Oh, wow. I didn’t know that.

Yes, Haileybury. Again, it’s an offshoot: Training people in the north helps to keep people in the north. The member who was on the committee with me, from Mushkegowuk–James Bay, commented about the lack of veterinary medicine in northern Ontario. And my colleague from Kiiwetinoong, the farther north you go, the lack becomes more acute, more acute, more acute and more acute.

I’d say we’re more mid-north than north-north, but it’s hard to get veterinary medicine. Considering that, particularly for animal agriculture, it’s moving north, access to veterinary medicine isn’t necessarily keeping it up with it. That’s an issue.

I don’t like to criticize the government, but sometimes the government just deserves criticism. That’s two different things. But I also give credit when credit is due. I feel that’s important.

But I do give credit where credit is due. I’ve spent a lot of time talking about vet techs, but vets are also a very important part of the veterinary medicine team, and the government has announced funding for 20 more seats for vets. It’s been a long time coming, not just from this government but from previous governments. One of the unique things they have announced is that some of those seats will be in Thunder Bay, at Lakehead. That’s a good move. I said so at committee, and I don’t mind saying it again. Having seats at Lakehead in veterinary medicine is a good idea.

I’ve also said, and I will say it again, that I don’t believe that the whole program should be at Lakehead. Guelph is a centre of excellence for a lot of things agricultural, but for veterinary medicine it’s a centre of excellence, and I do believe that anyone who trains to be a veterinarian in Ontario should have the Guelph experience.

The reason it’s so important to include Thunder Bay—and hopefully, maybe, some day another university, but we’re happy with Thunder Bay—is that they will be able to recruit potential vets from the north. We know this from the college of northern Ontario—it used to be the school of medicine, but now it’s the Northern Ontario School of Medicine. They have been successful at recruiting and training doctors from northern Ontario and have largely been successful at keeping them in northern Ontario. That’s very critical.

Those of us who live in northern Ontario—no offence to people in Toronto, but if I have to pick a place to live, I’m going home. Likely, if you grew up around here, where you grew up and what you’re used to is where you feel at home. It’s much easier to work where you feel at home.

I’m going to go off on a huge tangent, but my parents are immigrants, my wife is an immigrant, and to everyone who comes to this country with their parents, I have to give a shout-out. I just said it’s so much easier to do things close to home, but whoever leaves their home to come and leaves everything behind—I have to give a great shout-out to those people, along with First Nations, who have helped build this country. I see it. I don’t know it—I was born here—but I see it in my wife, in the things that she has given up and also the things she has gained. Some days she would question whether marrying me is a gain, but—

As I was saying, it’s easier to get professionals to come when you train them where they’re used to. So anyone, from wherever in the world you come from, when you emigrate—man, that’s a huge, huge step, and it takes a lot of guts to do that.

But anyway, it’s a good plan to train people, to train vets in Thunder Bay and bring them to Guelph. I give the government credit where credit is due that they’ve taken that step.

Should we do more? We can always do more. Should we create more seats? Yes. Let’s get this program up and running. Let’s get it up and running as quickly as possible.

As we all know, all universities are having some funding issues right now, so we need to work on that as well, because announcing new programs—if the core of the university is struggling, then that puts more pressure on the new programs as well.

Something else that this bill—an hour is a long time, so I might come back to veterinary technicians. But I’m going to come back: The bill also exempts some things like grooming, hoof trimming or massage that don’t have to be regulated. That’s also, I think, a good thing.

Hoof trimming is something I know a lot about. If you’ve got some time, look up videos on hoof trimming. They’re kind of mesmerizing in a way, but they bring back memories for me.

But no, it’s interesting. For a farmer—and obviously for the animal, but for the farmer—it’s a great feeling when a cow has got a bit of a limp and you fix it, because you can see that they walk a lot nicer. They—

Interjection.

I didn’t even know these videos existed, but sometimes I miss the farm and I’ll punch something in. I’ll look up farming or something on the farm, and all of a sudden I’ll get all these ads for milking parlours and for hoof trimmers.

I’m really getting off track now.

You don’t do it by hand anymore?

I had to quit when I lost my thumb.

Interjections.

Anyway, but it’s good that they’re exempted. It’s also good that the government recognizes that farmers, their families, their employees also need to have the ability to administer treatment, right? Because you need to work with your veterinary professionals, you need to work with veterinary technicians, but, with advice from the veterinarian and from the technicians, you also need to be able to treat your own animals. Because if you can’t, if they had disallowed that, there would be times when you either would break that regulation or the animal would die, because some treatments need to be done immediately. One is bloat. I can’t explain bloat completely and how it works internally, but I can explain it from the outside. The cow will fill up with gas and basically their organs will be crushed if you don’t do something to relieve that gas. You can put a hose down their throat. If that doesn’t work, there is a special—I don’t know what you call it; it looks like a screw with a hole in it. You can use that and—we don’t always walk around with those in pockets—if you have to, a pocketknife. I never thought I would say this in the Legislature. It doesn’t happen a lot, but it happens. It used to happen a lot more when we put cattle on pasture, because fresh alfalfa makes cattle bloat. It’s a beautiful feed if it’s made into haylage or if it’s made into hay, but if it’s fresh and you let the cows out in pasture, then you’re going to need the help of a vet pretty quick.

That’s one example, but there are other examples that you need—and for day-to-day, to administer vaccines. All of these things, you can get the vet or the vet technician to do that. And there are certain things that some farmers do, other farmers don’t do. When I had to give intravenous for a condition called milk fever, I had a hard time finding the vein. I did it a couple of times under the skin. So a cow gets milk—I’m finally finding something I can talk about that I know something about. When a cow gets milk fever—so a cow has a calf. There’s a huge demand for calcium, because milk has a large amount of calcium. If the feed was imbalanced before the cow had the calf, that calcium will be drawn from its body and it won’t be able to stand, so you will need to get calcium into its blood as quickly as possible. The best way to do it is to find a blood vessel in the cow’s neck and give two bottles of intravenous calcium. I was not very good at finding the vein so I just put the calcium under the skin and then called the vet. With this, a vet technician could do that as well, but a lot of farmers treated cows themselves for milk fever; I did it under the skin because some things I just wasn’t good at. A lot of things I wasn’t good at, but that’s another whole story.

But that’s really important that there are exemptions and farmers were happy with that as well, because at the committee—Ontario Federation of Agriculture came, Beef Farmers of Ontario came, Ontario Pork came. I missed somebody; I’m just going on my memory here. And they were also largely—not largely, completely supportive.

The one issue—and I think maybe we can deal with this in the regulations. A veterinary technician needs to work under a vet. And that’s right; we get that. But getting back to northern Ontario, we need to see how big we can make that, so, how close, because even now, the vet could be three hours away. So perhaps if the veterinary technician could be closer and somehow work—and I see I’m getting a thumbs-up from the minister.

But those are the things that we need to work out, the realities of how life actually is. We need to work that out, and I think we can. I think this bill is a step forward because you’re recognizing what veterinary technicians are capable of and what their relationship is with the vet.

Now, I’m focusing on domestic farm animals, because I have more experience with domestic farm animals and the vet than I do with pets.

I have a great story about a baboon, but I can’t tell it—

Interjections.

Just going by talking to my staff member, a former vet tech, I think the small-animal part is, on the personal level, perhaps more difficult than the farm animals, because, although famers—you need to love animals to be successful at farming, but it is our income, our job, where a pet is truly a member of the family.

And it’s funny—I don’t think I’ve told this story to very many, and I’m going to try here. I might get in big trouble for this one. I might get in big trouble.

So, when we sold the dairy farm, we moved. I have a house across from the dairy farm, but I couldn’t watch it, so we bought another house. It was the August long weekend, and I was making a parade float for—I think it was the Elk Lake Civic Holiday parade. We had two miniature poodles, Toffee and Jack, and these things never shut up ever.

Anyway, Jack never liked me much, but Jack always followed me around. So I was building a float, and a two-by-four was up against the float I was building, and the two-by-four fell, and it broke Jack’s leg.

Interjections.

I’m not going to say what would have happened to Jack on the farm, but it did change my perspective for me too. Like, I never—it’s a pet.

One of the issues for vets and vet techs is—and I can see it being incredibly hard—the difference between a commercial animal and a pet. If you think about it, for Jack, Jack lived for another two years. That’s great. And we’re not independently wealthy, but that $5,000, we could afford it. Whether it was a smart investment, I don’t know.

What did your wife say?

My wife is still my wife, so—maybe the best $5,000 I ever spent. But I thought about it after: If Jack had belonged to someone who didn’t have it, that’s an incredibly, incredibly tough decision.

It came up a little bit during the committee—not about Jack, but we put some amendments forward about making it easier for not-for-profit groups to run veterinary clinics. I believe the member from London West will talk about this in much better detail later. But I did think about that, because companion animals are often companions for people who have struggles. People who have struggles often have animals. They wouldn’t be able to deal with Jack, but cases like Jack could still happen to them. That’s a hard one to come to grips with.

Also, to train to be a veterinarian, to train to be a vet tech costs a lot of money, so I don’t begrudge that they need to recoup that money and need to make an income. I don’t begrudge that at all. But somehow, we have to find a way to make that work.

What else have I got in my notes here? I’m going to change since I don’t think anybody is going to stop me now. I’m just going to give a report. I was going to do this at the top, but I haven’t. I’ve spoken a couple of times about a local cheese factory in our riding, Thornloe Cheese. Last October, Gay Lea closed it without any warning. It really made us angry. A committee was formed. We got close to 7,000 names on a petition. They held rallies. We supported. Gay Lea has since come out and said they haven’t announced who, but the negotiations are progressing and they’re hoping to make a good announcement in the near future that Thornloe Cheese may resume operations.

So I don’t want to jinx it by saying it before, but Gay Lea came out and said that. I commend them for listening to the community. The community was disappointed. They recognized that, and they are working towards the rebirth of Thornloe Cheese. What is in the deal is the building, the quota, the recipes, the trademarks. If we can pull this off, this will be the second time. Parmalat, years ago, when I was on the milk committee, announced its closure and we pulled it from the fire, and I’m very hopeful that we are going to pull it from the fire again.

I did an interview with CTV today and they asked why Thornloe struck such a chord with people in our area. The Timiskaming area, for those of you who have never been—and you’re all welcome to come—we talk about agriculture here but agriculture isn’t the first thing you think of when you think of northern Ontario. But when you cross the hill into the valley, into the Little Clay Belt, agriculture is the only thing you see. It’s incredible.

There are many agricultural operations that sell from the farm, but there’s nothing really on the scale of Thornloe Cheese. It’s what we can point to. It was distributed across the country, it makes great products and that’s the only thing that we could really point to that actually comes out of Timiskaming. There’s all kinds of milk and all kinds of grain and all kinds of canola, but Thornloe Cheese—to be able to work to get that back, we are very hopeful. If we can help at all, I’d certainly like to make it public that if and when a new owner for Thornloe Cheese announces, we will do everything in our power to make that operation successful.

I remember when the closure was announced, the Minister of Agriculture approached me and the Minister of Northern Development and Mines approached me, because they all knew the importance of Thornloe. We will all work together to make sure that Thornloe once again not only comes back to life, but is successful and emblematic of our community. That is not 100% good news, yet but it’s going in the right direction.

I’d like to commend the committee. The committee has had some criticism. We came out really strong at the start because we needed to show Gay Lea that we were serious, but they toned it back when Gay Lea was in negotiations, because when you’re having true negotiations, you give people space. We are fully prepared to continue to do that and to commend Gay Lea and the new company, once an announcement is forthcoming.

My last issue I’d like to talk about has something to do with veterinarians, it has something to do with agriculture and it has something to do with—but it’s a bit more of a stretch, so if somebody wants to stop me, you can.

I don’t know if I’ll be able to get this issue on the floor again, but I’m going to today. We have had had a case—the minister knows where I’m going, and the former Minister of the Environment probably will know where I’m going in a second—in Timiskaming where the lagoon from a former dairy farm was enlarged, and it is now used to import raw human sewage. Now, that raw human sewage is being spread on the fields, with approval. This is with approval.

This is something we need to look at. When you spread animal manure on farmland you need a nutrient management plan so that you can prove that you’re doing it safely, that you’ve got enough acres, that you’re not polluting the land and that the crops that come from that land are safe. When you use biosolids you need a non-agricultural source material plan to administer those biosolids so you can do the same thing.

But when you use raw human sewage, it’s up to the Minister of the Environment. And I am not criticizing the people who work for the ministry at all, but we are raising the question of whether the ministry has the capability to actually administer that.

When that site was first developed, we brought it to the ministry’s attention that it actually was a former dairy farm, that there was infrastructure under the concrete, and we were told, “No, no, this is a greenfield site”—it wasn’t. When we asked if they checked the well that serviced that dairy farm—“Oh, no, there is no well.” Well, the only people who didn’t know there was a well there were the ministry and—appeared to be—the operator. Everybody else knew there was a well there. And then, they found the well, and it turns out that there was a path from the lagoon to the well under the concrete in the former dairy structure.

Don’t listen to him.

Like you said.

In Oshawa, we had a couple of make-the-news stories, which I have shared in talking about this bill before, about the kangaroo that came to visit. It was also not part of this bill, but some of the conversation that came from this visiting kangaroo that was on the lam, so to speak, in Oshawa was, what on earth is a kangaroo doing in Oshawa? It brought some attention to roadside zoos: the lack of oversight, the challenges both for veterinarians and people who deal with animal care.

This is a bill that we don’t have a problem supporting, but there are other opportunities for this ministry, for this government, to make strides in caring in a better way for more animals, especially the roadside zoos being one example. What are some other things that you’ve heard?

Like we said.

I give the minister credit. When they found that out, equipment went in; they dug and stopped that.

But that was a fully approved site. And it wasn’t 20 years ago. It was approved with that concrete in the plans—in the plans. Now, rightfully so, in my opinion, there are members of the public who have lost faith in the ministry’s ability to monitor that site, so now they’re asking—the comment period just closed. For the first time in 12 and a half years, our office actually commented in the comment period. I don’t know if that’s proper, actually. But the reason I did it is because the first two times I asked the question, both times the response was completely wrong—it wasn’t even “we’ll look into it”; it was “nope.” So, now, every time when they say there’s no problem, we don’t buy it. The comment period is over. We want to know, how does the ministry ensure that when raw human sewage is spread on those fields that the crops from those fields don’t end up in the human food chain? We don’t have direct access to those answers. I think that’s something we need to know. Just having the ministry say, “Everything is fine, folks”—fool me once, my fault; fool me three times—and I’m not criticizing the ministry, not really, not at all. I believe that the people who work for the ministry are doing everything they can. But the rules, to me, aren’t clear. So we don’t know where those crops are going. We do know that the company that did the spreading was fined for spreading at the wrong time. I’m a farmer by trade. They spread that liquid human sewage under conditions that no competent farmer would ever spread human sewage—

Actually, I agree with that—I said that before I started—since I know where that advice came from.

The new member from Milton, in his speech, talked about how one political issue had made him end up coming here, and I had the same thing. Actually, one of the people who I called told me to find something better to do with my time, and that was also the member from Oxford. That’s why I’m here.

But anyway, in closing, we made it very clear with second reading, we made it very clear in the committee, we’re making it very clear now: We are in favour of this act. It makes changes that people have needed in the veterinary industry, in the agriculture industry and people who have pets. These changes are good for the people who work with those animals and for the people themselves. So, with that, we are happy to support.

My final closing is that I hope that the government learns from this: that you bring good legislation forward, directed legislation, and, actually, it will result in good results for the people of Ontario. We may disagree in philosophy on some things; that’s fine. But a good piece of legislation is a good piece of legislation, and this is.

One other comment: We should look not at lowering the bar, but at expanding the bar to people who have practical experience, because there are some people are more cut out to be a large-animal vet. We need to do that. We need to find a way to do that. I don’t want to lower the bar, but to broaden the life experience bar.

Point of order.

I recognize the Minister of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs on a point of order.

I can’t believe we just talked about poop for the last 10 minutes in the Ontario Legislature, but here we are on Monday afternoon.

I wanted to give you a little bit more time to elaborate on the partnership with University of Guelph and Lakehead University, because we both agree it’s really, really great to be able to see that partnership, fostering more seats in the north and having those people stay in the north. I’m going to talk a little bit later in my remarks about my uncle, who was a large-animal veterinarian in the north. I just want to give you the opportunity to expand a little bit on that.

I would like to thank my friend from Timiskaming–Cochrane for an engaging and entertaining, but also genuine and forthright, presentation. I think it’s important that we give credit where it’s due—although I would say that we don’t see much credit coming from the government towards us in the official opposition, and I think our scorecard is quite a number higher in that regard.

I also want to commend the committee and commend the member for recognizing the work of the committee, getting Gay Lea and Parmalat to pull Thornloe Cheese from the fire. It’s a shame that the member couldn’t pull Jack from underneath the two-by-four in time, but that remains to be seen.

With Bill 171, we see that the government has engaged in years of open and transparent public consultation. How is this unlike many other pieces of legislation that this government has put forward?

I’d like to thank the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane for a very entertaining debate session this afternoon. It makes all of us smile a little more often. That’s welcome.

I actually want to talk about a serious question about an email that I’ve had recently from a constituent who is concerned about the pricing of medicine for their pets. Talking about the increases in the last few years, their speculation is that it’s largely due to the presence of the private equity industry or sector in taking over veterinary practices. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about what more the government could do to make sure that pricing for medications for pets is affordable and fair for Ontarians.

Next question.

I’d like to thank the member from Oshawa for that question. There’s actually a movement in northern Ontario and northeastern Ontario to try to get the government to take a closer look at roadside zoos. I referred to it: First you had a kangaroo. We had a baboon get loose in Latchford, and it bit a lady. Latchford is a very small community; it doesn’t have an animal control bylaw officer. It’s a pet, so how do you deal with that? Should someone whose baboon gets loose have a baboon, quite frankly?

Anyway, thank you for bringing that forward. I think the government needs to look. I know that the municipality of Kirkland Lake and many other municipalities have put forward resolutions to try to get the government to take steps to do something about roadside zoos.

Jack lived for two years after, and Jack loved my wife and never liked me. He didn’t like me before the surgery; he didn’t like me any better after, but he did follow me around all the time. He was a valued member of our family for 13 years.

I will stick to agricultural issues. On some issues, they lack a consultative process. On land use, they seem to completely lack a consultative process. They’ve had to rescind bills, like the greenbelt—completely rescind legislation—even though we are in a process, in a place, where that shouldn’t happen. We can disagree philosophically, but to have bills, to have policies that are so egregious to the public that the public forces the government to change direction—they don’t understand consultation.

Another quick one is when it became that they were going to allow three severances per agricultural lot. Again, there was no consultation on that at all, and that is a huge problem.

We understand that to provide a service, companies that make medication, companies that provide things need to make a profit. You’re not going to do something to lose money. We understand that. But if you look at the profit margins of many corporations, perhaps the government needs to look how the undue gouging, or gouging at all, can be prevented.

Two million.

Three-hundred thousand.

I thoroughly enjoyed the presentation from the member from Timiskaming–Cochrane. He mentioned his experience where he had had an injured animal and he had to take steps to nurse that injured animal back to health, and that kind of made him transition from a farmer to a pet owner.

I would like to hear the rest of the story. I would like to hear what happened with the animal after the animal’s leg was wounded and after it had healed. What happened to the animal after that?