Agriculture Committee on May 14th, 2012

[Rory McAlpine]

Yes.

[Brian A. Read]

We'll take full advantage of it. We appreciate it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you. You're out of time.

We'll now move to Ms. Brosseau.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you very much.

I just want to touch on animal welfare again. That's something I've always been really interested in. I want to know where my food comes from. I want to know how it's treated and what went into it. I think it's really important, and I think nowadays it's more common for people to question where it comes from, what goes into it. I want to know the food's background.

Can you just explain what a sow crate is exactly? It's a small box for a pig. You were talking about having some scientific information about....

[Rory McAlpine]

Yes, I can certainly share it with you. I'm no expert in the reproductive cycle of hogs, but that's right, there are phases in the production cycle where typically the hog would be in a gestation crate.

It's as much as anything to ensure the well-being of the animal. Hogs will tend to fight. They will be in conflict sometimes. Dominant hogs can end up getting all the food, so having a stall system is a way to manage their health and welfare and ensure they all get adequate nutrition.

Then at the point when a sow has its piglets, protecting the piglets from the mother is actually necessary, because the piglets can be crushed.

So it's a system that achieves those outcomes. That's why I say it's not as simple as saying provide open housing, because then you can get into competition. You have to look at systems of electronic feeding, and access to stalls during feeding so that there is no competition for food, for example. These are some of the factors that would distinguish those.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Would you recommend that as something that we, as a committee, should look into, animal welfare, maybe changing the way these animals are housed when we're thinking about the future?

[Rory McAlpine]

The work that's under way now to update the animal care codes of practice, which are going species by species under the National Farm Animal Care Council, is the right approach. It involves industry, the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies, and scientific experts. They all come together to arrive at the best recommendations. I think that is the best process.

The question then becomes, though, how do those get enacted? Certainly we believe it should remain a voluntary standard. You don't want to get into a system of mandating this. You need to continually evolve as we learn and as the marketplace moves us in new directions.

The one problem I alluded to, though, was that right now in some of these areas—on animal transport, housing, and so on—we have a very fragmented approach in Canada, which makes it easier for the likes of the major retailers and food service companies to adopt their own standards and to say, “If there is no national standard, then I want my suppliers to do X or Y.” That becomes a very challenging environment for our company and for smaller producers because there is no consistency. That's one thing we would encourage the federal government to take more leadership on.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

It's really customer driven, because—

[Rory McAlpine]

Yes.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

—when you think that big fast food companies are using cageless or open houses for the chickens now....

Could you comment a little on organic and beef and how that's going?

[Brian A. Read]

Yes, and I think I have to touch on your crate issue.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Yes.

[Brian A. Read]

You need all the facts and figures in front of you before you can make a conscious decision. Where we get hooked as a manufacturer is when people use this for marketing tools, and that really annoys us, because currently we don't mishandle our livestock. We have cameras at our unloading areas to make sure our people handle them with the greatest of care. We have cameras at our chutes that bring them up into the plant. It's all videotaped. That's for the betterment of the livestock. We use Temple Grandin on site and bring her up to help us design our operations—if not her, one of her associates.

Industry really cares about its livestock. They have big value, that livestock, so just on the economics itself, you're not going to abuse livestock. There is no value in a bruised or beat-up animal.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

No, not at all.

[Brian A. Read]

So we should understand that some of our customer base will use it as a marketing ploy.

At the Canadian Meat Council, which Rory and I are both members of—active members—we look at food safety and animal welfare as non-competitive issues. It's allowed the organizations of all sizes, whether they're.... I've been fortunate; I've worked for smaller ones, bigger ones, and some larger ones. We're non-competitive and we share all our findings, both on a food safety standpoint and on animal welfare, and I think Canada should take pride in that. So that would be, what, 90% of the red meat produced in this country that works under that regime.

You were asking me about organics?

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Yes.

[Brian A. Read]

What has happened in the beef industry, which I never thought of.... I got into a labelling dispute on vitamin D made from lanolin, from sheep's wool. They call it a byproduct in Canada, which is an issue.

But I did get into that issue simply because that's what the consumer is asking the beef-packing industry for. We're into now...maybe you don't call it organic. It's more of a naturally raised animal. You can't use the word “natural” in Canada because it basically has to be wild game, so we have to keep that in perspective. If we want to use the word “natural”, then we have to change the application of natural, because natural would mean that we go to the back of Larry's place and look for a cow that got away; we'd call that “natural”.

I'm not sure how many consumers we would feed with wild turkeys.

But we need to define “natural”, and we need to spend some time on that. Rory did talk briefly about labelling and how we apply it in Canada. We do produce something called “organic”; it's now raised without antibiotics and it's hormone-free. So it does have its own pull. There is organic beef out there. It's in very small niche markets.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

You're saying there needs to be a definition for “natural”, let's say, so that everybody adheres to the words—

[Brian A. Read]

But keep in mind that when we think that, it also has to be appliable.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Yes.

[Brian A. Read]

It's like having science but you can't apply it. What good is it?

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

It's no good. Yes.

[Brian A. Read]

I'll leave it there. There was a little ranting there.

Sorry about that, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

That's okay.

Brian, just as a point, as a farmer—and we have a few in the room—I was glad to hear you mention the fact that farmers do look after their animals. You know, it's their financial interest that's at stake. I think that this...well, I call them the crazies; they want to push this a little far. I mean, ultimately some of them won't be happy unless there's an easy boy on every truck, so that each one has a chair. I mean, it's crazy.

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

I thought it was a La-Z-Boy.