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Mr. Chairperson (Marcel Laurendeau): Would the Committee of Supply please come to order. This section of the Committee of Supply has been dealing with the Estimates of the Department of Agriculture. Would the minister's staff please enter the Chamber at this time.
We are on Resolution 3.6. Policy and Economics (a) Economics (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,060,900.
Ms. Rosann Wowchuk (Swan River): Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask the minister one question with respect to Crown land leases. I have a letter which was sent to the minister in February from Pine Creek First Nation. Pine Creek First Nation was attempting to lease some land adjacent to the reserve. They said that when they made their application they were advised that First Nations could not apply to lease Crown land. But they have written to the minister.
I have since talked to departmental staff, but I would like the minister's explanation and how he proposes to resolve this matter. The Pine Creek First Nation has interest in bison ranching. They have interest in elk ranching, and they are in need of additional land. But the way the policy is written right now, I understand that a First Nation cannot apply. They must apply as individuals, but I am sure that the minister must be looking at the situation to see how he proposes to resolve it. I would like his explanation.
Hon. Harry Enns (Minister of Agriculture): Mr. Chairman, the honourable member for Swan River is correct in her assumption with respect to the policy. Bands as such are not eligible under the current criteria for application to access Crown lands. Individual First Nation members, if they meet the qualifying criteria that govern the selection of individuals eligible for Crown lands use, agricultural Crown land use, are eligible. I might add, we have a number of First Nations members who lease agricultural Crown land.
Ms. Wowchuk: So the minister is indicating then that if the band owns cattle as a whole, they will not qualify to lease the land, but if it is individual members who lease the land--this is, I would assume, a long-term policy. Would it have anything to do with the scoring of how Crown land is given out to people, or is it just the policy that you can only lease as an individual?
Mr. Enns: Mr. Chairman, it is always a pleasure to be so formally announced by you in such a forthright and direct manner. It kind of challenges me to respond to the legitimate questions of the honourable members opposite.
Yes, it is a long-standing policy that has been in effect--certainly my director of all Regional Services advised me it has been in effect for some many years. If the honourable member is suggesting a change in that policy, well, that is a fair question and one that is open for debate. I suspect some of the development of the policy originally has been in the sense that governments, both federal and provincial, treat with bands as a group, as a whole, in land entitlement questions, for instance.
The honourable member is well aware that the province and the federal government of Canada are currently in the midst of transferring many, many thousands, indeed, if not millions of acres of land in what we all hope will be a final recognition of the unfulfilled commitments with respect to land that were made under various treaties with First Nations communities. Those now, in many instances, I think, have reached kind of the final negotiation stage, and they do involve very significant amounts of land.
By and large, the position of Manitoba has been that where possible, we will meet our obligation by the transfer of unoccupied Crown lands in these circumstances, and we look to Ottawa to provide in some instances where land is not available. In some of the southern reserves where the availability of unoccupied Crown land is limited, there is the equivalent of dollars, money, funds to be provided in lieu of, which the bands then can and in some instances, I am advised, are interested in using to, in fact, purchase private lands to add to their overall landholdings.
But I would suspect that this as a background was the determining factor, that when this policy with respect to accessing agriculture Crown land was developed, it was deemed to be fair that we treat everybody on an individual basis, First Nations or other aboriginal groups, Metis farmers, or the non-Native farmers.
But I should add, I am advised, that the same thing applies--corporations, for instance, farm corporations are not eligible for Crown land leasing. I suspect the same thing would apply to a colony if it were, and most of them are, incorporated as a corporation.
Mr. Chairperson: Shall the item pass? The item is accordingly passed.
Item 3.6. Policy and Economics (a) Economics (2) Other Expenditures $245,100--pass.
Item 3.6.(b) Boards and Commissions Support Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $373,000.
Ms. Wowchuk: We are on 6.(a), are we?
Mr. Chairperson: No, we are on 6.(b) now. I passed 6.(a). We are moving on 6.(b) Boards and Commissions Support Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $373,000.
Ms. Wowchuk: I just want to clarify. I thought we were doing Crown Lands. That is what you were supposed to be passing, was Crown Lands.
Mr. Chairperson: No, Crown Lands passed on Thursday. We were dealing with 6.(a) Economics (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits. That is what I read at the opening of the committee meeting. Did the honourable member want to revert back to 6.(a)?
Ms. Wowchuk: No, Mr. Chairman. I just missed you passing Crown Lands, and that is why I was still asking a couple of questions on that section, but that is okay.
I want to move on. If we could deal with this section, we are on Boards and Commissions. I want to raise with the minister an issue that has been brought to my attention and that being the pricing of milk in rural communities. Several smaller stores have indicated that the price of milk is going higher, and these store owners see milk as an essential item and are concerned with what is happening.
This came about when this government changed a policy on minimum price of milk. I would ask the minister whether, recognizing the importance of milk as an essential product and taking into consideration the concerns that have been raised in northern communities, particularly this year because of roads breaking up early, but aside from that, whether the minister is giving any reconsideration to bringing back a minimum price for milk.
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Mr. Enns: Mr. Chairman, that is an interesting question. Because I am well acquainted with the debate that took place when, in fact, we moved from most types, I have to be careful of the need for the maintenance of a minimum price. The honourable member will recall the complaint that was being registered by some retailers, one in particular I can well remember, was that that regulation prevented him from dropping the price of milk to the level that he wanted to. It was quite frankly sometimes a difficult regulation to explain to the price-conscious consumer that, it was the business of our government, of any government, to prevent retailers from reducing the cost of milk when and, if they chose to, some perhaps using it as a loss leader. You know, that phrase is used in marketing to attract customers to their stores. But it was that general debate that took place in the late 1980s, '89, '90, in around that place that led to that revision of policy that removed the requirement for minimum pricing.
I suspect that that really is not the issue that the honourable member is dealing with, particularly because of the actions just recently taken by the Milk Control Board and the Manitoba Milk Prices Review Commission which is chaired by Dr. Kraft, which is the agency that from time to time looks and supervises the affairs of the milk industry in the province of Manitoba, has, in fact, ordered price reductions. Since May 1 or earlier on this year there have been two price reductions implemented by the milk producers, that is the Milk Producers Board of Manitoba, as a result of the recommendations of the milk pricing commission headed by Dr. Kraft and a different arrangement that has to do with their pooling arrangement in the western pool. They met, in essence, the Alberta price that brought down their price of milk by a few cents a litre down. I hasten to add, whether or not these savings have been in effect--and that is, of course, a legitimate argument passed on through to the consumers--is always another question, but I do know that my milk producers are receiving less today than they were a few months ago.
I should indicate I was indicating a date. It was since May 1, 1989 that the commission has stopped setting the minimum wholesale jobber or retail prices in milk, so it is now a practice that has taken place for the last eight or nine years.
Ms. Wowchuk: Mr. Chairman, this year we saw an increase in the amount of money that was going to be going into agri-food research. I was very pleased to see that increase. It is something that we have been asking for, for a long time. With the changes that we are seeing in agriculture, we have to do more research.
When I talked to the people from the food-processing industry, people in the food-processing industry indicate that Manitoba is not doing their fair share of research into produce research. Quebec does a lot of research. There is some work being done in Portage la Prairie, as I understand it, but what they say is that the Food Development Centre has just become designated as a general centre for research, but we have no specific centres for and no specific research being done for that sector.
I would ask the minister if he recognizes this as an important area of production for Manitoba and whether this is an area we could be targetting for more research to be done to ensure that the food processing industry can continue to thrive in Manitoba and not fall behind other provinces.
Mr. Enns: You know, I can recall that that probably has been one of the persistent comments or pieces of advice that I have received from the honourable member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) over the last number of years when we discuss Agriculture Estimates. I have always, always indicated to her that I agreed, in essence, with the point that she was making and putting on the record. It is extremely important to dedicate some of the earnings, some of the dollars that the industry makes, back into basic research. If we want to stay ahead of the game and hopefully in some instances be leaders in the game, then that is absolutely vital and even more so for a province like Manitoba where so much of what we do in food generally is done in competition with the outside world, if not the world, then certainly right here in Canada.
So it is with that kind of ongoing support that I have had from my official opposition that I am convinced that it was helpful in enabling myself to establish a fairly significant agricultural research and development fund known as ARDI. That is in total with the federal contribution, upwards to $19 million of monies that is dedicated for the very purpose that she advocates. I might also indicate to her that in the main, although we have not carved it in stone, because that is not always possible, we will be looking very favourably to those kinds of projects coming forward from proponents where they can bring money to the table.
We have targeted a general guideline of we hope a 50 percent contribution from, say, the Canola Council or the Manitoba Forage Seed Association. When they want specific research done, they bring some of their money that they now have as a result of check-off legislation that has been put in place some time ago, and that dollar is matched by the ARDI fund. So that $19 million can, in fact, become significantly more dollars in total research and development that is now being made available to the food, the agricultural industry in Manitoba.
Mr. Chairman, I am the first one to acknowledge that this is a new venture under the direction of the chair, Dr. Clay Gilson. I am certainly hopeful that they will find the appropriate vision to conduct the kind of award, the kind of research projects that are being directed towards them. I am told that they are coming in at a fairly good clip. We have currently had some 131 applications to that newly set up board--that board is only barely four months old--of which 71 already have been approved.
The total approved to date out of that fund is some $3.9 million. That is very close to $4 million. That is fairly significant activity that is being generated this spring, this year, that was not there last year or the year before and the year before that when the member for Swan River (Ms. Wowchuk) used to, at this stage of my Estimates, be telling me that I was not doing enough with respect to research.
So, Mr. Chairman, being that kind of a person who can accept good advice when it is given, I accepted that good advice from the honourable member for Swan River, and we are now embarked on what I believe and hope to be a very worthwhile research and development program. It does not have maybe quite the focus that the research dollars in Saskatchewan have, and we have talked about that from time to time.
Saskatchewan has done a very creditable job, an enviable job, indeed, in focusing on biotechnology at the university of Saskatoon, coming together with the private sector and so forth. Our research and our effort will be of its nature a more general, broadly based type of research. But I make no apologies for it. That is the nature of our agriculture, and, quite frankly, I think there are some strengths in that. If we can move forward on a very broad front of food production, we may well, at the end of the day, find ourselves being served quite well. Thank you.
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Ms. Wowchuk: Mr. Chairman, the minister is right. Saskatchewan has become very focused on biotechnology and is becoming recognized for that. I understand that Quebec is becoming a leader and the centre of research on production, such as various types of vegetables. So they are becoming focused. We were doing more work in centres like Brandon where there is federal research on hog production, and we seem to have lost that. I think that, although we do have to have general research too, it might be something to consider to become more focused in our research so that Manitoba would become recognized for a particular field of agriculture research that would then attract the kind of money that Saskatchewan has been able to attract to its area.
I leave that with the minister, and I think that his staff, and hopefully the committee that is working on this that has been appointed, can maybe focus the attention in a particular area. There are lots of opportunities in Manitoba.
I want to ask the minister a question relating to the Manitoba Rural Adaptation Council and the agriculture food research development. It has been suggested by farm groups that the minister, when he was setting up this Agri-Food Research and Development Initiative, that he did not have to set up another board. There was a board in place with MRAC. These people were prepared to work, and they are committed to development in rural Manitoba. There are federal dollars in it, as well, and I wonder whether the minister has given any consideration to the suggestion that there could have been one board that could have dealt with all of this rather than having two boards, as has been suggested by some farm organizations.
Mr. Enns: Mr. Chairman, the answer to the honourable member's question is that, no, we have not given consideration to the establishment of a board. We believe they are two separate entities, and as such we are very much concerned, though, that we avoid, wherever possible, duplication of roles. We have ensured that there is a reasonably close association with the department and the two boards. On both boards, we have nonvoting members from the Department of Agriculture who sit in on the meetings, both at MRAC and on the ARDI board, of course, so that provides a fairly direct and instant communication as to what the boards are up to and what kinds of projects they are considering.
So with those kinds of mechanics in place, I believe that I can say with some confidence that duplication will be avoided, and the role of the two boards will proceed as they are mandated. It must be remembered that the MRAC initiative is entirely a federal initiative. We were not consulted; I was not consulted. The Minister of Agriculture and the Department of Agriculture were not consulted.
I do not want to get into yesterday's arguments, but the rural municipalities of all the municipalities of Manitoba unanimously agreed that these monies that were some residue monies out of the Western Grain Transport, these are Crow monies, that the fairest way to spend those monies would be on the improvement of the roads. Everybody recognized that our road systems are being hammered.
The provincial governments and all provincial departments, the Minister of Rural Development (Mr. Derkach), the Minister of Highways (Mr. Findlay), the Minister of Agriculture, I must confess I did not particularly want to just automatically give that over to roads, because there are initiatives. I had research in mind, I had other things in mind for Agriculture. But I agreed and we jointly sent the president of the Union of Manitoba Municipalities, Minister of Rural Development, Minister of Highways; and we passed on this unanimous recommendation about how those $4 million or $5 million should be spent in Manitoba.
But somewhere there on the--I was going to say on the road to Damascus, but it was not on the road to Damascus. It was my own M.P., Jon Gerrard, you know, who during the last election decided that this money should be better spent in setting up this council, much to the surprise of all of us. But that is fair game. If the federal government wants to do it, they can do that, but I do not think it is quite fair. Meantime, with my senior staff, we had been working diligently for the better part of a year. The year before that at the Estimates time was the first $3.2 million that we got set aside provincially. We were then told to now try and get the federal dollars, and it took us the better part of a year to put that into place.
All of that was taking place well ahead of the establishment of the MRAC board, but I look forward to hoping that both ARDI and MRAC will dedicate themselves and the dollars that they have to the kind of worthwhile program that will assist Manitoba in adapting to the new phase of agriculture that it has to adapt to in this post-Crow era.
Ms. Wowchuk: Mr. Chairman, the funding for agriculture research went up by $3 million. Can the minister indicate whether that is going to be ongoing funding or is that one-year funding to start the project up? Can we expect that this money will continue on the following year as well?
Mr. Enns: We have been able to secure that kind of commitment for two years now from the funding that makes up the provincial portion of that grant. My understanding is that a further third year, if it is shown that it is required, it will be certainly my intention to once again put it in place. These dollars, of course, are the residue of some of the dollars that ensure that we expend the maximum amount available to us in the safety net envelope from Ottawa, that we triggered that amount. It is also fair to say that in answer to that question of whether we can count on these dollars being there longer term, it will to some extent depend on how successful we are in negotiating the next five years arrangements with Ottawa re the safety net programs as a whole. It is all part of the package.
The honourable member is familiar enough with the NISA programs, with the basic crop insurance, which are both kind of client driven, customer driven. They can always be, while well within the ballpark, people that were easily under or over by $2 million or $3 million in any given year on one program. We get about $180 million out of that for basic crop. Our share is what it is, and I believe that I have found an acceptable way of making sure that in every year we use every dollar that is available to us from Ottawa, and that has been, quite frankly, the leverage that I have been able to exercise on our own Treasury Board here in Manitoba to ensure that that, in fact, takes place.
Ms. Wowchuk: Can the minister indicate then, the money that is designated this year, if it is not spent, will it be carried over to next year and be available for research, or is this money that if do not spend it we lose it?
Mr. Enns: You are beginning to sound like my deputy minister, honourable member for Swan River. You are not supposed to ask those trick questions, Mr. Chairman.
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Ms. Wowchuk: Does the money carry forward if we do not spend it, or is it lost? If it is going to be lost, does the minister anticipate that we will have enough projects this year to use up the money?
Mr. Enns: The honourable member puts her finger on an issue that is of concern to us. Our ability to bank it or roll it over is limited, is not there quite frankly. It is our intention to encourage the board to more or less try to expend the limit in any given year that we have available to us.
The situation is made somewhat more complicated by the fact that my understanding that Ottawa has a greater capacity to what officials tell me, describe, to be able to roll over the funds, but it is also tied up with the overall allocations to the safety net envelope that each province gets. So it is somewhat complicated, but there is an element of truth in what the honourable suggests that if we do not use it, we lose it.
Ms. Wowchuk: Then can the minister indicate what steps are being taken to pursue people to begin doing more research in this province? How are you making people aware, and is there somebody aggressively out there working to ensure that we can take advantage of this opportunity of having this money and ensure that we build the base that when the money comes up again next year or the year after, we will be doing the research that we are not going to lose this money?
Mr. Enns: Mr. Chairman, the board, when finally put together and off and running, they actively provide and solicit applications by means of advertising. They have an attractive brochure that sets out the guidelines as to how individuals and organizations can access and make the applications.
It should also be pointed out to the honourable member that certainly an important agency, like the Faculty of Agriculture at the University of Manitoba under the direction of Dean Elliott, has been eagerly awaiting the establishment of this fund and needs no prodding, I might add, to have his applications roll in. In fact, if you looked at the number of approvals, of the 71-odd approvals to date, then certainly the Faculty of Agriculture at the university has done fairly well.
To date, I am advised by staff, the University of Manitoba projects have, in fact, received 49 or near half of the total for $3.9 million of programs that have been approved. Certainly, I am further advised that it will be the intention of the board to revisit their public relations strategy, if you like. They will be meeting with groups to hopefully to create the kind of interest for organizations where research dollars can be applied and new ideas can come forward in the various organizations throughout the province, whether it is the food processors, whether it is organizations such as the various farm organizations, and, in particular, the farm commodity groups.
What we are seeing in Manitoba in many instances is some real interesting risk-taking, if you like, on some of the crops that heretofore have only been dabbled with. We have an operation that has to do with extracting various food--[interjection]
Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. I am interrupting the proceedings of the section of the Committee of Supply because the total time allowed for the Estimates consideration has now expired.
Our Rule 71.(1) provides in part that not more 240 hours shall be allowed for the consideration in Committee of the Whole of Ways and Means and Supply resolutions respecting all types of estimates and relevant Supply bills.
That concludes Agriculture.
Our Rule 71.(3) provides that where the time limit has expired the Chairman shall forthwith put all remaining questions necessary to dispose of the matters, and such questions or resolutions shall not be subject to debate, amendment or adjournment.
I am therefore going to call in sequence the resolutions on the following matters: Agriculture, Resolutions 3.1; 3.6 and 3.7.
Resolution 3.6: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $2,120,900 for Agriculture, Policy and Economics, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.
Resolution 3.7: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $8,800,800 for Agriculture, Agriculture Research and Development, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.
Resolution 3.1: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $2,518,500 for Agriculture, Administration and Finance, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.
This concludes our Estimates. I am going to recess until such time as the other committees are finished their Estimates, and we will call the House back when they are concluded.
The committee will come to order. Committee rise. Call in the Speaker.