VOL

TIME – 10 a.m.

LOCATION – Winnipeg, Manitoba

CHAIRPERSON – Mr. Tom Nevakshonoff (Interlake)

VICE-CHAIRPERSON – Ms. Jennifer Howard (Fort Rouge); Mr. Drew Caldwell (Brandon East) at 21.52

ATTENDANCE – 11 QUORUM – 6

Members of the Committee present:

Hon. Messrs. Struthers, Swan

Messrs. Altemeyer, Caldwell, Eichler, Goertzen, Mses. Howard, Marcelino, Messrs. McFadyen, Nevakshonoff, Pedersen

Substitutions:

Mr. Martindale for Ms. Marcelino

Ms. Marcelino for Mr. Martindale at 12:21 p.m.

Mr. Pedersen for Mr. Graydon at 4:04 p.m.

Mrs. Rowat for Mr. Maguire at 4:04 p.m.

Mr. Altemeyer for Hon. Mr. Swan at 5:08 p.m.

Mr. McFadyen for Mrs. Taillieu at 5:29 p.m.

Mr. Goertzen for Mrs. Rowat at 6:06 p.m.

Hon. Mr. Swan for Hon. Ms. Melnick at 6:06 p.m.

Mr. Caldwell for Hon. Ms. Wowchuk at 6:06 p.m.

Mr. Saran for Mr. Altemeyer 7:15 p.m.

Mr. Dewar for Ms. Howard at 9:51 p.m.

Mr. Caldwell for Ms. Howard at 9:52 p.m.

APPEARING:

Hon. Rosann Wowchuk, MLA for Swan River

Mr. Cliff Graydon, MLA for Emerson

Mr. Larry Maguire, MLA for Arthur-Virden

Mrs. Mavis Taillieu, MLA for Morris

Mr. Stuart Briese, MLA for Ste. Rose

Mrs. Leanne Rowat, MLA for Minnedosa

Hon. Christine Melnick, MLA for Riel

Ms. Marilyn Brick, MLA for St. Norbert

Hon. Jon Gerrard, MLA for River Heights

Mr. David Faurschou, MLA for Portage la Prairie

Mr. Gregory Dewar, MLA for Selkirk

WITNESSES:

Mr. John Morrison, Concerned Citizens of the Sturgeon Creek Watershed

Mr. Kurt Stoess, Private Citizen

Mr. Jacob Hofer, Private Citizen

Mr. Claude Lachance, Private Citizen

Mr. Richard Taillefer, Private Citizen

Mr. Jason Falk, Hespeler Hog Farms

Mr. Allen Steinke, R.M. of Victoria

Mr. Sieg Peters, Private Citizen

Mr. Ron St. Hilaire, Private Citizen

Mr. Tom Greaves, Private Citizen

Mr. Dennis Kornelsen, Private Citizen

Mr. Mike Maendel, Private Citizen

Mr. Jamie Hofer, Private Citizen

Mr. Ian Kleinsasser, Private Citizen

Mr. Jack Hofer, Private Citizen

Mr. Terry Hofer, Private Citizen

Mr. Andy Gross, Private Citizen

Mr. Dwayne Hofer, Private Citizen

Mr. Joe Dolecki, Private Citizen

Mr. Larry Maendel, Private Citizen

Mr. Peter Wipf, Maxwell Colony

Mr. Cameron Maendel, Private Citizen

Mr. Dan Van Schepdael, Synergy Swine

Mr. Perry Mohr, Private Citizen

Mr. Gerald Siemens, Siefort Farms Ltd.

Mr. Denny Kleinsasser, Private Citizen

Mr. Arnie Waldner, Private Citizen

Mr. Tom Waldner, Private Citizen

Mr. Brian Klassen, Nutricycle Inc.

Mr. Ray Wipf, Maxwell Colony

Mr. Victor Kleinsasser, Private Citizen

Mr. Ron Klippenstein, Private Citizen

Mr. Michael Wurtz, Private Citizen

Mr. David Wurtz, Private Citizen

Mr. Bill Vaags, Private Citizen

Mr. Peter Wipf, Maxwell Colony

Ms. Sandra Trinkies, Private Citizen

Mr. Doug Cavers, R.M. of Hanover

Mr. Stan Toews, Private Citizen

Mr. Chris Maendel, Private Citizen

Mr. John Bannister, Private Citizen

Mr. Alan Bell, Superior Agri-Systems Ltd.

Mr. Don Kroeker, Private Citizen

Mr. Don Flaten, The National Centre for Livestock and the Environment, University of Manitoba

Mr. Peter Hombach, ETIA

Mr. Mike Teillet, Private Citizen

Ms. Diana Ludwick, Occupational Health Centre

Mr. Brian Siemens, Private Citizen

Mr. David Gsell, Private Citizen

Mr. Joe Marshall, Private Citizen

Mrs. Betty Siemens, Private Citizen

Mr. Ernie Siemens, Private Citizen

WRITTEN SUBMISSIONS:

Bill 17–The Environment Amendment Act (Permanent Ban on Building or Expanding Hog Facilities)

Elaine Henrotte, Private Citizen

Cheryl Kennedy Courcelles, Private Citizen

Mr. John Morrison, Concerned Citizens of the Sturgeon Creek Watershed

Mr. Joe Dolecki, Private Citizen

Mr. Ian Kleinsasser, Private Citizen

Ms. Diana Ludwick, Occupational Health Centre

MATTERS UNDER CONSIDERATION:

Bill 17–The Environment Amendment Act (Permanent Ban on Building or Expanding Hog Facilities)

* * *

Mr. Chairperson: Good morning. The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Food, please come to order. This meeting has been called to consider Bill 17, The Environment Amendment Act (Permanent Ban on Building or Expanding Hog Facilities). The first item of business is the election of a vice-chairperson. Are there any nominations?

Hon. Rosann Wowchuk (Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives): I nominate Ms. Howard.

Mr. Chairperson: Ms. Howard has been nominated. Are there any other nominations? Seeing none, Ms. Howard is elected vice-chairperson of this committee.

Committee Substitutions

Mr. Chairperson: We have a substitution, Mr. Martindale in for Ms. Flor Marcelino.

* * *

Okay, we have a number of presenters registered to speak to this bill, as noted on the lists before you on the table and posted at the entrance of the room. Also, as was announced in the House on June 4, the committee will sit until tonight at midnight and we will sit again on the following occasions: Monday, June 9, from 10 a.m. 'til noon and then again at 6 p.m., Tuesday, June 10, at 6 p.m.

For the information of all in attendance, this committee has previously agreed to hear out-of-town presenters first. We have one presenter, Joe Dolecki, No. 40, who will not be able to be here until 2 p.m. So is it the will of the committee to not call him before 2 o'clock? [Agreed]

Before we–[interjection] Mr. Eichler?

Mr. Ralph Eichler (Lakeside): Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. I was wondering if we could get leave of the committee to not call quorum count, and also, because of the number of presenters and because of the World Pork Congress, I know yesterday we sought leave to not move presenters to the bottom of the list if their name was called in order to try and get through as many presenters as we can and not have their name moved to the bottom of the list.

* (10:10)

Mr. Chairperson: The member has spoken. What's the will of the committee? [Agreed]

Before we proceed with presentations, we do have a number of other items and points of information to consider.

First of all, if there is anyone else in the audience who would like to make a presentation this morning, please register with the staff at the entrance of the room.

Also, for the information of all presenters, while written versions of presentations are not required, if you are going to accompany your presentation with written materials, we ask that you provide 20 copies. If you need help with photocopying, please speak with our staff.

As well, I would like to inform presenters that, in accordance with our rules, a time limit of 10 minutes has been allotted for presentations, with another five minutes allowed for questions from the committee members.

Written submissions on Bill 17 have been received from the following and have been distributed to committee members: Elaine Henrotte and Cheryl Kennedy Courcelles. Does the committee agree to have these documents appear in the Hansard transcript of this meeting? [Agreed]

Prior to proceeding with public presentations, I would like to advise members of the public about speaking in committee. Our meetings are recorded to provide a transcript. Each time anyone wishes to speak, I have to say the person's name to signal the Hansard recorders to turn the microphones on and off.

Thank you for your patience. We will now proceed with public presentations.

Bill 17–The Environment Amendment Act (Permanent Ban on Building or Expanding Hog Facilities)

Mr. Chairperson: I first call Sieg Peters, private citizen.

George Witf, private citizen. I believe that's Witf–spelling mistake there. Unless I state otherwise, from this point forward, they are private citizens. If they're affiliated with another entity, I will so name.

John Allen–Please call out your name when I call your name–Clarence Froese–or call out present, please.

Dennis Thiessen. Hugh Arklie, Springfield Hogwatch. James Hofer. Jacob Waldner. Olayinka Brimoh. Menno Bergen.

Mr. Ralph Eichler (Lakeside): Mr. Chairman, I was wondering if we could seek leave to let the presenters go ahead and start–I believe No. 68 and No. 80 are present–in order to save time. We want to get through as many presenters as we possibly can. I would seek leave of the committee to start with No. 68–it stays in numerical order–and then proceed with No. 80, rather than just the name call, and then resume calling names back at that point in time.

Mr. Chairperson: Agreeable? [Agreed]

I call No. 68, John Morrison, Concerned Citizens of the Sturgeon Creek Watershed. Mr. Morrison.

Good morning, sir. Do you have any written materials?

Mr. John Morrison (Concerned Citizens of the Sturgeon Creek Watershed): Yes, I do.

Mr. Chairperson: I see you do. You may proceed.

Mr. Morrison: As these get handed out, I think I'll make sort of an observation comment that a lot of farmers have, and that is that we wouldn't be having these hearings or a bill about hog production if they were cute and cuddly and didn't create quite as much manure as they do. That seems to be a general consensus from a lot of farmers that have spoken to me over the last little while.

Mr. Chairperson: Thank you for that, sir. The clock is running. You have the floor.

Mr. Morrison: Okay. My name is John Morrison. I reside in Rosser. There's a certain bio on myself on the front page. The group I represent is the Concerned Citizens for the Sturgeon Creek Watershed. We've had a rather serious drainage problem in our area that we were amazed to find was being called a wetland when we started finding out about some of these farm programs. Gee, it's really nice to stick together.

Having said that, our group is formed of farmers and concerned citizens in the Sturgeon Creek watershed where we've had some, as I said, serious problems, but they're rather unusual problems in a certain way. I'll start with a point on Bill 17.

Bill 17, in the opinion of our group and of a lot of the farmers out there, is an inappropriate and unreasonable attempt to limit or ban hog facilities and not supported by science, the findings of the Clean Environment Commission, nor the studies funded and directed by the Conservation Department nor the Department of Agriculture and Rural Initiatives. Further, a substantial number of the noted areas included in section 40.1 are not of any substantive risk environmentally from a concentration of hog operations or considered expansions of hog operations due to current legislation, planning requirements, and the Livestock Manure and Mortalities Management Regulation.

The publication of proposed Bill 17 has led to the tightening of review in applications of all types of confined livestock operations in the noted areas. This has led to further negative economical pressures to all producers in those areas. A common voice in rural communities is that there are confined livestock operations in these areas that are now prevented or limited in development at the stroke of a pen, even without the implementation of this bill.

LMMM outlines the operation size and restrictions of operations based on the area afforded for manure operations and MAFRI has the ability under the act to review and place limitations and recommendations on proposed operations or expansions. It is accepted as a standard and is based on recognized science, supported by the lower levels of municipal government, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and its farm development and support departments at PFRA. Farmers also support this by consensus as to the necessity to limit the density of large producers of manure to the available acreage for dispersal of nitrates and phosphates.

In making this presentation, I will now go on to show that the focus and direction of this government in putting forward the proposed changes to The Environment Act is neither appropriate nor reasonable and it raises the core issues that should be addressed.

It started out very simply if you read the Winnipeg Sun today. They talked about a record rain. So a record rain in Winnipeg; it wasn't a record rain in the area that the watershed flows through Winnipeg. The government of Manitoba is one inch away from being recognized as legally responsible for the largest intake of phosphates and nitrates into Lake Winnipeg for the 2008 year, one step closer to an irreversible environmental disaster. The cause of this environmental disaster? It isn't hogs. It isn't livestock. It's very simply overland flooding of agricultural lands due to the failure of government to properly manage the provincial drainage system. Further, it appears that the Province of Manitoba is attempting to cover up their responsibilities and their previous actions in this matter. I base this statement on the following information relating to the Sturgeon Creek watershed, the actions of the government relating to the information they've received, and the failure of government to address these issues.

I will also refer to the basic science provided by Don Flaten and others as they have attempted to provide guidance and understanding to those not directly involved in agriculture and in attempting to address Bill 17. I will underscore the following information on my personal knowledge and supported facts.

Simply put, all living matter gives off phosphates and nitrates. Plants give it off, hogs give it off, cattle give it off, those nice horses that look so nice in a pasture, all give it off. Bottom line is, how it gets into the water system and affects Lake Winnipeg and other areas of the environment is what we need to be concerned with. Frozen land and controlled drainage from agricultural land have a natural limiting of phosphate and nitrate uptake into spring run-off. Simply put, the ground's frozen. The ground's frozen, you don't dissolve chemicals or particles out of that area and into the run-off. The other side of it is with a slow melt, which is usually what happens in the spring. There's a limited amount of run-off. So that run-off, as it slowly goes away, has not very much likelihood of carrying away organic matter as a slow run-off.

* (10:20)

Land, however, once free of frost and inundated with water, as with overland flooding after the spring thaw, is very susceptible to uptake of these nutrients by dissolving into the water, the floating away of plant matter and its subsequent decay in the water body.

The decay of organic matter in water has an additional negative impact by removing oxygen from the water. That, basically–as you've read in the newspapers two years ago or three years ago–is how fish die, from not getting oxygen, or they drown. That's one of the problems which are out there, facing a lot of areas.

The Province of Manitoba, through its drainage mismanagement, expansion of the Sturgeon Creek watershed beyond its original boundaries and attempts to maintain restrictions to prevent Winnipeg flooding during times of summer rains, has caused and will cause overland flooding of agricultural lands and subsequent substantial environmental and economic damage to those lands into Lake Winnipeg.

This substantially exceeds any risk from hog operations in the area. By that, I'm talking about the Interlake and, specifically, South Interlake.

Mr. Chairperson: Order. You're not allowed to use props at the committee, sir.

Mr. Morrison: Okay. Actually, if you go to the back of your page, there is a copy of that in every one.

Mr. Eichler: I would ask leave of the committee that–I know we did allow a presenter yesterday to use a graph which did help the committee. I ask leave of the committee that Mr. Morrison be allowed to use his graph for illustration purposes.

Mr. Chairperson: Mr. Eichler has asked for leave.

What is the will of the committee? [Agreed] You may use your props, sir.

Mr. Morrison: The copy that you have in the back of your presentation talks about what's in blue, and it's not blue. So here, it's graphically very easy to see as blue.

This is from a study that was done by UMA consulting for the provincial government on the South Interlake. This happens to be Winnipeg, right in here; this is the Perimeter Highway, and this is, in large part, the Sturgeon Creek watershed. One of the things that are wrong in this is, when the consulting organization did their work, they forgot that all of this watershed in the middle also backs up with water.

The Province of Manitoba, the government and the Legislature, and all of the parties have talked about a 500-year and a 100-year event for the Winnipeg floodway. This is a display of a 10-year event which consistently has been happening approximately once every 10 years.

We're looking here, in the area covered by water, at 214 square miles. We're looking at millions of acres that are under water. If this happens in the summer, where the problem is–all of this water picks up organic particles, picks up nitrates, picks up phosphates and drops them in Lake Winnipeg.

To do a comparison in this room–because we're 20 feet across and approximately 60 feet long–the outlet in the Red River that takes all of this water from all this area, comparing it to the size of this building, is a whole one-quarter of an inch in that wall, one-quarter of an inch in diameter. That's all there is to move the water, and it moves it through Winnipeg.

Part of this presentation, which I have here, is very simply this–there weren't 214 square miles in Sturgeon Creek watershed. It started out that there were about 114, but the Province of Manitoba has expanded the watershed from not just the prime agricultural land closer to Winnipeg, but further out into cattle land and other areas that become a problem.

If you look at the picture that you have in there, just where the little V is in the roads, a few miles outside of Winnipeg–and I've said that it doesn't depict the land properly–that's where I farm. I've had 120 acres of 160 acres under water for 14 days in the summer, and not one bit of the water was off of my property.

All at once, it couldn't get through Winnipeg; it started backing up. The water backed up and covered almost two-thirds of a whole section of land. All the organic matter floated out, down the creek, down–and that's why I'm calling it a creek–down into Sturgeon Creek, down into the city of Winnipeg, down into the Assiniboine, out to the Red, all the way up the Red into Lake Winnipeg.

I'm a very lucky man. I also happen to have cattle further north of St. Laurent. We have some farmland up there. We're very close to Shoal Lake up there where we have water levels that are exceedingly high. Here's our problem. That water is within a few miles of Lake Manitoba, but no drains have been established–well, one was put halfway in and then it's partly closed in now–to drain that water into Lake Manitoba. So that water finds its way into the Sturgeon Creek watershed and it's actually not even included in these maps although it is an extension that is in there. It's a problem and it's serious.

I've laid out in point form quite a bit of information. So I want to be very quick on here so that possibly there can be a couple of questions that get interesting. I will say this, in point two, which would be in the first set of points that you come to, a diversion was put through with the provincial government in conjunction with the federal government in the 1960s so that East, West and Central Colony Creek and Omand's Creek were diverted into Sturgeon Creek. A funny thing happened. I'm on a century farm, we're there, all at once, oh my God, Winnipeg's getting flooded. Water's flowing over Ness Avenue. Oh, to protect Ness Avenue and the city of Winnipeg, we have to put restrictions in Sturgeon Creek. So you doubled the amount of inflow into Sturgeon Creek at the point where you put the diversion in, which is one mile outside of the Perimeter, and you reduced the flow from thereon going to Winnipeg to protect it.

Ever since then, my family and other people have been repetitively after the Province of Manitoba to put in a diversion. Repetitive municipal councils out in our area, other farmers, even crop insurance, before it became MACC and MASC, put forward that this is a problem. It's insurance, it's problems. What do we do? We've gotten promises from government who were going to do something. We even went out when GPS first come out, which is several years ago, and tracked the best route for that water to take. We told Agriculture, we told Water Resources, we told Conservation, we said right at Sturgeon Creek colony is the best point for you to have an exit for another diversion going to the highway.

Well, further on in here you'll notice that I bring up the Premier of Manitoba. The Premier of Manitoba was aware of this information and, following the farm rally from 2001, had us invited to the 2001 budget presentation. At the media scrum after it, Greg Selinger and Premier Doer walked over to myself, a group of farmers from all over Manitoba and said, you know what, John, here's what we've done. We've put like $7 million in the drainage budget. We're going to fix your problem. Well, I'm sorry to say, nobody even moved any dirt, not one thing was done to fix the problem. So you're still stuck with that same problem. What do we do?

Now farmers are mad and they started suing Woodlands municipality and getting fairly involved in a couple of things to make sure things were taken care of, and that's where the Concerned Citizens for Sturgeon Creek watershed got involved a couple of years ago. Strangely, as soon as the group got organized and started going, the Province was doing a study with UMA Consulting over the problems in the watershed and what was going on. Now, all at once, it seems that study is not seeing the light of day because it identifies where all the water is leaving the ditch and going on peoples' property.

In the back part of my presentation you can see the legal precedents, okay, that are standard in Manitoba and where the Province of Manitoba themselves have lost in court over the backup of water over farmland. I'm not here to threaten you with a legal action. I'm not here to say anything except that it makes common sense to try and work together to fix a problem, and the very serious part of it is it doesn't seem that anybody is trying to work together to solve a problem.

* (10:30)

One of the other notes I'll make on here is that the drainage of Sturgeon Creek Watershed was originally 114 square miles. Now, it's over 200. We're talking about 235. The key point that we have here is with those changes and what's gone on, we've had more water coming down from areas that are not prime agricultural land. They're coming in. They're flooding the prime agricultural land, and it's a concern.

One of the key points I'll add on here is point No. 4, which should be on, I guess, your third page. That's under The Fisheries Act. The Province of Manitoba could face a requirement to provide remedial action for water flow into Lake Winnipeg now that a health warning has been issued for water consumption from the lake. If a farmer, even in small claims court, was to have it identified that the Province of Manitoba was responsible for the nitrates and phosphates from some areas going into Lake Manitoba, you could have a requiring order to the Province of Manitoba from the federal government requiring you to facilitate all improvements required to fix the problem.

Now, the Province isn't on a very good foot here now because I understand that the Fisheries department of the federal government is currently investigating the Province of Manitoba for allowing the illegal draining of fish habitat and damage to fish habitat basically during last fall. It's a $300,000 fine and up to six months in jail. We don't want anybody to go to jail. We don't want anybody to be fined. We want to sit together as a group and say, hold it, we're working to fix a problem.

Some recommendations, and this is what we feel should be on the table for this committee and for considerations over The Environment Act: No. 1: That any party, including government, identified as causing environmental risk or damage must be responsible for providing reparations and payment of identified losses.

Number 2: That changes to legislation affecting environmental protection be based on scientific and logical information and be addressed on the basis of ranking of risk, and, on ranking of risk, the Sturgeon Creek watershed is 84 or 85 times more damaging than the hog producers in Manitoba. That's scary when we have a government that's sitting here not doing anything about it.

Number 3: Environmental risk based on livestock production is hand-in-hand with the nitrate and phosphate levels of all types of agriculture or of simple grasslands, that a consideration of effective drainage control to prevent overland flooding of agricultural properties be a priority. And that may mean an order that a farmer that's trying to drain his own property now to make it better than it was before, can't do it, but it preserves what we do have.

Number 4: The expected one-to-10-year model produced for the Province and shown here and understanding the principles of nitrates and phosphates in all organic organisms, sometime in the next 10 years there's likely to be an environmental calamity for Lake Winnipeg.

Now, while the Province may take issue with the costs and responsibilities, there're certain economic opportunities to cover these costs. No. 1: When the Colony Creek diversion was put in–

Mr. Chairperson: One minute, sir.

Mr. Morrison: –a FRED grant was used for that, which was federal and provincial. It wasn't used properly. There's an opportunity for the feds to resolve the issue.

Funding by the federal government has been allocated for the remediation or protection of Lake Winnipeg. Those funds can be used to fix part of this drainage. In a discussion with Steven Fletcher's office, it was indicated that Building Canada funds are available for projects like an extra diversion project for Sturgeon Creek west of Winnipeg. Mr. Fletcher's assistant indicated a willingness to support funding due to the positive effect on his constituents as well as the Manitoba rural economy.

As any diversion of water from within the Winnipeg's boundary is beneficial to Winnipeg, it is very reasonable to have Winnipeg assist in funding reduction of crop insurance costs and expenditures under farm programs, and the opportunity to have sustainable rural economics.

The rest of my presentation on there includes copies of the legal precedents that can be used by any farmer to take the Province to court. The water leaves your ditch and goes on their property.

Mr. Chairperson: You're at 10 minutes, sir. Are you complete?

Mr. Morrison: Yes, I am.

Mr. Chairperson: Okay. Thank you for that. Questions, I have Mr. Eichler.

Mr. Eichler: Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Morrison. Certainly, a different twist than what we've been looking at from the previous presenters, and very informative.

Ms. Jennifer Howard, Vice-Chairperson, in the Chair

My question for you: to your knowledge, has there been any test taken as far as the water test results? If so, do you have those available for the committee, out at Sturgeon Creek in particular?

Mr. Morrison: Actually, we've repetitively requested from–

Madam Vice-Chairperson: Sorry, Mr. Morrison, I have to recognize you before you answer, just so we can record it accurately.

Mr. Morrison: Yes. Actually, we've been asking Conservation and Water Resources for copies of their records, and we don't seem to get them. We can't figure out why, but we have an idea. I don't think I need to raise it.

Madam Vice-Chairperson: Mr. Eichler, on a supplemental?

Mr. Eichler: Yes. There is the Freedom of Information, you could try that avenue. Then, I guess, my second question is–

Mr. Morrison: Could I add one small–

Madam Vice-Chairperson: Oh–Mr. Morrison.

Mr. Morrison: If I could add one small point to that. A study was done by Red River College–I think Ralph and other people are aware that I've been an instructor there–was done by them over the phosphate and nitrate levels in there, but, again, that study information hasn't now been made available, although funded by the provincial government. That particular study has now been requested through the higher echelons of Red River College to be published in their library, and we expect it to be there within the next few days.

Madam Vice-Chairperson: Mr. Eichler, did you have another–

Mr. Eichler: If you could get that to us, you know, either through mail or e-mail, that would be certainly be appreciated.

My other question is that you went into an awful lot of detail about the drainage and, as you know, the current government has done a lot of work in regard to conservation districts. Could you outline your opinion on how those are working and, in fact, they will be the right tool in order to provide the drainage that you see in your organization, in particular with Sturgeon Creek drain?

Mr. Morrison: Firstly–

Madam Vice-Chairperson: Sorry. Mr. Morrison.

Mr. Morrison: I'm just not used to waiting. Thank you.

Madam Vice-Chairperson: Well, I'm new here too, so it's all right.

Mr. Morrison: I'll put it across this way. The major meetings that we've had of our group with reeves and council members from our local municipalities there, being Woodlands, Rosser, Rockwood, they have been resoundingly told they do not want the area in a conservation district until this problem is solved. The reason we don't want it in a conservation district is we didn't create this problem.

In a conservation district, we as farmers would have to put up one-third of the cost for the repairs. It's much simpler, in the opinion of the majority of those farmers, to give the provincial government a reasonable amount of time to proceed, try and fix the problems and if they don't, they're prepared to see them in court.

Now, I'm here saying that that is their opinion. I'll be on record as saying that I'm not prepared to take the Province to court, but I do already have several parties that have requested me to be an expert witness.

Madam Vice-Chairperson: Thank you.

Mr. Cliff Graydon (Emerson): Thank you, Mr. Morrison, for your presentation. There's, certainly, a lot of information here that, this early in the day, is difficult to absorb in 10 minutes. However, it's a very well put-together presentation and we certainly will be going through it. But, as you pointed out in your presentation–and I'm sure you don't believe that the people in charge of different departments have acted in a responsible way in the past. I'm wondering, maybe, because of the overreaction, that–or, you said that you weren't in favour of the moratorium. Is this an overreaction? And do you believe that the regulations that are currently in effect are adequate to protect the lake?

Mr. Morrison: The legislation that is currently in place is, in my opinion, and the opinion of certain specialists in the field, which I know you've heard from, or are hearing from, and from the majority of farmers out there is very simply the legislation that's currently there with The Planning Act and now the municipalities on board that it's just not a hog barn. It's a real good way to get tax dollars, but rather we have to think of it in an environmental standard.

* (10:40)

You have enough legislation there that you shouldn't even be discussing or considering what you have for these in this proposed bill. You should walk away from these and say, you know what? We need to redesign this, and say, what do we need to do to protect the environment and get with it?

The recommendations that were put forth in there are backed by my group. I have two other speaking engagements to put that other information out there with groups of farmers that, I think, just want to take the Province to court because of there problems, but they're not in our watershed district. They have their own can of worms.

For us, we've been pretty concise; we have good records. We don't need more legislation in the form of Bill 17. What we need to do is effectively work with the legislation that is there. The Lake Winnipeg Water Stewardship Board put a solid recommendation to the Province of Manitoba that they use the existing legislation that they have properly to provide protection of the lake. They did not need more legislation.

Madam Vice-Chairperson: Thank you Mr. Morrison. That's our time. Thank you very much for coming. I think we had agreed to–

Mr. Eichler: I ask leave of the committee to have Mr. Morrison's full written submission recorded into Hansard. If we could ask leave from committee for his oral and written presentation to be recorded.

Madam Vice-Chairperson: Mr. Eichler asked for leave to record the full written presentation in Hansard. I believe that's agreed to, Mr. Eichler.

I think we had agreed next to go to presenter, No. 80 on the list, Kurt Stoess.

Welcome, Mr. Stoess. Do you have a written presentation for us?

Mr. Kurt Stoess (Private Citizen): No, just oral.

Madam Vice-Chairperson: Okay. You can proceed when you're ready then.

Mr. Stoess: First of all, I'd like to say hello to the ministers and MLAs. Thank you for this opportunity to speak out on this bill.

I'll start out by telling you a little bit about myself because that's who you are affecting as representatives of the people. You are affecting the people, and I am one of them.

I spent my first 10 years as a resident of Winnipeg. We'll keep that brief; it's not that important. The second 10 years of my life I spent in southeast Manitoba and grew up in the Steinbach area. I got some agricultural roots back there. I came back to Winnipeg, spent a few years here getting my Bachelor of Science in agriculture. Then, upon graduation, I started off my career in the hog industry. That brought me north to the Interlake, actually, the Chairperson's, Nevakshonoff's jurisdiction or area. I worked there both for a larger corporation and a private family farm in their hog operations.

What I saw when I got there was a town that had grown over the last 20 years by servicing nearby First Nations. As these First Nations became more self-sufficient, the town was shrinking and there was less need for their services.

Shortly within my time of arrival in the community, the hog industry also started to grow in this area. That brought people, such as myself and others from different parts of Manitoba, from across Canada and around the world. There's a growing Filipino community now in Fisher Branch due to the hog industry. It's that growth that you as the government of Manitoba need to support, either that or our province will continually shrink. So now the town of Fisher Branch continues to grow slowly.

It's kind of ironic that Chairperson Nevakshonoff had to step out to attend a different standing committee on the school closures, one of which is affecting Fisher Branch.

Personally, I've now left that area, but my wife has nieces and nephews that have prospered from the hog industry and have decided to stay in the area, whether it's by directly working in hog barns or just because the local garage now has more work because the town has people.

So, like I said, it's all about people. It's not about corporations, money and animals. The last 10 years, more or less, I've been back in southeast Manitoba and seen the phenomenal growth in immigration that's happening in that area. It's wild. I bought my house there five years ago–or where I currently live–I bought that house five years ago. The number of houses going up in my area are just–Crown corporations, like MTS, are having trouble keeping up.

You, as a government, you're having trouble. The regular health-care formula for southeast Manitoba does not work anymore, because the population is growing faster than you can gather census data. The schools are bulging, as you know.

You all take part in dealing with those issues. It's just a sign how much the hog industry supports that economy, not just that farmer, not just that company, but the whole area. I think, sometimes, people forget about that. So that's just a little reminder what the hog industry means to the economy of Manitoba, from my eyes.

Now I want to bring you back to a few years ago when BSE first got recognized in Canada, or diagnosed. We, as citizens, as government, pleaded with the world to base their decisions on good science. It took some time; it took some lobbying but, more or less, we've accomplished that. We continue to have the odd case of BSE pop up, but it doesn't change our status around the world.

In the meantime, if you parallel that over to what we're doing here now, the government on record is making decisions not based on good science, but based on paranoia and public pressure.

We spent all this time and money going through the whole CEC process. It came out with a report that listed a lot of recommendations. That day when it came out, I sat there and I read it. I said, you know what, that's fair. A lot more policing, a few rules–I can live with that. That's fair because, like other presenters have said, there's already a good basis of rules and regulations to follow. Meanwhile, a couple of hours later, I hear that the government has decided to try and read between the lines and add some notes, that it said, put a moratorium. I read the report again; I still didn't see it.

In conclusion, I urge you, as the committee and as government, to step back and take another look and implement what the CEC report had to say and recommended for you to do. I realize there are a lot of recommendations. I am sure both the urban population and the rural population would understand if the government could not turn around and enact them tomorrow because, as we all know, things move a little slower here on Broadway.

To be a permanent judge and jury and to put a life moratorium on those areas is just a death sentence, so I urge you to step back and leave yourself an out. Thanks.

Madam Vice-Chairperson: Thank you, Mr. Stoess.

Mr. Eichler: Thank you, Kurt, for your presentation–well-thought-out, well-presented.

I know you hit a real good point there when you talked about BSE. The current government and us, all of Canada and the world, we tried to base BSE on science. We based our trade challenges, the border opening–I think that's the significant point that we've been trying to all work on. It just gives us that many more reasons to base our decisions here at the Legislature on science rather than politics. So I think you did a fantastic job.

* (10:50)

On that point, in your current operations, do you have the land base or the necessary requirements in order to expand your operation if you needed to without the Bill 17 if it wasn't passed?

Mr. Stoess: I am not a hog farmer. I am an employee of the hog farmer, but, in our operations, in some areas we could expand. In others, there are limits with the new phos regulations, and we're working to deal with those and find how to continue on sustainably.

Hon. Stan Struthers (Minister of Conservation): Thanks for your presentation, Kurt. I was very pleased that you referenced the Clean Environment Commission, that you've read it. It sounds like you've read it at least twice. Congratulations.

In that CEC report, there were references to regional imbalances that have grown in the province as the hog industry has developed. There was also a reference that the framework that we have in place–I know we've heard a lot about whether the current rules are sufficient, but the Clean Environment Commission very clearly said that they were not and that we, as a province, needed to move to put a stronger framework in place.

I'm really pleased that you've asked about working on the rest of the recommendations. We do have a group that is working to see how we can implement the 48 recommendations from that document. What would your advice to me be if you clear said no to Bill 17? What would your advice to me be to put in place a stronger framework than we have now to deal with those parts of our province where the hog industry is clearly developed in an unbalanced way, where there have been some RMs with a lot of hog barns and some parts of our province with very little? How can we deal with that concentration? What's your advice?

Mr. Stoess: I don't deal with permitting or the development of barns personally a whole lot, but, from what I understand of the whole TRC process, you need to show where that manure's going. Those rules are already there to manage the phosphorus, to manage the nitrogen. So, in those areas where you're talking about where it's overdeveloped already, there can be no expansion under the current rules already because if you can't show where you're going to spread that phos, then that permit should be denied. Your question's kind of redundant. It's already there. I haven't reread the CEC report lately, but I believe they talked about that, in those areas, the process is already there to take care of it. Going forward, those rules will cause natural attrition in those areas to get rid of animal units or increase land base. That'll be a natural process already.

Mr. Larry Maguire (Arthur-Virden): Thank you very much, Mr. Stoess, for your presentation. You raised a good point when you raised the BSE. The Member for Lakeside, Mr. Eichler, has mentioned that already, but it hit me in a different way when you brought the issue of the BSE up.

That is, I know how much angst was placed on the cattle producers of Manitoba as well as the minister, both ministers. Members of the NDP and our side of the House all felt the angst of the decision that was made by the cattle producers and the U.S. government to close the border to cattle going south. That had a tremendous impact on that industry here in Manitoba as well.

It hit me that the same decision that's been made by the government here today in the moratorium has put the same angst now in the hog industry. It hasn't had the same impact to reduce the prices as quickly as the cattle closure on the U.S. border did, but our hog industry was already on its knees virtually because of high dollar values, high feed prices, the country-of-origin labelling that's been threatened to come in in the United States.

As a person working in the industry, I don't have to tell you how tough that's been in the last four, five, six months, if not longer. Do you see any comparison there that the decision that was made here? I know that the government wouldn't have wanted to have arbitrarily made a decision that had the same impact as the U.S. government made on the border to Canadian cattle, but, in my mind, it seems to be almost a parallel. Do you agree with that, or do you think that there's a better way of handling this situation?

Mr. Stoess: I believe your question is just for me to affirm that, from my eyes, what I see the government doing is exactly what the U.S. government did in the BSE situation and, yes, that is what I see. It's acting as judge and jury without listening to the testimony, and it's introducing life sentences which will change the Manitoba landscape forever.

Mr. Graydon: Thanks very much for a good presentation that you've made today. And you've indicated that natural attrition in certain areas that may be heavily populated right now with the hog industry will take care of part of the problem, but you have travelled around the province or in different areas, lived in different areas of the province. Have you seen a big change in the technology and how it deals with a lot of the issues, and do you still think that there's more technology to deal with issues as they arise?

Mr. Stoess: From my personal opinion, yes, technologies win–very far already, or just the manure technology. It used to be the big gun was out in the field and just doing its thing. Hopefully, you didn't get too close to the road [interjection] or the wind, correct. And if you talk to the old-time farmer, he'll tell you scary stories of things that used to happen, like cars going by on the highway. How they never got sued, who knows. But that was a different world, a different climate.

Going forward, we've went from monitoring a bit or figuring out what that manure was worth as far as nitrogen, phosphorus and how the crops have uptake of that and what's left over. Phosphorus is a little hard to manage because weather can change what's left as residual more than anything else, but I won't go into those details. That's all available in the CEC report. But other technologies have seen–there's innovation of the nitrogen tester on field so you can get immediate results and they would know what they were doing, just with GPS coming along and everything. Most of that manure is already mapped out. It knows that it's supposed to apply X amount of litres per hectare–save the Hansard from having to change it from gallons and acres–and it's all done there already, whereas, yes, if you go back 20 years none of that was around.

Madam Vice-Chairperson: Thank you, Mr. Stoess, for your presentation.

Mr. Stoess: Thank you.

Madam Vice-Chairperson: We're going to go back.

Mr. Eichler: I ask leave of the committee to call presenter 123, Jacob Hofer.

Madam Vice-Chairperson: Is there leave of the committee to call presenter 123? [Agreed]

Okay, we'll call Jacob Hofer.

Welcome, Mr. Hofer. Do you have written presentations for the committee?

Mr. Jacob Hofer (Private Citizen): A few notes, and oral.

Madam Vice-Chairperson: Okay, proceed when you're ready, sir.

Mr. Jacob Hofer: I thank you all for giving us the opportunity to come and see you and talk with you. My name is Jacob Hofer. I am from Starlite Colony. The minister there, me and Minister Honourable Wowchuk are related. She is the Minister of Agriculture; I'm the minister of Starlite Colony, and I know what a minister has to go through on the colony. I can't imagine what you go through with this. I'm not going to repeat what I heard yesterday, but I have a few small briefs for you to take to heart.

* (11:00)

We're hard hit by surprise. We are a colony of 160 people. We ship 200–no, 400 hogs a week and, as you'll remember, there was a time when the producers lost $50 a hog. That adds up to $20,000 a week. We're going in the hole.

The hog industry, boy, it's got a tough time to survive. There is a colony not far from a golf course, and I don't know too many people or farmers that play golf, and I'll tell you why later. This golf course is complaining that this colony fix up their lagoon–it's a mile away–so they don't get the bad smell. I don't blame them, but the colony decided instead of fixing it up, they shut down the hog industry. That's it.

The reason why there are so few people playing golf, you've got to get the ball in a small hole, you know. The skills maybe aren't there, but the answer if very clear: The farmers are in the hole already. They don't need to put a ball in there. That's why they don't play golf, believe it or not.

I find it hard to believe that the government doesn't really know, that we have to come and tell them. They must have known before they made Bill 17. On what did they base the bill if they didn't know?

Now, you have to listen to all this for two, three days. I would have advised to go and ask the farmers first and then, if they can live with it, make the law. But we still appreciate the government, we've had a lot of good things from.

But, with us and with the hog farmers, it's this mistake which always happens to me. When I do something good, nobody remembers; when I do something wrong, nobody forgets. We have had very good success in living. The government took us in from the United States in 1918, and I've had a very nice livelihood. We're able to live our community way of life as the Hutterites, and have had their protection. Sure, they can't hit everything, but they have done a few things. I'll just mention one.

Before Ed Schreyer got into the House, into government, they had passed a law that the Hutterite colonies are not supposed to have any land closer than 20 miles from each other's colony, and they were not allowed to buy land touching their colony land when a neighbour wanted to sell it. So we had to live by that. When Schreyer got in, he says, what's this doing here? We petitioned to him and said, we can't live with that. What can you do about it? Ed looked at it and said, are you paying your taxes? Yes. Are you complying to all the laws of Manitoba? Yes. And you can't buy land? The other farmer can buy it, and you can't? He threw that bill out the window, and we can buy land now. That's what I call a good government, and we appreciate that.

It's something which we will find hard to live with, Bill 17, and I'll just give you an example. You all own a car and it's parked in the driveway. What do you when somebody takes it away? Am I allowed to ask questions or just–you call the police and tell them somebody took my car. Now, somebody is going to take our hog industry. Who shall we call?

You're taking it away. I'm 68 years old, but we have young people coming who are ambitious to work. We want them to be productive, and we need that for their future material livelihood, not so much as for making money, but employment also, besides turkeys, chickens and laying hens. It reminds me, I just don't want you to live to hear that.

Mr. Chairperson in the Chair

Four hundred years ago, there was persecution happening in Europe, Poland and Czechoslovakia. The Mennonites, the Holdeman and the Hutterites lived through it, and it happened from the church. The church leaders seen and went through the records and seen, hey, that wasn't right when we forced those people out of the country and persecuted them. We have to go back and correct that. They did.

In Prague, they called a meeting from the Mennonites, the Amish and the Holdeman. I seen it on a tape; I wasn't there. In one, in six words of the presentation, it was very good. There was a lot of joy; they were crying for joy and laughing, even dancing. This commentator said, at one time, we were wrong; you were right.

I hope this doesn't have to happen here, but it took 400 years. That's too long. There's too much at stake for poor little Manitoba. Just look at the little stretch, going up to Dauphin, which we have for agriculture. The southeast isn't so very rich, and we're making the most out of it. You can see it. We're crowding it in producing grain and all the other livestock and keeping it perfectly clean. We want to live right beside it.

I don't blame anybody for complaining. We have some complaints from our neighbours and we do the utmost to remedy it. We don't turn the blind ear. That good stuff, that material that we spread on the land, that's valuable organic fertilizer, everybody is realizing, and we're saving it.

We used to look for a place to get rid of it and, sometimes, maybe it was dumped where it shouldn't have been, but now–no way, you don't dump fertilizer or grain. You just use as much as you need, and we save it. Yet, the odour comes with it; that, we're trying to remedy too.

The government imposed that we should throw away all our old gas tanks and put in double-wall new tanks. Glass-lined beer vats, they were good; they're still good. They are not legal anymore. We had to spend $40,000 to $50,000 to comply. There is never an ending to it, and there's more coming.

This government, as I believe and as our teacher told us in school, is the best government. We have the best government in Canada, she said. This government is by the people, of the people, for the people. Can you be for us too, I plead?

Mr. Chairperson: You're at 10 minutes, sir.

Mr. Jacob Hofer: Mr. Chair, I'm finished.

Mr. Chairperson: Okay, thank you. I'll open the floor up to questions then. I have Ms. Taillieu.

Mrs. Mavis Taillieu (Morris): Thank you, Jacob, for your presentation. It's not difficult to see why you are the spiritual leader of your colony and the other colonies in the area.

* (11:10)

Whenever I've been to your colony, you've always been very respectful and you've always put questions to me–kind of put me on the hot seat, so to speak. I'm thinking back to the meeting we had in Morris the other day and all of the comments that were made by the presenters and the people that were talking about this at that time. At that time, you asked me a question, and you said, why is government doing this to us? So I'd just like to ask you what you think is the real reason government is doing this.

Mr. Jacob Hofer: I'm glad you asked that, Mrs. Taillieu. You're looking for a golf ball which was shot the opposite way. When you shoot this way, you're going to look for the ball there, not up there.

The problem of Lake Winnipeg–I believe it's a big problem, and everybody that's living alongside of it and has a cottage there has a house in Winnipeg, too. I stand to be corrected if I'm wrong. Or he has a house somewhere else; he's got two houses. They are worried about the lake. I don't blame them. How come nobody is worried about when you go farther north, Lake Winnipegosis? Nobody says nothing, and all that stuff goes into Lake Winnipegosis. What's happening there? Is there a deaf ear or a blind eye?

Going back that the farmers are only 1.5 percent of the phosphorus to blame, I think it would be time for this meeting to see and admit it, that Winnipeg, Grand Forks, Fargo and all the other big towns in-between are responsible for dumping the raw sewage. It's being denied and not openly admitted, but Winnipeg, the City admitted it themselves–we need billions and billions. I don't know–it was $4 billion–they could renovate the sewers and remedy that. Where shall we get the money from?

Does that answer your question, Mavis?

Mr. Eichler: Thank you for your presentation, Mr. Hofer. I want to congratulate you and your colony on the great job you're doing in regard to education, on your recent award at the past pork congress here held in Winnipeg.

I personally feel that we need to do more education, and I take my hat off to people like yourself showing leadership. I would certainly want to encourage that. Do you feel we need to, as government leaders, need to take more of a leadership role in educating not necessarily the rural people because I think most of them understand and grasp it, but do you think we do enough education in the urban classrooms in order to show how viable this by-product is, called manure, to the land and to the growth of our province through the economy in a natural way?

Mr. Jacob Hofer: Yes, you do need more. To educate them about the manure, I think, that's the last issue, but it's the most important issue. A lot of them don't even know where the food comes from, and that it has to have a farm to grow, and that there is a smell with it. When you drive a team of horses–maybe none of you did, but when we had driven horses 50 years ago, you got the aroma off the horses because you were going against the wind and it all came back in your face, and you were glad to have something to ride with. Nobody complained. The horses did what they want when it came time.

Those poor children are so uneducated. They think it's the store shelf where they pick it up, and there's no stink and smell to it. We've had tours out there. They've seen a chicken lay an egg. Oh, oh, is that where an egg comes from? Yes. I would never eat another egg. Gosh. Where do they think they come from? I don't blame them. Maybe they were never told, but it is so important.

Just going back to our education on the farm, we're going up in grades, too. But I am a very strong promoter for promoting physical education, physical training, welding, anything on the farm. Be productive. Learn to drive a tractor, a truck, highway tractors. Learn to build. Learn to grow. Learn to develop, and we are.

We just came back from a pork congress. We go to Brandon, wherever there are speakers, to learn more. I wish the city would learn their teenagers more, because there's a generation growing up. The strap is out of the schoolhouse, the Lord's Prayer too, and the youngsters are uncontrollable. It won't work, and we still want to keep them under control.

Mr. Chairperson: Time for this presentation has expired. I thank you for your time, Mr. Hofer.

Mr. Jacob Hofer: Thank you very much.

Mr. Chairperson: We call Nathan Baer, Airport Colony.

Lyle Peters. Darcy Pauls. Jason Falk, Hespeler Hog Farm. Mr. Adrien Grenier, but it's my understanding he'll be presenting in French on Monday.

Arian DeBekker, Morris Piglets Ltd. Garry Verhoog. Allan Steinke, R.M. of Victoria. Ken Rempel. Tom Greaves. Ron Johnston, Paradigm Farms Ltd. Lyle Loewen. Neil Cutler. Fergus Hand. Henry Holtman. Christine Waddell. We'll move on then.

Lara Forchuk. Marielle Wiebe, Reeve, R.M. of LaBroquerie. Geoffrey Downey. Kent Ledingham, Steinbach Auto Dealers. Randy Tkachyk. Keith Rogers. Joel Grenier. Harvey Dann. Jack Hofer. Eric Klassen. Timothy Hofer, Willowcreek Colony.

Claude Lachance. Terry Hofer.

Mr. Chairperson: Your name is–

Mr. Claude Lachance (Private Citizen): Claude Lachance.

Mr. Chairperson: Claude Lachance, okay. [inaudible] Yes, if you have copies, please.

Welcome, Mr. Lachance. You may begin your presentation when you're ready.

Mr. LaChance: I'm Claude Lachance from Elie, Manitoba. I'm a hog farmer. I raise food to feed people. My great-grandfather homesteaded the very same land I farm. He had pigs. That's 108 years of sustainable farming. My profession is sustainable, renewable and an honourable way to make a living. Unscientific claims and assertions have been made that what I do is somehow responsible for the water problems in Manitoba.

On the news, Stan Struthers, the Conservation Minister, told a total lie. He claimed that all surplus nutrients from hog production must end up in the lakes. He implied that most hog nutrients end up in the lakes. In a more normal situation, he should have been sued for slander because that's just not right. When your own people are more interested in inflaming public opinion rather than governing, no wonder the average person has been given an incorrect assumption. We would appear to be in a bread-and-circuses situation. Well, beware the Ides of March. Sooner or later, your lies and deceits will come back to haunt you. This is totally fearmongering on the part of this government.

* (11:20)

Your own CEC commission made no such assertion. When the science did not back up your political agenda, you simply shoved the results into a back drawer and did what you were going to do anyway. Your agenda seems to be a hand-fisted attempt at coddling to a totally ill-conceived attempt at winning a few more votes in the next election. A short-sighted, desperate attempt to garner a few extra misinformed votes would seem to trump common sense and people's rights. If this committee approved a bill that blamed the lake's problems on native fishers or Jewish people or people in wheelchairs or black people, this government would be laughed off the planet. Let's not forget Jim Crow. Segregationist laws were based on almost laughable science. This law fares little better in this ridiculous, callous, almost criminally stupid approach to a problem that may not even exist scientifically. This province, as a whole, is probably deficient in phosphorus compared to when the pioneers first broke the soil and, yes, brought some pigs with them.

Very small areas of the province have to be managed more carefully in terms of phosphorus use. That's right, use. The grain industry uses and places far more phosphorus into Manitoba soils than all the livestock industry put together. I don't see a moratorium placed on them. How about golf courses, lawns, detergents and, yes, your sewage? I'll bet the settling pond in the west end treatment centre is a lot less sustainable than anything I do.

The hog industry is sustainable. Your many other government-approved projects are not. Waverley West development is destroying 320 acres of prime agricultural land. All it will produce is more waste and a ceaseless demand for services by those who can afford $400,000 housing. Heaven forbid they spend $40,000 renovating a house in the North End. No problems here. Political expediency rules the roost.

The government is picking on one of the most regulated, controlled, structured and sustainable industries in the province. Somehow this ridiculous approach to destroying the people who have followed the rules has taken root in your minds. I suggest you ban cottage development, ridiculous projects like the causeway to Hecla Island, golf courses, hydro development that features wind turbines on premium farmland, hydro projects that permanently destroy Native lands to sell electricity to the U.S.A., sewage systems for every town that simply dumps waste into water courses by government decree.

I never thought I'd see people so stupid as to destroy the people who feed them. On your way to the cottage to enjoy your ridiculously fun-filled lives, pulling your massive boat behind your gas-guzzling SUV to park in your government-approved camping spot, I hope you fire up the barbecue to find it empty. You can cut out all this other ridiculous fun stuff before you tell me that what I do is unsustainable. Next time you get on that jet plane to burn precious non-renewable resources to produce nothing except fun, I hope that it finally hits home that what you do is unsustainable.

I guess until famine stocks the land, this government could not care less. Sadly, few parts of the world have the luxury of trying to destroy their farms. As somebody said better than me: They came for the Jews and I did not protest; they came for the gypsies; they came for the Jehovah Witnesses; they came for the gay people and anybody who opposed them, and I did not protest. And they came for me, a farmer who produces food, and when I'm gone, famine will stock the land.

This is unfair. I've done nothing wrong except try to feed people my entire life. Four generations of us have taken care of the land, have taken care of people. Yes, I know I've tried to make a living at it just like everybody in this room. Why are you doing this to me, my family, my children? I don't understand this. It's turned into a political football. Don't you realize you're destroying people's lives out there? And, no, we're not all big, huge, monstrous factory farms. I don't know what the negative connotation about that is anyway. You don't mind buying your cars from factories. You buy your motorboats from factories. You even buy your housing parts from factories.

There are so many other places that are not sustainable. What I do is. You've targeted a few small areas in two municipalities that have to be managed a little better. But, remember, you set up the rules and now you're changing the rules. These people who you say are no longer sustainable, they're willing to play ball. They'll just haul their manure another 10 or 15 or 20 miles. The economics of it may make them shut down these barns. Yes, there are eight million pigs being produced in Manitoba, but half of them are 10-pound isoweans, which hardly produce any manure. They're finished in the States, but that's not the point.

Where do you sit in judgment on this industry that, for the most part, has been highly successful, has followed all the rules, has met everything you've put in front of them, has done nothing but play ball? I don't understand this. Also, why is this even a Conservation issue? This is an agricultural issue, and it's about meeting rules, about meeting parameters and doing at the end of the day what's best for the public good, but you are wrecking people's lives out there.

What's my 25-year-old son going to do? I don't know if he has a future anymore. In an area where Cartier municipality has about, I think, 15 enterprises like mine on 172,000 acres, the grain farmers beg me for my phosphorus. I've got a list a mile long for the phosphorus that I generate. They love the product. It's sustainable. It's renewable. I guess we should be burying up the landscape using petroleum non-renewable products. This, if anything's sustainable, it's always been the mixture of livestock, grain farming and food production.

I think this whole industry's been skewed by people and tar and feathering an industry that has really played ball. And, yes, I take it personally. Who wouldn't? You know, it's my living and it's what I've done and somehow we've been labelled as the bad people here. I don't think we are. I think anybody who's spent their lives producing food should be a good guy. We should be kind of, like, thanked a little bit and maybe at least left alone to follow the rules. Like, that's all we're asking here. A blanket moratorium is not called for. Yes, regulations because that's what governments do. Regulations are liveable. An absolute flat out no–I never thought I'd see a government do this. You say yes to many, many other projects that I think are questionable and simply fall into the fun-filled category.

Somewhere in Europe, somewhere in the Middle East and somewhere in Africa they know that the fun doesn't count, it's the food on the plate. Two-thirds of the people in the world don't have that luxury, but I guess here–and I don't know, maybe we do, for awhile, anyway. But you know, I'm just appealing to this whole committee to take a step back and ask yourself what you're doing here to people like me and my family. Thank you.

Mr. Chairperson: Thank you, Mr. Lachance. I have Ms. Taillieu.

Mrs. Taillieu: Thank you very much, Mr. Lachance, for your very passionate and, actually, very common-sense presentation today. I can feel that you are very passionate about this issue because it affects your livelihood and it isn't fair.

There are over 1.1 million people in this province and, I think, a lot of industries that contribute to the environment in negative and positive ways. Certainly, the Premier has actually said before that, with 1.1 million people in this province, it is a responsibility of 1.1 million people to look after the environment.

So now it's not fair to shift this all onto a segment of our economy, and a very important part of our economy, to simply create the illusion of cleaning up Lake Winnipeg where, in fact, as we've heard from previous presenters, there's no science to support that, and, in fact, it's just not going to happen that way.

Do you see, and I think that you do from your presentation, that governments are, as you say, politically motivated to do this to secure their vote base rather than do what's right for all of Manitoba?

Mr. Lachance: Well, I really think that a more fair approach–the government is totally in charge of how cities and towns handle their sewage. I drive by the Elie lagoon and second stage is drained into the LaSalle twice a year. That would be a $50,000 fine for me. There's no reason why that can't be irrigated on some of that premium farmland, the clay. That would grab ahold of that phosphorus and produce a crop and perhaps a teeny, tiny amount of it might get to the water source. Right now, I know it all gets there, every last bit of it.

* (11:30)

This filter of growing a crop, a hay crop, a grain crop, or any other crop is totally necessary to intercept these nutrients. They found in the Deerwood Wildlife Management zone that the phosphorus coming off that cute little 40-acre streak of riparian along the stream sheds far more phosphorus than the cultivated field above it, because the cultivated fields are a negative phosphorus situation. Land that's in a negative situation grabs the phosphorus as it becomes available during the spring melt, after the minus-30 rupturing of the cell membranes. The phosphorus is coming off the riparian zones. Some of what people thought was the correct approach to fixing this problem turns out to be totally false.

We have to sit back and come up with an answer, not just slam dunk little parts of the industry because most people don't really know what's going on out there. This little study out of Deerwood Wildlife Management zone is an interesting one. It shows that, perhaps, some methods of farming are much friendlier to the environment than others that simply appear to be friendly to the environment. I think if you really want to fix this problem, you have to separate the difference between appearances and fact.

Yes, in Rhineland and Hanover, there are some areas that have too much phosphorus in the soil. This should be harvested, not banned. Harvested. If you harvest that hay crop off those beef pastures that have too much phosphorus for 10 years, there won't be a problem, and they could spread perhaps a small amount. But that's in your regulations today. Nobody can spread manure where there's an excess situation.

But how come other parts of this process get a free ride? I don't understand this narrow focus on my industry. The grain farmer right across the road from me has no problems with this. There are far far more tons of fertilizer, of phosphorus showing up on his fields, and he doesn't have to answer to anybody whatsoever.

Has anybody measured the phosphorus coming off those city and town lagoons? Go to the West End treatment plant in St. James. The water in the Assiniboine can't even freeze there where it enters the bridge at the West End Perimeter. Has anybody measured the phosphorus coming off that thing?

You're banning winter spreading of hog manure. Well, you better ban winter spreading of sewage sludge. To me, it's all part of the same problem. If the logic meter stops here, it can't just proceed over here. If 1.1 million people are part of the problem, then 1.1 million people have to work together to solve it, but what you're doing right now, it would be like bringing a bulldozer to Waverley West. Go for it and see what kind of reaction you get. They don't need that. That's just luxury housing. Why not sock it to them? Why not stop that dead in its tracks, half built? You're stopping me dead in my tracks. Why not stop them? They produce pollution. They produce issues. They produce problems. Why don't you put a complete ban on all housing?

How about cottages? That's just fun. Nobody really needs them. You're nothing but a conflict with the native entitlements on that one. Why not totally kick these guys out of all their cottages and stop all that conflict? See, but we don't do that, but that's all part of the problem. I don't see them participating in the solution, not yet. Why so harsh on my industry?

I know it sounds like a stuck record but, you know, I produce something that's irreplaceable: food. If there're a couple of molecules of phosphorus that end up causing problems, you know what? I produce something you can't cut out of your budget. Just ask people in Africa about that one. You can cut other stuff out. You can economize in a lot of other areas, and, yes, you could stop other sources of phosphorus pollution before you cut out the food on your plate because now you're going to be in big trouble over that one. It's called food riots in Mexico. What is it? Argentina banned the exporting of wheat because people were hungry. The Ukraine banned exporting of wheat because people were hungry. There's something that we just don't appreciate here about that fact. Yeah, if farming does cause some of that pollution, I think, in a funny way, we should be the last ones to pay the price because we're producing that one commodity you just got to have.

You don't need that big car in the driveway. You don't need this. You don't need that. You don't need your bi-annual vacation. You do need food, and it has never sunk in because we've never known hunger. We're fat and sassy. But, you know, you talk to my mother-in-law who remembers Europe, who was physically hungry. I had a Dutch immigrant working for me 20 years ago who went through World War II when he was 12 years old. He can tell you about hunger and the psychological impact it has on your thinking.

We're biting the hand that feeds us here. I honestly think we should almost be given a break. We're not asking for a break; we're asking for equal treatment. Nobody else is being shut down. We're asking for equal treatment here, not special privileges. You know what? If you talk to this Mr. Bill VanMurlow, who's sadly getting on in years, he'd tell you about hunger. There are not enough people like that around here anymore, are there?

This, for the most part, been a good successful industry. If the economics dictate that I have to haul manure 15 miles because of the phosphorous load, I'm done anyway. I can't meet the regulations; I can't meet the rules.

If the real problem is excess phosphorus in one area, then that area is saturated with this industry. You can say that about a lot of other industries, can't you? You can go to Grand Rapids and check out the flooding. That's kind of a saturated industry, pardon the pun.

Mr. Chairperson: Mr. Lachance, your time has run out a few minutes ago. I thank you very much. I had other people who wanted to put questions, but–

Mr. Lachance: Thank you for your time.

Mr. Chairperson: All right then. Appreciate it.

Mr. Terry Hofer. Dwayne Hofer. Andy Gross. Tom Crockatt. Gordie Dehnn. Cindy Vandenbossche. Michael Hofer. Edward Stahl. Kelvin Waldner. Dennis Kornelson. Kurt Stoess.

Richard Taillefer. Mr. Taillefer, do you have any written materials for the committee, sir?

Mr. Richard Taillefer (Private Citizen): No, just a few notes.

Mr. Chairperson: Okay, you may proceed.

Mr. Taillefer: Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak here.

I'm just talking on behalf of my influence and my little town. I come from La Broquerie, Manitoba. Just to give you background, my mom and dad were born and raised in La Broquerie. I have six brothers and sisters born and raised in La Broquerie; everyone is still living in La Broquerie. Four of them are directly employed by the hog industry; the other two are employed indirectly–carpentry in the local town and working at the local school.

For my personal life, I've been married for 24 years; I have three children, two attending university in Winnipeg and one working for the hog industry. I just want to say I'm thankful for a good paying job to support my two children that do attend university. I was born and raised in La Broquerie too. I still live there and I'll guarantee that I'll die there.

Just the impact on a small town for the hog industry, for what it brought to La Broquerie, Manitoba, is, for example, the Co-op, lumber yard, restaurants, golf course, schools, hockey and baseball programs, et cetera.

Our town grew and all that. I was there right–like I said, born and raised. I've seen the progress for the last 15 years, I would say; maybe it's not all contributed to the hog industry, but a big portion of it, for sure.

I would like to say, too, that I'm very proud that I do work for an industry which does feed the world, if it's meat, or manure spread on the croplands so we can have better harvests, so we can feed more people. I think, and so I think that's all, what I say. So thank you very much.

* (11:40)

Mr. Chairperson: Thank you, Mr. Taillefer.

I'll open the floor to questions. I have Mr. Eichler and Mr. Graydon.

Mr. Eichler: Thank you, Richard, for your presentation.

It's interesting the responses we've had, and you hit on a couple of them. We've seen the growth in small-town rural Manitoba as a result of the hog industry. In fact, we're just in the process of a boundary change within the constituencies, and when you look at the map of the province of Manitoba, it's really interesting when you look at where the hog barns are and where the growth is. Your points are bang on when you talk about the town of La Broquerie and some of the other areas where there are hog barns, and they have the opportunity to get the golf courses, the lumber yards that your referred to. My concern is, if Bill 17 passes in its current state, a lot of those services will be gone. First, you start with your schools because of declining population because you lose jobs, you lose people. So I think you're right on there.

Do you feel that, if it wasn't for the hog industry, you probably wouldn't be located in La Broquerie today?

Mr. Taillefer: I can't say 100 percent for sure, but it's sure been a big impact and influence that, yes. Probably I would stay there because I'm a family-oriented person, and my dad and mom are still living in town, and all my brothers and sisters. But, even though it gives me a chance of having a well-paid job in the industry and all that, so.

Mr. Eichler: Just a supplementary, Richard. In regard to the employer, how many employees are involved in the company you work with?

Mr. Taillefer: Today the company I work for includes 500 people, directly in the hog industry. After that we can't put a number on the offspring or whatever, everything else, like the restaurants and all that, so.

Mr. Graydon: Thank you, Richard, for making the presentation today.

In your presentation you said you were a family-orientated individual and that you would have probably stayed somewhere in the La Broquerie-Marchand area, if at all possible. Because I have a fairly good working knowledge of that area, the only other industry that would have been available would have been the logging industry. Basically, that's what is there, and we all know that the logging industry has had some terrible cycles as well.

Today, because of the livestock, and it's not just in the La Broquerie area, it's not just hogs. There's a big contingency of dairy farms there as well. They're well-managed large farms. Actually, 65 percent of the dairy industry in Manitoba is situated in two of the municipalities that are under the moratorium. However, the hog industry was singled out probably because–and the question has been asked a number of times: why have they focussed on one industry? Because it's so terribly identifiable. It's so identifiable by it's unique odour. The dairy industry, however, doesn't have the same odour, although they have the same effluent. The storage facilities are the same. The regulations for applying are the same.

In your area, what would the impact be if the dairies were faced with a moratorium the same as the hog industry?

Mr. Taillefer: The impact would be huge because it is a big industry for us, too, is the cattle, I guess. Because, like I was saying, it influences all the local businesses and all that, and definitely it brings a lot of immigrants, I guess, in the region, and all that. So the more people, the better it is for our schooling and everything else. But it would be a huge impact, for sure, if they would do the same thing.

Mr. Chairperson: Okay. Mr. Graydon, supplemental?

Mr. Graydon: Mr. Taillefer, if we were to lose either one of those industries, and because you said you were family-orientated, that your mom and dad are there, your brothers, your sisters, your nieces and nephews, where will your children be? If you lose one of those industries, will your children be able to stay there?

Mr. Taillefer: No. If they do choose to live in La Broquerie, it would be an hour drive to come to work to Winnipeg, I would assume, or in the Steinbach area. But Steinbach definitely has some issues for employment and all that, too, so they would have to drive to Winnipeg, which it would be an hour drive, morning, back and forth. So I would assume that they would move to Winnipeg for sure if they don't have a job locally.

Mr. Stuart Briese (Ste. Rose): Thank you, Mr. Taillefer, for your presentation. I recall a number of years ago, probably 15 to 20 years ago, a former reeve of your municipality telling me–John Giesbrecht–that one of the goals they set in that municipality was to triple the assessment base in that municipality over the next 10 to 12 years. That's an awfully ambitious goal. I know how assessments work in municipalities quite well, and they accomplished that. I think that says an awful lot for the area, that while many of our municipalities were seeing very low increases in assessment, they tripled their assessment base. I don't know whether I can emphasize that enough.

But what I'm just wondering about, I understand you are involved in the industry. Where, particularly? Like, what do you actually do in the industry?

Mr. Taillefer: My role in the company is that I am director of the sow units and nursery, so I do oversee 60,000 sows all over Manitoba-Saskatchewan, and then nurseries according to the sow barns.

Mr. Struthers: Thank you very much for your presentation, Richard. I just want to pick up on where the MLA for Emerson (Mr. Graydon) is going. The MLA for Emerson is a pretty decent guy, but I don't want him to leave on the record any doubts about Bill 17 and its connection to the dairy industry.

As the member has pointed out, there are some similarities, but I want to make a couple of very key differences between the two. The dairy industry over the years has operated under a quota system which does place limits on the kind of growth that you can see in the dairy industry. That doesn't exist on the hog side. In 1990, there were 3,150 hog farms in Manitoba with a total of 3.2 million hogs. In '07 the number of barns had decreased to 1,280 with 8.8 million hogs. That's a big amount of growth.

Now, I don't want to leave the impression that we shouldn't grow an industry, but we need to understand that the difference is that there were no restrictions on that growth, as was the case in the dairy industry. Much of that growth has taken place in your part of the world. What kind of advice would you give to this minister if you're not in favour of Bill 17? What kind of advice would you give to me in terms of how we manage the environment, how we manage to protect the water? What restrictions, if any, do you see we need in terms of the hog industry without dragging other industries into this, because, on the one hand people say we're singling out the hog industry with Bill 17, and then they try to connect everything else that's going on in rural Manitoba.

What advice would you be giving me in terms of any kind of management in terms of water protection?

Mr. Taillefer: Definitely, I think there is some ruling and some regulations out there, and I'm positive that our company is following all the regulations and all that. The regulations in place mean that we're not polluting or whatever, and we're utilizing all the manure that is applied to the land. So, if we do have excess or whatever, then, yes, it is an issue, and I'm sure we can look at it, or whatever.

* (11:50)

Mr. Struthers: Yeah, I mean, even Manitoba Pork has approached me saying that they're responsible for part of this. They claim 1.5 percent; others say that's inaccurate and it's some number higher. Whatever that number is, I don't think anybody wants to come forward and say the hog industry isn't contributing, at least I think. The Clean Environment Commission has very clearly said to me the framework that's in place, the rules that are there now aren't strong enough. Now, that's clear what the Clean Environment has told us. You don't want us to go to a moratorium. Where do I go in-between?

Mr. Taillefer: That's a difficult question, I guess.

Mr. Struthers: I know. That's why I'm asking it.

Mr. Taillefer: Like for myself, I'm speaking, I guess, what impact it did for my personal life, the hog industry and all that. And we have the proper people to deal with issues of expanding and manure spreading and all that. So, for myself, I'm not involved that much in those decisions that you were asking for.

Mr. Chairperson: Thank you, Mr. Taillefer. I see our time has expired, so thank you very much for your presentation.

It's my understanding that Mr. Jason Falk, No. 27, is in the room. Is it the will of the committee to allow Mr. Falk to present since we've called his name already? [Agreed]

Mr. Falk, do you have a written copy of your presentation?

Mr. Jason Falk (Hespeler Hog Farms): I do not.

Mr. Chairperson: Okay, proceed when ready.

Mr. Falk: Thank you. Good morning. My name is Jason Falk. I am from Niverville. I represent Hespeler Hog Farms. I am 31 years old, am a father of four, and have been farming full time ever since I graduated from college 10 years ago. I've grown up on a farm and I'm well-versed in its daily operations and management practices, which include good, safe environmental practices.

My love for the farm is only outdone by my love for my family and my faith. Holistically there is no occupation that can challenge one more greatly physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually. Hard work and the need to trust God make farming an incredible way to raise and teach a family. I'm deeply saddened that I must stand here today to defend my great heritage to preserve our present situation and to fight for my children's future.

If it was not for the hog expansion, I would not have stayed in farming at all. Diversification on our family farm is what has allowed it to succeed over the years. Hog expansion is what has kept my family clothed and fed. Now our government is removing that option from us. Our ability to adapt and to grow will be severely restricted if the option of hog expansion which the current legislation, I might add, already regulates very well, is stolen from us.

There are two major problems that my farm in particular will face in the next few years if this legislation is forced through. Let me start with the issue of fertilizer. The cost of fertilizer, as you all well know, continues to rise rapidly, and the environmental cost of producing that fertilizer is also rising. Manure that my hogs create not only saves the environment by not needing to produce that fertilizer, but reduces my input costs allowing me to be much more competitive, which also allows me to create cheaper food for you to eat. The manure that my hogs created last year was valued at $122,156, and those are numbers I received on June 5, just a couple of days ago. That is just from my hog operation of 1,300 animal waste units.

Hog manure is not a liability or a danger as your non-scientific ways suggest. It may soon be the reason why crop farms in our area have any chance of success at all.

The other major problem I foresee is one of amalgamation. I'm involved in two farms that essentially belong to the same family. One has aging livestock facilities and infrastructure that, in the near future, will need upgrading and improvements to meet the already strict environmental rules that govern the process. The other is a well-established site with excellent infrastructure. The idea of amalgamating the two sites interests me greatly as it would not only dispose of dilapidating buildings, but also take advantage of current up-to-date infrastructure that already exists, thereby again reducing my input costs significantly. Equally beneficial, the up-to-date site has no residences within two-thirds of a mile and no non-agricultural residences for a full mile. The old site has 10 residences within that same two-thirds of a mile, of which seven are non-agricultural. By passing this bill, I'm not allowing expansion. You will force us to maintain these old facilities much closer to rural residences.

We are, in every way, wanting to sustain our environment. We want to use our natural manure rather than man-made fertilizer. We incorporate all the manure to ensure there is no run-off. We want to combine our facilities so as to be less disruptive to our neighbours. We even recycle every possible thing at the site that we can.

I said I had two major problems, but I guess I have a third. Like I said earlier, I have four children and, at this point, all under the age of five. They are not asking me questions about the government and their decisions and the processes but, when they are old enough, what do you suppose I am to tell them about what we are doing today?