Agriculture Committee on March 28th, 2012

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

To me, that's a big problem. I look at Loblaws. I'd like to say “good work” to the people at the Ontario corn-fed beef program, but they basically had to give the beef away to Loblaws to convince them to put it on their shelves. They resisted and hesitated. Once they embraced it, all of a sudden they found out that there was a huge demand for the product, because it's a great product, and all of a sudden it's flying off the shelves.

The same argument can be made—I'll use the farm I'm on—for Ontario pork. If you go to your local Zehrs or Loblaws, you'll have a heck of a time trying to figure out where it's from.

The grocery stores, in my opinion, are the biggest to blame for a lack of locally grown initiatives and a local brand awareness. I guess I'll just leave it at that.

Mr. Burt, would the Conference Board of Canada consider supply management a core pillar of producing your own food locally in a supply chain? Would the Conference Board of Canada agree that there is value in supply management?

[Michael Burt]

We are on record; we have done a couple of studies on supply management, particularly on dairy.

It does provide some benefits in terms of price stability and return on investment for dairy farmers, but it also has a lot of negatives associated with it. Consumers pay more for their supply-managed products than they probably would otherwise. It impedes the innovation process in the industry; it makes it difficult for new young farmers—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

What about just on supply, though?

[Michael Burt]

In terms of...?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Just on supply, have we ever had a dairy shortage in Canada? Has there ever been a shortage of milk, butter, or cheese?

[Michael Burt]

Locally you can have shortages, because you have issues around how the quota is managed across provincial barriers, or buying—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I've never heard of a shortage of milk in a grocery store.

Have you heard of the instance in Norway in December in which they ran out of butter? Are you familiar with this?

[Michael Burt]

I don't know about that particular example.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Yes. So there is an argument to be made that within our supply-managed sector they have the capacity to increase with demand in order to meet supply.

I guess what I'd say is that there is value to supply management in Canada, to being able to be in that supply chain. The Conference Board's position is slightly reckless, from my perspective, because also—you have to look at this as well—in the U.S.... We hear this all the time: it's cheaper to buy milk in the U.S. That's a farce, because you pay for it twice: $5 billion a year goes to the U.S. dairy farmers to help subsidize their milk. When the Conference Board of Canada looks at that, it needs to look at all these different things that go into it.

[Michael Burt]

Dairy is not a level playing field by any means. The gold standard that is usually held up is New Zealand, when you're talking about an unregulated market. But dairy is a market that is regulated in various ways in most developed countries.

You're right, in the sense that the U.S. may not have a supply management system per se, but it definitely has other sorts of agriculture support mechanisms in place.

That said, there are, as I said, benefits associated with it, but there are also costs. One of the costs is that it may impede our ability to get access to other markets because—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

It may, and we always hear that, but the “may” has never come to the day. I mean, we've never had one trade deal to date that's had a negative impact. That's just a fact of life.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Were you finished?

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

I'm fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay. With that, we do have a bit of committee business that we have to go in camera to deal with.

I would just like to thank all of you, Mr. McInnes, Mr. Burt, and Mr. Seguin, for joining us. All the best. At some point we'll have a report that will come out on this. Thanks again for contributing to it.

[Proceedings continue in camera]