[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Thursday, May 16, 1996
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[English]
The Chairman: I'd like to begin the meeting.
Let me start with apologies for our delay. Unfortunately the previous committee was a little late in completing their task, so we'll be extending our own sitting until about 1:20 p.m.
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On the agenda today we have three witnesses who will be dealing with the issue of rural economic development in respect of natural resources. We're pleased to have Terry Hayward from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Jack Wilkinson and Loretta Smith from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, and Michael Roche from the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. Welcome.
I'd ask you each to give a fairly brief opening statement. If you can limit it to about 10 minutes, I'd appreciate that. Then we'll be opening it up to questions from the committee. If you have some written material or a written submission, we would be more than pleased to receive that. Oh, we already have. Thank you.
I have Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada first on my list, so maybe you'd like to begin.
Mr. Terry Hayward (Director, Rural Secretariat, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
It's a pleasure for me to be here today. My name is Terry Hayward. I'm with the policy branch of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, where the rural secretariat resides. I live in Winnipeg and work from the rural secretariat out of the Winnipeg office.
I'll just give a brief background of the rural secretariat. The secretariat was actually formed in February of 1994, when Minister Goodale made the announcement that he wanted to have a focus for rural Canada in his ministry. He made this announcement at the Canadian Federation of Agriculture conference being held in Edmonton, Alberta, at that time.
I've been associated since just after that fact. For about the last two years I've been involved with the rural secretariat based in Winnipeg. We have had a secretariat office here in our headquarters of the Sir John Carling Building, working with other departments and internally with the rest of the Department of Agriculture. I'm trying to develop programs and initiatives and dealing with issues of a rural nature from an agriculture and agrifood perspective.
I can quote one of the visions used by the department concerning rural issues. It says:
- With the resources of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and in partnership with others, to
help rural Canadians develop the capital, human resources and infrastructure requirements to
maximize their potential.
One has to do with the issue of access to capital. Our hope is to improve the supply of and access to capital for micro, small, and medium-sized businesses in both the agriculture and non-agriculture related businesses of rural Canada.
The second point is to work with the human resources in rural Canada to help ensure that the human resource skills needed for the successful adaptation of the agriculture and agrifood sector and the sustainability of the rural economy are identified and initiatives undertaken to assist appropriate skills development.
The third point is infrastructure, to help ensure that the development opportunities in the agriculture and agrifood sector and the rural economy are not constrained by the lack of infrastructure, whether they be related to water, transportation, communications and information technology, or service delivery.
Though agriculture and the rural economy can no longer be considered synonymous, the agrifood sector remains important to the well-being of many rural communities, and there are linkages and interdependencies between the two that can be harnessed to benefit both the growth of the agriculture sector and the long-term sustainability of rural communities. One of these linkages is that we have more diversified farm operations that can create new sources of income and niche market opportunities.
Stimulation of value-added processing, on the farm and in local rural communities, will be of importance in terms of jobs and job creation throughout rural Canada, particularly on the prairies. A growing farm sector also stimulates off-farm employment as farm families continue the trend of earning an increasing share of their income from off-farm sources.
It's interesting to note that the agriculture and agrifood sector represents 8% of GDP and about 15% of the employment opportunities in Canada. That translates into $1.9 million in jobs. So the agriculture sector, as part of the total natural resource sector, is a very important element of the economic activity in Canada.
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The rural secretariat, as I mentioned, is a small unit within Agriculture Canada. We have approximately 15 people who are focusing on this file, in collaboration with the full resources of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the other agencies that report to the minister, such as the Farm Credit Corporation. We're liaising and relating with provincial ministries of agriculture that deal in rural development. We also relate with other provincial ministries that have a focus strictly on rural development. For example, in Manitoba there is a ministry of rural development.
We're also very interested in working cooperatively and in collaboration with groups such as the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, seeking from them assistance, advice, and direction on what they would like to see from a federal government in support of rural initiatives.
Perhaps I should stop there, Mr. Chairperson. I'll welcome any questions.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Next we'll hear from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
Mr. Jack Wilkinson (President, Canadian Federation of Agriculture): Thank you very much.
With me are Loretta Smith, who chairs our committee, and Sally Rutherford, who is the senior executive officer of the CFA.
I'd like to take a few minutes to run over a general overview. Obviously you have the documentation, on which we can answer specific questions in many areas. Ten minutes obviously is not a lot of time.
I'd like to take a moment or two to run through the general approach we've taken to rural development issues and what we have targeted in a number of areas that we think are critical and doable by the federal government. It's our sense that this issue cannot be micro-managed in relation to what the federal government can do.
There are obviously some jurisdictional issues. With program dollars being minimized, we think the federal government could target its activities into making sure that we have the appropriate infrastructure, through regulatory frameworks and what not that are available, so as time goes on we will have some degree of equality between rural areas and urban areas in relationship to access to technology and infrastructure and a number of other areas.
To that end, we've always advocated that, even though it's unlikely in today's time period, you never know what responsibility will be given for setting up, as some provinces have done, an actual ministry for rural development. It clearly needs to be a much more specific and higher-level approach than is currently the situation.
We do not think a small cell within the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food is an appropriate working group with enough resources available to deal with the magnitude of the problem. At a minimum, the mandate, what that group is to do, has to be clearly specified - and adequate resources, because in many areas it'll require a cross-ministerial approach to dealing with a number of these questions.
We think that there are possibilities for that to occur, that on a regular format basis, both as ministers and as senior bureaucrats, they need to sit down and see what various departments are doing in the area of rural development and coordinate their activities. I can go into that in a little bit of detail later on.
The sense is that when you include mining, forestry, fisheries, and agriculture, rural Canada contributes a substantial amount to Canada's economy, from both employment and balance of trade points of view.
What was believed a decade ago to be sort of the elimination of distance when it came to doing business by the advent of the new technologies that were going to become available...in fact, have not been easily accessed by rural Canada.
I think there's a responsibility that the regulators in Ottawa have to accept in this regard. The deregulation that has taken place really has let a lot of companies off the hook as far as offering this sort of service to rural areas is concerned.
It has allowed many people to move into the markets of high density, in which they can reap the largest return on investment.
When you walk into some communities in Canada and talk about the advent of the computer age and the modem in your office on your farm or in your small business, you get laughed out of the home, because they're still sitting on a party line and it's impossible to hook up a fax machine, let alone talk about having an exchange that has the ability to put modems and what not in place and connect them into what's happening around the world.
It varies across the country. Some provinces have mandated it as part of the responsibility that as a goal there'll be single-party digital service available to anybody who lives in the province, almost as a right of citizenship of that province, and have undertaken steps to make that happen.
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That example does not apply equally across the country and there are many areas where that just is not happening. We beg to put forward the fact that the gap has widened in some areas in the last decade versus what we thought was going to happen.
We believe that a lot of things can be done from a regulatory point of view for a modest cost that would in fact give that kind of service to our people. As well, it falls within the areas of education and medical services and a host of other services that create a community in which people want to do business and want to live.
There has been massive depopulation in this country from a rural point of view. We've actually outstripped the U.S. as far as urbanization over the last 20 or 30 years and as far as percentages of where we were then to where we are now.
I would hazard a guess that you will actually get people... Things may be turning around a little bit with the help of the agricultural economy. But it wasn't that many years ago when you had people talking about moving to town for quality-of-life reasons. That wasn't the way it used to be thought of. It gets to be a pain to drive 30 or 40 miles to do everything, and the sense even there was that there wasn't much hope that the community would be around in the future. Many things can happen in that regard to encourage that kind of economic activity to be spread across the country.
A lot of departments have limited amounts of resources. We think if they work together they could get a larger bang for their bucks. In fact, we have some provincial education departments that are trying to connect their school systems into large libraries and hook them into a computer network so they're not disadvantaged in the future.
We have some resources that are given to medical organizations to do the same sort of thing. We know it's taking place to some extent in the Maritimes in relationship to isolated fishing villages, in Newfoundland in particular. They're hooking up their community centres.
We think if that activity were coordinated we could have more accessibility for more people simply by using the same dollars in a coordinated fashion versus using them in streamlined departments. In some cases we're actually having some duplication that doesn't have to occur. We could get more resources out of that. There are many areas in which specific details of that can happen.
We think the federal government has to express a vision of what it sees in rural Canada. Even though we've had the brief from Agriculture Canada, I hope there's a larger vision out there of what we can do, larger than micro-managing some value added. Even though it's critical in the agrifood sector, one would like to think there is more out there for rural Canada than that.
I think there is a danger - and this is nothing against the Minister of Agriculture,Mr. Goodale - in the view of a lot of departments that rural development is being looked after. They view it as being looked after as a part of Agriculture's mandate, that we're doing something about it and that nothing more need be said, without any sense from a lot of MPs and others as to appreciating how small a scale that activity is on in many respects, when you look at the broad-based issues.
I know there's only so much the minister can do with the resources that are there, but we think more has to be done from a government point of view. It relates to a host of competition issues, like long distance services, etc., that can be dealt with in an appropriate way by regulatory framework.
There are other items, examples of things that can be done. I'll just give you an example of one thing that is a major concern to one of our provinces. It's a concern in Ontario for the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, which is a CFA member, and it's a concern for some of the prairie provinces. The example is pipelines.
The concern is that individuals don't have equal footing when it comes to dealing with questions about other uses for pipelines or about pipeline abandonment because they don't have the ability to have intervener funding to go in front of groups when these issues are discussed. You may say this is totally off base in relation to other things we're talking about, but I'd like to use it as an example of how rural areas feel they do not have the same tools at their disposal, so they can't have an equal discussion or an equal say in what happens to their countryside and what happens to their communities.
Simply allowing intervener funding in an area like that so there could be an open and useful discussion with both sides having the same resources could be one thing in those areas. You can go through a latitude of issues in that regard. It would go an awful long way towards putting power back into the hands of what is becoming a smaller and smaller percentage of the voting power, and in fact to giving them more say in what things develop in the future and who is in charge of whose destiny.
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In closing - and obviously we'll expand when we get to questions - it's critical for the federal government to use its maximum authority in those areas where it has authority. We know a lot of these things are joint jurisdictional and have to do with provincial jurisdiction and municipalities. There's only so much a very small cell in one department can do.
The mandate has to be clear. We think it has to be expanded and it has to be cross-ministerial in its approach or we're not going to go very far in solving problems. We have to give rural Canada the sense that they are cared about, that their economic activity is wanted in this country and that their community is just as important as is any other community to offering reasonable qualities of life for them, within limited budgets, obviously.
Thank you very much.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Wilkinson.
Now I will call on Mr. Roche to provide his testimony.
[Translation]
Mr. Michael Roche (Director, Programs and Policies, Federation of Canadian Municipalities): Canada, like other developing countries in this century, has experienced the growth and development of large cities and metropolitan centres. Population is increasingly concentrated in the larger urban areas accompanied by stagnation and demise of many small and rural communities across Canada.
By their nature, larger towns and cities have significant opportunities for growth and development. Big urban centres are attractive to manufacturing concerns because of their local markets, trained workforce and municipal services.
Smaller municipalities located in the hinterland face a future which is uncertain at best.
[English]
Small and rural communities tend to be economically vulnerable because of their location and their heavy reliance on a single source of employment. Single-industry communities are especially vulnerable to external factors such as world market prices, climatic and environmental conditions, depletion of natural resources and changing tastes and technologies.
Notwithstanding their evident vulnerability, small and rural communities are extremely important for a number of reasons. One, it is in these areas that Canada's natural resources are found. Two, exploitation of natural resources is a primary source of national wealth. Three, small and rural municipalities have essential governmental functions to perform. Four, they have a significant role to play in providing Canadians with an alternative way of life to that of larger urban centres. And five, they have earned a special place in Canada's social and cultural heritage.
Although small and rural communities frequently fall under the supposedly protective arm of governments and major resource companies, a community will be better off if it assumes responsibility for its own affairs and makes its own commitment to a viable future. Self-assertive communities develop the means to survive and prosper over the longer term using their own value judgments.
Investment in the future takes commitment and courage at the community level. Commitment depends to a large extent on strong political and administrative leadership and competent planning. Some communities are hesitant to make investments because of uncertainty regarding provincial and federal policies and programs and because they do not have a clear view of their own prospects.
At the present time there are some seventeen federal departments and agencies dealing with matters in which rural and remote communities have a stake. With so many fingers in the pie, it is hard to advance small and rural issues and difficult to achieve a coordinated response.
Officials from the seventeen departments and agencies with an interest in rural and remote areas of Canada have taken the initiative of forming an interdepartmental committee on rural and remote Canada to exchange information and ideas and seek solutions. In FCM's observation, the interdepartmental committee is well motivated and performs a useful function in terms of information exchange. However, it is really an ad hoc group lacking the means to arrive at coordinated policy decisions. It is not in a position to initiate real change.
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One way of focusing on small and rural concerns at a policy level would be to form a committee of deputy ministers that might be able to reach a consensus. This committee would not lack the authority or means to consider policy change. However, such a committee would be unwieldy and would still lack visible political leadership.
FCM believes that naming a responsible minister is the best solution. It would provide the necessary focal point within government and would introduce leadership and impetus to a national initiative. FCM does not advocate a duplicate department or establishing a large staff.
The proposition is to name a minister who would provide a focal point within government. The minister named could be a lead department minister, such as from Natural Resources, Human Resources Development, or it could be the Minister of Agriculture. Alternatively, it could be a secretary of state reporting to a lead minister. Either way, the position would serve as a focal point for the collection of ideas and for providing political leadership in an important area that is currently being neglected.
In these difficult financial times, efforts on behalf of small and rural communities must involve greater collaboration among all three levels of government to reduce duplication, improve communications, and formulate strategies. This proposition is not about providing more money; it is about making the best use of all available resources. The time is right to bring political leadership into play by appointing a minister responsible for small communities and rural areas.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think I should stop at this point. There are some other matters on which I might comment, but I think I can leave these to the general discussion.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Roche. I suspect you and Mr. Wilkinson might have been talking to one another. You seem to have a very consistent message.
I'm glad we have some good time here to have a good discussion, and I look forward to that. I'll start off with Mr. Deshaies.
[Translation]
Mr. Deshaies (Abitibi): My first question is for Mr. Hayward. Your department is very important to rural regions because most of them are dependent on agriculture or were founded by settlers and sometimes evolved into regions based on forestry or mining, which is the case with Abitibi.
But it often appears that if the basic industry, namely agriculture, is nonexistent, if people work only in forestry or mining and do not settle in the region, there isn't any real economy. Do you think your department provides enough human resources and budgetary support to those regions?
[English]
Mr. Hayward: I would say that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is one of the more decentralized departments of the federal government. Out of a population of 10,000 employees, I believe the figures would show that we're more than 50% located in the regions of Canada. It's closer to 70%. I could get those figures for the committee.
We have research stations spread across the country from coast to coast, centres of excellence. We have inspection services through our food protection inspection service located in all the food-processing and meat-processing facilities across Canada. We have our seed inspectors out there.
In my own, even though I've got a very small rural secretariat, we do have an employee working in Atlantic Canada, Mr. Joe Rideout, who is liaising well with the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency. We have our group, as I mentioned, here in Ottawa. Then, in western Canada, based out of Winnipeg, we have a staff member dealing with western issues.
This doesn't sound like a large number of people - it isn't - but the key here is to work in cooperation with those other organizations out there. In western Canada we're working with the Department of Western Economic Diversification, as well as ACOA, FORD-Q and other groups like that. So we have a wide base of employees across this country.
[Translation]
Mr. Deshaies: It is very important that your department be present. People feel you are not doing enough, not necessarily because you are short-staffed, but because their needs are great.
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There are often constraints with regard to animal inspection. It is hard to get an inspector. The government must pay an inspector on site for every slaughter house. When a region wants to open a new slaughter house, the department has trouble finding the necessary funds to have a new inspector or two in every place.
Do you think it might be possible in the future to improve cooperation with the provinces? They often have their own animal inspection service. This situation creates some overlapping, some duplication. If the provinces abide by federal standards, the delegates and professionals could provide a better service at a lower cost.
[English]
Mr. Hayward: Yes, the food inspection agency that was announced in the last Speech from the Throne and through the budget papers is starting to coordinate the federal initiative, as you've asked. There has also been some very good discussion between the provincial governments and the federal government on how to reduce the barriers to trade.
When you're dealing with items like inspections and inspection standards and services, how do you ensure that all the people who want to participate in an export or interprovincial trade movement of their finished product - their value-added product - are able to do so, given the standards we work under in Canada?
Yes, those discussions are ongoing, and I think there is room for us to move on that front.
[Translation]
Mr. Deshaies: That would be very important. Someone in my riding has exported bison. He had a problem. He had bought an animal suffering from tuberculosis near Sherbrooke. His livestock was quarantined for nearly two weeks because even if the provincial inspector could submit his inspection results, he had to wait for them to be approved. His business was on the verge of going under because he could not export his cattle to Europe. He didn't have enough money to keep his business running.
Had there been a federal-provincial agreement, the dubious animals could have been checked within two days and the other animals could have been tested to see if they carried the tuberculosis bacteria. The problem could have been solved much more quickly. It did end up getting resolved, but it took nearly a month.
My next question is for Mr. Roche or Mr. Wilkinson, because both spoke at length about a topic that is very familiar to rural regions.
I understand all the problems facing the small communities in my region. In order to survive, they have to have the tools. For a small village, that often means a garage, a grocery store and a post office, but above all, small businesses that depend on mining or forestry and especially on agriculture.
Last week, we held a meeting with representatives from the Department of Natural Resources. Our President surprised the Deputy Minister by asking him: "Does your Department have a strategy for rural areas?" His answer was: "Yes. We are currently studying the matter, but we cannot table the report because it isn't ready yet. However, it will be ready in July". He gave a very good answer and I'm sure he was caught unawares.
Do you think - Mr. Roche spoke about this and he had a very good idea - that the solution would be to have departments coordinate their efforts or to appoint a minister responsible for rural matters? What do you think about that? Mr. Wilkinson, in specific terms, what do you think the federal government should do other than pursue Mr. Roche's suggestion?
[English]
Mr. Wilkinson: Well, we have suggested that one of two approaches has to be taken.
Within a ministry, a substantial responsibility has to be given to that ministry in relationship to this topic area. From our point of view, the status quo is too limited in that it is to a great extent dealing with agriculture and agrifood-related issues, which is what the committee's mandate was to work with. It's not a matter of our criticizing the secretariat; it's a matter of saying that in our opinion the scope is too narrow. It has to be a broader-based issue than just agriculture, because the same problems and solutions are there in many of the other areas, whether it be fisheries, mining or forestry, if we're going to deal with communities.
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First of all, a significant mandate has to be given to one of the ministries. We're not opposed, for example, to a secretary of state having some responsibility in that regard, but there have to be mainline responsibility and resources. The secretariat in Agriculture is a very tiny secretariat that has extreme limitations to what they can do, just because of the people and the numbers.
As well, we think a cross-ministerial approach has to be taken, whether or not it be in some sort of formal setting, where the appropriate ministers meet on a regular basis with their deputies and policy ADMs and coordinate activities. In our view, that's an appropriate way to start off so everyone knows what everyone else is doing in a formal way, so they have a vision of what they're doing in rural Canada and so they have a coordinated strategy across ministries that hopefully then will cross over into provincial and municipal jurisdictions as well, because there are very limited resources.
This is a very large issue. We're very afraid that some governments are afraid to tackle this issue because it is so big, but it's fundamental to the nature of the country. If we don't deal with it, we know what is going to happen. We know what's going to unfold, looking back and looking forward, if there's not some intervention to offset this activity, and the federal government is an obvious first place to start in that coordination.
The Chairman: Mr. Thalheimer.
Mr. Thalheimer (Timmins - Chapleau): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Perhaps one of you could help me. As to the jurisdiction between the feds and the provinces, where do we stand as far as the British North America Act is concerned? Who has primary responsibility for agriculture, or is it joint? Everybody has their department of agriculture, the feds and the provinces.
Mr. Wilkinson: Agriculture tends to be a joint jurisdiction in almost all of the areas, even though in some particular sections they have decided, by memorandums of understanding, who will be responsible for what areas. But when you move into rural issues in a more general sense, it depends to a great extent on the topic area.
If you're talking about education and training, to a great extent that falls into the provincial jurisdiction. If you're talking about telecommunications and the regulatory framework as to how they're going to work, the federal government has a lot of responsibility, and then some of the aspects of that get...
I'm not trying to avoid the answer to the question, but it depends on the sector or the specifics of what you're talking about as to where that jurisdiction falls, whether it be federal, provincial or a combination and/or municipal authorities.
Mr. Thalheimer: I'm not clear. I know education, for example, is provincial, but we're talking about agriculture itself and trying to make rural life better for these people living out on the farms.
With the technology that's now available, especially in certain parts of agriculture, such as grain, farming could be easily handled from a central community. You don't have to be on the farm. You can travel and take your equipment with you. These days out in western Canada they do that. Going fifty kilometres with your equipment is not as hard as it used to be thirty years ago.
So we're looking at developing more central communities, where people actually live because of the schools and so on, and then they go out and farm their farms, whether it's four sections or whatever. This is talking basically about grain. Wouldn't the idea be to develop those communities, whether they be 100 or 200 kilometres apart?
I realize there's a difference with, for instance, a person with a chicken farm, who almost has to be there on a continuous basis. A person with a dairy farm needs the location on site, so to speak. But for a person who's in beef farming, for instance, driving 100 kilometres is next to nothing. He's not required to be out on the farm itself.
With the distances involved, of course it costs a lot of money, whether it's the communication or bringing the children to school - the various things we need. So wouldn't it be better to centralize communities between distances? Shouldn't that be our objective, using the technologies we have today?
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Mr. Wilkinson: It varies dramatically according to which part of the country you're talking about as to what model makes sense, but clearly with the introduction of technology in agriculture... This is why I'm nervous. This is not just an agriculture issue, and I don't like to treat it as an agriculture issue, even though we're the CFA and that's why we've been involved in a broad-based coalition of other groups of medical and other people - woodlot owners, municipality groups, and what not - to try to deal with it on a broad base.
As you say, whether people live in a rural area versus in a small community depends on the type of agriculture. But I would hazard to guess that a lot of small communities are having grave difficulties because even they don't have the infrastructure.
Some provinces have dictated, for example, that natural gas will be in the rural areas. It's going to be down every concession road, to some degree, and in every community. Others will deal dramatically with energy costs - whether you can afford to run dryers, whether you can afford to heat poultry barns, whether you can afford to heat houses, etc. Other communities have not made that choice.
Where I live I pay 44¢ for propane to dry my grain. Other people in the prairies, if they live in Saskatchewan, where they have natural gas delivered on the farm, are probably looking at 7¢ or 8¢. So it becomes a competitive issue as well. There are a lot of parts to this.
We're trying to say that as you deregulate certain aspects of life in Canada... There used to be a standard that was accepted as being Canadian, that you actually would have hydro - and I'm not trying to be facetious here - you would have telephone service, you would have whatever, no matter where you lived in the countryside. If it meant that a profitable Toronto market, as an example, made a little bit of money, then a little bit of money out of the regulatory framework went to make sure New Liskeard got some service.
A lot of that has changed in the last number of years, and the change is obvious. In some parts of the country now, if you now call up and say that you want to have a private line, they'll say ``Buy a satellite. We're not putting a hydro line in the ground.'' Well, check out the cost of a satellite transmitter for a telephone. You're going to find out that it's $8,000 and it's $3 a minute. It gets fairly pricey to do business in that kind of scenario, but in some places you simply can't get private service.
We've advocated that you still do the research and development that's required and still offer a base level of service, or you won't have the lifestyle that people want to live and you will continue to have people wanting not to live in rural areas. I don't think there is a blueprint that works in every community, but some basic services have to be in areas, or people just don't want to live there.
Mr. Thalheimer: This is what I'm saying. We must concentrate on bringing the basic services - hydro, schools, medical service - into communities in the rural areas. Again, it depends on where you are.
I was born and raised on a farm in Saskatchewan, close to Saskatoon. All those individual farms are gone. In the 1950s they all had hydro put in. That's all gone now, because the grain farmers generally gather in communities and live there. That's their community. They have their churches there, their schools and so on. Then they go out and farm. You no longer need the expensive services out there that we had when we were physically living on the farm. Hydro was a big item to bring out on the farms, and telephone service and so on.
In areas such as that, wouldn't the tendency be to develop the communities and make them better, so you have your medical service, your schools, and so on? Because we have the technology today, let them go out from the communities to farm. Isn't that where we should stress rural development?
Mr. Wilkinson: I thought I tried to answer that. I would say that there are even many small communities that don't have those services keeping pace with what's available in urban areas. At a minimum, you have to have them in small communities.
I guess it depends on how you define ``small communities''. I don't argue with the fact that where you have a very sparse population, which exists in some parts of the country, the population density is too low for certain things to occur. But I'm saying that many other areas do not have service that one would automatically assume would be there. They have the density of population to support it, but it's not being offered there because we've deregulated to the point where a lot of utilities and other groups say ``Why bother with that market when we can make four or five times the return on investment in these other areas?'' So we're not even seeing work being done in research on technologies that are going to be advantageous to us.
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If we want to put a capitalist spin on this, from my point of view I would consider that work done if we can solve rural development questions and deliver services in Canada. We have an incredible business to sell around the world. There are a lot of places that are facing exactly the same problems we are, and any models and technology we can develop here I think will stand us very well from an exporting and a sales point of view.
The Chairman: Mr. Reed.
Mr. Reed (Halton - Peel): I'd like to look at the other end of this equation, Jack, and that's over-regulation. I serve a riding that is in close proximity to a very dense urban area, as you are probably aware. The challenge there is to keep the service facilities for farmers, for agriculture. What happens is that they are gradually being eliminated through zoning that takes place as municipalities enlarge.
Mr. Hayward mentioned liaising with the provinces, which is very commendable. I'm wondering if he's also contemplating liaising with municipalities and with organizations like school boards. It's been very popular in recent years to do away with rural schools. Arguments are made that the quality of education is lower, that the services aren't as great, and so on. I know that in my own community, where the school board closed a three-room school, the quality of education wasn't suffering at all. As a matter of fact it was probably higher and the literacy rate was higher in that school.
I just read the other day in the paper that in western Canada, near Edmonton or something, another one-room school is going to be closed. There's always this pressure, especially in proximity to urban areas, to close down those elements of rural life that are important to the integrity of rural development. If you close all the institutions and make some bureaucratic argument in favour of it, very often you end up without the maintenance of a rural community. I hope you will take that into account.
Mr. Chairman, I think one of the recommendations we can make - I've heard this before, and you're quite right - is that the communications system in rural Canada is not keeping pace with the technology that should be available to rural Canada and to agriculture. Anybody now who can't access the Internet is gradually opening up a gap and being left behind.
The Chairman: The word, Mr. Reed, is abysmal.
Mr. Reed: All right, I'll accept that word. It seems to me that we have to make a strong recommendation that this be done.
I wonder too if you might comment on the question of non-food agriculture. It seems to me that if you're talking about value-added processing and keeping some of the wealth in the community and adding to rural development, one of the ways you do it is to process non-food products.
The subject was brought up in Brantford in an agricultural round table I attended this last winter. It seems that we think of agrifood but we don't think of all that potential that's sitting there waiting to be developed. There's not nearly as much emphasis on it as there should be, and if we're going to talk rural development, I think we have to talk about that.
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I'll make one last comment, Jack, and it's about your comment on intervener funding. Intervener funding is a nice ideal. The experience I've had with it in past years has been that it has created a number of professional interveners who make their living doing that, but it doesn't do a lot for those people who have the great concerns. So I don't know how we get over this hurdle. I see it as often an impediment.
Mr. Wilkinson: I would like to respond to a number of the points.
I would agree to a point with some of your inference when it comes to intervener funding, but then the system has to be fixed. There has to be an opportunity in a host of these areas where the community can have comment and address issues it sees in front of it. Otherwise, we're going to just roll the clock right back to the days when hydro corridors come through and it's expropriated with no compensation paid. We have come a long way. So when a pipeline goes through the rural area, topsoil is put back on the ground and people are paid fairly for it versus the old days. And I would advocate that if the intervener approach is being abused by people, it's easier to fix it than to throw the whole approach out.
We think we deserve equal footing when it comes to decision-making and going in front of these commissions to argue our case versus paying large corporations good returns and they're the only ones who can afford to walk into the room with a lawyer. Then we're not getting balanced decisions. So fix it versus eliminating the other side of the community wanting to say something, and we'll have no problems with that suggestion.
On the telecommunications side, we think an awful lot can go towards dealing with issues such as education in smaller areas, such as offering medical services in smaller areas, such as offering arts and other things. But telecommunications and why we're concentrating on that now is one aspect of a host of rural issues we view as absolutely critical. If you don't even have this link, there's very little that can happen from that point. When you talk about the quality of education and what they can tap into, many things can happen with small schools if in fact they have a modem and they're now connected to the system. This wasn't available a few years ago. We think great things are possible in many of those areas.
I don't want you to take out of our brief that we're advocating overregulation. But at the same time I don't accept the notion we deregulated so much that there are few economical markets in Canada everybody's going to fight over and be damned about everybody else.
And that's what bothers me. There is a responsibility. You don't come into a country, in my opinion, and say we'll take this market and we'll take that market and demand that the government and everybody else change the rules so you can turn a buck and have absolutely no responsibility anywhere else in the countryside. I do not think this is appropriate.
Quite frankly, if we're going to roll back to that degree of anarchy, there really isn't much point in having government at the municipal, provincial or federal level. There is a responsibility, if you're going to make and deliver service here, to spread it out so that some degree - and we're saying degree - of equality exists no matter where you live in the countryside.
I'm not saying you have to have a job there, etc. But surely to God we're at the point where you can have a private telephone when you live in a rural area and you don't have to be on a party system you can't connect anything up to. I'd like to think we've moved past this point. In many provinces we have, but in some we haven't yet.
Mr. Reed: Thank you.
The Chairman: Mr. Bélair.
[Translation]
Mr. Bélair (Cochrane - Superieur): It is very interesting for us to have you here this morning, since most of us are from rural ridings. As you said, we have no problem approving what you are saying.
My first question is on transportation. Let's take the privatization of CN as an example. Surely that will have some impact on Canada's rural areas, because in the past, CN's mandate was to develop Canada's rural regions.
Do you know whether transportation rates will increase? I would like to hear your comments on the impact this might have on potential investments in rural Canada and on competitiveness.
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Perhaps I could reformulate my question. Do so-called small farmers currently have problems selling their products, and will these worsen in the future after CN is privatized?
[English]
Mr. Wilkinson: Is this a question for Agriculture Canada?
Mr. Bélair: No. I would ask you to answer, please.
Mr. Wilkinson: Clearly, there will be problems. It is fair to say that under the current system there will be an acceleration in rail line abandonment. I think just about anybody would accept this as inevitable under the system that is put in place. It was occurring under the old system. But as there is less and less regulation there has been a change in how much railbed can be abandoned on a yearly basis.
Obviouvly, there is concern. Many of our members, in particular from the prairie provinces, have been putting in briefs to transportation about the changes in the transportation legislation because of concerns under monopoly shipping power about what the rates will be five and ten and fifteen years down the line.
It's obvious from some of the U.S. experiences, where their rail rates have gone up quite dramatically, that this sort of monopoly shipping power existed.
Mr. Bélair: Do you mean short lines here or still the major -
Mr. Wilkinson: No, I'm still talking of the main line at this time period.
There have been suggestions put forward, as far as the legislation is concerned, of capping the degree of rate increase and evaluating after a five-year time period where we should be and where we should go in the future on the deregulation of rates. There is grave concern in this area. There is no doubt about that at all. Obviously, as you abandon rail lines and move to a road system it becomes very expensive, from the point of view of provincial jurisdiction, to keep the type of roadbed in existence that allows for the transportation of those primary products. This is a major concern. I won't dodge around this at all.
The federal government has made some decisions in those areas in relation to budget and privatization that are going to have some major impacts in rural Canada. There is no argument on this.
Mr. Bélair: My second question is on access to information. You referred in your opening remarks on many occasions to the lack of possible access to the Infonet and the Internet. When we're dealing with rural Canada, are there any improvements you can suggest to this committee and to Agriculture Canada to ensure ``isolated'' farmers are being fed - excuse the pun - with the right information, from high-tech information to anything else?
Mr. Wilkinson: Again, I think the problem comes in when we ask whether this current secretariat can do anything. My answer is that probably they can do very little because their mandate is too narrow. They don't have the resources. Nor do they have the vision of the government and where it wants to go in relation to what should be available to rural Canada. But I think it can be done if the primary decision is made that there must be some resources and some mandate given to this secretariat to deal with these issues.
I can give an example, and this is where the issue of regulation comes up. Our sense is that some provinces have simply mandated - I think four or five, and some of them had jurisdiction over their telecommunication system in crown agencies, I believe - that within a certain time period there would be single-party digital service available to any resident in that province. And it was done. This goes a long way towards starting a process.
Mr. Bélair: Was there a cost?
Mr. Wilkinson: It was done at some cost. But I think the cost was reasonable because the vast majority of the country is under that system and it wouldn't take an awful lot more to finish off the rural areas in this regard. There would be some cost; I'm not belittling that.
The other point is on access to Internet and other services. If you're living in a rural area these become long distance services to connect with, whereas if you're in an urban area it is a very low cost system providing an incredible information data bank at your fingertips.
Our sense is that if you can communicate some strategy in relation to community centres and in relation to schools all bringing systems into their area, then if you connect the gate into the Internet using those systems you could probably reduce the cost on a lot of these local calls and maybe have a monthly fee for people like myself who live 20 or 30 miles out of town.
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But that isn't going to happen unless it's coordinated. This is where we're suggesting that maybe cross-ministerial approaches could increase the access with very little change in the cost. Other departments are already planning to do this in relationship to education, medical services, communities, etc.
The Chairman: Go ahead, sir.
Mr. Hayward: I would like to mention that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has worked very closely with Industry Canada to ensure with their school network programs and with their community access programs that rural communities aren't ignored in the equation, that there is actually a rural focus there, and to ensure that you do end up with natural gathering points in a community that people can come to.
They might not be able to get into it from their homes. The goal may well be to be able to get this access to information from their homes, but it's either a phone call away or it's a visit to town or to their local community to get to these points or to get to a federal office, regardless of whether it's Agriculture Canada, a Western Diversification Office or a municipal office. If we could work together in some way to jointly offer their first point of contact a full range of services and products available...I think that should be one of our steps in looking forward to getting full access to information to the rural people.
Mr. Bélair: Mr. Chairman, are we going to have a second round?
The Chairman: We will have time.
Mrs. Cowling.
Mrs. Cowling (Dauphin - Swan River): As we approach the subject we're talking about today, the natural resource sector, which includes a number of components, in my view the biggest component is the people in rural Canada. And how do we service their needs?
I'm not sure if you have seen the OECD publication, but we did have witnesses before this committee who led us through what's happening at the OECD. They have managed to put a number of their ministerial areas under one portfolio so that they are actually addressing rural economic development.
When we talk about rural areas and talk about people - because they're all tied to the resources which make this country run, which really fuel the economy of the country - I want to know what your perspective is with respect to jobs and getting those people back to work in some of those remote areas of this country. How do we do that with respect to direct and indirect subsidies and how do we tap those subsidies into those areas to really make this work? Have you thought about that?
Mr. Roche: Yes. I'd like to take up that question. What Mrs. Cowling has said about people being the nature of rural Canada certainly echoes our view. It's certainly not only farms out there and it's certainly not only natural resources; it really is people.
Whereas most of the agriculture takes place in the rural areas and all of the mining takes place in the rural areas, the fact of the matter is that they don't provide a large percentage of the jobs. So where are the jobs going to come from?
The number one need in rural Canada today is jobs. The need is for jobs to keep the young people there working in the rural areas. And the monitoring of the quality of life is also going to help attract the sort of investment that is going to create jobs over the long term.
We always have to remember that there are an awful lot of things going on out there. It's not like taking an aspirin and having your headache suddenly go away. You can do all sorts of things and have all sorts of interventions and not get the results you're really looking for.
Over time we've noticed that one of the consistent things that helps rural Canada and small communities to survive and to do well is local leadership. If we can encourage local leadership and if we can build local leadership, we can do much better.
Single solutions are not going to do it, but getting some inspiration out there... There is a job to be done of creating jobs on the other side of building the well-being that comes through better infrastructure and the services needed to attract investment.
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It sort of produces rather an interesting paradox. We say on one side that we need these jobs, but on the other side we need to build infrastructure and services. Don't somehow these two go together? Are we somehow caught up in the money situation such that communities can't build what they need in order to do well?
Having said that, we have to admit that there are some communities that are not going to make it. I think that's where local leadership also comes into play in having a very careful look at the future of a community and deciding whether it's really worth it. Can we really make this thing go? What happens if the local mine is going to close up?
Some community members are going to say they should continue this community because it's important to them and they grew up there. Others are going to say there's a new mine starting up elsewhere, so they should move on and go somewhere else.
This is a decision that only the community can make. They need all the information and facts available in order to make the right decision. But in the final analysis, they're the ones who need to be empowered. It's their future.
Mrs. Cowling: Thank you. I have another question, if I could ask it. My other question comes with respect.
I think you had indicated that you should name a minister responsible for ``rural''. We do have a rural secretariat with respect to agriculture. I think you indicated Agriculture and perhaps Natural Resources, but I'm wondering about the Minister of Finance, and whether he should be involved and under that umbrella.
Mr. Roche: I wouldn't advocate the Minister of Finance because he might have the wrong bent, for one thing. I think it's not so important as to whether it's Natural Resources, Human Resources Development or Agriculture as it is for the mandate that's given to that minister to be a broad, encompassing mandate for a voice for rural Canada. What I see is a bunch of stovepipes all over the place that you have to talk up in order to get anywhere with problems that are of a comprehensive nature in rural Canada.
So having to deal with the provinces and their multi-ministries, having to deal with the federal government and 17 departments, I mentioned, is a very serious problem. It would be nice to have a patron, not with money, but with a voice that said these are the broad issues for rural Canada. That voice wouldn't get hung up in the agriculture question or the natural resources question, but would deal with the people question. That's really the important thing. There needs to be some inspiration, and that's more likely to come from a political level.
I mentioned earlier that there is an interdepartmental committee. I think it has had representatives before this group. They are very conscientious people. I don't want to overemphasize how good they are, except to say that they're limited in what they can do because they haven't got the political direction in order to push it.
I don't say that putting a senior minister in charge of this, or a junior minister reporting to a senior minister, is the only solution; it is the starting point to bring in these multifaceted questions. We're looking at it always with a broad brush and are not limited to particular sectoral areas.
The Chairman: Thank you. I have a couple of questions I'm going to put, and then I'll ask the members if they have some additional questions they want to put. I actually have questions for all of you, but I'm going to start off with Mr. Hayward.
In the rural secretariat, your mandate goes beyond just the agricultural sector, if I understand it correctly. It's rural development in general.
Mr. Hayward: It's rural development in general from an agriculture perspective and working with other departments. We would work with the other departments, like Natural Resources and the regional agencies.
The Chairman: Okay. Has your secretariat developed specific action plans to outline what you're going to try to accomplish?
Mr. Hayward: We're in the process of that, given the Speech from the Throne and the budget statements that have been made. Minister Goodale has taken leadership in conjunction with the two ministers, Minister Manley as well as Minister McLellan.
The Chairman: When do you expect those action plans to be completed?
Mr. Hayward: I would hope that there would be some deliverables made between now and September, but also that those action plans would be done by September.
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The Chairman: So by September we could expect to see some action plans. Okay.
My second question is very specific. You talk about access to capital, which is a very important issue close to my heart. Have you taken any specific actions in that respect?
Mr. Hayward: From a rural secretariat perspective, we did do a study on the question of access to capital. There are a lot of questions out there and a lot of messages that there is not enough capital. The study we did do has been used as part of Minister Goodale's background paper for his round tables.
The action that I think Minister Goodale has pointed out is for working with some amendments to the Farm Credit Corporation, which he mentioned in the booklet I gave to the committee: ``Building for Success''.
The Chairman: Is there any anticipated timeframe as to when we can see those changes to the FCC tables?
Mr. Hayward: I'm not too sure of the timing on that.
The Chairman: Mr. Wilkinson, do you have a comment on that?
Mr. Wilkinson: Even though we have been supportive of changes to the FCC's mandate, I think one has to be very careful, from an agricultural point of view, to not destroy the Farm Credit Corporation in the pursuit of rural development. There are limits to which a crown corporation can go in that regard before it's no longer useful to the agricultural community for which it was designed to be the champion.
Further to that, I think it becomes limited as to its development within the agricultural areas of rural Canada. Clearly, they do not have an office structure or many things such that it would make practical sense to move them into many of the other parts that aren't agriculture-based in which credit is equally a concern.
Again, I think this points out the limitations of the current system. The minister clearly will exercise wherever possible his authority in those areas over which he has control, but it becomes a broadening of an FCC mandate to deal with those questions. Unless we really blow the mandate all to hell, what happens in fishing villages in Newfoundland and mining areas in northern Ontario? Do they not get access to credit? Do they just get dropped off the face of the earth?
The banking community has made it fairly clear that they're going for the high-return market. Look at some of the forecasts of branch closings and lay-offs that they've advocated themselves and published. Concerns for credit are going to be major in the rest of rural Canada as well.
I'm not criticizing; I'm just trying to point out that there are limitations even there. It's not a holistic approach, again, in dealing with some of these questions.
The Chairman: I think that point is very well taken. I think access to capital is a good example. There needs to be a coordinated approach, because the FCC is involved as well as the Business Development Bank of Canada. I think we have regional development agencies that operate everywhere except southern Ontario. I think they have to be involved.
I think Mr. Wilkinson touched on something right at the end there. The private sector banks have to be involved in lending in rural Canada. They are not sufficiently involved there. It's an absolute essential that they become more involved in lending in rural Canada or we're not going to be able to develop the way we should.
Mr. Hayward: If I could, Mr. Chairman, I'd also like to add the credit union movement and the caisses populaires to that list as being very useful in rural communities.
The Chairman: That's an excellent point.
Mr. Wilkinson, I have a couple of questions for you. First of all, I want to say that I agree personally, as a member of Parliament, that we do need that coordination, such as a senior person in cabinet, representing the rural issues, whether that's a responsibility added on to an existing minister or whatever. I think the point is well taken that we need that voice for rural Canada in cabinet.
I also agree with you on the whole issue of providing services. I have a private member's bill in on Bell Canada, because I'm from Ontario and my area is serviced by it. My riding has more unserviced territory than any other riding in the Bell network. There are large stretches of my riding where you can't even get a telephone, let alone a party line, although there's lots of that problem as well.
I think you made the point - I know you had a discussion on regulation - that privatization, although it can make a lot of sense in urban Canada, can mean the end of essential services in rural Canada. There are certain things that you can do profitably in Toronto or Vancouver that you cannot do properly in rural Saskatchewan or in Parry Sound and Muskoka for that matter. I think that point is well taken.
I'd like to ask you a question, though. There are some initiatives out of the Department of Industry that I think are very positive, but do you have some specific examples or specific suggestions of what we can undertake as a government to help with technology access in rural Canada?
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Mr. Wilkinson: Our sense is that by mandate, through a regulatory process, there can be some goals that are just part of that system, as far as what needs to be done. We used to license from a broadcasting point of view. There would be certain targets you would have to meet, whether they be Canadian content or whatever, as part of the licensing process. We were not attempting to over-regulate but to set some overall global numbers out there.
I still think that can very clearly be done. It can be done in relation to where there are provincial-municipal telephone systems in place. They can have certain targets that they have to meet within a time period. That would be very useful in that regard.
I think a government, from an inter-ministerial meeting and committee point of view, can do an awful lot in coordinating activity between the various ministries. Some examples have been given as starting points that I think should be treated clearly as starting points and not as end points, and I think a lot can be done.
We believe the structure that is created to deal with issues in rural Canada is absolutely critical. Once you set a governmental structure in place and you have an accountability and a responsibility for these issues, then certain things will fall out of it, as far as who will then become players in trying to solve problems. Until you have some sort of formal process, it becomes very soft as to where people go for issues to be resolved. As long as everything is very informal in the resolution of those issues, I think there are great limitations to that.
Our sense is that the responsibility should be given to a main-line ministry with some resources and with an inter-ministerial approach where it's appropriate. These are all critical aspects, as is an appropriate vision for rural Canada in relation to service, technology, and infrastructure. There will be parts that will fall out of it in terms of areas of responsibility that will move us ahead in problem solving.
The Chairman: Thank you.
I have a question for Mr. Roche. I suspect that many of your municipalities are involved in some sort of local economic development initiative from within the communities. Are there any particular models you would recommend to the committee as successful? Are there some general themes coming out of those rural economic development initiatives from municipalities that you would think can be copied and used across Canada?
Mr. Roche: I think there are, Mr. Chairman. I'm not in a position to go into specific cases today because it would take too long and would certainly stretch my knowledge.
We have a close relationship with the Economic Developers Association of Canada and there are all sorts of initiatives going on. There are interesting initiatives in Saskatchewan in terms of the funding arrangements for small business, for example. These are popularly called success stories. One of the things we've been advocating to the rural secretariat is let's hear some success stories, let's get those success stories out to the communities where they can work on them and see if there's a model there that they can adopt for themselves.
Certainly under the CRIS system, which is the presence of Agriculture Canada on the Internet, there is provision for success stories to be made available through the Internet. At the moment they're not available because they're still in the course of development, so we would urge them to get on with those. We would also urge that the Internet be made more accessible, as Mr. Wilkinson has said.
Our board has met on a number of occasions with the executive director of the rural secretariat. We've met with Minister Goodale. We're impressed with what Agriculture Canada is trying to do in the area of rural development, but there's one thing I should point out, and I know Mr. Hayward will correct me if he thinks I'm wrong on this.
When we look at the rural secretariat, it is a focal point within Agriculture Canada. It does deal with other departments, but essentially it deals with other departments on matters that fall under the purview of the Minister of Agriculture. It really doesn't meet the requirement we have, which is more closely represented by the interdepartmental committee because it has people from all over. The problem with the interdepartmental committee is that it doesn't report anywhere; it's an ad hoc committee of bureaucrats. I wanted to put that point in.
The Chairman: Okay. I have one last question before I open it back up to the floor.
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Most of the witnesses talked about the lack of infrastructure and the need to have that improved. The government undertook an infrastructure program at the beginning of its mandate. Do you think it was successful in achieving the purpose of getting increased infrastructure in rural Canada, and do you think there would be any value to some sort of successor program?
Mr. Roche: Definitely the first program was a tremendous success, I think largely because of the way in which it was implemented. It was implemented very quickly. The major control on the program was you had to have the money to put in your one-third. If the municipality had its one-third and the province had its one-third and the federal government then matched with its one-third, it moved very quickly. We've seen a program that has been extremely successful.
Later I think you'll have Sinclair Harrison appearing before this committee, who's the president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities. I'm sure he would comment very favourably on the way this has operated. We've been very pleased with it, and we would advocate a renewal.
Ms Loretta Smith (Eastern Women's Representative, Canadian Federation of Agriculture): I'd like to go back and comment on something Mr. Roche said about the success stories in rural municipalities.
I also sit as a municipal councillor, and believe you me, we don't want just the success stories. We want to know what went wrong. We want to know details of what went wrong, why it went wrong, how they turned it around and fixed it and what they're anticipating in fixing it. We want the whole gamut. Success stories are great, but what went wrong is a lot more valuable.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Does anybody else have any questions?
Mr. Bélair: I have one question, Mr. Chairman. It may be a dumb question.
The other perspective is that many small farmers have chosen this particular way of life and are not that concerned with high-tech and whatever is high. Would this be a true affirmation?
Mr. Wilkinson: There is a cross-section of people who live in rural Canada that is to some extent the same as the cross-section of people who live in larger areas. Yes, there are people who embrace every new technology that comes out and there are those who prefer to have the quieter life and let technology pass them by.
Where it becomes an issue is we're seeing a reduction of services offered in many areas. For a lot of commercial businesses and farms, if they don't have the technology available, what they had in the past in terms of provincial, municipal and federal government services is being eroded. They have little choice in many areas other than to do a lot of the marketing and other activity themselves.
Therefore they need the infrastructure. They need it desperately. Not everybody will take advantage of it. Many won't. Terry may know the numbers better than I do, but I would hazard a guess that agriculture producers have as high a percentage of personal computers in their homes as the general population does, if not a higher percentage. They use it as a business in many areas. They need to be connected into markets, because that is the lifeblood of their economic activity.
Some part-time smaller individuals will choose not to participate in that, but it's becoming an issue in relationship to... You used to have government agencies, extension branches and whatnot that would give you all sorts of information in relationship to disease control, planting inputs and the whole side of that business. Those publications aren't available as they used to be in the past. Now you have an Internet number where you can get those services, or you just won't get them.
Mr. Bélair: That relates to my question of a while ago. How can we improve information to those people?
Mr. Wilkinson: A lot of these places are going on-line with extension branches or whatever and are cutting down on the cost of publications. Little branches are being closed in municipalities. It is becoming more and more important to have that service available, because that's where you're going to get your information, both on marketing and on inputs.
Mr. Bélair: Thank you.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, gentlemen and ladies. I appreciate the time and effort you've taken here today. You've provided us with some very valuable testimony and added significantly to our study. On behalf of the committee, many thanks.
We stand adjourned.