Assemblée législative de l'Ontario

MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD

CONTENTS

Tuesday 26 May 1992

Ministry of Agriculture and Food

Hon Elmer Buchanan, minister

Bob Seguin, executive director, policy and programs

Ken Knox, assistant deputy minister, agriculture and rural services

Rita Burak, deputy minister

STANDING COMMITTEE ON ESTIMATES

*Chair / Président: Jackson, Cameron (Burlington South/-Sud PC)

Vice-Chair / Vice-Présidente: Marland, Margaret (Mississauga South/-Sud PC)

*Bisson, Gilles (Cochrane South/-Sud ND)

Carr, Gary (Oakville South/-Sud PC)

*Eddy, Ron (Brant-Haldimand L)

*Ferguson, Will, (Kitchener ND)

*Frankford, Robert (Scarborough East/-Est ND)

Lessard, Wayne (Windsor-Walkerville ND)

*O'Connor, Larry (Durham-York ND)

*Perruzza, Anthony (Downsview ND)

Ramsay, David (Timiskaming L)

*Sorbara, Gregory S. (York Centre L)

Substitutions / Membres remplaçants:

*Cleary, John C. (Cornwall L) for Mr Ramsay

*Hayes, Pat (Essex-Kent ND) for Mr Lessard

*Villeneuve, Noble (S-D-G & East Grenville/S-D-G & Grenville-Est PC) for Mr Carr

*In attendance / présents

Clerk / Greffier: Carrozza, Franco

The committee met at 1538 in committee room 2.

MINISTRY OF AGRICULTURE AND FOOD

The Chair (Mr Cameron Jackson): I'd like to call to order the standing committee on estimates for our first estimates for the 1992-93 fiscal year. Our first set of estimates is the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. It will be for five hours as per the committee's direction and the House's approval.

I'd like to welcome the minister, the Honourable Elmer Buchanan. This is his first estimates. Welcome. It is a painless exercise and you'll enjoy it, I'm sure. I want to acknowledge that all your staff were here really early. That was appreciated. Certainly the committee will likewise attempt to be punctual when we begin again tomorrow.

The committee is aware of our standing orders, which call for an opening statement from the minister of up to one half-hour. Then we'll rotate and the official opposition will be given up to one half-hour. Then the third party will be given up to one half-hour to make comments. Then the Chair will recognize the minister to respond for up to half an hour. Then the committee will proceed in a regular fashion. Minister, maybe you can introduce your deputy and staff, and if any others who are being called forward to present during the course of the estimates would please identify themselves and their position with your ministry, it is very helpful to the committee and to Hansard. Minister, we're in your hands.

Hon Elmer Buchanan (Minister of Agriculture and Food): I have with me Rita Burak, the deputy; Marianne Holder, a political staff member, and Keith Pinder, director of policy and program coordination. We have several other staff at the back of the room. As you've indicated, if we need to call on them we will identify them at that time.

I'll just make one other very brief introductory comment. We have several staff, of course, who work out of the Guelph office. If members wish to ask very detailed specific questions tomorrow, for example, if they will notify us of that I will make sure the appropriate staff are here tomorrow to answer those questions. With that, I'll proceed with my statement.

I'm very pleased to have this opportunity to present the 1992-93 estimates for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food. I would like to begin with an overview of the activities of my ministry.

We have accomplished much over the past year and a half, and I'm confident that the directions we're now undertaking will lead our farm and rural communities and the food industry to greater stability and growth.

When I became minister, I knew I was taking on an especially challenging job. There was discontent in the farm and rural areas of our province due to years of coping with economic pressures that hit harder and held faster in the agriculture and food industry than in almost any other sector.

I grew up on a farm in rural Ontario. I was actively involved in the politics of a largely rural constituency. I've seen what our farm and rural communities were and what they've become, and I resolve to put the highest priority on revitalizing this most essential part of our society.

The way I saw it, there were major issues that needed to be tackled in order to move towards this goal. A year and a half of talking and listening to hundreds of people involved in our business has affirmed my conviction on these priorities:

First, economic stability has to be restored and a foundation laid for future growth in the entire food production industry. Farmers, food processors and retailers are all struggling under the effects of an international trade war, recession, cross-border shopping and a host of other debilitating factors.

A second and closely related issue is that rural community development must be given higher prominence. Most of these communities have to struggle hard to make economic ends meet and to try to provide services that even come close to matching those available in our cities. I believe that strong rural communities are essential to the economic viability of Ontario.

Third is the issue of environmental sustainability. We must continue our progress towards more environmentally responsible practices in all aspects of the agriculture and food sector. Healthy air, soil, water and ecosystems are the most basic necessities for our business both now and in the future.

An overall principle I adopted from the outset in dealing with these issues was the spirit of cooperation. I wanted and have received extremely helpful advice and suggestions from the people directly affected by the decisions I've made over the past year. It has been a very successful method for developing programs and policies, as you will note in the activities I'm outlining today.

Creating better economic stability at the farm level was the most pressing issue. I knew the farmers were hurting. I wanted to find out directly from them their concerns and their ideas on how we could best work together to improve their situation. As a result, the agricultural finance review committee, under the leadership of my colleague, Pat Hayes, travelled across the province gathering opinions and suggestions from the farmers themselves.

Many excellent ideas came out of that consultation, which are now being put into practice with the help and cooperation of many industry partners. Immediate relief from high interest rates was first on the list. Within two weeks of the release of the Hayes report we responded with a one-year, $50-million interest assistance program to help those farmers most in need.

I said at the time, and I reiterate here, that this was a short-term program meant to deal with a crisis situation. It was never intended as an ongoing program, because I believe, and farmers agree, that long-term, stable initiatives are a better answer to ongoing economic pressures. This is why I recently announced a five-part agricultural investment strategy. I am confident that this strategy will provide a basis for real economic renewal in Ontario's farm and rural communities. It's a combination of financial and training programs to provide new opportunities for farmers to obtain much-needed credit and to enhance their skills in legal and financial management. It also provides the impetus for financial institutions and private lenders to take a strong role in investing in the food and farming industry, the economic foundation of many rural areas.

As I stated two weeks ago, we are anticipating a total government investment of $120 million over the next five years in this strategy. This represents an effective use of public funds to lever private sector investment and create self-reliance in our farm and rural communities. Unlike the ad hoc government funding in the past, these programs will be stable, long-term and based on cooperative partnerships among the Ontario government, farm groups and the financial community. The most striking feature of this strategy is that it was developed by and for the farm and rural people of Ontario. The spirit and much of the substance of the programs come directly from the recommendations of the farm finance committee.

I'm confident that this strategy will also act as a model for and springboard to greater rural community development. We have already begun focusing on a number of fronts on this issue. Our overall objective is to help rural communities help themselves. I strongly believe that local issues should be dealt with locally by the people they most affect. This is not only the most practical and cost-effective approach, but I think it restores a sense of pride in rural living that recently has been sorely lacking.

To this end, we have an excellent rural leadership training program called Ten Steps to Community Action. This program focuses on educating rural residents about the administration of government and the importance of leadership, organization and building consensus in the community behind a cause. I'm a firm believer in this program. It has been very well received by all participants.

There are plenty of willing and able people in our rural communities who have the energy and enthusiasm to really make a difference in the quality of life for themselves and their neighbours. It's time to create the opportunities for them to take charge.

Along these same lines, we're encouraging locally based economic activities. The ministry committed $200,000 to a producer-run cooperative in Haldimand-Norfolk. This venture should not only benefit its members, who will obtain better prices and more cohesive marketing efforts, but also the economy of the surrounding area.

We're also supporting the growth in farmers' markets, which have much to offer. They provide a direct market for local farmers and artisans, diversify the local economy, and act as a meeting place for the community. Close to 100 markets are now operating in Ontario, up from only 60 a couple of years ago, and we expect as many as 150 in the next year. These are just two of several directions we're taking that address both the issues of long-term economic revitalization and rural development.

Take our efforts to design new ways to protect our agricultural land, for example. As you will agree, a new program is essential in light of the current economic pressures on farmers, the increasing urban population and the public's heightened concern for the environment. For this program, we invited 16 representatives of farm and rural groups, environmental organizations, municipalities, regions and others to contribute to a discussion paper outlining the issues involved. The paper is currently being discussed at public meetings across the province. The suggestions we receive from this round of consultation will be incorporated in a new program to respond in a more balanced way to current agricultural and other land use needs.

Consultation, self-reliance and efficient program delivery are also key elements in the formation of Ontario Agri-Food Education Inc, which has taken over the administration of our successful Agriculture in the Classroom program. As you may know, this program brings education on how our agricultural processes work to primary and secondary schools in the province. With this decision, we put the power of program decision-making into the hands of the people and groups most affected by it. The new corporation provides an improved base from which to plan and coordinate program activities. It's also a tribute to the cooperative spirit growing among farmer groups, industry, government and local communities.

While we're working hard here in Ontario to renew and revitalize our economy, we have also supported and defended the province's interest in national programs and international trade arrangements. I am pleased that earlier this month, we got agreement from the federal government to extend the federal-provincial tobacco diversification program. As you know, tobacco farmers have been hit especially hard recently with significant reductions in domestic demand for their product. This program will provide much-needed continuity in maintaining the affected farms and their communities.

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Last year I announced Ontario's participation in two new national safety net programs: the market revenue insurance program and the net income stabilization account. In both cases, we negotiated the best possible deal for Ontario farmers. For the market revenue program, we wanted to offer our farmers the flexibility of a full range of options. In Ontario, farmers can sign up for the crop insurance component, the market revenue component or, if they wish, both components. I also worked hard with colleagues from across the country to ensure that the NISA program, which allows farmers to accumulate funds in good years to provide income supplement for bad years, included horticultural producers, and I'm continuing to press for the inclusion of other commodities, such as those under the tripartite stabilization programs.

On the international front, you may know that a final deal on the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade remains elusive. While we're hoping for a breakthrough in the next nine to 12 months, the uncertainty generated in world markets by this indecision has caused a great deal of anxiety here at home for our farmers and our food processors. However, the steadfast unity displayed throughout the negotiations among provincial and federal governments and a host of industry groups has been encouraging. The rally in Ottawa I attended in February sent a clear message from more than 30,000 farmers that we are firm in our resolve to obtain a fair and balanced deal.

Last fall I led a delegation of Ontario farm leaders to Brussels and Geneva to present our case directly to our negotiators and to several representatives from other nations. We had substantial discussions in which we pointed out the importance to Ontario of an agreement that supports our unique supply management system and reduces trade-distorting export subsidies.

Another essential component in our drive to stabilize and renew our agriculture and food sector is to increase Ontario's share of domestic and world markets. In this area, we are taking positive steps to heighten consumer confidence in the food we produce. One of our most exciting developments has been the construction of a state-of-the-art lab in Guelph. The lab is designed to increase our capacity to monitor and research environmental and food safety issues and to assist the food industry in quality assurance programs. When it opens in November, the agriculture and food laboratory services centre will assure consumers that the Ontario food products are the highest quality and rigorously tested by the most up-to-date technology and expertise in existence.

Along with high-quality standards, we must and are promoting our products here and abroad. Our excellent marketing and promotional programs through Foodland Ontario continue to show our residents the crucial connections between buying quality, homegrown products and supporting our essential farm and rural communities.

In the past year, we also introduced a new program dedicated to promoting the use of Ontario products in our restaurants, health care facilities, hotels and other institutions. The food service marketing program is effectively building more partnership between Ontario's producers and our food service industry.

In our worldwide efforts to promote our products, I'm proud to say that the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food helped generate more than $100 million in exports in 1991-92 through its export trade development projects. In addition to drumming up business through export missions, the ministry arranges for foreign buyers to visit Ontario and participate in trade shows, promotions and seminars around the world.

In the 18 months since OMAF's new business development program has been in place, more than 300 firms have been introduced to about 85 different technologies in key subsectors of the food processing industry. As a result, more than 40 firms have adopted new technologies from 11 countries.

Also in the food processing industry we introduced a $15-million program a year ago that is encouraging Ontario companies to invest in upgrading their processing technologies. More than $2 million has been committed to 12 companies in the program and they are now better equipped to compete in the tough world market.

The ministry has also established a food industry competitiveness branch to consult with and advise food industry players on competitiveness issues. In addition, this branch encourages the exchange of information within the food processing and retailing industry through seminars such as the total quality management seminar held in April.

Our ability to compete and the long-term viability of the entire sector depends as well on our proficiency in agriculture and food education, research and development. Through partnerships with the University of Guelph, our five affiliated colleges and the Ontario food and farming industry, we have made significant progress in these areas.

In research, for example, OMAF staff have developed a method of propagating strawberry plants that are so hardy that Florida growers imported 100,000 of them last year, generating $2.25 million in sales. The Florida growers have found that these plants produce more strawberries much earlier in the season than their own native plants.

On the home front, our research has enabled us to develop soilless tomato plug transplants that have nearly completely replaced imports from Georgia. Having Ontario-grown transplants means that growers can take advantage of lower prices, more predictable deliveries and fewer problems with pests or diseases. Equally important, the transplants are grown here in Ontario, meaning jobs here at home.

These are just two of dozens of success stories that show how the $52 million spent last year on research was money well spent.

Our colleges continue to distinguish themselves with high-calibre graduates and by reaching out in their own communities with extension courses for area farmers and others. This kind of dedicated involvement in the local areas will be a real asset in our efforts in rural community development.

Dedication is the key to creating a more environmentally sustainable agriculture and food system. We have witnessed plenty of it in our farmers, food processors, retailers and others.

This past year I was pleased to have chaired two ministry environmental advisory committees: one for the agricultural sector and one for the food industry sector. It was heartening to see how interested all the participants were in reviewing current environmental policy and in providing input for new government directions. Our discussions were candid, enlightening and, I must add, very useful both in terms of the amount of information we exchanged and in providing all of us, government and industry, with a full range of perspectives.

Two of our most successful environmental programs attest to our farmers' recognition of the importance of this issue. More than 14,000 farmers have completed projects to protect our valuable soil and water resources with help from OMAF's land stewardship programs which offer financial and advisory assistance to producers.

More than 38,000 producers have received training in the handling, storage and application of pesticides for health and environmental safety since 1988 under the Ontario pesticide education program.

I must mention one more example of our sector's dedication to the environment. The farm environmental agenda was created by a coalition of several farm groups. It is a testament to the foresight and concern shared by the entire farming community for conserving our precious natural resources for the future.

As the members will have noticed, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food has accomplished much over the past year and a half: We have initiated programs for the long-term renewal and growth of our farming community and food industry. We have begun helping our rural communities help themselves to a better future. We have fought hard to protect and advance the interests of our sector in national and international circles. We have heightened our ministry's profile in domestic and world markets through quality assurance and strategic promotion. We have made significant advances in research and development to ensure the future viability of the entire industry. We have continued and improved on efforts to make farming and food production in Ontario a more environmentally sustainable activity. We have done all this in a period of severe fiscal constraint.

The cooperation of our industry partners has been and will continue to be essential in the development of current and future directions. My ministry and I remain committed to ensuring that Ontario farmers, food processors, rural residents and all other participants in our sector have an integral role in renewing and revitalizing our farm and rural communities.

Despite the tremendous economic challenges we encountered in 1991-92, it was a productive year. I look forward to an even better and more productive 1992-93.

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The Chair: Thank you very much, Minister. Now if we may, in rotation, I'd like to recognize Mr Cleary.

Mr John C. Cleary (Cornwall): Minister, you touched briefly on it in your opening statement here, but do you have any figures to back up how successful your ad campaigns were that people should buy Ontario farm produce?

The Chair: Mr Cleary, to be helpful, would you like to proceed directly into questions or would you like to set out a series of questions and table them with the minister's staff at the moment?

Mr Cleary: Okay.

The Chair: We'll conduct it any way you wish. We'll take a moment.

Mr Cleary: I just have a number of questions here. If you wanted to move on to someone else, I would get them in order and just leave you a number of questions for tomorrow.

The Chair: What I'd like to do is to avail you of the appropriate time you're entitled to. In the course of the next half-hour, if you'd like to proceed to table a series of questions, would you like the minister and staff to record those, or would you like him to begin his responses now, to his ability to respond to them? Would you like staff to come back tomorrow with those answers? We can go either way.

Mr Cleary: I'm very flexible on it.

The Chair: I'm giving you the call here. This is your half-hour. You tell me how you'd like to order up your time.

Mr Cleary: I had a number of questions that I'd been concerned about for some time.

The Chair: Very good. Let's proceed. Mr Sorbara.

Mr Gregory S. Sorbara (York Centre): Sorry I came in late. I enjoyed immensely the minister's opening remarks. How are you dividing up the time? How much time we are going to spend on agricultural estimates? I noticed you mentioned half an hour.

The Chair: Five hours total. Our standing orders require a rotation for purposes of the minister and the critics to put on the record their concerns in what were sometimes loosely referred to as opening statements. Then the minister responds to those for up to a half an hour. That could take up as much as two hours of the process, which would leave us three hours.

Mr Sorbara: Might I just ask if our party could defer its half-hour opening statement. I know that my colleague the member for Cornwall has some questions. At your discretion, you might want to proceed with those questions now. We do want to reserve our right for half an hour of critical analysis, I say to my friend the minister, of his statement and the record of the ministry over the past year.

We could go into questions now, though, or you might want to defer to the opening statement from our good friends the Tories. I'm not sure what Mr Cleary's wish is, but he could begin by putting questions now. I don't want to lose the opportunity for the half-hour of opening statements.

The Chair: May I ask a question then? Mr Villeneuve, about how long would your opening statement take?

Mr Noble Villeneuve (S-D-G & East Grenville): Probably half the allocated time, something in the area of 15 minutes.

The Chair: Perhaps --

Mr Sorbara: Don't deny us.

The Chair: If Mr Sorbara would continue to be helpful, with Mr Cleary's permission, perhaps we should proceed to complete the opening statements portion. If you'll trust the Chair, we'll ensure that you make up your 15 minutes in additional questioning time, since that is your preferred wish.

To keep the rhythm of the estimates going, perhaps we can proceed with Mr Villeneuve to make a few comments on the record, then the minister's very brief response and then we'll begin the process. I will need at least two or three minutes to get your guidance on how we will operate through each of the votes.

If that is agreeable to you, Mr Cleary -- Hansard recognizes your nod in the approval. Mr Villeneuve, if you would be prepared to proceed, and then we'll go to the minister quickly.

Mr Villeneuve: Thank you very much, Mr Chair. Mr Minister, Madam Deputy Minister, I'm certainly pleased to see the Ag and Food staff here, with whom I have had occasion to work over a number of years in a very positive way, and I look forward to continue that way. As my colleague Mr Sorbara mentioned, there will be some probably critical comments oriented towards a positive ending, and I think that's what this is all about.

First, Mr Minister, you didn't for some reason mention that your ministry suffered a 6% reduction in overall budget. I can appreciate that financial times are difficult, but when we consider the 6% reduction and then look at the $12 million in additional funding which was required just to maintain the farm tax rebate at its present level, this means a considerable reduction in the amounts of money you will have to operate the ministry.

First, I understand that the actual support for farmers, actual cheques to farmers, will certainly not be going up, in that there is less money.

Second, I think we have to consider the very difficult economic situation faced certainly by producers of grain, red meats, the tobacco industry, the fruit and vegetable industry and indeed the supply management industries, which are very nervous about GATT decisions, which have been a very long time coming, are still not here and we really don't know if they will be forthcoming in any way, shape or form.

I will zero in on a number of issues I intend to question on. I have already requested from one of your assistant deputy ministers information pertaining to the tendering system, and Dr Collin is in the process of obtaining some replies to that. It's something where we need to know exactly what's happening.

In the ethanol area, where grains will be used as the main feedstock for the production of ethanol, it's great to realize that this week indeed United Co-operatives of Ontario and Sunoco will be opening a number of retail outlets to the public that will be using ethanol as the octane enhancer. It's very important that we as soon as possible produce this ethanol in Ontario, a renewable resource, homegrown, reducing pollution; it's a win-win-win situation. I've yet to see a negative on that one, Mr Minister. We've discussed this on a number of occasions and I know you agree with me.

I'll be questioning along those lines, particularly in the area of the cogeneration plants, some of which are coming to my area. I'm not sure what sort of input Ag and Food would have with the Ministry of Energy and with Ontario Hydro, but maybe we can get into that one. There seems to be something about the left hand not knowing there is a right hand and vice versa, and I think we need to discuss that.

I know you also visited the great southwest, the sun parlour of Ontario, last fall. The Kent-Essex area certainly was hit very hard economically. Their request for support was somewhere in the area of $20 million and your ministry -- and it was appreciated -- was able to come up for the entire province with $35.5 million in support. But whenever we look at a very well-planned and well-done study from the farmers in the Kent-Essex area, supporting and substantiating without stretching anything to the limit that indeed $20 million was their requirement, people are falling quite short.

I had occasion to visit the group known as The Line in the Dirt, people who are in a mixed farming area, basically in grains and red meat production; very difficult times in that part of Ontario and certainly they have put forth a very commendable presentation, and groups that have not been vociferous and really create havoc or problems. However, they have transmitted the message that through no fault of their own, their net income is very substantially reduced and they're looking for some support and some assistance.

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The deadstock removal issue, Mr Minister, we have spoken of on a number of occasions. I know you're quite familiar with the problem. I had occasion to meet with the united counties of Prescott and Russell about 10 days ago, and last week, our constituency week, I met with the united counties of Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry. I'm afraid it's a very explosive situation. Machabee Animal Food, which is by far the main deadstock gatherer in the area, told us that in the last full year of operation it picked up about 25,000 animal carcasses. They're now under user-pay, requesting funding from the farmers who have suffered the loss. As one who has fed livestock, I can appreciate that if you have animals and they start costing you money to remove them as dead animals it's a very severe loss. That's part of the problem.

As an industry, we'll have to face that. Your ministry, as the lead ministry, has to look at it. My concern here is that it could well fall into the hands of a number of other groups of individuals. We do know that in eastern Ontario -- I presume I speak for most parts of Ontario and certainly northern Ontario -- there are six months of the year when livestock cannot be disposed of according to the requirements. It's an industry that has to be looked at.

There is a number of other areas: The fruit and vegetable producers of the Niagara Peninsula are going through some very difficult times. You and your ministry officials in your wisdom have decided to challenge each and every possible request for severance. That has created a very difficult situation.

Yesterday I met with a group of farmers in my own area who all of a sudden, lo and behold, had the Ministry of Natural Resources decide that part of their land holdings were indeed class 1, 2 or 3 wetlands. Very annoyed individuals we have here, who feel effectively as if people from the Ministry of Natural Resources have taken some waterfront property, some of their finest property, which to them was money in the bank for their retirement, and literally rifled their savings in designating those areas. I realize we need some protection, but we have to remember that people have to have rights as land owners as well. I think that is an area we have to look at.

I believe your ministry should be the lead ministry if indeed labour law reform is going to come into this province. According to the Minister of Labour, replying to a question from me on the last Thursday we sat prior to the constituency break, he wants labour law reform to apply to agriculture if at all possible. I'm paraphrasing; those are not his exact words.

Because of the nature of agriculture and perishable produce primarily, I suppose the grain industry could be exempt. But if you start exempting part of the industry, Mr Minister, I think farmers are prepared to look at updating labour reform, but not under the same ministry that administers the labour force at Ford or GM or any of those types of production plants. They are not at all comparable, and I think the Ministry of Agriculture and Food should be the lead ministry in administering labour reform if it has to apply to agriculture.

A number of other areas: I think we should be in the promotion of Ontario wines, whereby the tax on Ontario wines as a promotional issue in the restaurant industry should be your responsibility as the lead ministry. Ontario does have some of the finest wines anywhere, bar none. I'll stand behind that statement. We have to promote that industry. Free trade has not hurt it as much as was anticipated, and that's a positive. Let's build on positives.

Those are my opening remarks. I have a number of other areas that are to some degree maybe not quite as important. However, the overall economics of agriculture are very difficult, as you well know, and I think we have to work on this not in an adversarial way but together, to try to assist what has been a basic industry in Ontario, in my humble opinion. I have some people who would argue with me, but I think agriculture is even more important than the car industry. I can tell you that I will go without a car under my carport as long as I can still have a couple of square meals a day.

The Chair: Mr Villeneuve, you do have some time left. Did you want to put some questions? I just wanted to suggest that the minister will offer up some summary comments at this time, unless you wanted to add some of your questions.

Mr Villeneuve: I have questions which I can proceed with in due course. I know you are very careful with the time allocation and I appreciate that, Mr Chair.

The Chair: Are they in print form?

Mr Villeneuve: Yes, they are.

The Chair: Very good. Perhaps the minister would like to respond briefly, and then we'll begin the regular rotation and I'll get guidance from the committee.

Hon Mr Buchanan: On the issue of reduction of budgets, I'm going to ask the deputy to give some numbers. I would like to make one comment, though. The $15-million interest assistance package which I alluded to in my remarks was in fact in the base budget a year ago. So you take that out, you take out $15 million to start off with, and then you build back from that. We didn't quite build back to where we were and we certainly didn't add on, but there were other ministries, of course, that were in the same position.

I want you to know that I feel relatively satisfied -- maybe not happy -- that we were able to recover a very large portion of that $15 million which was taken out, because it was in the base budget. I'll ask the deputy to give you some more numbers in a couple of minutes.

In terms of ethanol, we've had discussions about its viability and its importance to the grain industry and also its importance, I believe, to the livestock industry. There is an interministerial committee. It held two days of consultations on April 28 and April 29. There are many projects out there now. We're basically trying to do an evaluation of the different projects and come up with some recommendations or summary comments that will come back to me. I'm quite prepared to have Len Roozen here tomorrow to answer specific questions. I sense that's an issue members may want to ask about, so we'll try to accommodate you with that tomorrow.

In terms of Essex-Kent and the very difficult situation we had last summer across the province not only because of drought but because of low prices, we did come up with $35.5 million. We recognize that it's never really enough. We have been trying to put more emphasis, though, into long-term programs. We've been trying to put more of the money we do have into the gross revenue insurance plan, GRIP, the net income stabilization account, NISA, and farm finance longer-term programs and will continue to try to develop programs that will be in place that farmers can count on.

I'm interested in the fact that you made a comment on The Line in the Dirt organization. The first time I met them was in a very confrontational situation at, I believe it's called, the Western Fair in London, which was a very tense and very difficult half-hour. We had a little chat on the front steps of one of the buildings there. Subsequent to that, we've had a couple of very good informal meetings, including one in my office where they made some presentations. It is a very hard-working, dedicated group with some ideas, and we certainly have taken time to listen to some of its ideas and will continue to do so.

The dead stock issue is a very difficult one. Obviously there's a need for some changing attitudes. I believe government certainly has a role to play, and we're sort of monitoring and working our way through in trying to decide what is the best thing to do and how we should respond.

One thing I would say is that I can recall, if you go back a number of years, when people used to go around rural communities and buy various items that were considered scrap by farmers, from batteries to old plowshares to almost anything.

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Mr Villeneuve: Horsehair.

Hon Mr Buchanan: Yes, horsehair, which you saved in a bag in the stable and it was picked up by somebody who was going to give you two or three cents a pound for it. Those days are gone.

Similarly, when deadstock operators picked up dead animals, there used to be payment, as I'm sure you know. Economies have changed and things have turned around, and now people who have scrap generally have to pay to get rid of it. There is a need, perhaps, for education and changing attitudes on behalf of livestock producers about how we dispose of dead animals.

There is a problem with money, obviously, in the farm community. We do need to address the farm income situation. If we can do that, then I think we can probably address the deadstock situation.

The wetlands issue is one that we continue to work on with MNR and other ministries, and we do as much as we can to coordinate responses in that area. Times are changing. There was a time when wetlands were seen as a resource that could be drained and farmed, but now attitudes are obviously changing because of new information about ecosystems and their importance. Again, there is a need for education, and what does the farmer get when he protects the wetland or the ANSI? Those are big questions that we don't have the answers for today, and we may not have them tomorrow or the next day either. But they are obviously issues that need to be discussed in cooperation with the farm community, with governments and with farm organizations to find an appropriate response.

On the OLRA, as I'm sure you are aware, there is a task force out there made up of farm leaders and labour people and others. They are, I hope, going to table their report, if not this week then early next week, which will go to the Minister of Labour. We will be looking at that and then making some suggestions and recommendations.

My sense is that many of the farm leaders in the province at this time are not asking for a continued exemption. They are willing to waive the exemption for agriculture from the OLRA. What other recommendations are in there, we'll have to wait and see what the response is. We recognize the fact that chicken hatcheries and other agricultural enterprises cannot be treated the same as a car plant. You do have perishable commodities, you have animals you have to take into consideration, and we need to have a dispute settlement mechanism in place to address those concerns. I think the Minister of Labour, myself and the farm leaders all recognize that and it would have to be incorporated.

I really appreciate your support for Ontario wines and I think we all have to do our bit. We are all salespeople when it comes to promoting Ontario products, whether it's wine or chicken or whatever. I encourage all members to do their bit to encourage consumption of Ontario products.

The Chair: Thank you again very much, Minister. Now I need to get guidance from the committee as to how we will order our business for this time. I'd like to recognize Mr Sorbara.

Mr Sorbara: I might suggest to you that we'll proceed now with opening comments, beginning with my colleague Mr Cleary from Cornwall. I think Mr Eddy from Brant-Haldimand will have a few comments as well, and if there's any time remaining in the half-hour I guess I could think of something or other to say.

The Chair: This is a change of position, is it?

Mr Sorbara: You got that right.

The Chair: Okay. At this point I'm going to extend 15 minutes for comments to the Liberal --

Mr Sorbara: I thought it was a half-hour per caucus.

The Chair: Well, Mr Sorbara, on two occasions today I have explained the procedure, and I was in the committee's hands. We were proceeding with an understanding that you were waiving your commentary portion and we were going to proceed with estimates. If you would like me to review that, my decision was just made that I am granting you 15 minutes, as I did the Conservatives. We will forget that you're out of turn and that the minister has no formal rebuttal, but we will extend that. But I'm not prepared to extend half an hour when we were proceeding with another set of assumptions.

At the completion of your 15 minutes, I would like to resolve now, if I may, how we wish to proceed. Given that -- I have to handle this delicately -- the members of the official opposition have not been at the estimates table before or for some time, I would set out what the options are and then I'd like the committee to decide how we will proceed.

Estimates can proceed by a structured time allocation where we move from caucus to caucus and time frames are divided by agreement. We can, if you wish, proceed simply in an open forum, which is committee style, and questions can be asked and other members can ask supplementary and the Chair will endeavour to do that fairly but in accordance with people's requests to be recognized.

How many votes are there for agriculture? We have six votes, so we also have to decide whether you wish to discuss all sections simultaneously or go through the various sections and vote. Those are the matters I need as Chair to resolve before we begin the next phase.

Mr Villeneuve: I believe it's fairly clearly set out in the estimates book as to votes 101, 102, 103. I would like to treat them as they are set up in the estimates book. When we get to the termination of vote 101, as an example, we could then proceed with the vote on that.

The Chair: You do not wish to stack the votes; you'd like to proceed in accordance with the -- that's fine.

Mr Villeneuve: I'm easy on that.

Mr Gilles Bisson (Cochrane South): Just in regard to your first request, I think our caucus would be agreeable to go with time allocation, if that's okay with everybody else. You were looking for some direction and that's basically how we feel. I'll deal with the other issues as they come along.

The Chair: As they come along; so you want me to sequentially go through the votes. Once we vote on one of the votes -- just so you understand the procedure --

Mr Bisson: No, stack the votes until the end. But I was --

The Chair: Stack the votes until the end. Thank you.

Mr Bisson: In response to how we should deal with it, we'll go section by section, if that's what they want.

The Chair: I understand that. Your reference to "as they go along" meant stacking the votes?

Mr Bisson: That's right.

Mr Sorbara: Mr Chairman, I can count and I don't count a majority in the opposition parties. I think, though, it's regrettable if we move to time allocation at this point. Generally, my experience has been that when I've done estimates, either from over here or from over there, they work best in the second model you described; that is, a more open forum where my friend from Essex can ask a question and if I'm interested in following up on that question or something the minister or an official from the ministry has said, then I'm free to chime in, as they say, with a supplementary. It works more effectively. After all, this committee is primarily the time the opposition has to really investigate what is going on in government. It is primarily through opposition parties, but government members as well, that the public can have its queries answered as well. But obviously we're not a majority here, so if the government is going to insist on time allocation, we would have to accept that.

Mr Pat Hayes (Essex-Kent): The government has no problem in going in rotation and each party being able to supplement. I think that's proper and fair.

Mr Sorbara: If I might, Mr Chairman, the difference is as to whether each party is going to be allowed a specific number of minutes in the time available to us or we're going to have a more free-flowing discussion. I would simply advocate the more free-flowing discussion so that Mr Bisson's questions are not cut off.

Mr Bisson: I'm very short-winded.

Mr Sorbara: Anyway, I would advocate that. I think it would make for a better estimates process. At least that has been my experience.

Mr Larry O'Connor (Durham-York): Just further along the lines Mr Sorbara has been mentioning, in sitting in this committee last fall I noticed quite often that questions, whether they were from the opposition, the third party or the government, as the time was allocated, did flow from one party to the other. Questions that were pertinent weren't dropped necessarily when the third party had finished; quite often the government picked up on them as well. As members representing constituencies and concerns for our constituents, we're all quite concerned about the estimates of each ministry.

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Mr Villeneuve: Mr Chair, are we still talking about a time allocation, if indeed supplementaries can be asked? I have no problem with that. It may make a bit of a difficult situation for the clerk.

The Chair: Under time allocation, 15 minutes or 20 minutes or half-hour segments are carved out. They go in rotation; no supplementaries are allowed except within the caucuses. We have to be careful that the ministry, when it does respond, doesn't respond in the middle of somebody's time allocation and use that all up. There are some difficulties for the Chair, but we're willing to go under any circumstances.

The old system was with people who had questions and were prepared to discuss them, and as long as they were reasonably brief, the system has worked very well. Mr Hayes and I have participated in estimates in opposition. Mr Sorbara has participated in them in government. You certainly have participated, in both government and in opposition, but there are several new members who have not been in estimates under that method. Somehow the time allocation seems a comfortable way to go for them.

Mr Bisson: We're rather easy on whatever the method is, whatever is easier and whatever is a consensus. We'd be willing to go along with whatever people feel comfortable with, but we want them to behave.

Mr Sorbara: We have no intention of behaving.

Mr Bisson: In that case, we're going to have time allocation.

The Chair: If I don't get a consensus, I'll be making a ruling in a matter of moments. We will stack the votes; I get a clear consensus on that. Mr Cleary is going to be given his 15 minutes and then we're going to begin this process of questioning from the estimates books, and the staff are ready to respond. Mr Sorbara, your final comment on this matter.

Mr Sorbara: My final comment is, I don't think we have any problem with the stacking of the votes. That's generally been more effective. I think we're hearing a consensus to allow for a free flow of questions as between the three parties. My one addendum to that would be that you, in your capacity as Chair, ensure that as we go through the hours allocated for estimates each of the three parties is receiving an equitable, not a proportionate, amount of time.

Mr Hayes: Mr Chair, I thought our whip made it clear that we don't really have a problem with the free flow and giving everybody an opportunity. We know that the Chair is impartial here.

The Chair: Then the last comment falls with me. Unfortunately I have a funeral to go to tomorrow, a very important one, so Mr Carr will be in the chair. I'm sure Mr Carr will be able to serve your needs.

The other point I'd like to make, of course, is that it is always helpful when the minister and/or staff present their responses in a clear, brief and concise manner. That, in the eight years I've been doing estimates, hasn't always been the case.

Mr Sorbara: It never occurred.

The Chair: No. Maybe you and I weren't able to do it, Greg, when I was your critic, but certainly I sense that the Minister of Agriculture and Food, from the way he responds in the House, is brief, concise and attempts to do that. But I felt it was important to make that statement, because there are some difficulties in estimates when the minister takes a 15-minute allocation of one of the questioners, a three-minute question is asked, with a lot of preamble in it, and then the minister can take seven, eight and nine minutes to answer one question. We've had that experience as a committee of estimates. I'm not naming names; I just simply suggest to you it is that process that we're about to embark on that breaks down when a minister takes a simple question and runs it for 10 minutes. That has been known to happen.

Mr Sorbara: Did you know that once --

The Chair: Mr Sorbara, I did indicate it was your last comment. I would like to proceed.

Mr Sorbara: This is anecdotal.

The Chair: Is it anecdotal?

Mr Sorbara: A minister was so mad at what was going on in estimates that she, as minister, gave a 17-hour speech in 20 hours of estimates. She got back at the parties. It was a brilliant move, tactically.

The Chair: Thank you for that historical footnote for something. We will proceed to stack the votes. I would be pleased to receive a first series of questions from the Liberals -- we'll get to your comments, Mr Sorbara -- in order to get Mr Cleary's questions on the records. As you realize, we are only doing five hours of agricultural estimates. We will reconvene tomorrow and we will be finished agricultural estimates by 6 o'clock tomorrow evening. So we need to ensure that in today's activity we get all the questions on record that may require staff research and additional help. That is helpful to staff and therefore it's helpful to the process, so that is how we will proceed. Mr Cleary, I'd like to recognize you for your comment portion of the 15 minutes.

Mr Cleary: Last year, the ministry's look-ahead conference was criticized for not being representative of the current agricultural issues. The agenda was totally oriented to environmental concerns and ignored the financial crisis that farmers were facing. How was this environmental theme chosen? Do we feel we got value for our money? What was the cost of hosting this conference?

Another thing I'm concerned about is what the forecast percentage changes in net revenue for Ontario farmers are this year and how they would compare to last year and the previous years. What are the farm bankruptcy figures for 1991? How do they compare to previous years? What were the statistics for total accumulated farm debt?

Another issue facing many farmers I know in my part of Ontario and in other areas is Bill 162. Can the minister indicate whether he has any concerns about the impact of Bill 162 on the deer and fish farmers? Has he spoken to his cabinet colleagues, especially the Minister of Natural Resources, about this issue? If Bill 162 goes as planned, who will look after the compensation for investment losses?

One other thing I was wondering about was that the minister didn't indicate much in his opening remarks about the update on the move to Guelph. What is the timetable for completing this move?

Other things that surface reasonably often are the cuts in field staff in agriculture, and about our existing agricultural offices: We would like to know if there are any future plans on downsizing in these offices.

In An Agenda for People there was $100 million annually on credit assistance. We wondered about an update for that.

Last fall the minister announced $35.5 million in emergency agriculture assistance. A number of farm groups had indicated their concerns that less than $30 million of the money was actually spent. This past April, in a question from our leader in the House, the minister again made reference to a $35.5-million package. Could the minister give us details and explain any components that were underspent?

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Another thing we were never able to find out, but information we have been asked for many times: How much did the ministry spend in fighting the Ottawa Senators arena proposal at the OMB? We were also asked if the minister was happy with the final position.

Another thing we all get letters about, I guess, is the London boundary reforms, as contained in the Brant report. This seems to have upset a number of farm groups in the London area. I happen to get that often, because I have a relative living there.

Another thing, on GRIP and NISA: They're both supposed to be in place for 1992. Can the minister explain why the province refused to provide NISA funding last year even though it would have triggered a higher level of federal payout?

Another thing we're asked too, Minister, and maybe you could explain if there are any plans to bring more commodities under GRIP.

Can the minister explain whether there are any plans to cap GRIP and NISA coverage or even to link the programs to environmental controls?

We would also like to ask a question on the farm tax rebate. Can the minister indicate whether the current farm tax rebate structure will also be in place for next year?

The thing I started with previously was if the minister has any statistics on how successful the ad campaign has been in convincing consumers to financially support Ontario farmers. If there is no analysis of the campaign, how does the minister know whether the ads are working?

Getting back to a pilot ethanol project, I was asked as late as this morning by a group of farmers who have already sent in their cheques to be partners in that project who want to know what involvement the provincial government will provide in helping start this pilot plant. A lot of cheques have come in already and there are more coming.

Another thing I would like to ask you about: We've had a farmer in, Mr Ben Berendsen, a number of times, and we'd like to get an update from you as far as the agriculture ministry is concerned. I know it's an environment problem, but I would like to get an update on where that project is at.

Another thing that comes up often is crop insurance. It seems to me there was another campaign promise to provide higher provincial funding assistance on crop insurance. Do we have any plans to review the crop insurance as per the recommendations of commodity groups on the floating rate and on zero years? I'll turn it over to my colleague.

The Acting Chair (Mr Pat Hayes): Is that the end of the member's comments?

Mr Sorbara: I've got just a few comments. I'm going to try to fill out the time.

Mr Cleary: I just wondered how long we had.

The Acting Chair: You have about three minutes or so.

Mr Sorbara: Three minutes. I'm going to try to make it as brief as possible.

Mr Villeneuve: That's not going to be easy.

Mr Sorbara: It's not going to be.

I say with the greatest of respect, this is an extremely disappointing perspective, statement and introduction to what must be considered some of the most serious problems this province faces.

I had the pleasure of being a candidate for the leadership of my party over the course of the past year, ending in February, and that gave me an opportunity to do quite a bit of travelling around the province as well. Yes, we are hurting in our cities and, yes, we've lost 300,000 industrial jobs, but I want to tell the minister and I want to tell this committee that nowhere was the pain as hard as on the farm. It didn't matter where you were, those people working the land were the ones who seemed to me, outside of all partisan parts of the process, to be really hurting.

For you to come here and say that when you took over the portfolio 18 months ago you found a little pain and, as you say, years of coping with economic pressures, and to say that now you have a three-part program: (1) economic stability -- you've got nothing in here for economic stability. Your estimates are saying you're going to spend less than you did last year.

Then environmental sustainability. That's not new. That's been going on for a long time. Maybe you added about an ounce of value to it, you reiterated it, but it's not new. I'm sorry, that was the third.

The second, closely related to that, was rural community development. Your predecessors, Riddell and Ramsay, were far ahead of you on the question of rural community development and moving from dealing simply with agriculture and food to dealing with the rural economy as a whole.

The thing that really burns me, as I read this, is not just the lack of real vision and the lack of real new programming in an area that is subject to the most brutal of international competition, as well as problems that are localized down to the hundred acres in wheat -- they expand that dramatically. To say that now we've found the solution and, as you conclude, "We've heightened our industry's profile, we've made significant advances and we've done all of this in a period of severe fiscal restraint," I just want to bet you the family farm that if you go out there and talk to farmers right now they'll say it's hurting as much as ever. Things have not improved. One day I would like to come to an estimates committee where ministers acknowledge what is really happening out there.

The final point I want to make is that I want you to put forward to this committee some sort of comparative analysis as to what your party put in its program for reform, its agenda for reform, and to what extent you have accomplished that program. As a candidate, what were you saying you were going to do in the agricultural community and how much of that have you accomplished?

I have a great deal of respect for your ministry staff. As a minister in a government, I worked with these people; I know they are all very well meaning. I simply want to tell you, sir, that this does not match what you said in opposition, it does not match what you campaigned on and, worst of all, it doesn't match what needs to be done out there.

There is a huge amount of disenchantment with governments at all levels when it comes to agricultural issues. Farmers say more and more: "We don't look to anyone for help. We're exposed to these competitive pressures and no one, it seems, at any level of government understands our problems." I just want to say to the minister that this does not represent any progress whatsoever and that we desperately need progress in this sector. I'm sorry for taking a minute or two more than I was allocated.

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Mr Bisson: The humble Greg Sorbara.

The Chair: Actually, according to our notes you have two more minutes left.

Mr Sorbara: Your substitute Chair said three minutes. I'll go on for another hour on this if you want me to, but I think my colleague Mr Cleary wants to have a word as well.

The Chair: Mr Cleary, you have two more minutes.

Mr Cleary: My colleague Noble talked about farm severances. I know there are many zoning bylaws and official plans in place in our parts of Ontario. Just in the last week or two most of these severances were 120-foot frontages, and it is my understanding now that they're going to increase to a 200-foot frontage by 400 feet deep. That is what I read on the weekend. It came out in letter form from the health unit.

I'd just like the minister to comment on that. Is that strictly Environment or is it the Ministry of Agriculture and Food or what is it? In many parts of Ontario there's a lot of very marginal land, and I guess the only use for that is industrial, commercial or housing. That sure has got a lot of rural people upset if there's any truth in it.

The Chair: This has been rather unorthodox up to this point, so I am going to try to suggest we're in a position with the following set of circumstances. Because we've skewed the response, the minister now should be given a certain amount of time to respond to the questions that have been raised by Mr Cleary in his opening statements. I note the minister has made copious notes, as has his staff.

Given that we have one hour left, I think it is helpful to the process that we continue the exchange of questions and answers to ensure most of the questions get on the record today. I think this is very important for us. Then the minister can perhaps begin tomorrow's session by answering some of the more detailed questions that have been raised by Mr Cleary in his opening statements, and I understand Mr Villeneuve has brought some of his questions in print form, which he will share with the ministry staff. Unless the minister would like to respond to one or two of those questions now, then we'll proceed with an exchange of questions and answers.

Hon Mr Buchanan: Yes, there are a few I would like to respond to that I think we can take care of right now. I'll do it very quickly and try to allude to the question as I understand it. Basically I noted the questions in one or two words, so I hope I can respond from memory in some cases.

On the last point on severances, obviously there has been concern across rural Ontario about who gets them, how they're obtained and whether it's fair if one person gets one on one side of the road why you can't get one on the other side of the road. It's been a problem for many years. We're operating, as I'm sure the members know, on Food Land Guidelines, which are in fact just guidelines. We have just embarked on a process whereby we are holding, I believe, 15 or 16 different consultation meetings across the province to deal with agricultural land use and its preservation.

I want to make it very clear that we're not just looking at trying to preserve the agricultural land. I would like the rules to be very clear at the end of this process so that it's very clear what the rules are for land that's suitable for housing or suitable for something else, because we know that in many cases some of the regulations that have been in place in the past have been a delaying mechanism for development. There are many I'm aware of in my own area, and I know in other areas of the province, where there's all kinds of private development, housing, that would take place if we knew what the guidelines were and we could move this process forward. We'd like to have some clear rules in place that will preserve agricultural land and that will allow development and in fact speed it up in other areas. We hope this consultation will provide that.

There was a mention of crop insurance, the question of review. There are ongoing reviews of crop insurance. A number of the different programs are reviewed on a regular basis.

You mentioned additional commodities being brought into GRIP and NISA. That's something I have been suggesting to my colleagues across the country; we would very much like to see additional crops currently under the tripartite program, and some of the others, included in GRIP and NISA because we believe these are long-term programs that farmers can count on and that will provide more stability for the future of agriculture.

There was a question of caps. At this time there's no consideration of caps. It's something we discussed and I argued in favour of. I got no support from the other provincial ministers and we have no plans to introduce caps at any kind of retroactive point in time.

The farm tax rebate issue was raised. In terms of next year we have asked the Treasurer to put that on fast track to the Fair Tax Commission and to come back with some recommendations for the farm tax rebate or a system of farm taxes that would be fair. We would like the commission to come back with some recommendations prior to next year when a decision might come forward on this program.

There was also a question raised as to why we were not full participants in NISA last year, and this is a question I've answered many times. Had I got sufficient warning from Mr Mazankowski, who was the minister, that he was going to provide carrots for provinces to participate, I probably would've been in the program, but we had already gone through a very lengthy process setting our budget and what we were going to spend money on.

At one minute to midnight I got a call from Mr Mazankowski asking me to participate in an enhanced NISA program. It's very difficult to make adjustments and reverse course and find the money in -- I think I had 48 hours or so to make my decision. I was just unable, as I'm sure any other minister would be, to make that kind of commitment on that short notice. So we stuck to our guns and proceeded with what we could afford and what we decided to spend our money on, recognizing the fact that it did in fact mean that our producers didn't get the benefit of that extra 0.5% for NISA, but that's the real world out there.

There was another question on Bill 162, which I would like to respond to in terms of game farming in the province. Yes, I have talked to the minister. In fact, I've talked to him many times on Bill 162. I've also met with the deer farmers at least twice. I've met privately with individual game farmers across the province. I'm aware of their concerns. We continue to represent their interests to the minister and ministry. There was a supplementary to the question, asking about the loss of investment if, for example, white-tailed deer farming was deemed to be illegal or you couldn't participate in white-tailed deer farming.

Mr Villeneuve: Undesirable.

Hon Mr Buchanan: Undesirable, that's the word. Thank you. What would the loss of investment be and who would deal with that? Those are the kinds of details that would have to be worked out if in fact that was the intent and the result of Bill 162, which is a long way from even second reading, as I understand, at this point. There will be lots of time to deal with loss of investment issues when that's before us as I intend to represent game farmers very strongly; but we can work at that later.

There are a number of other questions dealing with numbers in farm bankruptcies, farm debt, the London annexation, the ad campaign, the ethanol which I suggested already we will deal with tomorrow, and the Berendsen case which we will address tomorrow.

Back to your very first question, in terms of the topic for the look-ahead conference last year which dealt with the environment, that decision came up through the program and policies division and staff. You should note that although last year was a very difficult year for agriculture economically, when we came to government I think one of the biggest concerns in farmers' minds was our environmental policies and programs.

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They were very concerned with what we were going to do, what the environmental bill of rights was going to do to agriculture. It was a very big topic in the farm community, and I just would suggest that many farmers were very interested in knowing what this government planned to do in the environment. This particular conference gave them an opportunity to talk about the environment, and one of the outcomes perhaps is the initiative that the farm groups took on their own to get involved and put together an initiative and a booklet on the environment which has been well received.

There was some criticism that we were having a conference dealing with the environment during tough economic times. Nevertheless, the planning for these kinds of conferences goes into place a way ahead of time. You don't plan it at the last minute. In fact, I would suggest that because of that conference and some of the criticism that was levelled -- and I don't think it was fair, much of it -- we have undertaken a new process to plan future outlook conferences. We've already had two meetings with farm leaders and food industry leaders to look at what our vision will be for the future of agriculture and the food industry, and we're cooperatively planning the next set of conferences that we'll have on agriculture and food.

I think the other questions, Mr Chairman, we can probably deal with tomorrow.

The Chair: Thank you very much. I guess at this point we should afford Mr Villeneuve a moment to put on the record his series of questions. We'll facilitate that and then we'll begin a rotation of questions. I think that'll be helpful.

Mr Villeneuve: My first one would be a supplementary to the critic from the Liberal Party. What would it have cost the Ministry of Agriculture and Food to participate in NISA in 1991? Ten million?

Hon Mr Buchanan: Approximately $10 million; that's give or take one.

Mr Villeneuve: Ten million dollars, and it would have given farm families in Ontario a total of about $48,000,000, if indeed Ontario participation had occurred.

Hon Mr Buchanan: I believe those numbers are a little high, but we'd better make sure I'm giving you accurate numbers.

Mr Villeneuve: Okay. I thought it was $12 million and it would have been a potential of $40 million back for between 40 and 55 million farmers.

Mr Anthony Perruzza (Downsview): For about how many farmers?

Mr Villeneuve: Between 40 and 55 thousand farmers, sorry.

Hon Mr Buchanan: One of the problems with the numbers is that some of the original numbers that came out included government support programs in terms of net income, and when you took 1.5% of that, it was much higher than the numbers we were actually working with.

There were numbers, as I recall, out in the press which were fairly high. Our suggested numbers were much lower than that. We were operating on two different levels, so there was a discrepancy with what we were actually working with and what the numbers were out in the public. I don't remember the actual numbers, but I do know there was a major discrepancy between the numbers that were circulating sort of publicly and those numbers that we were actually working with based on net income.

Mr Villeneuve: Between $10 million and $12 million of investment by Agriculture and Food would have brought likely a minimum of $28 million to $40 million back to Ontario agriculture. This would be ballpark.

Hon Mr Buchanan: I'll get the accurate numbers for you tomorrow.

Mr Villeneuve: Okay. My concern at that time was that a certain aircraft manufacturer employing slightly more than 3,000 people was able to go after $349 million to continue the ongoing process of losing money. That concerns me. I think it tells me that you probably represent Ontario agriculture as well as you can at a cabinet table that is not leaning towards the people out in rural Ontario. I have concerns about that, Mr Minister.

I won't ask you to comment on that, but I'm simply drawing your attention to the kind of money that was readily available through a very strong lobbyist known as Mr White for the Canadian Auto Workers' industry at de Havilland -- we might as well name it. Some $349 million became readily available and some federal money became readily available, yet we were not able to find, at the 11th hour, if you will, $10 million to trigger some $30 million to $40 million for Ontario agriculture. That concerns me, particularly when the economy is the way it is out in rural Ontario.

I just want to put that on the record. It's water under the bridge, but that is what we in rural Ontario and you as as our Minister of Agriculture and Food have to fight -- a very difficult battle. I can appreciate that you're putting up a good fight at the cabinet table, but those are facts.

I will be dealing now with vote 101, if you don't mind. Can I go ahead and question and get an answer? The questions are not long; the answers should not be long. Then we can proceed with whatever time allocation our party has. I'll gladly forfeit the floor any time, Mr Chair, that you say so.

The Chair: I'll give the minister an opportunity to respond, but to clarify it, we're not really in time allocation. We will attempt, if you wish, to proceed with votes. It's helpful when you clarify which section your questions are in. It's helpful to staff and it's helpful to members. If other members have questions on vote 101, then the Chair is willing to recognize them while we spend some time on vote 101, but I'll be recognizing any other questioners or supplementary questions.

Mr Villeneuve: Possibly I should allow the minister to comment.

The Chair: The minister wanted to respond to your statement and then you can proceed with a couple of questions, if you like.

Hon Mr Buchanan: I'd like to respond about what we have done in terms of initiatives, when you talk about some industrial situations where government has responded to needs.

One of the problems, in my estimation, from which the farm community has suffered, probably over the last decade or more, is that it has been divided into various splinter groups. You have many different organizations representing the agriculture and food industry in rural Ontario.

One of the things we've tried to foster -- and I think I've worked very hard, along with my colleagues from the rural areas, and I would also suggest that members of the opposition from rural ridings have also helped in many regards -- is to bring the farming community together, to bring the different organizations together, perhaps in some cases to lobby government, but in more cases to present a unified voice as to what their needs are.

Obviously their needs are economic, but when you look at the NISA program, for example, and if we had been involved, you're talking about the grain and oilseed sector. At the same time you have pork countervail and you have the pork industry in difficulty, you have the beef industry in difficulty and other people in other sectors also in difficulty.

I think what we've been trying to do is encourage the different organizations, and we've done some things on stable funding and we continue to have the farm groups sit around the table to talk about the environment, to have them work together and try to come up with a unified voice so that governments of all levels can respond to agriculture and food in a unified, cohesive way.

Once you get that, then governments can respond, I think, in a much more effective way than simply responding to all the different organizations that represent different commodities. By encouraging that kind of cooperation, I think governments of all political stripes and at all levels will be able to respond better to the needs of agriculture.

Mr Villeneuve: I can assure you, Mr Minister, that governments previous to this one have tried to do the same, but possibly the economic vice was not tight enough. I can assure you now, from what I saw at several meetings with The Line in the Dirt folks particularly, where a few years ago what was good for me was not necessarily good for my neighbour and vice versa, they're pulling together now and I think it's the economic situation that's brought it all about.

One thing that concerns me, Mr Minister, is that about $165 million is the amount of funding that you will be providing to the farm tax rebate. That's the one item in your budget that went up by some $12 million, I gather. Do you feel it's fair to consider that as support for agriculture when indeed it's simply a rebate of taxes that were paid on the education portion of the tax on farm land and buildings? Do you think it's fair to call that support for agriculture when indeed we're talking fairness in the system?

Hon Mr Buchanan: I believe we're dealing with an unfair tax on agricultural land, and the fact that the rebate program is now parked in our ministry -- it was prior to my time --

Mr Villeneuve: Thanks to the previous government.

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Hon Mr Buchanan: It was prior to my time. I have talked about how this tax should never have been collected in the first place and how we wouldn't need to have the exchange of cheques and application forms and it would be a lot simpler. But we've decided, as I said earlier, to refer that to the Fair Tax Commission. It's not necessarily support for agriculture, but certainly if the farm tax rebate wasn't there, farmers would obviously be the ones to say, "We need it because of the type of operation we're involved in." So I don't know. It certainly isn't a fair tax, but by not giving it we would be seen to be denying agriculture the kind of support it deserves.

Mr Villeneuve: I was on the OFA tax assessment committee and I certainly agree with you. I was very disappointed when it wound up that it was going to be paid by farmers and then rebated. It just makes our city cousins think that we're getting a big cheque every two weeks from the government of Ontario, when indeed it's just fairness in the system and not really support. I'm pleased to hear you say that.

How then can we ensure that the 30% -- which I believe is on page 24 here in the pie-shaped diagram -- which is shown as the operating cost of your ministry will not get to 35% or more? Do you have certain controls in place? Have you reduced your staff? Have you reduced operating costs? I realize that your ministry is spending about $575 million, but barely 50% of that is going back to the farmer and part of it is going back in a rather unfair taxation on education for farm land and buildings. Do you have systems in place to make sure that the bureaucracy will stay close to what is anticipated and that those moneys that are transfer payments to the farmers of Ontario will indeed be there?

Hon Mr Buchanan: I can answer part of that. Last year we did a 10% reduction on our ODOE where basically we took moneys out of different areas that were not going to affect our stakeholders' group. As we look at how we live within our means we are looking at some more drastic cuts this coming year, and there are decisions that are ongoing in terms of how we'll deal with that. But staff are committed to living within our budget, and what you see in front of you we are committed to doing. It's very painful for us and we try to minimize any impact it will have on our client group, but we are committed to doing that and staff continue to be committed.

Mr Villeneuve: As possibly a supplementary to your reply, when I met with the five different counties in eastern Ontario on the deadstock removal -- and I believe in these hallowed halls of Queen's Park you and I have had little discussions about certain things. Do you feel there might be some funding within your budget in transfer payments to support what people at the counties level might be able to do? That will be forthcoming, I am told, in the very near future, if indeed they find funds to attempt to support that industry as opposed to letting the people who were doing the deadstock pickup liquidate and then having to retrain and start up an entire new group. Would you be prepared to look at that in a positive way in the next month?

Hon Mr Buchanan: Obviously I am not here today to commit new dollars to programs, but in prior conversations we've had I've talked about a cooperative model. I've talked about a cooperative model in many instances. If municipal governments can come in as active players in terms of being able to commit some dollars along with the province to assist the current system of deadstock operators -- and it applies particularly to eastern Ontario, I would say, because they have more or less clearly defined geographic areas that they serve; in other areas of the province it's not clearly defined and it's difficult to discuss -- yes, I am interested in partnerships with municipalities and with commodity or producer groups. But I am interested in having discussions with other players who might wish to participate in trying to maintain an adequate level of service for farmers who are having problems with deadstock.

Mr Villeneuve: Labour law reform is of great concern to our entire agriculture industry and our food processing industry. Would you accept the responsibility as lead ministry to implement any labour reforms that come to the production end of the food chain?

Hon Mr Buchanan: I think I indicated earlier that I'm waiting for the task force report to come out. I've had some preliminary discussions, and I'm sure you have. That may or may not be one of the recommendations, but if it is, I would sooner respond to it at that time because the Minister of Labour, I understand, has told the task force that he wants it to bring forward recommendations and he'll be supportive of them. I think he needs to see what they are before giving his support, but I would sooner wait and see what the task force comes forward with. I am not averse to doing what you've suggested, but I'd like to see what the task force and farm leaders have come up with before I start to stake out my position. Otherwise, there is no point in having a task force bring forward recommendations when the minister starts suggesting what he or she would like to do before the recommendations come forward.

Mr Villeneuve: The information I have, Mr Minister, is that indeed some decisions involving agriculture have been made prior to the task force report being received by either your ministry or the Ministry of Labour. That concerns the people on the task force very much, and I understand that. It's also a situation where, in your absence on the last Thursday prior to the break, the Minister of Labour definitely said that it is his hope to include agriculture and have no exception. Can you comment on that?

Hon Mr Buchanan: My understanding is that that is correct. I have also accepted that there would be no exemptions for agriculture, and I believe the task force has come to that recognition as well. Once you've accepted that, then it's: What does the alternative look like? What will legislation look like dealing with agriculture? Will it be with the Ministry of Labour, will it be somehow hived off to be part of our ministry, or will it be a combination? I think those kinds of discussions and decisions have not been made yet. It is true that the minister has said very clearly that he's going to remove the exemption, and from the people I've talked to in rural Ontario, I think they've come to accept that much.

Mr Villeneuve: You haven't been speaking to the same people I have.

Hon Mr Buchanan: I didn't say they were happy. There are certain sectors that are not at all happy with that being removed. But I think they have come to accept that it's a fact, so I think what we need to focus on is: If we give up our exemption, what does the alternative look like? What does the new world of labour relations in agriculture look like? I think that is where we need to focus with the agricultural leaders and we as a ministry will have to focus and work together with the Ministry of Labour.

Mr Villeneuve: Well, you can't deliver the Thanksgiving turkey a week after Thanksgiving or the poinsettias on New Year's Day. There's a problem there, as you well know. I'll take delivery of my car or a piece of equipment in November or February and it doesn't make a great deal of difference, but with the type of commodity that we have in agriculture it's a totally different ball game, and I would be very concerned if it's included in the new labour law. I would be very concerned, and there are many unhappy farmers out there who are facing the possibility -- and it's a big axe hanging over their head -- of falling under the Ministry of Labour.

The definition of a farmer, Mr Minister, in Bill 162: Did you have any input into that at all?

Hon Mr Buchanan: My understanding is that Bill 162 came from the Conservative administration around 1984 or 1983, when it was first brought forward. It subsequently was brought in by the Liberals under some other number, and --

Mr Villeneuve: It was never brought in under a Tory government, I believe. It may have been discussed, but I don't believe it was brought in.

Hon Mr Buchanan: I think it got to first reading, and I think it got to first and maybe second reading under the last administration. Now my good friend the Minister of Natural Resources has brought in his Bill 162. So who wrote up the definitions, I'm not sure. No, I didn't have any input into the definition of a farmer, but I'm going to have a lot more input in terms of how we handle game farming before this becomes final legislation in third reading.

Mr Villeneuve: That's my next question, because in the province of Quebec -- and the riding that I represent touches Quebec -- they actually have one or two Ministry of Agriculture employees, civil servants, promoting the production of game animals, ie, deer: white deer, red deer and those types. It's of great concern. I guess the Ministry of Natural Resources has its own reason it wants to outlaw white deer and native species, but it is not that way in other provinces, and if Bill 162 proceeds, I can tell you I'm going to be visiting a medical doctor who owns a thousand deer and he's going to be long gone to Quebec, and it won't be long. That concerns me, and I would hope that your ministry would look at that in a positive light and maybe arrive at some sort of understanding with the Ministry of Natural Resources, because it is encroaching on your territory, I don't think there's any doubt.

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Hon Mr Buchanan: We certainly subscribe to the view that game farming is an agricultural issue. In fact, my personal view is that it provides some economic rewards for farmers in many areas of the province that they're not getting from some traditional crops and livestock groups. We're not at the moment going overboard on promoting it, but I'm certainly aware when I've talked to the different groups that it is an economically feasible activity to get into, as long as everybody doesn't do it.

We certainly would support that. We see it as a way of farmers either supplementing their income or getting into that. We have various crops, tobacco and others, that are being phased out or squeezed out one way or the other, and we need to look at non-traditional commodities, whether it's game farming or aquaculture, expanding the number of fish species that can be farmed, which is another area. We have interesting conversations with our brother minister in MNR, but we need to look for other opportunities to expand farmers' opportunity to make a decent living.

Mr Hayes: I just wanted to make a brief comment on what Mr Villeneuve was talking about earlier about farmers getting together, and he is correct; they started pulling together as a result of the economic climate. Also, I think we have to give quite a bit of credit to the ministry, especially the minister, for allowing all the different farm organizations and associations that actually have participated in the programs for the long-term planning -- I think that's very important -- where they have the input. Of course they know what is best for them. I think that's why these programs will really be successful.

Mr O'Connor: My question was on the need for some long-term farm financing programs, and I just wondered if you can comment a little bit more on how you're going to be spending the $20 million you've got allocated. Can you explain how you're planning on allocating that?

Hon Mr Buchanan: The one program we've announced in some detail is the commodity-based loan program which allows producers to use their crop insurance contracts to secure lines of credit in the spring before spring planting. We've committed about $1.5 million to that, but $1 million of that will go towards loan guarantees in case of any problems. The rest of that money is going to the administration, assisting and setting up the new corporation. The details of that program were announced back in March, prior to the budget.

The balance of the money, about $19 million, is going to be split among the four other programs we mentioned and made an announcement on a week or so ago. They're very diverse in nature and we haven't arranged the details, because what we're doing is working with our different farm leaders, people who are interested.

Most of these ideas came from the consultation when my good friend the parliamentary assistant took his committee across the province and got these ideas from the farm communities. We're continuing to work. The private mortgage guarantee and some of the other things we've mentioned have details that need to be worked out. Actually, Bob Seguin, who's our director, can probably come to the table and give you a breakdown of some of the specifics, because he's been working very hard with the financial institutions and the farm groups to flesh out some of these other programs that we hope to have up and running this year so we can use the $19 million and we won't be sitting here next year trying to answer why we didn't get that money out to farmers.

Mr O'Connor: I think you anticipated my supplementary, because I was wondering how we could get the financial institutions involved. Are they actively involved? How successful have we been at trying to get them involved?

The Chair: Welcome, Mr Seguin. For the record, you're executive director of the policy and programs branch. Please proceed.

Mr Bob Seguin: Thank you. I'll respond to Mr O'Connor's second question first. We have the financial institutions involved through the commodity loan program. With the help of the producers and the Agricultural Commodity Corp they tendered a commodity loan proposal. We had 10 financial institutions bid on it. The Bank of Montreal won the bid. They're almost finalizing the negotiations to implement that program between lawyers fine-tuning the legal language.

The other parts of the package the minister referred to -- without getting into final details because, as the minister noted, we haven't finalized each program detail and the actual expenditure -- would be about $3 million or $4 million in our education and farm management training initiative, which will include efforts at legal education, which Mr Wilkinson from the federation of agriculture raised, that farmers across the province need better legal assistance; working with credit unions and caisses populaires to improve their training capacity so they can lend better to farmers. There'll be a package of private mortgage guarantees of a couple of million dollars to assist farm borrowers to negotiate better with the farm lenders for private, rather than going to the financial institutions, bringing private lending more to the fore. We're also doing one package which is very innovative and which will be the largest-cost package. It's a pilot project for possible implementation early next year. It's rural loan pools, trying to stimulate the lending opportunities within rural communities to lend to farmers and putting up moneys that would be allowed to cover defaults, a large contingency fund, but using that contingency fund to leverage financial institution cooperation.

So far we've been fairly successful in the general concepts. We're now working with the Canadian Bankers Association on the latter one and with the credit unions and caisses populaires. We've been very successful working with them in training their staff to lend better to farmers.

The Chair: Thank you. Dr Frankford has a question if you're finished, Mr O'Connor.

Mr O'Connor: I have one more. Is this to replace the farm interest program that was in place before, and how did you come to that decision?

Interjection.

Mr O'Connor: I come from rural Ontario. What can I say?

The Chair: Never apologize for being a good representative.

Hon Mr Buchanan: The interest assistance program is an ad hoc program that's been around for a number of years, but as a one-year program. Every year the minister would wait and then an announcement would be made at some point. Farmers never knew whether it was coming or it wasn't. It was sort of on the strength of the minister or the lack of strength in the farm community; a lobby went out that said, "We need this money," and it was announced on a year-to-year basis. I believe that in a political sense the aim was to try and increase it a little each year, but it was a one-year program; it was never anything farmers could count on.

It was in our base budget last year. When Mr Hayes went across the province, he heard, "Put some long-term programs in place that will assist us to get lower interest rates so we can decide if we want to borrow money, how much and what the terms will be, and don't simply give us a handout every year to help offset our interest costs," because they never knew what was going to be there; they couldn't count on it. So what we've done is that this is less money than the 50, but it's long-term, it's going to be in place for four or five years and farmers will know what the rules are; if they go out and borrow money they'll know what the costs are going to be and that there's not going to be an announcement next year that we're going to pay a significant part of the interest. It allows them to do their planning, and that's what they asked for. Obviously they'd like more money -- everyone would -- but it's a long-term program, the kind of program they've asked for to get rid of the one-year programs that pop up and then are gone the following year.

The Chair: Mr Cleary, do you have a supplementary?

Mr Cleary: No, I don't.

The Chair: Okay, then I'll recognize Dr Frankford. Did you have a supplementary, Mr Villeneuve? Briefly, because I'd like to keep the rotation going.

Mr Villeneuve: You've only got one bank involved in this financial situation. I gather it's the Bank of Montreal.

Hon Mr Buchanan: That's what Mr Seguin said. Yes, that's true.

Mr Villeneuve: I don't deal with the Bank of Montreal; I'm a farmer. Would there not be some discrimination against either a bank or a farmer or where he happens to be doing business?

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Hon Mr Buchanan: No. We have a commodity corporation which is producer-driven which will deal with all farmers. I'll let Bob explain the details. They don't necessarily have to visit the Bank of Montreal to deal with the program.

The Chair: Welcome back, Mr Seguin. It would not be unappreciated if you had more details that you could furnish the committee with in writing.

Mr Seguin: We'll do that tomorrow with the committee.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr Seguin: To answer Mr Villeneuve's question, the Bank of Montreal won the bid. A number of banks were able to bid on it. They offered the best price to the commodity corporation. The commodity corporation will be lending the moneys to the farmers; the Bank of Montreal is the one that lends money to the corporation. Where those farmers do their other banking is indifferent. We've discussed this with the Canadian Bankers Association to make sure there is a full awareness of who's participating, how the program would run, that all the banks are aware of what will happen. This includes the trust companies and credit unions as well, caisses populaires.

It is the intent of the commodity corporation in the future to have flexibility to switch banks or, in the event that the program is very successful and increases the amount of moneys to lend, to have a consortium of banks. We feel that it would work very well, and any competitive concerns raised by the banks have been minimized by the kind of discussions we've had over time. The reality is that the commodity corporation itself will be acting more and more like a bank itself to protect everybody's interests.

Mr Villeneuve: When will the commodity corporation be in business to be able to assist farmers? As you know, 95% of the seeding for this year is already done, the financial costs the farmers are committed to. It won't be much good to them this year.

Mr Seguin: We recognize that difficulty and it's been like the discussions with the bank. The commodity corporation itself will fine-tune some of the guarantees and the operating procedures of the commodity corporation. It is my understanding that the commodity corporation will be making an announcement this week about when it intends to make its first applications available, and it's ready to do so.

Mr Robert Frankford (Scarborough East): To a large extent, of course, our economic situation, provincially and nationally, is dependent on the world economy, the world trading blocs, and I wonder if you could tell us something about the status of the GATT negotiations and comment on what you're doing to protect the interests of the Ontario agriculture and food industry in the GATT negotiations.

Hon Mr Buchanan: In terms of the GATT negotiations, this has been a roller-coaster issue for me and for the senior staff who have been trying to keep on top of what's happening with GATT. Over a year ago there was an anticipated agreement, December 1991; then there was expectation there was going to be agreement in 1992.

In Ontario, the supply management commodities, basically dairy and the feather industries, have been very concerned that supply management was not going to be protected, that federal government negotiators were not supporting them as strongly as they should have. That was what the 30,000 demonstrators were on Parliament Hill about a couple of months ago.

Mr O'Connor: I think if you looked around the room you would see a few of us who were there with you as well.

Hon Mr Buchanan: Yes. There was an anticipation that there was going to be an agreement; it was imminent. Since that time, the interest in the agreement seems to have fallen off. As recently as last week there were reforms announced in Europe dealing with their subsidies; for example, there's a 29% cut in support price for grains in Europe, something like a 16% cut in the support for beef. So they announced some cuts.

There was a belief in the press that this was going to spur agreement at GATT. We have ascertained that in fact this has not led the Americans to respond and say: "Yes, we want to deal. The Europeans have moved and now are ready to go." So we're still not very optimistic that we're going to have a deal by Christmas of this year, which is the absolute, final deadline.

We continue to support the federal position. We have continued to write letters and we're now investigating how we can have some influence with our colleagues in the US as to how we get them to move and appreciate what our position is, particularly in Ontario, dealing with supply management, because that's very vital to dairy and the feather industries in this province.

Mr Villeneuve: As a supplementary to that --

The Chair: If it's brief, Mr Villeneuve, because Mr Cleary's been most patient.

Mr Villeneuve: It is. I understand there's a 15% acreage set aside, if indeed they accept the 29% reduction. What will they get compensated for that 15% reduction in acreage? What's the compensation to the farmer who's pulling 15% out of production?

Hon Mr Buchanan: That's a good question. What I read in the newspaper, any staff member has a -- Bob, what is the European set-aside going to look like?

The Chair: Welcome back, Mr Seguin.

Mr Seguin: In answer to Mr Villeneuve's question, the European proposal, which has now been accepted, is still being fine-tuned. It refers to the fact that we had income assistance on the reduction in acreage. The real concern that's been raised in European papers is how this will be monitored, audited and what limits might be placed on farmers switching lands in and out. That still hasn't been resolved. A lot of the administrative details of the proposal still haven't been worked out.

The concept would be that the lost income would be replaced up to a certain level. The other concept that's still on the table is that larger farms would not receive the same level of compensation as smaller farms that took acreage out. But again, that hasn't been finalized in terms of administrative details. That's one of the concerns the international community is looking at: How will this actually work in the European Community?

Mr Villeneuve: You're taking away on one hand and subsidizing on the other. It looks like a bit of juggling maybe, to bring a bit of grain out of the system.

Mr Seguin: There is that suspicion.

Mr Cleary: We talked about the east, we talked about the south but we didn't talk much about the north today. Why did the government decide to end the AgriNorth program?

Hon Mr Buchanan: I'll attempt an answer and then I'll try to get you the absolute correct answer. I understand that was a five-year program or a definite-term program that in fact ran out. When its time came up, it terminated automatically. It wasn't that we cancelled. As I'm sure the member will know, many times government programs are announced with a time period to end them in. When the time runs out they just disappear. We didn't cancel the program, it ran out.

We did an evaluation of it, though, a very extensive evaluation. We recognized that many of the components were valued in the north. I certainly have talked to the Minister of Northern Development and Mines and pointed out that we saw value in it. The farmers thought it was a useful program and it should be continued. It's not in place this year but I anticipate that we may be able to introduce similar programs, the components, for next year. Having said that, I don't know whether anything from staff -- Ken?

I'm sure the member knows it was also not our money. We were using northern heritage money. It is always appreciated in agriculture when we get other ministries to participate and contribute dollars for the benefit of farmers.

Ken Knox, ADM --

The Chair: Assistant deputy minister, agriculture and rural services, welcome, Mr Knox, proceed.

Mr Ken Knox: The evaluation the minister referred to was taken seriously by us. The Ontario Federation of Agriculture also went across the north and investigated things more fully with farmers. They have put together a proposal which we're going to take to the heritage board very soon.

My understanding is that in a month we'll have a proposal before the heritage board on behalf of the farmers in Ontario for a program that would be similar to AgriNorth. There would be different components based on the changing needs in northern Ontario. It was seen as a regional program. The heritage board is set up to address those kinds of issues.

Mr Cleary: I was of the understanding that it was working exceptionally well over the past number of years. I was kind of surprised when changes were made.

The Chair: Proceed, Mr Knox.

Mr Knox: If I might do that. The program did reach its conclusion. It was a term program, as the minister has stated. At the end of the program the evaluation was recommended -- took place. It may be there are components in there that will continue with the new program if the heritage board in its wisdom chooses to fund those initiatives. The OFA have led the drafting of the proposal that will go before the heritage board at its June meeting.

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Mr Cleary: Thank you. Do I have another one?

The Chair: If you'd like. I have no other requests at the moment. I do for Mr Villeneuve, but I sense you'd like to proceed with another question, Mr Cleary. Please do so.

Mr Cleary: Yes, I'm just wondering -- we get hit with it all the time -- about our field representatives. With all the environment issues and everything that farmers are hit with right now, hopefully it's not going to happen, but if there were any staffing reductions being decided, who would control where these cuts were made?

Hon Mr Buchanan: I'm going to give the gist of the question to the deputy, but I would like to point something out before I do that. I participated yesterday in the opening of a new facility in Port Perry, which is now to be the office for Durham region. Prior to that, there were two offices, one in Uxbridge and one in Bowmanville. Durham county or region was split in half. You had farmers and producers in that area. We had our staff split between the two offices. The demarcation line between Durham East and Durham West was not clear.

I talked earlier about the division in the farm community, and that was contributing to it. There's a decline in the number of agricultural producers in Durham. We consolidated in one office. We have tried to make sure we've still got the staff with expertise available to the whole county. I think it's going to do justice to agriculture in Durham region. It was a consolidation, and I think most farmers have come to accept that as a positive thing. It may lead to a minute reduction in terms of staff, but in terms of services to farmers in fact it's going to be maintained. In terms of the decision about staff cuts, I'm going to ask Rita to respond.

Ms Rita Burak: I know, Mr Cleary, that there have been press reports from time to time that the ministry is cutting back on its field delivery resources. We can provide you with some numbers. Out of our total complement of just over 2,000, the vast majority of the staff are in the education and research division, the ag and rural services division and the lab and inspection division. Those are the people out there working directly with our farmers. I think the perception may be that from time to time we've had to hold vacancies open in order to make sure we don't exceed our salaries and wages account, but we've been very conscious of the fact that the bulk of our staff resources should go directly into serving our farmers and to try to be as lean as we can on the administration side.

Mr O'Connor: If I can ask a supplementary, the minister brought up the change in offices in Durham, which does affect my riding, because the office in Uxbridge was one that was moved into consolidation. My concern is about the program that is run for our young people in rural Ontario, known as the 4-H clubs. There was somebody from the ministry in that office in Uxbridge who did outreach with my local young people. Would that service still be there? You may not be able to answer that right now, but you can answer me later on.

Hon Mr Buchanan: The ADM is nodding his head. The answer to that is yes. I believe we are trying to expand and enhance services, not reduce them, but we've done it from a central location. It won't be done necessarily right in Uxbridge, but it can be done from Port Perry. There are opportunities for 4-H activities. They don't have to just be at the office. They can be at other centres around the region. Ken, would you like to respond to the specifics?

Mr Knox: The 4-H program has evolved over 75 years in Ontario. One of the things that's occurred over the last five years is interest among the 4-H leaders to take on more ownership of the program. With that there has been a 4-H council which has developed its walking legs and its wings over the last period of time, taking on more ownership. Volunteers have always played a very important role, will continue to and will give more direction to the program than they have in the past.

Further to the minister's comment about central policies, those are now as opposed to years ago being developed by the leaders in conjunction with our staff. As far as the delivery is concerned, we've always depended on volunteers to do a lot of the delivery. The rural organizations and services specialists which are scattered throughout the province in each of the county or regional offices continue to exist and will be providing support to the volunteers.

Mr Villeneuve: I touched in my opening comments on Ontario wine. I did question the Minister of Consumer and Commercial Relations regarding an example that was set in a couple of other Canadian provinces where restaurants were given a break on the tax for local or Ontario or Canadian wine. To me, that would be very positive, particularly in those areas similar to the ones I represent, which are border communities.

I'll tell you, there's a terrible difference between the cost of a glass of wine in Massena, New York, and a glass of wine in Cornwall, Ontario. I realize you're dealing with another ministry, but that ministry is making an awful lot of money on a product that is produced by our Ontario grape growers. I would like your comments on that, because to me that is the way to go.

Hon Mr Buchanan: We have a lot of responsibilities, but getting taxes reduced, which is what you're suggesting, is always difficult. We have a hard time sometimes just holding the line on tax increases without suggesting reductions, especially in these very difficult times.

We have sent letters to my colleagues across the government -- I mentioned it earlier in my statement -- that all of us have to play a role as ambassadors for consumption of Ontario wines, and in fact other Ontario produce as well.

When we talk about the wine industry, our ministry has a good working relationship with the grape growers, we have a reasonably good working relationship as well with the wine industry and in fact there was an increase in consumption of Ontario wines last year. It was a very successful year.

I spent a considerable amount of time talking to a gentleman I'm sure you know by the name of Andy Brandt, who has many ideas about how we can expand grape production and ultimately wine consumption of Ontario wines in the province. I'm looking forward to having a subsequent meeting with him to talk about some of his ideas about how we can promote Ontario wines.

The Ontario Treasurer can still get the taxes and the consumption in fact may increase in order to offset imports, because I think what I'm talking about is not trying to get everybody to drink more wine but trying to replace the imports with Ontario consumption and thereby also contribute to the tax coffers of the province.

Mr Villeneuve: I think you should never let your colleagues at the cabinet table forget the taxes that are brought in by the wine industry, by the tobacco industry, by the entire food chain when you consider the processing and the taxes that are paid in that, and the gas tax in the moving of produce. If someone would sit down and do an in-depth analysis and then look at the budget you as minister have to administer for an industry that brings in -- it's one of the few very positive industries in Ontario and it's very basic to the entire province. When we look at that, and on the surface the tobacco tax alone is $1.4 billion, without the related effects, including the provincial sales tax, yet your ministry's budget is only $575 million.

The horse racing industry, Mr Minister, is very concerned with --

The Chair: Mr Villeneuve, I'm sorry, I have to ask you to pause for a moment. I want to say that in five minutes we'll be called to the House for a vote on the Liberal opposition day. I have two members who wish to ask questions and it would be at this point as well that I would ask all members that if they have additional questions or documents they wish tabled to have them tabled so that we can give them to the staff to work on this evening and tomorrow before we reconvene at 3:30. Mr Cleary has tabled a series of questions -- 17 pages, in fact.

Interjections.

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The Chair: I won't even comment. Mr Villeneuve, just for the purposes of tabling them at this point. They won't appear in the record but we'll endeavour to get them on the record.

Mr Villeneuve: I've given Dr Collin a copy of correspondence concerning the method with which the ministry does some of its bidding and its --

The Chair: I have a letter dated February 14, 1992, to the Kingston district office, Ministry of Agriculture and Food, from the Plibrico company regarding a tender opening. They raised several concerns which Mr Villeneuve would like the ministry to respond to.

Mr Villeneuve: One of my questions is: What is the tendering process within the ministry, and do we have many such situations where the low bid, for whatever reason, be it on the wrong type of forms or whatever, is not the bid that's accepted?

The Chair: Any other questions from the opposition parties? If not, Dr Frankford.

Mr Frankford: I would like to shift gears slightly as an urban member, perhaps pointing out, as Jane Jacobs has observed, that it's cities that create agriculture, not agriculture that creates cities. I'll leave that for comment.

If we could have this as a topic for some comments tomorrow maybe, I've noted, for instance, and I'm sure people have observed the paradox that we have farmers eager to sell while we have food banks. If we could have some suggestions about how we can break that down -- I'm interested in the potential of helping urban economies by the production and processing of food. I'll point out that even in my riding of Scarborough East there is a commercial apple orchard. I'd be interested in comments on that. One aspect of that which I think was in the minister's remarks was around developing farmers' markets. There is certainly some interest in that in Scarborough. I would be interested in hearing comments on those.

The Chair: Those are referred for tomorrow.

Mr Villeneuve: Mr Chair, I now have a copy of -- it's four pages. Five of my questions have already been answered by the minister. There remain about 18 more. I would be quite pleased to table them now.

The Chair: You'll submit those. Thank you.

Mr Hayes: There is one concern many of the farmers have and of course all other sectors do, and that is the North American free trade agreement. I'm just wondering, for the benefit of all the members, if the minister could possibly bring us up to date on what is happening on negotiations and also what is happening to attempt to protect the interests of Ontario farmers. If you want to answer that tomorrow if it takes too long, I'd be glad to wait until then. Tomorrow's fine if you want.

Mr Villeneuve: The minister's going to tell you that we have to protect ourselves by going through with it.

The Chair: I sense that the minister would like to give justice to the answer. That means the fullness of time.

If I might have a liberty before we're notified to return to the House: On Dr Frankford's question, I chair a coalition of four food banks in my community and we've recently undertaken discussions with an agricultural group to produce food on a collective basis. I certainly would be pleased to share that with the ministry, but I would like to build on the question as to what, if any, efforts your ministry is making to promote surplus harvests, land that's not under production that we're putting into production, the involvement of school children and a whole series of exciting and creative things that we're doing in Halton region in our agricultural belts to bring the food into urban Burlington to service the 2,000 people in my community who are dependent on food banks every month. I'd be pleased to see what initiatives may be undertaken or the openness of the government to look at them.

Mr Hayes: I would like to compliment the Chair. It sounds like a good socialist program.

The Chair: We don't have our hand out to government, so by definition it's not a socialist program.

Mr Bisson: Sounds like a red Tory to me.

The Chair: I appreciate that we have attempted another approach to estimates. It seems to be working well. I apologize that I will not be in the chair tomorrow, but personal business takes me.

Since we are being called to the House, I declare, there being no further business at this point, that this meeting is adjourned, to reconvene tomorrow at 3:30, at which time we will have two hours and 40 minutes remaining to complete the estimates of the Ministry of Agriculture and Food.

The committee adjourned at 1757.