you today about the great things that have happened there and a new expansion there and we’re putting money into infrastructure and doing all those things. Hopefully, once we get this straightened out we can have that very positive conversation.

            MR. LOHR: I think that it would be fair to say we all hope that.

I guess the question is, will there be a provincial exhibition in Truro this August?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MR. LOHR: All right. I’d like to just change topics and go to Perennia, food and agriculture and I’d like to ask a specific question: Why were revenues and operating grants down in 2017-18 from the estimate?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, Perennia’s income varies from year to year depending upon what contacts they have, what ones are completed, and what ones are in progress - and that’s why the fluctuation. We didn’t reduce funding; indeed, we put a lot of project money into there through the fisheries file that they work on. Their workload is increased, and they become more and more important to the province. You are well aware how important Perennia is.

            MR. LOHR: I would agree, Mr. Minister. Perennia is incredibly important. As you may know, it is sort of the evolution of the extension service in agriculture.

            Often when I talk to farmers, there’s a desire to see the ag reps and the old extension service come back. I hear that out in the community. Is there any plan to put agricultural reps and the extension service back like it was prior to 2000? I believe that was the year it was all changed. Do you have any plan to do that?

[3:00 p.m.]

            MR. COLWELL: We have heard exactly the same thing. Perennia and our staff are being encouraged now to go out and talk to the farmers, get in the fields, and talk about different projects and different things they’re working on. It’s not quite the same as the old extension workers, but if they do have any particular issues, we will make sure staff are in their fields talking to them, helping them any way we can.

            We want to become more and more involved with the industry on a day-to-day basis. We’re working on joint work plans with them now. It’s a little bit different way of doing it than it was in the past. We want to make sure that one rep doesn’t come out maybe for all topics. If they have a problem in some way, we want an expert to come out and talk to them about that problem and understand their farm and do what they have to do.

            We’re very aware of that. We’re working on a plan to work jointly with them. It’s pretty exciting, the results we’re getting.

            MR. LOHR: I heard that from the beef producers, the cattlemen’s association. I heard, too, that the cattlemen’s association had requested a meeting with you and were not able to achieve that. I wonder if you have had a request from them? When is the last time you actually met with the Nova Scotia Cattle Producers Association?

            MR. COLWELL: It hasn’t been that long. It’s not that I don’t want to meet with them. That’s the farthest thing from the truth. The problem is my schedule. I’m booked steadily. I think I’m booked almost to the end of June right now, trying to get everybody in. We work long hours to get everybody in. They are very important to us, and we have been working on some pretty substantial projects with them. We’re looking forward to continuing that.

            We also pointed one of their reps to the Maritime Beef Council, which is very important for them and for us. I see I am scheduled to very soon - I don’t check my schedule every day. The only holdup has been the time to do it.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Mr. Lohr, you have about six minutes.

            MR. LOHR: Obviously, we share a common interest in bees. As you know, I am a hobby beekeeper, and I’m well aware of the small hive beetle. Can you tell me what you are doing to prevent the small hive beetle from making that short trip in from New Brunswick? What are the plans this year to protect Nova Scotia beekeepers from the small hive beetle?

            MR. COLWELL: We’re very concerned about the small hive beetle. Quite frankly, I wrote a letter to the minister in New Brunswick a couple of years ago and suggested that they might incorporate our very stringent inspection protocol in their move to bring bees from Ontario into New Brunswick. I got a nice letter back from them basically saying they weren’t interested, that what they were doing was good. Well, we’ve seen what the good is - there are small hive beetles all over New Brunswick now and on our border.

            We’re working very closely with the beekeepers. We’re very concerned about it. We’re putting programs in place to identify them. We’re putting a system in place, which we haven’t quite finalized yet, but we have been working on it very diligently, so if we do find them how we will eradicate them in that particular field to try to stop the spread. Unfortunately, unless New Brunswick follows our suit, it’s inevitable that we’re going to get the small hive beetle.

            One thing we did do when we were doing the inspections in Ontario is that we trained a lot of beekeepers what to look for. That has been a real bonus for us from that standpoint. If they see it, they know what it is. But that’s not all the beekeepers, and there’s a lot of bee hives in the province. We are concerned. We have worked on a protocol. Our protocol is probably the most stringent in the country. I want to give a lot of credit to my staff for working on that, and also to the bee industry for working with us jointly to make that happen.

            We have traps set up all over the bee hives near the border, any place within range of the small hive beetle, to check to see if we have them, with continuous monitoring on those hives to see what’s going on. We’re in the process of working on an eradication plan. It requires quite a bit of development, so we have been working on that for a few months to get that in place, and what we do with the hives when we identify them. They’re going to be isolated. We already have that all planned. All that’s ready to go. Again, I can’t give enough credit to my staff for what they’ve done on this. This is a very, very difficult file.

            We stopped all importation of bees for pollination this year. That has been stopped. We’re looking at the possibility of producing queens in Nova Scotia. There’s a lot of interest from our beekeepers. That’s another opportunity for export dollars to come into the province. It’s a file that’s really good.

            I hosted a symposium with the beekeepers, I think the first one that has ever been done by the department, to talk about common things we have and share some knowledge. We have developed a really positive working relationship with the bee industry which has never been there.

            I went to the AGM demonstration they have, four or five years ago, not long after I was minister. I was told I was the first minister ever to visit the Nova Scotia Beekeepers in 35 years. That’s not acceptable, and that has been changed. We have committed to doing a yearly bee symposium with them. We would like to tie it into their AGM in future years to make sure that we get speakers in that are helpful for them, so that we can bring them in and also complement what they are doing - not interfere, but complement. They’re very interested in that.

            We had a big turnout. We had 140 people show up and 20 were commercial beekeepers. Several sent regrets because there was another big bee show going on somewhere else in the U.S. if I remember right. Some of the major beekeepers of the society go there. It’s a really good setup we have now, and we’re looking forward to working with them very closely.

            MR. LOHR: Mr. Minister, you may know that in agriculture sometimes if a beekeeper were to discover that they had small hive beetle, they would face the loss of their beehives. Potentially, it would be quite an economic hit. Traditionally in agriculture, when there’s something like this that affects the whole industry, and it’s in the benefit of the industry to have accurate reporting, the loss of those hives would be compensated by the government.

            There are examples in other industries where this has happened. There’s compensation paid to encourage forthright reporting because the economic impact of losing all these hives would be pretty severe. I’m wondering, if a bee yard is found to be infected with small hive beetles Nova Scotia, will there be compensation paid to the beekeeper for the loss of those bee hives?

            MR. COLWELL: First when I came to the department, the first major file I had was a complex virus with strawberries, which you would be very familiar with. We managed to get funding from the federal government. The previous government didn’t manage to get the funding. We managed to get it from the government then in Ottawa. That worked out very well . . .

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Order. Time has elapsed for the Progressive Conservatives.

            Ms. Roberts, would you like it to flow the same way?

            MS. LISA ROBERTS: That would be wonderful, thank you.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: We’ll do it the same.

            MS. ROBERTS: I will hand over the time very shortly to our spokesperson on agriculture, who is the member from Truro-Bible Hill-Millbrook-Salmon River. I wanted to take the opportunity though to ask a few brief questions related to the workforce, with a particular focus on immigration. I’m wondering if you could let me know how many temporary foreign workers are working annually in the agricultural field in Nova Scotia.

            MR. COLWELL: I’m not sure we have that number. I know of at least one farm that has over 200, one major farm in the province. I really don’t know but that’s a number we can try to get. Again, each farm has their own process for that, and they don’t have to report it to us. It’s an arrangement they make with the federal government for temporary farm workers. I can tell you, anyone who wants a job on a farm can get one right away if they live here. They can’t find workers.

            MS. ROBERTS: Related to that, we had the opportunity recently at the Resources Standing Committee to hear from some fisheries processors who are in a similar situation. They were expressing a wish that some of their temporary foreign workers could in fact become immigrants, that there were a stream that would allow some of those temporary foreign workers who have returned year after year to actually come and live in rural Nova Scotia with their families. I’m just wonder if that’s a conversation that you have had with the Federation of Agriculture at all.

            MR. COLWELL: We have had it with the Federation of Agriculture and also many farmers and fish plants that would like to do that. We totally agree with them. They would love to have new immigrants come to Nova Scotia and work on our farms and in our fish plants. Living in rural Nova Scotia is a wonderful lifestyle, and indeed it helps grow our economy. Absolutely, yes, but it’s a question you should really ask the Immigration Minister when it’s time. There are some issues around it that were out of our control.

            MS. ROBERTS: Just a final question, then. Is that a dialogue where you advocate for the industries and you’re in touch with to the Minister of Immigration? Do you have a sense of why we don’t at this point have a stream, for example under the Provincial Nominee Program? I guess that is targeting less skilled workers but still workers who are very essential for rural Nova Scotia.

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, we have actually put a working group together with our department, the Department of Immigration, and the Department of Community Services to tackle just this. The Department of Agriculture and then separately the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture will host a symposium on labour shortages, hear back from the industry, and talk to the departments that are involved. It is a serious, serious issue for us.

            As we grow the economy - you can see our numbers are going right through the roof, what we have been able to accomplish in the last four years is very positive. We can’t continue that trend without one of two things: we have to totally automate, which we will do, and we need more workers. If we automate, we need higher-skilled workers, and we’re probably going to find a lot of new jobs for present Nova Scotians or someone who wanted to move into the province from other provinces to take those jobs as well.

We’ll always need the workers in the field, always, no matter how much we automate. It’s the same with the fish plants. No matter how much you automate, they’ll still need more workers. As we move our economy forward, it’s a really serious issue for us. It’s a serious issue for the industry. It’s a topic of conversation continuously with those industries.

            MS. ROBERTS: I have just one last question before I hand over the time. You were able to name a very specific number for exports. When you consider that there were $315 million in exports last year, was that exports outside of Canada or exports out of the province?

            MR. COLWELL: They would be exports outside of Canada because those are stats from Stats Canada. Outside of Nova Scotia, the numbers would be significantly more than the $2 billion we have reached.

            MS. ROBERTS: I’m sorry. Can you clarify the $2 billion?

            MR. COLWELL: That’s in fisheries. In agriculture, we have about $315 million on the books - we’re very close to doubling the Ivany report. There’s another $15 million we know that was moved across the country by Sobeys that we didn’t even account for, and some other ones as well that aren’t necessarily captured in the Stats Canada reports.

            MS. ROBERTS: Do you know what the number would be for total sales in Nova Scotia? Do you know what the local market value is for farm gate or not just farm gate?

[3:15 p.m.]

            MR. COLWELL: The farm gate in Nova Scotia is over half a billion dollars. It’s a substantial industry.

            MS. ROBERTS: Thank you.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Ms. Zann.

            MS. LENORE ZANN: Hi, how are you doing?

            MR. COLWELL: Good, and you?

            MS. ZANN: Good, thank you. Good to see you here on this horrible day. Terrible weather between here and Truro.

            MR. COLWELL: Nice to be inside and not travelling.

            MS. ZANN: Oh, my gosh. It’s just awful - whiteouts all the way along.

            Anyway, I just want to pick up on a few of the things that I already overheard. I have some other questions as well, but my ears always prick up when we’re talking about Truro-Bible Hill and the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition issue.

            One thing I would just like to get clear here is, you mentioned that you know now that the property itself - the entire property - is worth $2.4 million. Is that correct?

            MR. COLWELL: The assessment on the property itself?

            MS. ZANN: The whole property.

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, the whole property is a minimum of $2.4 million.

            MS. ZANN: The whole property, both sides of it - the raceway and also the provincial exhibition part together - are worth at least $2.4 million. Do we have an actual number? You said approximately.

            MR. COLWELL: Actually, the most recent assessment we did was $1.4 million.

            MS. ZANN: Oh, $1.4 million? The assessment said $1.4 million, not $2.4 million? Originally you said $2.4 million.

            MR. COLWELL: Okay, I have got to clarify this number.

            MS. ZANN: Sure, no worries.

            MR. COLWELL: Your number of $2.4 million is correct. The total of everything - the buildings and everything - is $2.4 million. The appraisal that the exhibition had was $1.4 million for the land, from what I understand. All that stuff is complicated.

            MS. ZANN: Ah, right - some people make it more complicated. The appraisal that they had done, when did they do that?

            MR. COLWELL: November 2017.

            MS. ZANN: November 2017. Really? Did the NSPE board that was in existence at that time do that, or did the Farm Loan Board do that?

            MR. COLWELL: The Farm Loan Board actually did the appraisal.

            MS. ZANN: So the Farm Loan Board did the appraisal, and they appraised it at $1.4 million without the buildings.

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MS. ZANN: Where did the extra million come from? Was it around the same time, or later on they threw that in?

            MR. COLWELL: Again, I’m not quite sure how they valued it, but both numbers are accurate, the $2.4 and the $1.4 million.

            MS. ZANN: I just wanted to be clear on who actually did that estimate. There have been a lot of different people wearing different hats over there, and it keeps changing as you know. It’s hard to keep track of it.

            The other thing is, you have said that a number of the properties also aren’t really worth anything and need to be gotten rid of. They need to be torn down.

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, a lot of buildings on the property are a safety hazard. We have taken three buildings down so far, one this week actually. We have two more that we have to take down as soon as we possibly can because they are a real serious occupational health and safety issue. As soon as we can vacate those buildings, those buildings will be down the next day.

            MS. ZANN: Do you plan on building anything else to replace them?

            MR. COLWELL: Our initial plan is to stabilize what’s going on there and then get everything in proper order financially - contract-wise and everything else - everything in proper order. Then we will be developing a plan after that for moving forward. The idea around the whole thing is to ensure we can set a structure up and that the facility will be there for the long-term, with both the harness racing and the exhibition working closely together. Whatever structure ends up there has to make sense so the place can at least break even or make money that they can re-invest every year to make their operation even better. That’s our goal.

            I can’t commit to any financial input and infrastructure at this point, but there is a need for infrastructure, as you are well aware. You are very familiar with the facility. That has to be done. How we do that and when we do it, we’ll have to wait and see once we get everything straightened out.

            MS. ZANN: The buildings that still need to be torn down - in your opinion, are they on the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition side of things? Are any of them on the horse owners’ side of things?

            MR. COLWELL: The only building on the horsemen association - there was one barn there that was bad. We tore that down some time ago. The ones now are on the exhibition ground, a horse barn. There’s two more horse barns that have to come down. They really have to come down. They have been condemned.

            MS. ZANN: On the NSPE side?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MS. ZANN: So the three ones that you say need to come are all on the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition side?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, the three that came down so far, two of them on the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition area of it. One was a horse barn. One was the old barn beside the tractor barn. The big old barn there, we took that down. There was another horse barn taken down in what is now considered part of the horsemen’s area.

            MS. ZANN: Right, okay. They have now signed an agreement with the Farm Loan Board to have a lease for a year. Is that correct?

            MR. COLWELL: We set it up for a year. Quite honestly, we even thought about six months to start because we want to make sure that they prosper out of this at the end of the day, from the standpoint that they can continue racing. It’s important to me and to the province that horseracing continues. There has been so much success out of that facility, some of the horses that they have raced there, bred there and practised there with. We want to see that continue.

            We didn’t want to burden them with a long-term lease until we see exactly how we can make all this work. You know there’s a long history in that place that I talked about earlier that we have to get corrected.

            MS. ZANN: Yes, absolutely. I’m obviously curious about exactly where we are now. You and I have talked a few times, and I have talked to a million other people over there. I like to know exactly what’s going on, especially when we’re doing Budget Estimates.

            One of the things too, the $2.4 million is on a page here in the Farm Loan Board.

            MR. COLWELL: Do you have the page number there?

            MS. ZANN: I’ve got seven and eight.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: 1.7 and 1.8?

            MS. ZANN: Well he had said $2.4 million. Also the $471,000 outstanding debt, I’m just wondering where it says that anywhere.

            MR. COLWELL: That $2.4 million is all the land that the Farm Loan Board owns, all the land.

            MS. ZANN: Right, and that’s reflected here?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MS. ZANN: Okay. The other thing is the $471,000 debt. Is that on here somewhere?

            MR. COLWELL: That’s recorded in our books, but that is probably buried in the general numbers. It would be, because it’s all reported there.

            MS. ZANN: Which part is it exactly on Page 7 or 8?

            MR. COLWELL: If you look at financial assets, it’s the third line. It’s $182 million. It’s recorded in that.

            MS. ZANN: Sorry, $182 million?

            MR. COLWELL: It’s $162 million. It’s hard to see. That $471,000 is recorded in that number.

            MS. ZANN: Okay, thanks. Those particular numbers aren’t there anywhere, so I just wanted to make sure.

            So right now the Farm Loan Board owns the property.

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, and they have for some time.

            MS. ZANN: Since you called the loan in?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MS. ZANN: Now there’s a new manager. We had another manager in there for a year, I think. You were giving him an opportunity to show what he could do. That didn’t work out so well, and you have hired a new person. You said she would be considered a caretaker of the property; that is what you said to Mr. Lohr. Through the Farm Loan Board, because they hadn’t paid their debts, you were allowed to appoint a caretaker for the property. Is that correct?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MS. ZANN: So she’s considered the caretaker, not the manager, for the property?

            MR. COLWELL: Well, we call her the manager for lack of a better term, but really she’s a caretaker. Her job is to go in and go through all the information that we can find on the bills payable. Programs that are already booked to come forward, we hope we can do all of them. At this point, it looks like we can. It’s really just to sort of sort out where we’re at. We need to get a firm footing for the future.

            MS. ZANN: I understand. How much is she being paid? Is that in the budget somewhere?

            MR. COLWELL: It’s in the overall budget for the department. We don’t release salaries for staff.

            MS. ZANN: You don’t release anybody’s salaries?

            MR. COLWELL: She’s not a civil servant, so we can’t release the salary. One thing I can say is that she’s being paid exactly the same as the last manager who was there.

            MS. ZANN: Also, how many other people do you have employed there at this point in time? Is it only that one person?

            MR. COLWELL: There’s one person, and as of this week, there is one more.

            MS. ZANN: So two people.

            MR. COLWELL: Two people.

            MS. ZANN: What does the other person do?

            MR. COLWELL: Assist the manager.

            MS. ZANN: Like an accountant?

            MR. COLWELL: No, it’s more the lines of events, working on the events. We have to look at the events that are planned, how we’re going to operate those, and how that’s all going to work.

            MS. ZANN: Is that person’s salary also not able to be . . .

            MR. COLWELL: No, again, it’s not an employee of the department. I don’t even know what it is.

            MS. ZANN: The other thing you said was that, from everything that the new caretaker has discovered of how much is owed, you feel that they’ll be able to be covered. Where is that money coming from?

            MR. COLWELL: We did find a limited amount of money to cover some of the outstanding bills, and we’re still reviewing to see what the rest of the bills are.

            MS. ZANN: So you found some money?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MS. ZANN: Stashed somewhere under a desk or something?

            MR. COLWELL: Well, out of the department.

            MS. ZANN: Oh, okay. It wasn’t hidden under a haystack or anything.

            MR. COLWELL: We found some money out of the department to help get the sort of immediate problem resolved. Again, we’re working on a long-term solution.

            MS. ZANN: Is that financial help reflected in the budget somewhere?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, it’s reflected in our forecast, the overall budget of the department.

            MS. ZANN: Can you say how much it is exactly?

            MR. COLWELL: No, I can’t.

            MS. ZANN: Give us a roundabout figure?

            MR. COLWELL: I’m just guessing at this point. I can’t tell you the exact number because I don’t know. It’s a moving number. I don’t think we have enough money to resolve all the things we have. That’s a concern to me.

[3:30 p.m.]

            From what I understand, almost all of the local contractors that hadn’t been paid in years have been paid. That was one of our goals. We’re working with the horsemen to work out some kind of arrangement on some of the things that are directly related to the horseman. Again, that’s a moving target at this point, and it’s a very difficult file.

            MS. ZANN: Obviously, this is budget assessments. That’s why I’m curious about how much money is being spent and where it’s going. I know for a fact that they owed the Farm Loan Board close to half a million dollars, and they also owed other people close to $400 million. How much has actually been spent on what was owed outside of the Farm Loan Board?

            MR. COLWELL: I think local suppliers - probably $120,000 had been paid off.

            MS. ZANN: $120,000?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, to local suppliers.

            MS. ZANN: So far that’s all that has been spent by the government?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, on that part of it. There’s also some more outstanding money paid off for the horsemen, but that was done a different way.

            MS. ZANN: Is that for the off-track betting?

            MR. COLWELL: It’s a bunch of different things, and it’s an arrangement we worked out with the horsemen that I can’t disclose at this time. It’s mutually agreeable; no new money from the province.

            MS. ZANN: No new money from the province?

            MR. COLWELL: No.

            MS. ZANN: So you haven’t spent any money yet?

            MR. COLWELL: No additional money, no.

            MS. ZANN: No additional money. Additional since when?

            MR. COLWELL: On that? Never.

            MS. ZANN: Ok, so it’s an arrangement . . .

            MR. COLWELL: Wait. We just made an arrangement that we’re still working on with that. That is a moving target. At the end of the day, we have to see exactly where we land. I can probably tell you more about that in a month’s time. I know that it doesn’t answer your question today.

            MS. ZANN: Well, I’m just curious if there is anything in this budget that has gone towards that, or is going towards that, both sides.

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, the $120,000 is new money we put in, and we will probably have some other operating costs in the meantime until we get things sorted out.

            MS. ZANN: The other thing is, you mentioned that they had been supposed to pay $2,100 per month to the Farm Loan Board.

            MR. COLWELL: That’s correct.

            MS. ZANN: That was the rent or whatever - lease?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, it would basically be principal and interest on the loan.

            MS. ZANN: Right, and they did not pay that in the last year or even in the last couple of years since the new board and the new legislation was put in place? They never came up with that $2,100 a month, ever?

            MR. COLWELL: None.

            MS. ZANN: None. They just didn’t pay anything.

            The horse owners are going to be allowed to pay $100 per month for the first year, which is good because I know they don’t have the money, and they’re scrambling to try and figure out how they’re going to make this work with a whole new situation. So I thank you for that.

            The other thing is, you had mentioned to me one time a lady who was there on the property who had horses. I was correct - I found out since then that it’s the woman that I thought it may be, Shelby Gatti. She was in touch with me and said that she had a lease arrangement with the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition as it was formed. She was paying them close to $3,000 a month. The last month she didn’t need to, because she had worked out something with Joe, the last manager, for her to fix up, clean, and paint the barn - do all this different stuff that needed to be done which they didn’t have the money for.

            She had actually managed to put together and build her business: equine riding and therapeutic riding for children with disabilities, intellectual learning disabilities and also autistic children. She had a March Break camp set up with 27 children who were going to be coming to that, and was starting horseback riding lessons for adults, which a lot of people are signing up for. She got an eviction notice from the new caretaker which gave her one week to leave the property, get the horses off the property, and fine somewhere else to take the horses. She was devastated.

            Are you able to tell me now, has that been straightened out? Will she be able to stay on the property at least until her lease runs out, which I believe is June?

            MR. COLWELL: I can’t talk about individuals, as a minister, because that’s confidential information. I can tell you the facility that that individual is occupying is condemned. It’s a very serious health and safety issue for us.

            Those buildings - as I said earlier, one building has already been torn down next to this, the three barns together. The barn next to the leased property, the demolition company won’t touch. They figure if they shake the ground too bad or touch anything, the building could come down. It’s a really serious health and safety issue. That’s what this is all about, nothing else.

            But we did make arrangements for her to make sure she had a March Break function; we made arrangements for that. We have been working diligently to help her find a little location. At least one other option that I’m aware of - again, I’m not involved in that - she refused. There’s a second option I believe that she also refused. I can’t tell you any more than that.

            MS. ZANN: She has the 27 horses. Obviously, it would need to be big enough to look after all those 27 horses. In order for her to keep her business going, she needs to have a space where she can operate Forever Memories. That’s what the company is called.

            She does have a lease that doesn’t finish until June, and it was made with the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition Commission, which - at this point in time, there was legislation put in place that we haven’t changed yet. I would ask the minister, personally, if there was some way to work out for her to stay there at least until June, until she can actually find the time and the right place to move her business to and give people notice. That would be greatly appreciated by our community because she does a great service for our community. There are many families who rely upon that service now. She has become part of the community.

            MR. COLWELL: The lease was respected, actually. Our concern is for the children, the people and the animals in those buildings. It is a serious concern.

            MS. ZANN: She has a deal, though. She has a lease. It seems like the lady came and gave her an eviction notice, and then this came up later on about it being unsafe. I know that sometimes when people want to get rid of people and evict them out of places, they’ll find ways to try and come up with excuses to evict them.

            She has been operating this for a little while now, and it is growing. She is a young woman. She is the kind of person that we want to keep in Nova Scotia. She has brought this up by herself on her own. It has become a very successful operation.

            Like I said, she was paying $3,000 a month when the NSPE wasn’t even able to come up with $2,100 a month. This sends a bad message to the youth of Nova Scotia, I think, that we’re just going to shove you out the door if you don’t fit in with our plan.

            Again, I highly request with great concern for my constituent for her to be given consideration to finish out her lease so that she can actually have the right amount of time to find a place that will fit all the horses and keep her business going without having to stop it in the middle of it. (Interruption)

            Could the member let me speak? It’s a little bit (Interruption) Could the member please stay out of this? I’m talking to the minister, thank you very much.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Order.

            Ms. Zann.

            MS. ZANN: I appreciate that, Madam Chairman.

            I would just request, please, that you consider that. If you wanted to meet with Shelby and talk to her, I would love to try to do something to bring this to a congenial end for everybody. I know that you’re trying to do your very best to look after the property as well. Thank you for that.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Minister, would you like to respond to any of that?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, I would, just quickly. It is an occupational health and safety issue. It has nothing to do with their lease, from my standpoint. I’m responsible for animal safety in the province. The Department of Labour and Advanced Education is responsible for workplace safety. This is not a safe workplace.

            I can’t go into very many details, but we have tried everything we possibly can to accommodate this particular company. I have a great deal of respect for people who start small businesses and grow them and do that.

            I could ask you a question, and it’s an unfair question. I have to ask you, would you take responsibility if somebody gets hurt in that building?

            MS. ZANN: Personally, I don’t think that the building is going to fall down between now and June.

            MR. COLWELL: We had an independent report by people who are qualified to do this that said otherwise. We did that some months ago. Once we took over the facility, it was identified as a real potential problem for us. As a government, we can’t let that happen. We can’t take responsibility for someone’s life or someone possibly getting injured because of that.

            We have tried everything we can to accommodate anybody on the property that is being displaced at this point. We have made some pretty generous offers that have been refused. I can’t go any further than that because I can’t really discuss it.

            MS. ZANN: Thank you. I understand. Right now, it’s just Shelby who works there, and she has one hired person who helps her with the horses. It’s herself, and it’s her own business.

            My experience of dealing with government wanting to tear down properties in the Truro area was when it was decided that they wanted to tear down the old civic building, which was the same age approximately as our normal college. They wanted to tear it down for whatever reasons, because it took too much to keep it up. They didn’t really respect old heritage properties at that point in time as they do now. They tried everything, and then finally they said it was unsafe, and they put tape around it and everything. Everybody was just shocked that they were trying to do this because it was ridiculous. The building was solid, just solid.

            When they finally tried to tear it down, it took them like five days to tear the building down because it was so solid. In the end, they didn’t even build anything there. It was a parking lot for umpteen years. We know the way things can happen, and we know what governments can say when they want to do something that they want to do.

            I’m just saying that this particular individual has a company that she formed. She made an agreement with the Nova Scotia Provincial Exhibition Commission as it was, and the legislation is still in place. She has a lease until June. She was given one week’s eviction notice - one week in the middle of the winter - to get out of there and find places for 27 horses. I don’t find that fair. Even just giving her a few more weeks is not enough time.

            I will be watching this situation carefully and really hoping that she can . . .

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Ms. Zann.

            MS. ZANN: I’m almost done.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Order. I think the minister has made it clear this is a health and safety issue, not a personal issue.

            MS. ZANN: I don’t think it’s the Chair’s place to have an opinion about this right now. I am the person asking the questions of the minister, and you are the Chair. So thank you very much for that.

[3:45 p.m.]

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Order. Order.

            I did not express an opinion, I expressed what the minister had stated.

            Ms. Zann.

            MS. ZANN: Madam Chairman, I take that, but again these are questions I am asking the minister. Thank you very much.

            So, Mr. Minister, in finally ending up with that particular issue, again I highly request that you consider, deeply, the opportunity of letting this young woman stay on the property until the end of her lease, and letting her have the time to find the proper place to move to. The community would very much, greatly appreciate that.

            One thing I also wanted to ask you about was, back when the NDP was in government, we introduced a 10-year plan for agriculture that was called Home Grown Success. You probably are aware of that - we invested in local food campaigns, farmers’ markets, help for new farmers, helping to make Nova Scotia the only province to see an increase in the numbers of farms between 2009 and 2013, and we were very proud of that fact. Also through what was called the Green Economy Act, the NDP legislated a 20 per cent goal for locally produced food to be bought by Nova Scotians by the year 2020.

Do you happen to know if that is still in existence and what the results are, or do we have any idea how much Nova Scotians - what percentage of locally produced food Nova Scotians are actually buying at this time?

            MR. COLWELL: Well, agriculture I believe is somewhere between 16 and 17 per cent of reaching the 20 per cent goal and, if you take into consideration the fisheries, we’re probably double that.

            MS. ZANN: Right.

            MR. COLWELL: So we’ve adjusted the programs a little bit from that goal that you set at that time. There were a lot of things I didn’t agree with your past government on, but that’s one thing I did agree with.

            MS. ZANN: (Laughter) That’s good, yes.

            MR. COLWELL: But through Select Nova Scotia and, again, as I said you didn’t hear earlier because one of your colleagues…

MS. ZANN: Yes, I wasn’t here.

            MR. COLWELL: That it’s been a real success story and I will just indicate again, for your information, that we have in Select Nova Scotia a quarter of a million dollars a year that we put in promoting local, all kinds of different programs.

            Now, when I first started in the department and my executive director here beside me, the two of us went to a meeting with a couple of other staff members to Communications Nova Scotia about this fund, and they told us how we were going to spend our money. So we came out of there not very happy individuals, and from that meeting and great work by my executive director here to my right-hand side, and of dedicated staff members, that has totally changed. CNS in the next year, seeing how important this was so, they started I believe, the first year and put in an addition $200,000. Now, at the present day, they’re putting $450,000 into this program, in addition to our $250,000, and Communities, Culture and Heritage is putting in $200,000.

            We’re getting very close to a million dollars on this project and it’s a co-operative effort between departments which, quite honestly, you don’t see too often in government, as you would know being in government in the past.

            MS. ZANN: Yes, I agree. Yes, yes.

            MR. COLWELL: This is one of those things that everybody’s identified, the Premier has identified this as one of the areas that we need grow to make sure we have food security in the province. We’re talking about that more and more, and that was not talked about ever before. Everybody thinks you can go to the grocery store and buy anything you want, but if there’s no farmer in the field and no fishing boats working, you’re not going to buy anything or, if you do, it’s going to be so expensive you’re not going to be able to afford it. So, I believe if we take everything into consideration we’re way beyond the 20 per cent.

            MS. ZANN: That would be good, thank you.

So, have you established anything within the Department of Agriculture to reflect a new food security mandate?

            MR. COLWELL: New food security?

            MS. ZANN: Yes.

MR. COLWELL: We’re working on that. Again, through Select Nova Scotia we’re bringing awareness - every time I speak, I talk to the farming industry and everywhere else to get a chance to talk about food security.

            A lot of people don’t really realize that there’s going to come a day that if we don’t really move forward on this, we’re not going to have food and the people who have grand ideas about preserving farmland into parks are going to realize that maybe we should grow some food on that so we can feed our families and our children.

            We’re very dedicated to this; it’s one of the most important things we have in agriculture. We have great exports and those are fantastic. We could always displace those exports and have them for Nova Scotia as well, which would pretty well make us self-sufficient.

            MS. ZANN: Yes, I think that would be an important thing, given what is happening in the world today - and also the value that water is going to be for everybody, to preserve our water and make sure we have clean aquafers here in Nova Scotia will be not only important to our farming community but to everybody.

            I was going to ask you: When the impact of inflation on your department’s costs is actually considered, in your opinion, does this budget represent a budget increase or a decrease?

            MR. COLWELL: Well, we were looking after the $20 million that your government gave to the agricultural college when they gave it away, which I don’t agree with - I think that was a step backwards for Nova Scotia. That budget was moved to Labour and Advanced Education, where it should be, so it looked like our budget dropped last year.

            This year, indeed we have more money in our budget realistically to work on issues in the province of over $8 million of additional money this year - actually, both of my departments have been funded to the highest levels in history.

            MS. ZANN: Good. So where will that increase be spent?

            MR. COLWELL: Well along with the things we have we have $4.5 million through AgriStability, mostly for blueberries - we’re making a huge investment in the blueberry industry for marketing and market development. We have $3 million in the Building Tomorrow Fund, which is actually going to $1.5 million for each department. Then we have Value Chain Development of over $500,000, and we have wage increases to cover the wage costs for almost $300,000. So we are financially in very good shape.

            MS. ZANN: Good. The Agencies line under the Policy and Corporate Services is forecast to be $2 million over estimate. What did that spending go towards?

            MR. COLWELL: That was an allowance of $2 million for the Farm Loan Board.

            MS. ZANN: That’s an allowance?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, a $2 million allowance.

            MS. ZANN: I see. Is part of that helping to pay some of those debts that the NSPE owed?

            MR. COLWELL: No.

            MS. ZANN: Okay. Then the Programs and Risk Management line, under Policy and Corporate Services, is forecast to be $6 million over estimate and for this year the department has increased that budget estimate by about $7 million. Can you tell us why there was an overspend and why the budget has been increased by $7 million?

            MR. COLWELL: That was an allowance we put in place for AgriStability for blueberries and mink, just in case.

            MS. ZANN: Oh, for the mink, too? So the mink isn’t really doing that well right now, the industry.

            MR. COLWELL: There are still a lot of farmers involved in the mink industry and, again, it depends on the price, the auctions we have, what the price is. It could turn around on a dime, and it could take a few years more to get it straightened out.

            MS. ZANN: And that’s because the Russian and Chinese market kind of fell, is that right, about the mink?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, it was a reduction in people buying, and several things contributed to that - warmer than normal weather in China and Russia . . .

            MS. ZANN: Oh, I see, climate change.

            MR. COLWELL: Climate change is part of it, and also an overproduction of mink in the world. Unfortunately, we have some very high-quality mink and we slacked off a little bit on the quality. Now the quality has come back up and, indeed, we’re now getting some of the top prices in the world for mink.

            MS. ZANN: Oh, so, they’ve gone back up again?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, it’s coming back up but, again, it’s a fluid number - it can change from one auction to the next to the next. Over the last couple of years, there were even mink that were not sold, but all the mink had been sold, from what I understand, the last year or so. So, there’s no backlog or inventory of mink in the province.

            MS. ZANN: And are there less farms now - have some of them dropped out of the business?

            MR. COLWELL: There are less farms, but I don’t know how many less, but some of them haven’t completely shut down, but there are 25 less registered mink farms than there was.

            MS. ZANN: Right, and it’s a difficult business. I know as I have a few friends who do that.

I know in 2016 there was announced a $2.69 million agri-recovery initiative to help the growers of the orchards for the fire blight. Have we continued to have to help paying towards that, or is that expressed in this budget anywhere?

            MR. COLWELL: It was one of those programs - a federal-provincial program - because of aphid in the trees. As I said earlier, we had one for the strawberry complex virus and one for the aphids. Again, it’s federally/provincially cost shared. That program is pretty well wrapped up now, I believe, but we still have to show in case there’s any other claims coming in. But both of those programs are extremely successful.

The strawberry complex virus, we thought it would be five years before it recuperated - we’ve pretty well recuperated in one year. The second year, we had the highest sales every in strawberries; the same with apples.

            MS. ZANN: That’s great, congratulations and I’m glad for the farmers. Oh, the apples are doing really well for sure.

            MR. COLWELL: Very well.

            MS. ZANN: I remember I went and did a tour of the orchards at the time right after that big, huge hurricane with the fire blight and, when the fire blight had set in. So some of that is still in the budget then for …

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, just to be sure.

            MS. ZANN: That’s good, thank you very much.

            MS. CHAIRMAN: Ms. Zann, you have twelve minutes.

            MS. ZANN: Thank you, Madam Chairman. I was just going to ask you how much time I have.

I know that my colleague had asked you about dykes, but I’m going to leave that one alone for the moment although I was - one of them I was curious about was how much of the spending that you have allocated for improving dykes is for the Isthmus of Chignecto?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, it’s actually the Province of New Brunswick that has the lead on that file. The Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal is working with us and with New Brunswick to do an assessment on it, so they’re working on the assessment now. It is a potential risk and it’s been identified. We need to get federal money to help us fix that situation, but we’re the smallest little bit of it. New Brunswick has a major part of it.

            MS. ZANN: I see. So you’re hoping that they can get the major part that they need, and then we would get help from the feds as well for our part.

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MS. ZANN: Okay, thank you. How much funding is for supports for small farmers to invest in environmentally sustainable farm infrastructure and practices? Is there an increase or a decrease in the budget for that?

            MR. COLWELL: Well as you know, there were programs available and there will still be some programs available for small farms. We want to see those small farms grow.

            MS. ZANN: Yes.

            MR. COLWELL: There were some issues around some of the farms in the past. If you did $10,000 of the sales, you’d get a $15,000 grant every year.

            MS. ZANN: Could you repeat that again please?

            MR. COLWELL: If you had $10,000 worth of farm-gate sales, you’d get a $15,000 grant every year from the province. So that math doesn’t work very well.

            MS. ZANN: Okay. That was just to get them started though, wasn’t it?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, it doesn’t work well. You could do that for five years with $10,000 worth of sales. So basically, you can make more off the grants than you could off of the sales.

            MS. ZANN: So, what happened to those farms?

[4:00 p.m.]

            MR. COLWELL: That was in the last program; this time we’re reviewing it. It’s going to be changed somewhat. There’s still going to be funding available for small farms, because they’re very important to us, but it will probably be a percentage of income. We want them to increase their income every year. Once they get to a certain point, there will be more money available and more money - depending on what it is. We’re still working on that formula right now. It will be focused on growth.

I have a small commercial greenhouse at home just for hobby, but I could soon generate $10,000 worth of farm-gate sales with it.

            MS. ZANN: What time would you have to be able to deal with it and sell it?

            MR. COLWELL: It wouldn’t matter, but I could generate $10,000 worth of farm-gate sales, and claim $15,000 - sounds like a whole program. I would never do that, and never claim any of that, of course, but it shows that there was a little bit of a hole in the program.

We want to encourage people to really get into farming. I can remember the first sheep meeting I went to. This young lady was sitting across from me and her dream was to give up her full-time job and go into sheep farming. Those are the kinds of people we need to help move forward, work with them, put the resources in place - in the right places at the right time - to make sure that they can grow their business and become full time.

            MS. ZANN: How does the department measure the outcomes of funding for farming environmental sustainability?

            MR. COLWELL: We’re going to base it now on financial statements that they would have like tax returns, all kinds of different things that we would do. We can do a risk assessment - we’re going to try to finance things that are the highest risk for the farm, so the farm can get the best opportunity to grow their business.

            MS. ZANN: How many small farmers actually made use of funding for environmentally sustainable infrastructure and practices last year?

            MR. COLWELL: Actually, between 2014 and 2017, the number of farms with the farm-gate sales between zero and $25,000 has gone up by 176 farms.

            MS. ZANN: 176 farms used it last year?

            MR. COLWELL: Between those three years.

            MS. ZANN: What years were those again?

            MR. COLWELL: It was between 2014 and 2017 - registered farms with income from zero to $25,000 yearly was 176 new farms – so going in the right direction.

            MS. ZANN: One last very quick question. How much money is going into the Environmental Farm Plan Program, and is it an increase or decrease this year?

            MR. COLWELL: Unfortunately, I can’t give you that number yet because we’re still negotiating with the federal government, but it’s one of the top priorities. It’s on the list.

            MS. ZANN: Very good to hear that. I believe my first hour is up.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Less than two minutes.

            MS. ZANN: That’s okay, I’m coming back anyway, so I’ll have another hour. Thank you.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: I’ll turn it over to the PC caucus. Mr. MacMaster.

            MR. ALLAN MACMASTER: Thank you, Madam Chairman. It’s nice to have the opportunity to ask some questions.

I’d like to start out with harness racing. Each year the raceway in Inverness receives funds for purses. I’m just wondering if they’re getting a similar amount this year as they were last year in the budget?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MR. MACMASTER: Excellent, okay. Next question I have - I had a question from a gentleman who is a beef farmer, and he was looking for a pasture, and I had mentioned to him about the Cape Mabou pasture as a low-cost option for feeding his animals, and he mentioned about his wish to clear a property that he owns.

I’d just like to ask if there’s ever been any analysis - if there’s anything in this budget about subsidies for land clearing for farming purposes? I guess, specifically, if there’s ever been any analysis done on the cost per cow, per year? I’ll let you answer that.

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, in the 1990s there was a lot of money put into land clearing. I don’t think there’s ever been an analysis done to see how much of that is still in production and how much wasn’t. Under our Blueberry Expansion Program, there was some money for clearing land and getting prepared for blueberry growth, and that money is still there for that purpose, but it was very directed.

            MR. MACMASTER: So, not for people who have beef cattle?

            MR. COLWELL: None at this time, no

            MR. MACMASTER: Okay. Is there any other comment you would offer on the possibility of that happening in the future?

            MR. COLWELL: We would have to do a cost-benefit analysis on it to see if it would really make a difference in our production of the beef. We haven’t done that, it has not been requested by the organization as far as I know - I just want to double check that. (Interruption) No, there have been no requests, but it would have to come from the association.

            MR. MACMASTER: That makes sense, thank you.

I think at one time, there was a safe-handling program where there was a 25 per cent rebate for cattle farmers, for costs associated with caring for animals. It would also improve safety for farmers and avoid cross damage between cows, and the thing that I think about is their horns. Is there going to be a safe handling program in this budget like that, or has any consideration been given to that?

            MR. COLWELL: I talked about that earlier. I guess two and half years ago, the beef industry came to us with the lamb industry and said we’re not happy with the programs the way they are structured. So I challenged them to come back to us and say, where do you want to spend the money that will make the most impact? The beef-handling course came out of that.

We committed to it and they said, this has never happened before in history, that we got actual input into what we can spend the money on. We put a program together going forward too at that time, to do it with the exact same amount of money that they would’ve gotten regardless of what the program was. They agreed to the amount because it was there. We did change it - we ran it for two years.

            Under the new framework, we’ll have to address that again to see if that’s still suitable for them. I understand it’s made quite a difference in the industry, and some of them - I thought after a year that they would pretty well have all this stuff in place, but in discussions with different beef farmers, they have said no, we’ll buy this piece of equipment this year, and there’s another piece that has to go with it, and the next year it’s another piece. So we were able to get the whole realm of everything they needed, which makes a lot of sense under a cost-shared program with the federal government.

            It was an extremely good program. It’s not ruled out in the new program, but actually until we get the agreement signed with the federal government - everything we’re looking at now is a possibility, but nothing is for certain until we get the actual agreement signed. We’re so close. We’re hoping to sign it in April.

            MR. MACMASTER: Am I correct in saying that the safe-handling program is possible at some point this year, but it depends on agreement signed with the federal government?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, we’re changing how we do business too. We want to make sure that the money we’re spending gets the maximum impact. So, we’ll do an analysis. It’s not only a question of the program, because it was a very successful program. We have to do analysis with the beef farmers and see how many of them have enough of that in place, how many of them didn’t access the program. They may come up and say there is a different program we want to do now that will help the majority of the farmers.

We have to do that analysis. We can’t do the analysis, unfortunately, until we see what money we’ve got in the budget and agreements that we have with the federal government. We think we know what it is at this point, but until we actually sign on the dotted line we can’t commit to anything.

            MR. MACMASTER: So there is an interest by the cattle farmers and there is a possible agreement with the federal government. If there is, based on the details of that agreement, you may offer the program this year?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, very possibly. Again, we can’t commit to anything until we get the agreement signed by the federal government. We’re so close to signing it. We pretty well have everything agreed to, but until we get it signed, we can’t confirm any programs.

            MR. MACMASTER: Thank you. The next question is around what has been described to me as the bull bonus for improved genetics. I think in the past there has been a 25 per cent rebate for the purchase of a new bull up to a maximum of $1,000 - the purpose being to improve the quality, to increase returns for the industry and for taxpayers. Is this program going to be along the same lines as the safe-handling program?

            MR. COLWELL: One thing that’s happened is the Maritime Beef Strategy that’s being worked on with the Maritime Provinces. That will be part of that process and that consultation with them.

            Again, we can’t commit to anything until we see if we’ve got the funding for that, and then we would have to consult with the Maritime Beef Strategy. All this beef investment is going to be approached on a regional level. We’ve appointed representatives for the Maritime Beef Council to discuss all that.

            MR. MACMASTER: So that one is still an unknown.

            MR. COLWELL: That’s a working group now. As far as I know, the other provinces that would be involved in that have the same problem we have - they don’t have the agreement signed yet.

            MR. MACMASTER: Those are all the questions I have. Thank you.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Ms. Paon.

            MS. ALANA PAON: A few questions for the minister. There is some new provincial-federal money coming through the CAP program, which starts on April 1^st. There are a few areas within that program and I know all the ins and outs haven’t been figured out as of yet, but as far as the partnership itself, can you tell me if there is any plan - or what the plan is moving forward - for development of abattoirs, especially in eastern Nova Scotia and on Cape Breton Island? We have a huge lack of abattoirs across this province, which is really putting a great deal of stress on small producers especially.

[4:15 p.m.]

            MR. COLWELL: The program has not been signed off by the province as yet. We anticipate that’s going to happen in April. We have requested to have in the program - and it appears it’s going to happen - some opportunity to improve productivity and value-added products, which is something new. Abattoirs are a major problem for us in the province. I would really like to see them the same as the fishing industry, where they’re all CFIA-approved, but the expense of setting one up like that - P.E.I has one that looks after all the cattle now for New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia, and the two previous ministers of agriculture in Prince Edward Island said, we’ll ship all this stuff over to you, you can have it, it was losing that much money. They’ve changed management there, and got it so that it now is breaking even and making some money.

            I don’t know if we can stand another one if the CFIA-approved one, but anyone that’s interested in setting one up should talk to us, and we really need to go to provincial-inspected facilities, minimum, preferably CFIA, but that’s a huge investment for an area. You have to have the raw materials to feed to the facility - markets are not an issue anymore, it’s just making sure you’ve got enough product to go through it.

            MS. PAON: As I’m sure the minister is aware, there were two brand-new facilities that I had to actually utilize myself being involved in agriculture in the Antigonish area, and of course, both of them are no longer available to us - state-of-the-art facilities. If you could just expand a little bit, do you know if there are any incentives? If somebody does want to come to you and open a large-scale abattoir, what type of incentives or assistance can they look forward to receiving in the coming five years that we’ll have this agreement in place?

            MR. COLWELL: We look at any business opportunity that comes our way. We’ve got a tremendous amount of people now interested in investing in Nova Scotia in all kinds of resource industries such as we have, and agriculture and fisheries. Again, you have to have the raw materials - they won’t come unless you do - and the opportunity to get raw materials on an ongoing regular basis.

            I talked to one gentleman who owns two abattoirs in Canada, the two biggest ones. He has to put through 5,000 animals a week on a six-day shift to break even. I don’t think we have enough to feed a facility maybe for two or three weeks - that’s our problem. Even if we had New Brunswick, P.E.I, Newfoundland, Québec - I don’t know if we’d have enough for that, to continuously feed it. That’s the problem, it’s a matter of scale, and if we could get the production up - the trouble is, it’s the chicken and egg. You’ve got to have the production up, but you can’t put the production up unless you can get added value from your products, so you can make money on your farm.

            So that’s been an ongoing problem in Nova Scotia: We’re not quite big enough, but we’re a little bit too big, if that makes any sense.

            MS. PAON: I’m wondering, instead of looking at large-scale facilities when it comes to the need of an abattoir - I have quite a few young people who are very forward thinking. As it goes with the Growing Forward Program, we’ve got a lot of forward-thinking young people in this province, many of whom want to get involved in the agricultural sector. It’s prohibitively expensive, as you know, to get involved in anything to do with dairy or poultry, it’s a huge investment, as we know.

I’ve had a few young people who have come towards me to ask, is there any possibility of the Department of Agriculture looking at investing in mobile abattoirs? I know it sounds a little far-fetched, but instead of going to the abattoir, which is really what’s prohibitively expensive for small-scale producers - I have this sheep producer on Isle Madame and she has to travel an hour and a half to get probably 10 animals to an abattoir. It really adds to your bottom line.

            I’m wondering if there’s any possibility of thinking outside of the box and looking at funding different ways of being able to look at what abattoirs could be in the future. Instead of just one facility - obviously all the producers have to go to that one facility - the facility comes to you. Does the Department of Agriculture have any commentary on something like that?

            MR. COLWELL: Well, it has been studied in the past. On the surface, it sounds like a great idea and it probably is, but mobile has some issues because you have to deal with the waste - you have to have a solid water supply, all those sorts of things. That puts the price up a bit, but I’m not saying that it’s not a great idea.

            We can’t invest in something like that. It would have to be a private business, because you could potentially put the existing abattoirs out of business that are in business today, if it was not done properly. In Cape Breton Island, it may make sense. If we have no other abattoirs there, maybe a little bit off the island geographically, we would have to look and see what that looked like. We’d have to evaluate it.

            It’s not out of the question. We do have a shortage, there’s no question about that. If some individual came with the proper business plan, we would definitely look at it. We would definitely look at ways we might be able to fund it, in or out of a program, and how they were going to handle it, and do all the rest of it. It’s one of those opportunities.

            One thing that we have done that has been very well received was a meat-cutting facility at the Agricultural Campus of Dalhousie University. I talked Dal into putting a meat-cutting course on, so any young people who are interested in beef or any of the other products, it might be wise to register for that to start with. That will give them an opportunity, and I guess it is pretty well full all the time. That’s a good way for a young person to get into this with basically no big investment to start, but to get them some expertise in that they could move forward as one possibility.

            We’re willing to look at anything that’s going to grow Nova Scotia’s economy and make it better for young people to get into farming.

            MS. PAON: Thank you, Mr. Minister. It’s good to hear, actually, that the department and yourself are open to the possibility of looking to problem-solve that issue in a bit more out-of-the-box kind of way. As a farmer, we all know that we are constantly problem-solving on our properties, from things breaking down to trying to figure out what happens when you have an animal caught in a fence. I’ve had plenty of situations where I’ve had to think outside of the box and think quickly.

            That one, I’ve been kind of thinking about for a while, and I have received a lot of phone calls. It would be lovely to be able to see that small-scale farmers have the ability to be able to compete. You can’t grow your business, and you certainly can’t grow a business that depends on processing livestock, when there’s nowhere to process that.

            Moving on to the next question, with this new CAP program, does the minister have any idea what areas are going to be the key priorities underneath that program, as far as investment?

            MR. COLWELL: Well, the main priorities that have been identified across the country are market development - which would help young farmers develop a market - risk management, public trust; in other words, ability for the industry to build trust in the public. It’s also for environmental sustainability, climate change, science research innovation, value-added agriculture, and agri-food processing. So, it’s a pretty long - agri-food processing would definitely fit in with what you are talking about, that’s a possibility. But we would have to do that with somebody who is a private business, we don’t want to get into that ourselves because we would be competing with somebody who has a business.

            MS. PAON: Thank you, Mr. Minister. I’m curious to know if there’s anything in there, and I know I was in when my colleague, Mr. Lohr, had asked some questions regarding the Farm Loan Board. One of the difficulties in starting a business - any business, and farming is a business, no different than any other business in Nova Scotia. It may put in quite a few more hours and be outdoors, and have a different set of problems, but it is fundamentally a business at the end of the day, even though some people think it’s just a way of life. (Interruption) I am receiving some laughter across the table from another farmer.

I’m curious to know, when it comes to trying to grow a business - again, I’m a farmer, but I’m also someone who comes from an entrepreneurship background in teaching entrepreneurship and helping young people open up businesses years ago with the Centre for Entrepreneurship Education and Development here in Halifax.

What can the Department of Agriculture do, or what is in place, to get over those crucible years, those moments between the five and seven years where you’ve taken advantage of all of the investment that comes your way as a new farmer, and you’re just getting started, and there are all kinds of incentives to get started - how do you get over that hump?

That’s when there’s the possibility that you’ll lose your shirt, during that five-to-seven-year gap. That’s when you either grow and go beyond, or you don’t make it.  We all know that there are many farms in Nova Scotia that are not making right now. Many of them are multigenerational dairy farms that I know personally.

For somebody just starting off with all that overhead and all the possibilities of problems occurring, when you get to that stage - and it’s with any business - what’s available through the Department of Agriculture to be able to help those farmers get past, to surpass that, and continue to grow and continue to succeed?

            MR. COLWELL: Well, I’ve been an entrepreneur myself for many years and the actual numbers from most industries in agriculture may be a little bit different. In the first three years, 90 per cent of people fail and by the eighth year, you should be starting to make money if you’ve survived that next 20 per cent or 30 per cent that goes bankrupt between three and eight. There is a critical time.

Our loan board is a patient lender - that’s critical to know. Sometimes the interest rate is a little bit higher but in agriculture, as you are well aware, you could have a terrible year and the next year make the most money you’ve ever made in your life, then the following year could be another terrible year. You never know quite what’s going to happen based on the markets, weather, disease - all those variables, everything that you can imagine. There are programs to encourage people under risk management, to get things that they need in place that will benefit their farm.

Actually, since I’ve come to the department, we changed the application process. We want you to submit in your application for any of the old Growing Forward 2 programs - there’s going to be even more information we want. It’s really not for us. It’s for them. Ask them, if we approve this grant for you for a fence you’ve got to put up, how is it going to improve your business? We want them to think about how it’s going to improve their business so they can make solid business decisions on what they’re going to invest money in. So that’s something we did.

We also want to know from them, and it’s hard for them to answer - how are they going to add to Nova Scotia’s economy by doing this? We need to know that as well. For instance, if it’s a sheep farmer and they’re going to put fencing up and they can increase their flock from 50 to 200, that’s a significant impact to the province, a significant impact to their business. It may be to the point that you maybe need 250 sheep before you can really start making money with it. They’re very close and then the next year they might need something else to help that same flock to get to 250 or 300, or wherever they’ve got to go, whatever their business plan is.

There are all kinds of different things for different situations, and we have to look at each one as the time comes in, and we’re challenging them to make sure that they look at that as a business decision, not just a grant they’re going to get. For years and years, the way it worked, before I came to the department, was literally the first fax in on the faxing machine got the money, and down the list. You ran out of money and you just sent the rest back. That doesn’t happen anymore. That’s all based on need.

It’s based on looking at how we can best help that individual farm, whether it’s a small farm or a very large farm - and we’ve got some very large farms in the province that started as tiny, little farms not very long ago. We’re really emphasizing that and we have a great group of people in our programs and a great deal of staff, and they work with Perennia Innovation Centre to develop things we can help them.

[4:30 p.m.]

The last thing we want to do is finance somebody for a disaster. We want to make sure that they’re going to succeed as best as we possibly can. Even at that, we have $2 million we put in a reserve for write-offs for the loan board this year. But again, that’s a small percentage of what we have, a very small percentage of the number of loans that we have.

            We have different loans, we have all kinds of different things that we can help people with. The best thing to do if someone is interested is approach our staff, talk to them about it, and see what they’ve got in mind. If they’ve got new ideas, new approaches to do things, we’d love to hear from them.

            MS. PAON: Mr. Minister, thank you again for your answer.

            In Cape Breton-Richmond, which is now the constituency that I represent, I find it absolutely astounding in driving around the countryside and looking at the amount of old farms that are now completely falling down. The barns are falling down, the houses are abandoned.

            We have a beautiful strip of land near the Dundee Resort that was once all farmland. It’s a little microclimate on the Bras d’Or Lakes. It is prime agricultural country. In fact, I was even told that they had apricot trees growing there at one time, if you can imagine.

            There are people wanting to get involved in agriculture. In Cape Breton Island in particular, I’m not seeing the same percentage of movement and growth as I see on the mainland. I’m wondering if you can give me some insight on why you think that is. Why do you think that Cape Breton seems to be behind, as far as agricultural growth, in comparison to mainland Nova Scotia?

            MR. COLWELL: I think, and this is only my personal opinion, I think that agriculture was looked at for many years as a job you don’t do. You work in the field with a hoe and all that kind of thing. Today agriculture is a high-tech business, and as a business it’s really high tech.

            We have very sophisticated equipment in the province that needs not just somebody who can hold a hoe and take some weeds out, but somebody who can run some very sophisticated equipment, as anywhere in the world.

            I don’t think it has been viewed as a top choice for a career. I blame some of it on the school system trying to drive everybody into university. That’s not a bad thing, but it didn’t take into account young people who maybe didn’t want to go to university or decided not to go to university or whatever the case may be, who maybe would have stayed on the farm and taken over the farm from their parents.

            For a while it was pretty hard to sell your produce, and you never knew what it was. Today, if we can grow it, if we can catch it, we can sell it. It’s that simple. But we’ve got to get the right products, the product with the right profit margins in it.

            I think we’ve been reading and trying to encourage people to get in. We’ve got 170-some new farms in the last three years - registered farms in the province - so that’s quite an improvement. I think the attitude, too, is you can’t grow things on Cape Breton Island from the standpoint that it is so far north and all that stuff, which is not true by any stretch of the imagination.

            I know we have a vineyard that has been there for years and years. I think there’s all kinds of opportunities in the vineyard business, but it’s expensive to get into. When you get a vineyard put in place and you grow the right grapes and potentially put a winery up, that’s a whole different thing. I think young people are more attracted to that because it’s more interesting, but there is a very good living to be made of farming and it’s a way of life, as you mentioned, but a wonderful way of life.

            I don’t know what the solution is, but if there’s any way we can work together to find out how we can get more people interested and get that land in production, we really want the land back in production, whatever it is. You have Big Spruce Brewing up there, it is always looking for specialized barleys and hops. Hops has a very low-income level on it, because the picking is so expensive. But again with business opportunities, different people approach them in different ways, and they can make money off things that no one else can make money off. Those are the young people we want to talk to.

            If people have ideas that make sense - and most people do who come and see us - we should talk to our staff and see what they can work together to get their business started, and work through a thing because there are a lot of programs in the province that through Labour and Advanced Education. We’re also working with the Department of Natural Resources now to put more of the Crown land back into agriculture which we’re very, very happy about. We’re working on that, and we’re working on a labour strategy with ourselves, the Department of Labour and Advanced Education, the Department of Immigration, and also with the Department of Community Services.

[4:30 p.m.]

We have a shortage of workers in the province as well so we’ve got to go to automation. Things that, again, will attract young people who love computers and really you can make them do anything, and with the equipment that’s attached to that is now on our farms and our fish plants.

            MS. PAON: We do a wonderful job I think at educating our children off the farm nowadays. We do well on our farms and I think many of the farmers, or at least in the last couple of generations have put in the time and the effort to build our farms to be a very sustainable and profitable enterprise, and then their children have had opportunities to go to university and oftentimes don’t return to farming. They go off to become doctors and lawyers and it is a success story in itself, but it’s also a detriment to the agricultural industry obviously in Nova Scotia.

            The minister has mentioned that in the school system within Nova Scotia - I know and you know that my Party, the Progressive Conservative Party, have really been pushing for the reintroduction of trades in the school system, and it looks like it’s part of the mandate obviously of this government as well. Is there any possibility of making a special effort in introducing a program that would really encourage young people even before they go to university, at a very young age? We all know that’s when you really inspire someone is at a younger age group, to become involved in agriculture. The 4-H program I know is a wonderful program that has been around for a very long time in Nova Scotia, but also right in school as well that in fact a really good viable option for a young person is still to become a farmer.

It’s not a dying profession, but it’s a profession that is still very viable and it’s something that we should be encouraging young people to select, but I don’t see really anything in the provincial curriculum or in schools to encourage people to go in that direction.

            MR. COLWELL: We’re very interested in that actually and we’re moving towards professionalized farming - I know the Department of Labour and Advanced Education, working together with them they’ve come up with a new Red Seal program for equipment maintenance and mechanics for farm equipment because it’s very sophisticated now. It’s computerized and it’s not just hopping in a tractor and turning the key now - they can go in the field and plow the field by themselves, just to name a few things but it’s really getting sophisticated. I think it’s going to attract young people into maybe looking forward to having community college training for that and to work on those things that we can professionalize this, make it a career.

If you’re looking at becoming a dentist or a doctor or a professional farmer, and I think it has to get to that level because farmers - we have a tremendous amount of respect for farmers in the country and people don’t realize it I don’t think when they’re looking for a career, but we’re working on programs like 4-H credit programs in schools. That’s in place now, which is really good. We’re having small-farm expos in the Fall, we’re having agri-awareness events, agri-education (Interruption) Yes, and the CAP program is going to be a lot around education as well.

I think we’ve got to move away from the stigma of digging in the ground every day and getting wet and working daylight until dark - which they still may do but that would be their choice - and really start at looking at this as a career opportunity. I know, and I don’t like comparing the agriculture industry and the fishing industry but if you have a lobster-fishing licence in southwestern Nova you’ll probably make more money than all our salaries in this room combined, in a year, in a month, and then some. The farming industry is not far from that. We’ve got some extremely successful farmers in the province that you never hear about - you probably do because you would know them, but we don’t talk about that and we really should.

            MS. PAON: I believe as well, minister, that it’s important to speak about those larger-scale agriculture companies. But again, if we want to get young people involved and first-time farmers involved - that’s what I was, I came from a business background, a community and economic development background and decided that you have to live somewhere so I decided to live on a farm. It just happened to come with six sheep, so I started from there.

You learn fairly quickly; your learning curve is fairly steep when you throw yourself into something like that. I’m dressed from head to toe today in business clothes yet again; however, I do know for the last six, seven years that I’ve been on a farm it was probably one of the most difficult lifestyles that I have ever lived and I have a new appreciation of everything that I put into my mouth that is grown not only on my farm but also elsewhere.

            For those smaller-scale farmers who want to get to that stage of a large commercial farm and be able to obviously really contribute to the Nova Scotia economy, there’s a huge gap between starting up and having to really use the hoe and your hands quite a bit because you can’t afford to buy those large pieces of machinery, to getting to the stage to where you are a large-scale farm.

            One of the things that’s really difficult that I know of personally is that our climate is changing dramatically in this province. It is obviously providing opportunities for new agricultural business such as the wine industry really to flourish, but it’s also causing a great deal of problems for those who are involved with trying to raise livestock. As the old saying goes on the farm - if you have livestock you have dead stock, and try to mitigate as much as possible having dead stock.

            Could the minister please comment to me on what is available, moving forward, to all sectors within agriculture for crop and livestock insurance? I know that not all sectors have been included in the past.

            MR. COLWELL: We have a very robust crop and livestock insurance program in the province. Most sectors are involved in it. It is voluntary and most sectors are covered. We included the vineyards recently. Our biggest problem is a lot of people don’t register and then they come looking for insurance that they haven’t paid for and don’t qualify for. That’s too bad because the insurance is very reasonable no matter what size farm you have and it’s just a level of protection, especially if you are a small farm where you could lose $10,000 or $20,000 worth of crops and it could basically put you out of business.

If you had the insurance, you could probably get enough that you’d get through the next year, and hopefully the next year would be a lot better because you never know what’s going to happen, as you know. You could have a flood, you could have a drought, you could have a hailstorm, or some kind of disease in the plants or animals - you could have anything happen. It’s really difficult.

It’s all part of the learning to be a farmer too because if you know what to look for, sometimes or most of the times you can avoid some of those problems, too. It’s pretty hard when you are starting out and have the big hopes and dreams to do that thing. I think the big issue with that is education.

            One thing I mentioned, we had the grape industry approached us for insurance and we put it in place; we’re working now with hascaps for the same thing. So, any of the commodities that aren’t covered, all they have to do is go to the organization, approach us, and with the right qualifications and stuff we will include them under crop insurance because it’s a program that’s cost shared by the federal and provincial governments. So, it’s very inexpensive, and indeed it’s to make sure exactly what you’re talking about - that the industry can survive in a hard time when they have a crop failure, and get the proper insurance to cover it.

[4:45 p.m.]

Sometimes we run into problems that even if you’re covered, the microclimate is a problem for us. One area might be drowning, and not far from there they had almost no rain. That stuff happens too, so it’s very difficult.

            MS. PAON: We have a huge increase of parasite on pasture in the last few years in Nova Scotia because of course we’re not receiving the same snowfalls and low temperatures - freezing temperatures - as we used to. I do know that the Department of Agriculture, and I believe Dalhousie University as well, were involved in doing some research into this, again, to try to mitigate loss on farm for those people whose commodity is livestock.

What commodities are and are not included in the crop and livestock insurance? What is currently not on the list? If they’re not on the list is it a matter of an individual farm can access this or do they have to lobby as an entire group?

            MR. COLWELL: It would have to be a commodity group. For instance, if somebody decided to grow some product, they would have to approach us and we’d have to set up an industry-wide program for that.

            If the beef producers wanted to get live crop and livestock insurance they can get it, but the association would have to approach us. We’d have to do all the due diligence underwriting and come up with a value of what it would cost them per thousand in short stock, or whatever the case may be or per head or how it would work, and then we would go from there.

            There’s a whole process around it and it’s pretty straightforward. Then it goes through an approval process. We’ve done two or three of them since I’ve been minister.

            MS. PAON: In speaking with the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture a couple of months back, I do know that they wanted to lobby the department regarding cell phone and high-speed Internet. I think that my general theme this time around for the Spring sitting is definitely to try to lobby for cell phone coverage and Internet coverage in rural Nova Scotia.

Our farms are obviously located in rural Nova Scotia, and we have a problem when we have businesses that don’t have access to these types of basic services. You’re out in the field and you need GPS or you need to call because you have a piece of your equipment that’s down. It’s a waste of time to have to go back to the house to try to find a land line. In rural Nova Scotia, we just hope that the land lines work as well sometimes, let alone trying to do business and have Internet coverage that’s reliable or even available at all.

Can the minister give me an update on where the department stands as far as trying to push forward the importance of cell phone and Internet coverage in rural Nova Scotia for agricultural businesses to succeed?

MR. COLWELL: Actually, it’s a better question to ask the Minister of Business because there’s $120 million in our budget just for this. We’re hoping to multiply that money up, so I would ask you to ask him about that, but I share your concerns exactly. It’s a major issue if you can’t get high-speed Internet and cell phone service - it’s a major problem for you.

MS. PAON: Thank you. Those are all the questions that I have at this time.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: We’ll turn it over to the NDP, and Ms. Zann.

MS. ZANN: Thank you. Madam Chairman, and hello again. This time I would like to turn our attention to flood mitigation. Obviously, being the MLA and living in an area that’s on a flood plain and being aware of the work that we have done with the help of the Department of Agriculture and EMO, the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure Renewal back in 2011 - I believe it was when we had our first big flood, we had a second big flood after that - we did manage to put about $4 million into fixing up eight different areas in my Truro-Bible Hill-Millbrook-Salmon River region and also put aside about $7 or $8 million dollars towards flood mitigation for the rest of Colchester County and other places across Nova Scotia.

            I’m just wondering - for instance, I have friends living in Advocate and they just had a public meeting on January 26^th, where the EMO coordinator had said that basically it’s not a question of if, but when the sea level is going to be over the dykes there in Advocate. So, they were talking about how they need to take steps now. We need to take steps now to prevent that, possibly either raising the dykes or even possibly moving buildings. I know that the Municipality of Cumberland is organizing more discussions about this and that there’s a federal government approval for doing a funding to study the dykes.

What I’d like to know is, what is the Department of Agriculture doing right now towards this very important issue of flood mitigation, especially concerning our dykes around Nova Scotia? Is there any money in the budget this year to go towards flood mitigation and protecting, building up, repairing our 1,600-year-old dykes?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, there’s a study in Advocate and actually, this Sunday Mr. Bekkers is going to be in the community talking about the program in Advocate Harbour. It’s a program that the municipality got into under the National Disaster Mitigation Program and they’re working on that plan now. Also, we have flood mapping of all the dyke lands under way now in the province, and several other projects we’re working on.

            MS. ZANN: So, how much money in the budget is allocated for flood mitigation this fiscal year?

            MR. COLWELL: Well, this year we have $1 million in the budget, which we typically would lever with the federal government and maybe some other agencies, plus we have a $3 million two-year project in Truro that we’re working on. So it’s really hard to give you an exact number, but more than $2 million in the budget this year for that.

            MS. ZANN: So that $3 million two-year program in Truro - is that one that we already announced back a few years ago or is this new money?

            MR. COLWELL: This is new money. There was $3 million over two years on that project and there’s over a million of that going to be into next year’s budget as well.

            MS. ZANN: Which new project is it?

MR. COLWELL: It’s a salt marsh restoration along the rivers.

            MS. ZANN: The salt marsh restoration plan along the rivers?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MS. ZANN: And when was that money made available?

            MR. COLWELL: There were two tenders called and one of them has already been awarded and the work is under way.

            MS. ZANN: I’m sorry, could you please repeat that?

            MR. COLWELL: There were two tenders called this last year gone by. One of them has already been awarded and under way at the present time.

            MS. ZANN: Okay, thank you very much. And whereabouts in the budget is that $3 million allocation and also the $1 million allocation - are they under a specific title? I didn’t see anything under …

            MR. COLWELL: Some of the problems we have around the dykes is we put, for instance, this year $1 million in the budget but when time is levered up it’s very soon to $3 million or $4 million or whatever the case may be. I guarantee you that the staff we have in that department really makes the money go a long way. They get free fill any time they can get it, if they get free fill somewhere near a dyke they will go work on that dyke and take advantage of that.

            It’s a moving target all the time. Every time Mr. Bekkers comes and sees me with a contract that he is considering doing and he says, wow, I’ve got $500,000, I’m getting $2 million from the federal government - I’m shocked every time. I’m very pleased; they manage to really multiply the money.

            MS. ZANN: I’m just wondering where it’s located in the budget.

            MR. COLWELL: It’s on Page 1.8. It’s on Agriculture, plus some money from TIR, $200,000 on top of that in their budget doesn’t show.

            MS. ZANN: So that’s under TIR.

            MR. COLWELL: Yes.

            MS. ZANN: And what’s the title that this is under in the Agriculture budget?

            MR. COLWELL: It’s a general revenue fund, tangible capital assets and it’s under Agriculture and that’s what that line is on that page.

            MS. ZANN: Okay, so it’s not listed as flood mitigation, it is specifically for that. Could it be used for something else?

            MR. COLWELL: No. It’s a line for flood mitigation and the dykes.

            MS. ZANN: Okay, great. Are you going to be putting any more money into the Advocate study and working with the people of Cumberland County like you did with the Truro and Colchester community?

            MR. COLWELL: The study is pretty well complete and they had to do that first to see exactly where they had to spend the money and what is needed for the project.

            MS. ZANN: So, there’s no money at this point to do anything to the dykes in the next year?

            MR. COLWELL: There’s lots of flexibility in our budgets. We can fit in projects if we can get other money to fit into there, and this project is one of those that we’ll have a look at. We’ve got to wait until the report comes in, go back to the community and the municipality and see where it fits in - we have 82 priorities in the province that we’re looking at.

            MS. ZANN: Yes, I’m sure there’s quite a few. So this Sunday, is that meeting going to decide where the priorities are and what other decisions are going to be coming forward there as to where the money needs to be spent and what needs to be done?

            MR. COLWELL: This is the first of several studies that have to be done. It’s very high level. It looks at moving all the properties out of the spot. It does all kinds of things just to get an idea of what the real risks are and where they are, so this is the beginning of a process that needs to be done.

[5:00 p.m.]

            MS. ZANN: Has the department done any estimates about how much it would cost to raise the dikes in and around the province in the most desperate spots where it really needs it, and where we’re really concerned about the water rising and coming in? Have you done any estimates about how much that’s actually going to cost in total?

            MR. COLWELL: A lot of the areas in New Brunswick that have to get protected in that area in conjunction with Nova Scotia - we’re looking to invest in a 10-year plan for this.

            MS. ZANN: Do we have any idea how much we’re looking at?

            MR. COLWELL: No, we have to develop the plan first. We’ve got some ideas around it, but until we actually get the plan complete and the research done - that’s why the flood mapping is so important.

            MS. ZANN: What is your estimate of when we’re going to have that 10-year plan done – planned and completed?

            MR. COLWELL: It’s an ongoing study. Again, it’s for budgeting purposes so we can look to the future.

            MS. ZANN: So do we have any idea how long it’s going to take to form the 10-year plan?

            MR. COLWELL: I don’t think it will be very much longer.

            MS. ZANN: Can we look forward to hearing from the department with a 10-year plan this year?

            MR. COLWELL: Possibly, yes. It’s an urgency for us.

            MS. ZANN: Yes, I would imagine.

            One last question about the dikes is, has it been determined that raising the dikes is actually a viable option to prevent flooding in our lower-lying areas where there are currently dikes? Is raising the dikes part of the solution?

            MR. COLWELL: It depends on the location. In some locations, that will cure the problem, and some places it won’t, depending on the situation of the particular dike.

            MS. ZANN: Thank you, I appreciate that. Is any of the budget this year allocated to protecting high-quality agricultural land from non-agricultural use?

            MR. COLWELL: We’re doing a study at the present time. We’re looking at the protection of agricultural land as a whole unit. One of my staff members and MLA Keith Irving are working on that project as well. He’s got a vast background in that. We’re doing a study on it now to see how we can overall protect all farmland in Nova Scotia and how we can accelerate that, because over time, that’s going to become our most valuable land. Actually, the value of Nova Scotia land has gone up substantially in the last couple of years.

            MS. ZANN: So since 2014, let’s say, how much agricultural land has the department actually helped to protect for agricultural use?

            MR. COLWELL: We don’t have that number yet, but that’s one thing we’re reviewing in the process we’re going through internally - to find out exactly how much land we have in agriculture. Some of the land that’s registered agriculture, we don’t even know for sure if it is still agriculture. There are probably some areas that aren’t registered agriculture that are agriculture.

            That’s an ongoing process we’re going through. It’s one that’s very important to us and that we’ve really taken seriously. We’re meeting with municipalities; Municipal Affairs is involved in it. We will also be working with DNR and other departments to make sure we protect every inch of farmland we possibly can.

            MS. ZANN: At this point, though, there hasn’t been any money put into it? You’re just planning it?

            MR. COLWELL: We’re planning. We really have to see where we’re at, and it’s going to be . . .

            MS. ZANN: You’re still doing a study?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, we’re doing the basis of how we can manage to do this, because we’re going to involve legislation and all kinds of things. We’re working very, very closely with the Federation of Agriculture on this project as well. It’s something they’re very interested in, of course, and we are.

            MS. ZANN: Would you say - again, since around 2014 - how much agricultural land has actually been lost to non-agricultural development?

            MR. COLWELL: We’re very concerned about that, because we’ve seen some areas where the prime agricultural land has been carved off in 25-acre lots, and the farmland designation is still on part of that 25-acre lot, which is not right. The province is giving grants to cover that.

            It’s been a concern of mine personally, and of the department, for quite some time. We’re just formulating how we can tackle this. It’s not easy. It’s really not easy. There is a will everywhere for this to happen, but again, we may have to change the Municipal Government Act, we may have to change some of our Acts. A lot of things might have to happen to get there.

            We’re just formulating this now. We’ve made a lot of progress, and we’ve got some action items we’re working on to move this forward more quickly, but it takes a long time to get all the data. Not all municipalities have a municipal plan, and without a municipal plan, you can put anything anywhere and that’s resulted in some - well, for instance, sewer systems being built behind a dike, which doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. Those are the sort of things that have happened. So it’s a big complicated problem that we are addressing.

            MS. ZANN: Has the trend to losing the agricultural land, would you say, been going upwards or downwards year over year?

            MR. COLWELL: I think for a while it was going up, losing the land, but I think what the attention - yes.

            One thing that’s brought a lot of awareness is the wine industry. I use that just as an example of a high-value crop, a high-value big investment in particular types of land and particular locations has really driven the price up in those areas. I think there’s more interest in areas where people might have had farmers. Indeed, I’ve talked to many farmers who have said, “I’ve got a piece of property we haven’t farmed in 25 years and it’s all grown up with trees. How do we turn it into a vineyard?” It could be a possible thing, or other value-added crops.

            The industry itself is really keenly interested in this as well. We haven’t talked to anybody who isn’t really interested in making this happen.

            MS. ZANN: I know you mentioned earlier that you’re concerned that if we don’t protect our farmland, there will be nowhere to grow any food. Are there people who are concerned that too much of the land is going to wine vineyards and winegrowing instead of food production?

            MR. COLWELL: Some of it will be, but not all land is suitable for a vineyard. Again, best use of the land - food production is primary to what we want to do, but again, vineyards offer all kinds of opportunities for economic growth and for a really pristine landscape.

            MS. ZANN: Yes.

            MR. COLWELL: But again, a vineyard is a microclimate. You could have this room in a field and you would have two microclimates in this one small spot, and you’ve got to identify what they are. One may be great for growing apples and the other one might be great for growing wheat or just hay.

            MS. ZANN: Or grapes. How many people would a vineyard usually employ? Like, how many local people are usually employed in the vineyards in, let’s say, the Annapolis Valley?

            MR. COLWELL: They say it’s one full-time job for every 2.5 acres of vineyard.

MS. ZANN: Okay, one full-time for every 2.5?

            MR. COLWELL: That’s when you take everything into consideration - the vineyard, the winery, everything else. It takes 10 acres - it takes one person full-time to maintain 10 acres of vineyard full time, but that’s not where the money is.

            MS. ZANN: No. The only other thing too is obviously we care about hopefully employing lots of Nova Scotians, rather than just the owner of the vineyard. It’s great that they’re making money, but we want to make sure that a lot of the local people get to have the benefit of that as well. That’s why I believe there are people who are concerned that perhaps there might be a bit too much attention at this point in time just on the vineyards, rather than growing other types of food as well. It’s a balance, isn’t it?

            MR. COLWELL: Well, a vineyard is better than a subdivision, to start with, and that’s what has been happening to some farmland.

            MS. ZANN: That’s true.

            MR. COLWELL: And it’s a high-value crop, a high-tech business. It’s another form of farming, that’s all it is. But we can lose sight, as you are absolutely right, of the . . .

            MS. ZANN: Because you can’t eat it.

            MR. COLWELL: No, you can’t, but it generates a lot of wealth and it does help other things as well, so we need a balance of all of them.

            MS. ZANN: Does the department have a staff person devoted to craft breweries?

            MR. COLWELL: No, but the reason is that just in the last Cabinet change-around, I became responsible for the craft breweries and cider houses and spirits. They haven’t figured that out yet, but we’ve been talking to some of them.

            MS. ZANN: Is there a plan to have somebody, like a staff person who’s going to be devoted to . . .

            MR. COLWELL: There will be staff. It’s the same as we have with everyone else to deal with their concerns.

            MS. ZANN: Thank you. Also, I wanted to ask about the farm revenues from the sales within Nova Scotia. Did they increase or decrease this year?

            MR. COLWELL: The farm cash receipts last year were almost $600 million. I can’t tell you right offhand - most of those have been substantially increased. I’ll give you some examples. The maple industry went up by 173 per cent. Potatoes increased by 40 per cent. Vegetables increased by 14 per cent. Primary agriculture . . .

            MS. ZANN: This is all within Nova Scotia, is it?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, all Nova Scotia. So significant ones - we’ve had a reduction in production on the blueberry fields this year.

            MS. ZANN: Unfortunately, yes.

            MR. COLWELL: But overall it has been really improving. Our exports are up, too.

            MS. ZANN: Do you have any concerns about the latest NAFTA news? I was listening today and they are still talking about the NAFTA agreement, that when it comes to agriculture there are going to be changes made. Are you concerned about what’s going to happen with our dairy industry or any of our agricultural exports?

            MR. COLWELL: We’re always very concerned about any trade deal that could hurt our industry. We’re quite concerned about supply management under NAFTA, very concerned about that. We’ve made it very clear to the federal government that we fully support the supply management. They share that, but I’m not too sure what they’ll do at the end of the day. That’s one reason we are also looking very aggressively to other markets outside of North America and have been very successful at penetrating those markets.

            The conversation I have with the industry now is, if we can grow a high-quality, solid supply of product - in other words, you can supply it year-round - we can sell it. It doesn’t matter what it is.

            MS. ZANN: So why couldn’t we sell our blueberries?

            MR. COLWELL: The blueberries are an extreme success story and a short-term problem. The extreme success story with the agricultural college in Truro really changed how we grow blueberries - scientific, fantastic, what they’ve done.

            MS. ZANN: They are one of the best.

            MR. COLWELL: I encourage them. I’ve had this discussion with them. I’ve said, don’t stop what you’re doing, because it’s too important to our industry.

[5:15 p.m.]

            What has happened is, sales have never dropped in blueberries. It’s not the sales that have been the problem. Sales are continually going up every year. They slipped a little bit by not marketing properly in Canada to the consumer. They didn’t look at consumer products and mostly sold bulk products. Those bulk products were a very positive thing and that market is still there, but we are now looking at new markets and we have sold more blueberries, I believe, this year than any year in history.

            MS. ZANN: But the price dropped. Is that . . .

            MR. COLWELL: Well, yes and no. Don’t forget, we’ve had a lot of inventory sitting in warehouses that’s got to be sold at a higher price. As that inventory disappears - which it is, it is disappearing. There have been substantial sales in Asia.

            MS. ZANN: Are these frozen or dried?

            MR. COLWELL: Frozen - pretty well has to be frozen. But the value of blueberries - there is anthocyanins or something chemical in the lowbush wild blueberries that has tremendous health benefits. There is nothing like it in the world. It’s not the case with the highbush, so lowbush wild blueberries. We are going to start pushing that more and more.

            There has been a tremendous amount of study done over the last 25 years by a very prominent scientist at the Agricultural Research Station in Kentville. She is now working with us to promote that with the industry, and the new markets are getting very exciting.

            It’s tough for the people in the fields, but the good news story is that it is not another mink story that we don’t have the market for. We have the market. We have premium product and we know how to handle it. Now we just have to improve the markets, which we are doing. We sold more in Europe this year than ever in history. We sold more in Asia, and Japan has been a solid customer forever. They have increased purchases, so the purchases are all going up and we are opening up new markets. It’s just a matter of time until the markets catch up with production.

            MS. ZANN: I was talking to the farmers at one of the dinners they had recently in Truro, and they were telling me that it still bugs them that Nova Scotians spend more money on and buy more bananas than they do blueberries. They were saying that we really need to start educating Nova Scotians that instead of putting banana in with your cereal, you ought to sprinkle blueberries on your cereal. I know when I go to the cottage in River John in the summertime, there are always beautiful fresh blueberries there, right on the counter. I always make sure that I buy them, but when they are not right there in front of you, sometimes they are not the first thing that you think of. Is there any major plan to try and market blueberries more sustainably here in Nova Scotia and in Canada?

            MR. COLWELL: Without question. That was one of our shortfalls identified that I mentioned earlier. Through Select Nova Scotia, Oxford Frozen Foods and other companies that are in the blueberry business have really stepped up to the plate and said, “Okay, now we have to put in small packs so we can sell them. We want to sell more fresh blueberries. We want to sell more frozen blueberries.”

            The secret with the blueberries is that they have - it doesn’t matter if they are frozen, cooked, powdered, whatever they are in, 15 milligrams a day, every day, has a huge benefit for all ages.

            MS. ZANN: Right. I believe that, totally.

            MR. COLWELL: Even children in school, they learn better. They learn a lot more easily. It’s just incredible.

            MS. ZANN: There’s a lot of iron in them, as well. Although I have to give a shout-out to haskap berries - they’re pretty good too. They are really nutritious as well, and they are kind of double the size of blueberries. There’s almost like two little blueberries inside one haskap berry.

            I’m curious to see how that haskap berry market goes in Nova Scotia. I know there was some interest in it and I hope that continues to grow. Do you have any update on the haskap berry industry?

            MR. COLWELL: Haskap berries have a great potential in the province. It is another product we can sell. It is different than blueberries, and we have to differentiate between the two, but we should never compare one to the other until we know for sure what the benefits of haskap are.

            The haskap industry has done a lot of research on the medicinal value, and I give them a lot of credit for that. There are great companies working on that, but again, that is another opportunity for Nova Scotia.

            MS. ZANN: Down in Lunenburg, I think, I went on a tour of one of the farms and saw the different types from Russia and Japan, low-lying ones and high ones. They taste like grapes, but with a taste of blueberry to it. They’re pretty juicy.

            MR. COLWELL: I got hooked on the haskap jelly, I can tell you that. That is so good.

            MS. ZANN: Actually, yes, me too - the jelly, and there’s another thing for cooking with that’s excellent too.

            I’m going to wrap up pretty soon. I know you have your other staff here from the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture, and I really appreciate your time.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Excuse me. That has been changed, so you’re free to use up - you can still speak until 5:59 p.m. if you wish.

            MS. ZANN: Well, I was wrapping up for everybody else, so I’ll just continue, but I’ll be wrapping up pretty shortly.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: There are members of the Liberal caucus who have questions when you finish.

            MS. ZANN: The accountability report - I know I had asked the deputy minister about this at one point in time during PAC, but I’m just wondering if the department has reported on its progress towards the EGSPA goals of increasing local food consumption and the number of farmers producing food for local consumption.

            You mentioned about 176 farms, but could you give us a quick update on the EGSPA goals and where we are with that?

            MR. COLWELL: Again, we’re 16 per cent in Agriculture and probably equal to that in Fisheries and Aquaculture. In overall local food, we’re probably well over 30 per cent.

            MS. ZANN: So by 2020 we should be at the 20 per cent mark in Agriculture, would you say?

            MR. COLWELL: I would hope so. We’re growing every year. We’re getting more sophisticated on the farms, and more interest in growing more diverse products. Kale is one of the things that we didn’t think would grow in Nova Scotia, and we’ve got four times the production in Nova Scotia as they get in the Carolinas.

            MS. ZANN: Kale juice is fabulous. Have you tried it?

            MR. COLWELL: Fabulous. Again, it’s a new product for Nova Scotia, and it’s an important one. That’s how our climate change is helping us - plus innovation by young farmers. We’ve got some of the most sophisticated farmers in the world in Nova Scotia now. We don’t give enough credit to them for what they do.

            MS. ZANN: How many of the farms that we have, would you say, are organic farms at this point in time in Nova Scotia, or do you know?

            MR. COLWELL: I’m not sure of the number, but I know the organic farmers approached us about two or three years ago to put regulations in around organic farming, and we did that. Now we’re going to tighten that up a bit more because there are some people selling products that are “organic” but aren’t. We’re going to tighten that up some more and put some further regulations in around that so we can prove it, because it is a really good marketing tool, and it’s a great way to help grow our economy in that area.

            There is a lot of interest in organic products. We realize that is a great opportunity - especially for the smaller farms that maybe don’t have as high sales but they can get a premium price for the product they have, so it makes them profitable. That’s very important to us. We work with them and we have a great working relationship with them. We’re very carefully monitoring where they’re at and encouraging them to come to us for more things we can do to help them, especially around the regulations. We committed to do that and we’re continually doing that.

            MS. ZANN: The sheep industry too, I was told - herding right now - is there anything in place to try to help with sheep farming?

            MR. COLWELL: The sheep farmers have a big bonus in the province that nobody else has. They have a CFIA-certified processing facility in - I believe it’s in your area, NorthumberLamb.

            MS. ZANN: Yes.

            MR. COLWELL: I wish we had one of them for every commodity. Well, the only other one is for chickens and turkeys. That’s a big operation.

            NorthumberLamb is a real success story. We worked with them for a couple of years to get them CFIA-approved. That has changed the whole story around the sheep industry.

            MS. ZANN: Has it?

            MR. COLWELL: They have a hard time getting enough sheep to supply the demand.

            MS. ZANN: Right. I know that there are people who are interested in getting into it, but they don’t know how profitable it’s going to be at this point in time.

            MR. COLWELL: Well, they should talk to NorthumberLamb about it. From what I understand, there’s a huge market for it now. Now that they’re certified, they can ship that product anywhere in the world. More importantly, they can ship it to New Brunswick, where the warehouses are for Loblaws and Sobeys and Walmart and those operations.

            The market is going to open up for that, but last time I talked to them, they said they were having trouble getting enough sheep to fill their orders.

            MS. ZANN: Right. Actually, being somebody from Australia, we are a lot more used to eating sheep and lamb and mutton and whatever over there. But when we moved to Canada, we found it wasn’t quite as popular. Same with goat.

            MR. COLWELL: Exactly, and that’s been part of our problem. It’s frozen product. I’ve never eaten a lot of lamb or mutton in my life, but the ones I have eaten that were cooked properly have been incredibly good.

            MS. ZANN: Mint jelly - and I’m sure haskap jelly - would be excellent on it as well.

            MR. COLWELL: I must try it there. I haven’t.

            MS. ZANN: Thank you. Did any major grocery store chains - I mean, other than Sobeys, which is great - stock more locally-produced this year? Or did they stock less?

            MR. COLWELL: A lot of interest. We had a lot of interest from Loblaws, interest from Walmart - basically all the major chains. They realize that, if they’re going to compete against Internet sales, they’re going to have to have local products in their stores. They can represent the farmers, who are greatly respected, to make sure they can take that advantage of that size of market.

            MS. ZANN: I see. Okay, thank you.

            Is the department doing anything at this point beyond marketing to increase Nova Scotia’s food self-sufficiency?

            MR. COLWELL: We’re looking at a lot of research around other products we can produce. We’re looking at value-added products we have, which would mean that we would not only look at export markets for those but also the local market. If somebody can’t find something that they would love to have, and it’s not produced in Nova Scotia, they’re going to buy it wherever they can get it.

            We’re looking at value-added products on every turn. That makes our local businesses more profitable. We’re really going to concentrate on value added.

            Marketing is not an issue for us anymore. It’s a matter of getting the right product in the right place at the right price, not the cheap price.

            MS. ZANN: I remember when were in government, we were already talking about value added then, and how important that was.

            Obviously, having the Dalhousie Agricultural Campus right there in Truro, I’ve done a number of tours and seen all the incredible work that they’ve done, especially even with the Christmas trees, with the smart needles or whatever - the smart Christmas trees that don’t drop their needles as quickly, which helps the bottom line here in Nova Scotia as well.

Something we always cared about - does the farmer actually get any percentage of the value-added products or do they just sell their product to somebody else who then takes it and makes more money off it? Do you have any plans or programs in place for that, for the farmers to get some of that money too?

            MR. COLWELL: You actually can’t put a program in place to interfere with the value chain. But what we do - and have done very successfully - is put a higher value on that product when we market it. It feeds right back down to the farmer or the fisherman, whatever it could be.

            We’re seeing record prices for lobster, for instance. When I came to the department - and I don’t want to talk about fisheries too much, but it’s a case study - it was $3 per pound. The average price on lobster now is $7.49, and it’s gone up as high as $15 per pound.

            That’s because of the marketing we’re doing in Asia, Europe, and those places. That’s what we can do again with agriculture with a product line, but we’ve got to get products that we can sell consistently all year round. We can do that by freezing and processing and doing all kinds of things.

            I’ve sat across the table so many times from major suppliers that have told me, “I want a container load a week for a sample” - a sample - “and after the samples, we’ll put it in one store. A sample for one store.” Now, they’re going to buy this. It’s not a free sample. “If you can do that, we want five or six samples or containers a week.”

[5:30 p.m.]

            MS. ZANN: Even the value-added products from salmon are amazing, aren’t they? With the oils and stuff?

            MR. COLWELL: So all of it’s there. Our problem is to make sure that we’ve got enough product, and what we’re looking at, more greenhouse technology - we’re looking at all kinds of things. It’s happening as we talk.

            MS. ZANN: Another question I wanted to ask you, and then I am going to turn it over - I’d thought we wanted to move on to Fisheries and Aquaculture, but if not, then I’m going to ask you my last couple of questions.

            I know that Scotsburn was bought by Saputo, and there were a few other places around the province that were sold, and some that were closed, when other bigger agricultural dairy organizations or businesses took them over. I noticed that just recently there was that health scare from the milk that was sold and had to be recalled. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the recall was listed as a Class 3, meaning the use of the product was of low or no risk, but it still puts a taint on the brand.

            Are you concerned at all about the industry in the Truro area and how long they will be able to continue that particular business? I know when we were in government, we put in some money and helped to increase their value for ice cream and things like this, which was also value-added, really. Do you have any plans to try and help that plant stay in Nova Scotia and continue hiring local people?

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, I’m very concerned about that facility. It’s really out of date and not very efficient and it’s on a flood plain. It’s a bad combination for a business to continue. I know that the employment . . .

            MS. ZANN: It hires a lot of people, though.

            MR. COLWELL: Yes, I know it does.

            MS. ZANN: We really care about it.

            MR. COLWELL: They have had lower numbers and higher numbers for processing the milk over time. It’s going to take a substantial investment to replace a facility like that in today’s market. We’re hopeful that we can maintain as much processing as we can in the province.

            As you’re aware - or may not be aware; I don’t know how up to speed you are on this - Agropur has basically taken the whole industry over in the province, or are in the process of doing that.

            MS. ZANN: Right, yes.

            MR. COLWELL: They operate on a business case of what makes sense for their shareholders, who are farmers in the province, of course. We’re hopeful that they will ensure that we have as much employment and as much value-added as we can in the province, but we really have very little control over that, unfortunately.

            MS. ZANN: Right.

            MR. COLWELL: If it doesn’t make a good business case, they’re not going to invest.

            MS. ZANN: They’re based in Quebec, right?

            MR. COLWELL: They’re right in Quebec.

            MS. ZANN: It was actually them that had to do that recall on what was Farmers Dairy?

            MR. COLWELL: Farmers, yes.

            MS. ZANN: So what are you hearing? Are you hearing that they are interested in staying in the province? If we were to invest in them to stay here, would that be something that you’d be willing to do and interested in doing?

            MR. COLWELL: We’re hoping they will. I know they also own Scotsburn Ice Cream, which, again, is a really high-tech business. It really was. They really improved that.

            MS. ZANN: Well, that’s what they do in Truro too.

            MR. COLWELL: They still have Farmers Dairy here, again, which is very high-tech. They’re probably one of the best dairies, or processing facilities in the country. They can handle a lot more capacity than what they are now.

            They did buy out several small organizations and close them down because they just weren’t efficient enough. The industry is extremely competitive today, so we’ll have to wait and see what the company does. We’ve met with them several times to try and encourage them to stay in the province, as much employment as we can get here.

            We’ve also got to have a home for our milk. The quotas have been continually going up in the province, which is very good news. That employs more people on that side of it, and the spinoff for that.

            We’ll just have to wait and see. We’re very concerned about the quota system with NAFTA. We’re big supporters of quota - I think it makes a lot of sense. If you talk to a U.S. farmer the size of our dairy farmers, they think it’s a great idea too, but they can’t convince their government to do it.

            It’s going to be a readjusting of the whole agriculture dairy farm business in North America, I think. I just hope we’re prepared for it, whatever that is.

            MS. ZANN: Yes, because I went to the dairy farmers’ annual dinner as well, and they were saying that they are relying on this arrangement right now. It’s keeping some of them alive, really, here in Nova Scotia. So it’s going to be concerning about Agropur, but also, as you said, about NAFTA and the different announcements that Mr. Trump keeps making and scaring the hell out of everybody.

            I was going to finish with asking you about changing the cycle for small-farm operating grants so that farmers can make growing decisions in time for planting season. Is that something you are looking into?

            MR. COLWELL: Unfortunately, this year we are delayed because of the signing of the new CAP agreement. But last year and the year before, we kept moving the application dates earlier and earlier in the season. Last year we came out in December so that they could apply, get approved, and maybe do some of the work in their slack times - if it was possible, depending on what they applied for.

We’re going to go back to that again as soon as the new program is in place. We really want to, for two or three reasons. Number one is for the farmers so they can plan and do this work instead of trying to struggle to get it working in the summertime when they are so busy trying to get stuff done. Maybe they can do it earlier. That has been successful.

It also spreads out the application process so that when it comes into our department they will get a payment quicker. It helps their cash flow and helps our staff, too, that we get this all done.

            One thing we did very early this year, which hasn’t been done before: we took the lime subsidy, put the benefit on it up to 80 per cent of the cost of the transportation, and took the $10,000 or $20,000 - this is a provincial program - and we started immediately so that they could get the lime on their property before the roads closed.

            Now the roads are closed, so hopefully they get it done and it will still be in place after that so that they could have that stockpile. If they get some really nice weather when the road is closed, they can get it on their fields instead of waiting for the roads to open when all the trucks are busy and they can’t even get a truck to deliver it when it opens again.

            MS. ZANN: Exactly. So you’re hoping that this will work itself out for the next growing season?

            MR. COLWELL: It will. Guaranteed it’s going to.

            MS. ZANN: Okay, that’s good. I have one last question. Providing start-up funding for marketing boards for small farms in order to help our local producers get their goods to the market at a fair price - is that anything that you would be interested in helping with?

            MR. COLWELL: There are mixed emotions about a marketing board and how it would work. Again, maybe there’s a better way - it would be a co-operative somehow or other, all kinds of different ways. Typically, if you grow the right high-quality product, you’ll have no trouble selling it anymore.

The market is there because if we can - small farmers can get theirs to a farmers’ market. Usually anyone who is really delivering a good-quality product, it sells out every market day. The other larger ones - we’re looking at markets outside the province, typically, if they produce too much for consumption in the province.

            MS. ZANN: Also, the producers who sell their wares at the farmers’ markets oftentimes have to charge a little bit more for it, which they need in order to survive, but it might price it out for some people who are on lower incomes. That’s why they’ll often go to, say, Giant Tiger in Truro or something, where they can get things much cheaper but not necessarily as nutritious.

            It would be nice to see something that would help our small farmers to sell more and at a reasonable price for people, but also where they’re making a good amount of money themselves.

            MR. COLWELL: It depends on what market they aim at. There’s a lot of product now - the 15 per cent tax credit we have for the food banks has helped a lot of people on really low incomes, which is very positive. Every time I see the CEO of the local food bank here, Feed Nova Scotia, he thanks me about 10 times. Sometimes he’s so full of potatoes and all the other things they really need for people who actually need it, and they’re very happy about that process.

            MS. ZANN: To be honest, I look forward to a day when Nova Scotia doesn’t need to have food banks because people can afford their own food and their own groceries and live much healthier lives and not have to worry about obesity and things like low-quality food, not fresh food - not fresh vegetables or fruit - that will provide them the opportunity to eat well.

            MR. COLWELL: These ones aren’t necessarily not fresh. The stuff I’ve seen there and just dropped in - this was stuff that you would buy at your supermarket.

            MS. ZANN: I just meant, the day that comes when we don’t need to have people going to the food bank, that they can afford it themselves.

            MR. COLWELL: That would be wonderful.

            MS. ZANN: Thank you. With that, I’ll leave you.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: I’ll turn it over to the Liberal caucus.

            Mr. Gordon Wilson.

            MR. GORDON WILSON: How much time do we have?

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: You have not quite 15 minutes. We need to have the minister do his closing remarks. Maybe we should find out from the minister how much time he would want for closing remarks and the resolution.

            MR. COLWELL: Two or three minutes.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Okay, I will give you that notice.

            MR. GORDON WILSON: I have a few questions. I think my colleagues might have a couple also, but I hope not to take up all 15.

            I’ve been sitting listening intently. First off, I want to thank not only you but all your staff. I don’t believe they’ve been thanked here, but I really do appreciate - I think a minister is only as good as his staff he has behind him, and he should be the first one to recommend and say that, so thank you all very much.

            I’ve listened intently and there are a few areas that I don’t think have been touched on. I don’t want to duplicate questions, but to start off with - the Building Tomorrow Fund. I am very curious. I’ve already had some inquiries from people in my community in regard to that. They learned about it almost faster than I could read the budget.

Can you give me any idea on that fund - how it’s going to work rolled out, the breakdown - anything whatsoever you might have on that?

            MR. COLWELL: It’s in the Department of Agriculture’s budget, but basically it’s going to be $1.5 million for the Department of Agriculture and $1.5 million, roughly, for the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture.

            One of the ideas is to take a product that you’re maybe selling with no value added to it, add value to it, do research and development - how you get that to a marketplace. We may look at a particular market that a processor has or even a farmer would have a product and say, this is something we can add value to. So instead of getting $1 a pound for it, we can get $5 or $10 a pound, if we package it right - whatever you’re going to do with it.

            I talked earlier about maple - I don’t know if you were here at that moment. We found out that maple syrup in Nova Scotia has medicinal value - they think almost as good as a lowbush wild blueberry. It’s the only place in the world that has that - we have a limited supply - so we can take that product and turn that into a value-added product. I’m just going to look at the number we had for maple last year, but it was quite substantial.

            Maple was $3.2 million in value last year. That was an increase of 173 per cent over the year before. If we could multiply that by five - all of a sudden we’ve got no more product on the market, but we’ve got a $15-million industry.

Those are the sorts of things that the Building Tomorrow Fund is about. We can either develop a new product that doesn’t exist, or we can take something like maple and package it, brand it, do all the food safety on the packaging we have. There may be some more research we have to do - I don’t think so, but we might have to. All those things that take that product from a commodity - we can’t compete with Quebec, we just can’t because they’re so big, but they can’t compete with us on this value added. They can’t come anywhere near us.

I’ve seen a little jar like this of maple syrup that was supposed to come from the blueberry honey - not maple syrup, blueberry honey - a little container like that, that big around, sell for $50 in China because the advertising on it was the bees that pollinate the blueberries actually make the honey. There’s a lot of truth in that, but it put the value up because of the connection with the blueberries and the honey.

[5:45 p.m.]

            MR. GORDON WILSON: How would a person apply to this program? Or is it too early to ask that?

            MR. COLWELL: They would approach our staff. If you had anything in particular, we could direct you to the right individual.

            MR. GORDON WILSON: Okay, so they should just be able to reach out to our local office. Do you know if there’s going to be a threshold on the amount per application?

            MR. COLWELL: No.

            MR. GORDON WILSON: So the $1.5 million certainly wouldn’t go to one . . .

            MR. COLWELL: No.

            MR. GORDON WILSON: It will be spread out across . . .

            MR. COLWELL: We have a lot of other programs we can add to that as well. The idea of this funding - for instance, if we had a project that was worth half a million dollars, we may only need to put in $50,000 or $100,000, and then we’d go to ACOA or other funders and the industry itself to put money in it as well. Overall, we multiply the money up.

            That’s what the idea of this program is, too: to increase the value of the product, and also, we can get more money into it to move our industry forward.

            MR. GORDON WILSON: So that money would be able to be used to leverage other funds from, say, the federal government or . . .

            MR. COLWELL: Anyplace you might have. You also could use our new CAP program in Agriculture to multiply that up. It’s over three years, the $3 million. It’s a really good tool we didn’t have. So many times we need to do research and development for a real product, a real market, and it didn’t quite fit into the program, so some of them we got done.

            I’ll give you an example. Pomme D’or, the liqueur that was done by the winery through Perennia, would have fit into this program. They took an idea to a product, and it’s going to really compete with Baileys Irish Cream. We didn’t have that before in Nova Scotia. It’s a totally new idea.

            That is the sort of thing we can go with. It could be anything that we see real long-term commercial value in. That’s the idea.

            MR. GORDON WILSON: Yes, and you’d mentioned Perennia. Is Perennia also going to play a role in this? Would they be an avenue to go down to assist with that?

            MR. COLWELL: Definitely. It would depend on the project and what they need to do, and what they hope to achieve out of it. If it’s packaging, if it’s science research they need done, it may be a co-operation effort between a university, Perennia, and a business owner that would do all of this.

            Again, it would depend on the project. Every project is specific and what is needed with it. A lot of people out there have ideas and have done a lot of research, but they can’t get it that last step or they don’t have the ability to do it on their own.

            MR. GORDON WILSON: Okay, I know I’m getting down to about nine or eight minutes left now . . .

            MADAM CHARMAN: Yes, but he still needs his time.

            MR. GORDON WILSON: Yes, I know. I just have another question.

            I didn’t hear an awful lot on what the department has to expand and grow our apple industry, especially in the area of the Honeycrisp. Down in the Annapolis Valley, down our way, it’s interesting to see how much land clearing there is going on now in the Annapolis Valley; I’m not sure what it’s all about. Can you give me an idea of what is going on in orchard expansion, especially in regard to the Honeycrisp variety?

            MR. COLWELL: What’s actually happened with Honeycrisp and the high-value apples is that there’ve been 326,837 new trees planted.

            MR. GORDON WILSON: Can you give me that number again?

            MR. COLWELL: That’s 328,837 new high-value trees added.

            MR. GORDON WILSON: Would that be just . . .

            MR. COLWELL: Over the last three or four years.

            MR. GORDON WILSON: Wow, okay.

            MR. COLWELL: That was an investment of the province of $1.47 million. They’ve been extremely positive in the industry.

            For anyone who hasn’t seen a modern apple orchard, it doesn’t look like an orchard. It looks like a vineyard, with wires and little branches on it this long, but the production on that tree is way beyond anything we’ve ever seen before, and really high-quality apples.

            MR. GORDON WILSON: Would those trees be of a variety like Honeycrisp, because I do see the ones with the . . .

            MR. COLWELL: Seventy per cent were Honeycrisp or SweeTango. There’s Gala, and there are several other ones that they’re growing. It’s turned the apple industry in Nova Scotia from a marginal operation to a very profitable one.

            Last year or the year before, they sold out of Honeycrisp two or three months before the new crop could come on. They hold a Honeycrisp apple in the same condition as it was - or even better - than when it was picked in the field. They’ve got environmental control on the storage facilities, the temperature. I believe they put some proper nitrogen or something in there to hold it. It makes a huge difference. If you pick a Honeycrisp apple off the tree and eat it, it’s a horrible thing. Store it like this for 10 days, it’s the best apple you’ll ever eat.

            MR. GORDON WILSON: Interesting. The last question I have is in the wine area. It’s down in my area. It has been growing and continues to have a lot of interest. I didn’t see too many questions around - I sat in on the Public Accounts Committee the other day, and there were some good comments made, but this is certainly a different forum.

            I’m more curious about the mapping and the work that’s being done on trying to identify all the potential growth areas that we have in the Province of Nova Scotia in the wine industry. Can you give me an idea of what’s happening in that world?

            MR. COLWELL: We’re working on that. It’s a pretty daunting task, but what we encourage people to do, if they think they have a piece of property that can be used to put a vineyard in - we have a free program through Perennia. They’ll come and assess the property, do the soil samples, and tell you whether it’s a good place to put a vineyard in and what type of varietal might be the best in that area, and also if there is a demand for that varietal from the wineries.

Then we’ve got the Vineyard Development and Expansion program that would go on top of that - around $6,200 an acre to help put that vineyard in, if it’s a spot. That doesn’t include land purchase, of course, but all the things to put that in. A vineyard costs anywhere from $15,000 to $30,000 an acre to put in place - a very successful program.

Our wine industry is pretty exciting. We did a study on a quality assurance system for our vineyards and I always thought it was a great idea if we go to the VQA - Vintners Quality Assurance. The people who set it up in Ontario said maybe that’s what you shouldn’t do. We had to get their approval to join it and everything because we’ve got $10 bottles of VQA wine, and your wine is - very high-value wine should be in the approval system.

So we put a contract out to three wine experts - probably the top wine experts in North America, if not the world - and they came back and said, “You don’t want VQA. You want a Nova Scotia quality program.” They also said, which was something that shocked us all, that Tidal Bay is an appellation wine. I’ll give you an example of an appellation wine: champagne. That’s an appellation wine.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: We’re at the three-minute mark.

MR. COLWELL: That has set us a new place in the world. We have an appellation wine. We’re the only one in North American with an appellation wine. This is going to take us to a whole new level with the wine business.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Ms. DiCostanzo.

Minister, you have about 30 seconds.

MS. RAFAH DICOSTANZO: About the wine, all I’ll say is I’m very proud, and I’m just wondering if you guys can think of making bicycle tours around the vineyards. That’s something that Italy is doing, so let’s do it here. I’ll be the first one to try it.

MADAM CHAIRMAN: Minister, would you give your closing remarks?

MR. COLWELL: I would like to thank everyone who asked some very good questions.

Our industry is growing. It’s growing exponentially. We’re very happy to see that Nova Scotia is going to be on the map for a long time when it comes to agriculture.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Shall Resolution E1 stand?

            The resolution stands.

Resolution E50 - Resolved, that the business plan of Perennia Food and Agriculture Inc. be approved.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Shall the resolution carry?

            The resolution is carried.

            MR. COLWELL: Any time for the closing remarks?

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Okay. You want to do closing remarks? Go ahead.

            MR. COLWELL: I just want to make sure we don’t leave any time on the table.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: You do have about one minute.

            MR. COLWELL: Again, I want to personally thank all my staff. We have a tremendous staff at the Department of Agriculture. They come up with new ideas and approaches to how we are going to do business in the province, and it is making a huge economic difference in the province.

            Combine a very aggressive and talented staff with a very aggressive and talented industry and it’s a pleasure to work in this field. It’s just a pleasure to do that and we are making huge economic gains in the Province of Nova Scotia - in rural Nova Scotia. We have to build our economy. Thank you, Madam Chairman.

            MADAM CHAIRMAN: Order. Time has elapsed. We have done four hours of Estimates. Tomorrow, I think we’ll be on Fisheries and Aquaculture.

            [The committee adjourned at 5:56 p.m.]