It’s always an honour to be able to speak in the House on behalf of the residents of Timiskaming–Cochrane and on behalf of my colleagues in the NDP, and today on the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario Act. Before I get into the remarks too far, I’d like to congratulate the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston and the member from Essex on their new roles as parliamentary assistants.

I’d like recognize the minister and her remarks, and I’d like to extend our heartfelt appreciation for her talking about the challenges in her personal life. It’s never easy. We all know what it takes to give up what you give up. I felt it too, the pain. What I was thinking about as the minister was speaking was the last time I drove out the driveway of my dairy farm, the last time I milked the cows. I know that feeling.

We wish your husband well. We certainly hope that your herd comes back. Goats—are they are herd or a flock?

Anyway, in your personal endeavours, we wish you well.

Actually, politically, agriculturally, we usually work together very well. There are issues that we disagree on vehemently, but there’s a way to work in the country, and I think we exemplify that in the House as well. We can agree to disagree vehemently, but still, at the end of the day, we can also agree to work together where we can work together.

I heard a couple of mentions of the Earlton Farm Show. I’m glad that the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston is coming.

I have to relay a personal story. As most of us are aware, the one event that the Legislature stops for is the International Plowing Match. We all have history with the International Plowing Match; I know the minister does. The minister and I have some shared history with the International Plowing Match. One day, I was in the cafeteria—I love the cafeteria in this place, by the way; everybody knows that it’s my favourite spot—and one of the cafeteria staff members asked me, “Mr. Vanthof, I know you go to this International Plowing Match every year and the Legislature stops, but what exactly happens there? Should I be interested in going there?” He had worked here a long time, and he didn’t have a clue. My explanation for the International Plowing Match is that it’s a plowing competition, something that has historical and current importance to agriculture, but it’s also a celebration of the rural lifestyle—and that’s what it has become. I said, “Do you live in a city?” He said, “No, I’ve got a couple of acres.” I said, “You will love the International Plowing Match.”

The member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston and I know exactly what a farm show is, but a lot of other people might not—millions of people in Ontario. They’re open farm shows—the one I know the best. There are 60 exhibitors, and they exhibit their wares, so, basically, their tools or seed or—the tools of the trade for agriculture, and always the most advanced ones, because as we all know, agriculture is advancing rapidly. Just as an example, there will be a booth with guidance systems. When I started farming, you would start your tractor and you would drive the tractor. Now, tractors—they’re not autonomous yet, but you’re sitting there as a troubleshooter, not necessarily as an operator. Soon, they will be autonomous. It’s things like that that you see at farm shows.

What makes the Earlton Farm Show incredible is—it’s not the biggest farm show in the province. It’s a long way away from here, and a lot of people—I see the Minister of Northern Development and Mines is here too. He’s very interested in agriculture, as well. A lot of people don’t realize how advanced agriculture is in the north. Their own farm show is an eye-opener. To anyone who is thinking about maybe looking at agriculture in northern Ontario, maybe expanding into northern Ontario: I couldn’t think of a better time to come than this weekend, this Friday and Saturday, to the Earlton Farm Show.

Not everyone may know how to get to the Earlton Farm Show, so I’ll give you a few directions. I’m hoping that everyone across Ontario, whoever is watching, can find their way to Highway 400. Ontario is a big province, but you take 400 and you go as far as 400 goes, and you take 11 and you keep going, and in the city in North Bay you take a right and you keep going up 11. That’s where 11 goes to two lanes, but you keep going. You will go through—before you get to North Bay and for about an hour, hour and a half after, you will go through Canadian Shield: old growth white pine, beautiful lakes and a lot of rock. If you’re an agri-farmer, anyone in agriculture, you are going to wonder what you are doing there. You really are.

Then you will crest a hill by the town of New Liskeard and you will see a couple of hundred thousand acres of farmland open before you. If you know where to look, you’ll see the Sollio feed mill; on the other side, you’ll see Pederson Construction. You keep going, you’ll go to the little town of Earlton, and Koch Farms is on one side, Earlton is on the other side, and there’s kind of a competition which one’s bigger. I think on certain days, Koch Farms looks a little bigger than the town of Earlton. Norm and his kids will have a big sign pointing to the farm show. It’s in the arena. The arena was recently dedicated to Wilfred and Rosaire Paiement, two very famous hockey players who were born and raised in Earlton and played in northern Ontario. That’s where the farm show will be.

Please, if you’re thinking about—that’s why I’m so glad that members from the government side come, because if you’re thinking about farming in northern Ontario or wondering what it’s like to farm in northern Ontario, and if you’ve got the itch and if you’re not quite ready to seed your own fields yet, we’ve got a couple of weeks yet in northern Ontario. Please come to the Earlton Farm Show. We will welcome you with open arms. We’re there for the whole time. We will welcome you with open arms. Thank you very much for saying you’re going to come. Thank you very much.

The Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario Act, I don’t think this act has been changed for years and years and years—60 years. Basically, the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario controls 14 sites. There are about 200 buildings, in a partnership with the University of Guelph, in most cases, and the Ontario government, where research is critical to keeping agriculture current and keeping Ontario as a leader. That’s where it’s conducted.

This is one of the few acts—it has sailed through the Legislature. For good reason. I give credit where credit’s due. I said this at the second reading, but it’s worth saying again: This act is singularly focused. There’s no poison pill in that, there’s no wedge issue in it. It’s focused. It’s well consulted. I think that showed at the committee hearings. It was well consulted. As a result, we’re having good debates. We’re actually talking about—I will bring up a couple of issues that came up in the committee. I’m not opposed to rancorous debate, but I think the debate here is constructive. We’re talking together to move an industry forward.

I would like to quote the minister, and I agree, “Consultation equals results.” This act is an example. I hope that the government uses this as a template, because I’ve got to say that not all of the government’s legislation, even regarding agriculture, has been like that. I don’t think that during the greenbelt fiasco—that bill had to be rescinded—I don’t think that anyone in agriculture is going to say that they were consulted. When it was proposed to subdivide agricultural properties into three, that never made it to the House, but no one is going to—that was not consulted well at all. As a result, I think everybody paid a price. So this is an example of: The government of the day knows how to do it, but sometimes whoever’s running the show chooses not to do it.

I commend the minister on this act. I do. I give credit where credit is due, and the Minister of Agriculture—you know how to do it. On this one, you did it, and as a result, we’re having a good conversation about it.

So, in Ontario, there are 14 sites, and I remember in my second reading debate, I did a whole tour of Ontario, where all these sites were. I don’t think I’m going to make people suffer through that again, but there’s a few sites that are special to us all.

I’ll get it yet without having to read, but the member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston mentioned one that was close to his riding, and I’m going to mention one that’s very close to my riding—not close to my riding; it’s in the centre of my riding. The member from Lanark–Frontenac–Kingston—I’m going to get it yet—is actually going to go visit that site and specifically the SPUD unit at that site, right? And I commend him for that.

The SPUD unit is—we just say it’s the SPUD unit and then people go, “What is the SPUD unit?” It’s a tissue—and I have no science background—a tissue propagation facility. Basically, they take in seeds of plants, not just potatoes, but strawberries, garlic, asparagus. They actually create a very prolific and very popular type of asparagus at the SPUD unit, and it’s grown in many places.

An example is—so there’s something called a—and anyone scientific is going to think, “Oh, man, Vanthof, what are you talking about?” but I try to explain things in lay terms, the way I understand them. So, you take a potato and there are—in Prince Edward Island, they recently had something called potato scab, a disease on potatoes. You don’t want to grow potatoes that have potato scab. The SPUD unit can take those potatoes and somehow go down to the genetic material and the resulting seed will be virus-free, so you’re starting with pure, clean stock. That’s really important—incredibly important.

Now, the SPUD unit has been operating for 40 years in New Liskeard, and New Liskeard is very close to where—I just told you where the farm show is. I forgot to tell you that the farm show, from here, if Toronto traffic is good, is about seven hours. The SPUD unit is about six and a half hours, right? And the reason it’s so far away: Because of prevailing winds and because of—the area itself is relatively clean as well, like, the air. There’s not a lot of other things being grown around it. It’s easier to keep it sterile when the outside air isn’t full of virus, full of disease. It’s not without challenge, but it’s easier. It’s really important.

So what happened to the SPUD unit—I’m going to have to back up for a second. At one point, the research farm in New Liskeard, which is an ARIO site—it was about 10 years ago, when I was first elected. I guess it was maybe my first or second year. There was a very strong direction from the University of Guelph to close the site in northern Ontario. They were hoping to focus everything closer to Guelph, and we fought back because—and I talked about this at the committee—conditions are different in different parts of the province, and so it’s relevant to do research in an area that, in northern Ontario, is growing in importance and in size in agriculture. It’s relevant to do research there.

So we fought back, and we cut a deal with the then Minister of Agriculture—at the time, it was Ted McMeekin—to hold on that decision and give us some breathing room to come up with a solution. As a result, we cut a deal to sell half of the research stations and build new research facilities on the other side of the road.

The problem is, the SPUD unit is on the half that was sold. That’s, quite frankly, what happened. The SPUD unit is a rented facility, and it’s worn out. Quite frankly, it’s worn out. It needs to be rebuilt, and we’ve been pushing to have it rebuilt for quite a while.

Last year, at the estimates for agriculture, it came up. I brought it up to the minister, and to her credit, the minister, I believe last year, toured the SPUD unit when she came to the farm show. Everyone’s welcome at the farm show. We would love it if you came to the farm show, Speaker. We’d give you the royal treatment.

So this year at the hearings, the berry growers came to hearings on the ARIO bill. The SPUD unit is an ARIO facility. I’m going to quote directly from the representative from the Ontario berry growers. His name is Mr. Tom Heeman. I’m going to talk about what he said about the SPUD unit:

“It breaks my heart that this past fall we had to stop shipments of genetic material from New Liskeard because the HEPA filter was not replaced and there wasn’t a budget to do so.” Like, they didn’t have the budget to change the HEPA filter. “So our samples got contaminated with mould. I know that sounds like a small thing—a couple of plants had to be thrown out and started over again”—that’s what people on the outside world think—“but it takes over three years to replace those dozens of plants into millions and millions of plants. Those plants go throughout the country. They go throughout the United States. You may not buy Ontario berries all the time, but the technology in New Liskeard helps create those Florida berries that get imported during the winter as well.

“I just want you to” know “about these changes. Adding intellectual property I think would be a benefit so that you can work with the university and have a clear guideline on intellectual property.”

But the main problem here is that this facility is worn out. I’m very proud of agriculture in Ontario—extremely proud. I made my living at it most of my life. I am much more qualified as a farmer than I ever will be as a parliamentarian, I guarantee you that. But this facility is worn out. Everyone knows it, and we waited until nothing—now we’re having to import that genetic material. We can’t say we’re leaders and we can’t say we’re research leaders when facilities are breaking down.

So I asked Mr. Heeman about the challenges that we’ve had trying to get the SPUD unit rebuilt. We have a perfect site for it on the ARIO research land across the road, where the provincial government helped build a brand new research station for field crops. That is the perfect spot for it. Everyone agrees that that’s a perfect spot.

I’m not going to read my whole question; it’s not about me. So to Mr. Heeman: “You mentioned some frustration, but just how important is the tissue culture centre and where are you in the process?” And I’m going to quote exactly what he said:

“Thank you. I don’t think anything has changed. I was at this 10 years ago because we had a hard time getting contracts renewed. We’d call and call because we’re a client and we didn’t know who to talk to, and we’ve been able to expand that process up to the minister’s level.

“Again, these facilities are good but we need to have stakeholder dialogue. That whole mandate on technology transfer and expansion—OMAFRA does a tremendous job”—give credit where credit is due, “but they need to have the people in place. It all started when we lost the faculty member”—so when Guelph kind of didn’t pay attention to the SPUD unit. “The faculty member retired and was never replaced. Now we just have a technician with an overseer in Guelph, so there’s not active research being advanced at that facility” today.

“I brought an example today of what it means. I don’t know if you’ve all heard about the Ontario hazelnut story,”—so we’re going to talk about the hazelnut story, a direct quote—“but this is something that is a homegrown success story. It required the tissue culture in the New Liskeard plant in order to make sure that the varieties they were breeding and bringing into nurseries were clean of virus. Now we have delicious Ontario hazelnuts ... something we never had before.” Something we wouldn’t have had without the SPUD unit in New Liskeard.

He goes on to say, “What has been communicated to me is that the challenge is the funding for the joint partnership agreement.” And that is a challenge for this act. This act is good. We have supported this act from day one. But you also have to have funding to actually replace some of these facilities, have the funding to manage these facilities. And it was identified in there that that is not the case—so now I lost my place—“where you can have funding for the facilities, but if you don’t have the funding for the faculty to operate the facilities, then you get a shortfall. Again, you don’t have a lab director for that facility. They’re under another individual out of Guelph who doesn’t physically visit that spot, and you have a technician who is very skilled but close to retirement. She communicates with us, because she’s very exasperated at times for not being listened to. I think it’s a very difficult position, where she has all these plants to keep alive and she knows that growers are counting on her, but I don’t think that—because it’s basically an orphaned facility.”

That’s why I’m bringing it up today: because this is an ARIO facility, and someone who depends on it. We’ve all been talking about research, and someone, a group who depends on this facility is basically saying, “It’s orphaned.” And that came up at committee.

There was also, at the same committee, a representative from the University of Guelph. In response to the same question—and it’s the first time I’ve been at committee that someone answered a question that I didn’t ask—he was obviously very impacted. I give credit where credit is due. I respect, by Mr. Heeman’s comments, when he said that that facility was orphaned. It was Dr. Shayan Sharif—he was the representative from the University of Guelph. He said, “If I may just to diverge here and just point out one big important thing in regard to the SPUD unit, because it has been discussed quite significantly and very extensively: I just wanted to tell MPP Vanthof that I don’t really think that that SPUD is orphaned.... We hope to lease out to industry to have a sustainable plan for the operations of SPUD. SPUD is not forgotten; it will never be forgotten. It is really critical for the industry and for the north. We recognize that, but we need to have a sustainable plan that would ensure its viability for the future.”

I couldn’t agree more. We’re just getting frustrated. And the member from Essex—where are you from, then?

Interjection: Kent.

Thank you to the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane. I always learn a lot about farming and agriculture when you speak. I wonder if you can talk about how the frequent closures of Highways 11 and 17 affect farmers and their products.

This is a rather interesting bill for me. I’ve thought a lot about how I was going to start off talking about it. But when the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane was standing up talking so much about the SPUD unit, I had to come along with this, because as he kept talking about SPUD, SPUD, SPUD, all I could think of was Stompin’ Tom Connors and his song Bud the Spud “from the big red mud,” going “down the highway smilin’ / The spuds are big on the back of Bud’s rig” because they come from New Liskeard island.

Interjections.

But what I wanted to point out about it was that the SPUD unit—because he went on a fair bit about the SPUD unit—is actually part of the University of Guelph; it’s not part of ARIO. So I get that it’s in the same location now. There’s some technical differences on it, but to kind of point the finger at the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs for that one I don’t think was really to them. That’s the University of Guelph on that.

This bill—actually, there are a whole bunch of things that for me are kind of fun with it. The longest petition in our legislative history was about this legislation, and there’s some good stuff, actually, in that petition, on how modernizing the Agricultural Research Institute of Ontario Act is a key component of the Grow Ontario Strategy, that aims to strengthen Ontario’s agriculture and food supply chain. We go on to talk about all of the different institutes and what they do and how this legislation will help on that.

Again, I know the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane talked about how it was good legislation because we took our time with it. There was a lot of consultation that was involved in it, and I think we have to point out a lot of the staff members and people who were involved in that consultation, and I want to get some names out on the record.

In particular, Dr. Hepworth; he’s the chair of ARIO. He’s done a fair bit of work on this, and what’s interesting about it is, when we talk about collaboration, yes, we’re collaborating with the agriculture industry here in Ontario. We’re collaborating with stakeholders here in Ontario on this, but the kind of cool part about this is that Dr. Hepworth was actually the Minister of Agriculture in another provincial legislature. So it’s not just collaboration here in Ontario, it’s not just collaboration with our own stakeholders; it’s getting information from other provinces as well, and how other groups were doing this and incorporating that into it.

The original legislation that created this was written in 1962. Now, what I’ll say on that is that it predates the last time the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup, and the Stanley Cup has never been won by the Maple Leafs in my lifetime, so that’s legislation that has been around for a long time

In the petition, we point this out a number of times, that there’s things that have happened in agriculture research that were never envisioned when the research institutes were first put into place. Robotics was not something you ever considered for agriculture. Genomics was something that was never considered for agriculture, back when that was first written.

So it really did need to have an update done to it, and I think that with the amount of work that was done by parliamentary assistants, the minister and ministry staff does make a big difference. And there’s a couple other people that I should give shout-outs too as well who were involved in this, some of the unsung heroes in the background: Kelli Rice and Tanya Marissen, both very heavily involved in the development of this.

I have said a few times that I’m going to embarrass somebody on this as well. And I have to say that with the amount of research, there’s a lot of work that goes out to stakeholders on it. You’re constantly working with stakeholders on this. This bill has more meaning for me than probably anyone else here because the director of stakeholder relations for OMAFRA is my daughter, and this is the first piece of legislation that she shepherded through the process.

That probably doesn’t mean a whole lot to a lot of other people, but if we think back to something from just a couple of weeks ago, I passed third reading of my first PMB, and if this passes third reading in a short period of time, there’s an opportunity for royal assent to be given on the same day for my legislation and my daughter’s, and I would hazard to guess, it’s probably the first time in our history that a father and daughter had their legislation given royal assent at the same time.

So, to me, that’s a historic moment for my family. Obviously as a father, I’m very proud of the work that my daughter did on that. So I think that, as I said, I have a very personal interest in this.

I mentioned that the original legislation was written in 1962. There was a minor update done to it around board governance back in the 1990s. But this is something that needed to happen. When you look at the amount of work that has gone into it, the amount of research done, the amount of stakeholder engagement that was done on it—it took about 18 months from start to finish for this to come through the process. And I think, selfishly, it was a very well-written piece of legislation because we saw almost unanimous consent or unanimous approval from everybody. There were some minor adjustments that were brought up during committee work, but for the most part, no one had anything negative to say, just a couple of very minor tweaks that people thought should happen from it.

And because of the amount of research, the amount of background work that was done, it spawned off another piece of legislation, Bill 171, specifically about the Veterinarians Act and the changes that need to be made to that. So kudos to everyone that was involved in it because they did a great job in looking at one of the challenges we were facing and how do we move forward with it.

When we look at the agricultural industry in Ontario, there’s a lot of people who don’t truly appreciate what agri-business means for the province. It’s one of the largest employers in the province. I’ve heard it said before; I’ll kind of repeat it: One in 10 people work in agri-business in this province. Ten out of 10 consume the products that the agri-business does here in this province. So it is something that’s very, very important.

When we look at the advancements that have come because of the research that’s been done—when we look at dairy farming, again, the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane has repeatedly told us that he was a dairy farmer. The robotics in dairy farming has made a massive difference to how we do things. It’s enabled farmers to reduce the size of their herds. We’ve got one in my riding, in particular—he has 50% less cows today, but he produces more milk with them because it’s an automated process. It’s a robotic system. The cows are happier. The cows get a little treat when they go in to get milked. They have brushing devices—I guess would be the best way to describe it—so that when the cow wants to have its back rubbed, it can get it. The one farmer said to me that happy cows produce more milk. That’s exactly what we’re seeing from it.

When the conversation was happening about the SPUD unit—being able to get rid of viruses, having a clean slate with your crop when you first plant it is something that’s very valuable. The genomics that happen—it doesn’t happen by surprise. It happens because of the amount of research. We’re seeing that with so many different parts of the agriculture industry. It is not just in plants; it’s chickens, it’s pork, it’s beef. All of the livestock, we’re seeing improvements in that, in the genetics of those animals because of the research that’s being done. And what we’re changing now with the updates to this is, we’re ensuring that that research that’s being done can get to the farm faster so that farmers can actually make those decisions at the speed of business. They can make the pivots and adjustments that they need to because Ontario is doing that research, that R&D, and giving, then, the opportunities for a better product.

We’ve seen here in Ontario that there are agricultural products that we’re now producing here that were never thought of being produced in this environment because of the research, because of some of the changes that have been made to the genetics of it so that you can have plants that are not necessarily native, or not native at all, to this region of the world thriving in this area. In my own backyard, we have a couple of vineyards now in Peterborough. There was a time when no one would have thought that you’re going to grow grapes in Peterborough county, and yet we have that.

Prince Edward county is another great example of that. For those who don’t know, I grew up in Wellington. We moved from Wellington in the mid-1980s. But Wellington was a farm community when I was there. Grapes were not part of the farm product. It was all cash crops. I worked on a tomato farm. I worked on a dairy farm when I was a kid. That tomato farm doesn’t exist anymore as a tomato farm. One of the largest pea farms was in Prince Edward county. They grow grapes now on that farmland. And all of this is because of research that has been done.

By Ontario making these changes, by investing in our research institutes and by updating them and bringing the legislation up to today’s standard and focusing on the things that we need to for today, it puts us in that better position to be the worldwide leader and supply the world in agriculture.

It’s been said by the minister a number of times that Ontario is a net exporter of our produce. When we look at the greenhouse industry, the vast majority of the product from our greenhouses is exported to the United States. And it’s all because of good stewardship, because we have been able to demonstrate to farmers ways that they can improve. That is one of the true benefits of the ARIO network that we have, the 14 institutes across all of Ontario.

With that, Speaker, I know I still have a little bit of time left, but really, what I wanted to get on the record was how proud I was of my daughter. This is the first piece of legislation she has completed that has come through this whole process. I’m looking forward to the opportunity for everyone to get behind it, support it, pass it at third reading so that we have an opportunity for both her legislation and my legislation to receive royal assent on the same day.