Food Day in Canada Act
Date: 2023_04_17
Chamber: HOUSE OF COMMONS
Mr. Alex Ruff: I would start my interjection today by thanking the Hon. Rob Black for introducing Bill S-227 in the other place and the infamous and great member for Perth--Wellington for sponsoring it here in this chamber. Bill S-227, an act to establish food day in Canada, seeks to establish the Saturday of the August long weekend as food day here in Canada. The purpose of this is obviously to recognize the roles our local farmers, producers and processors play in ensuring Canadians have access to safe agriculture and nutritious food. The tack I am going to take in my speech is to go through and review pretty much all the interjections that have occurred so far in the chamber to highlight some of the important things that have already been said about the bill and to look at how it would impact my great riding of Bruce--Grey--Owen Sound. I would like to start by noting that I, to be frank, knew very little about Anita Stewart before preparing for this speech, and I first want to offer my condolences to the Stewart family because, as has been noted, she passed away at the age of 73, not even a couple of years ago. What is interesting is that the origins of food day in Canada really go back 20 years. They are tied to a concern Anita had, which was born over the crisis we faced as a country, which was mad cow disease or BSE, and the importance of that. I would like to note that my very first question here in the House of Commons, upon my election in late 2019, was: I was very disappointed last week, when listening to the throne speech, to hear very little mention of rural Canada and our critical and diverse agricultural sector. Ontario farmers are suffering from a lack of processing capacity and their inability to sell fed cattle to the United States. The government missed a critical deadline to apply to the World Organisation for Animal Health for negligible risk status. Why? Unfortunately, I never got an answer to that, and I am still waiting to get an answer, but really, the origins of food day in Canada are based in Anita Stewart's concerns over that. The Hon. Rob Black brought this up in his speeches on this bill, as he introduced it in the other place, highlighting his concerns over the lack of agricultural concern by the current government in the Speech from the Throne. I have, on the public record, spoken a couple of times to the fact that, for some reason, agriculture does not seem to be a top priority for the current government, and it needs to be. I am not trying to be partisan here. I represent a riding. One of the reasons I got involved in politics was exactly to stand up for rural Canada, particularly my farmers. Later in my speech, I will get into what the statistics are and how important agriculture is to my riding. It is bigger than just Bruce--Grey--Owen Sound. Obviously, something everybody in the House can appreciate is the importance of farming and agriculture to Canada and to Canadians. We are by far one of the largest producers and exporters of all agricultural products around the world, whether they are our cash crops, cattle, dairy or fruits and vegetables. I will get into specifics. We export. In our cities, for those members of the House who represent our more urban ridings, without food we cannot survive, so it is so important. I will highlight a bit more of the history around BSE, as the member for Perth--Wellington highlighted in his first speech on this subject. He talked about how damaging BSE was to Canada and to our beef farmers. At the time, Canada was the third-largest exporter of beef in the world, to the tune of over $4.1 billion. However, basically overnight, due to BSE, our beef producers saw their exports to the U.S. go from just under $300 million a month to zero. I am going to get into some specific stats to highlight my own great riding. Between Bruce and Grey counties, there are over 4,124 farms. There are just shy of a million acres of farmland in my riding alone, and the average farm is about 240 acres. Between 13% and 20% of the local farms sell locally right to the consumer. There are over 400 farms that sell directly from the farm to the stands or are "pick your own". There is also the diversity, with beef, dairy, pork, poultry, cash crops and orchards in particular. There are some of the best cideries and orchards in my riding, which produce by and large one of the largest percentages of apples in Canada. Beef in particular is what my riding is known for. In fact, there are over 200,000 beef cattle in my riding in a given year. I wish I could get them to vote, because then my results would likely be even better in federal elections. This is really important for us, but so is the economic impact locally. There are over 13,400 people employed in the local food sector and over 4,117 businesses. There are cash receipts of over $1 billion. Across the province, food alone is responsible for $2.8 billion. This is from the farms in my riding, with total employees across the whole sector at over 42,000. This is a direct result of Bruce and Grey counties. Another important note is that between 54% and 69% of the farms in my area are small farms, meaning they are putting forth less than $100,000 in revenue in a given year. There are a few other points I want to highlight, which have been brought up by other colleagues in the House. One is how resilient our farmers are. They do not have the choice that many of us do. It does not matter what the weather is like or what type of personal issues they are facing. They need to get out there and work through them. They need to work through mental health issues, which is something else that Parliament and the government need to be focusing more efforts on for farmers in Canada. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food , in his speech, highlighted how he loves to cook. I will not go that route. I am capable of cooking my Kraft Dinner and my Cheerios every day, which is about my limit, although I have expanded into chili. He talked about the importance of the media and how Canada does not cover how important food and our agriculture sector are for Canada. This really highlights the point about education and the importance of food day in Canada. This bill, which I am confident will pass, is all about education. I will be shocked if it does not pass with unanimous support. Furthermore, as I highlighted earlier, Canada cannot survive without food. We need to continue to highlight what that means going forward, but it is bigger than just the mass production or processing of food. It is about small family farms. The member for Cowichan--Malahat--Langford talked about being a small-scale farmer himself. I guess I kind of qualify in that boat too. I grew up on the family farm, which I own now. I do not have the 700 ducks, couple hundred chickens and couple hundred turkeys and geese that I grew up raising. In fact, we hatched them all in the basement. We also had the dairy cow that my dad gave my mother for her birthday, which she milked twice a day by hand to keep the family fed. When one has five boys, that is all stuff that needs to happen. Recognizing that I am running out of time, I just want to highlight in my wrap-up the importance of passing Bill S-227 , which would establish a national food day in Canada. It is really all about education, but most importantly, it is about thanking farmers here in Canada.