Agriculture Committee on Nov. 27th, 2014

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Good, thank you very much.

Let me just shift gears a little; let me comment on food safety. My colleagues are probably aware that a recent third-party report indicated Canada had the best food safety system in the world, and then recent polling within Canada showed Canadians have extremely high confidence in our food safety systems here.

I noticed that the estimates are also moving additional funding into food safety, biosecurity, and traceability, and traceability is certainly a core element of our food safety system.

Could you perhaps share with the committee how the increased funding in traceability, biosecurity, and food safety will help the department do the work it needs to do in these respective areas?

[Frédéric Seppey, Acting Assistant Deputy Minister, Market and Industry Services Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you for the question.

When you look at it in terms of competitiveness and market access and exports, it is very important for Canada to be able to rely on a strong regulatory framework on food safety and animal and plant health. In that regard, a good illustration is the work on traceability we are doing with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. We're trying to move forward and introduce and implement a national livestock traceability system, working with the sector and the provinces, because good animal health is very important for food safety in Canada, but also it provides assurances that our international trading partners, the buyers, look for when they purchase commodities and goods from Canada.

In terms of traceability, we already have a system for hogs, and efforts right now are focusing on implementing cost-effective traceability of the movement of other livestock. We are focusing on sheep, bison, cattle, goats, working very closely with industry and building on initiatives that exist in the industry to strike the right balance to provide the benefits of traceability and also to make sure it is done in a way that is feasible for the sector.

That is an illustration.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Lemieux.

We will move on now to Mr. Bevington for five minutes.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Once again, it's a real privilege to be here in the agriculture field because it's an amazing field, and I've learned so much here today about it. It's one of the great benefits of being a member of Parliament and being able to switch into committees and see what people are doing.

I am troubled by one thing with this research. Can you tell me how the arrangements were made between industry and the department in terms of the proprietary nature of the information that's created?

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

We have collaborative agreements with industry and academia partners. We have an intellectual property office within the science and technology branch that is consumed with that kind of work. These collaborative agreements are put together very much earlier within the process, when the research is identified, to look at possible intellectual property, where the rights are, and what happens to that.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Do you do a trend line on information created versus public information or proprietary information? If you put a trend line on your department, how would that trend line look in terms of those if you graphed that out?

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

Chair, I'm not really understanding the issue of the trend line. Through the two collaborative agreements—

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

A trend line says that one year this much information was created that was perfectly public information that anyone could access, and then there was proprietary information that was held by the industry. I'd like to know, for your policy development, whether you create this type of a chart or information that would give you an idea of what's happening with that, because knowledge and information are money. Knowledge and information are vital to everyone, and public information, which Canada for decades has been famous for, is something that can benefit all of us. Proprietary information may not have the same benefit.

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

With respect to the science we generate within AAFC, that is all public information. It's based on information that is published through peer-reviewed journals. We have “Innovation Express”, which publishes the work that is done by AAFC with scientists. Within the collaborative agreements there are certain intellectual property agreements.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Are those collaborative agreements with intellectual property parameters attached to the information becoming the trend?

[Greg Meredith]

We've had an intellectual property office for many years.

What we could do for the committee, Mr. Chair, is to go back and look at some of the metrics we normally collect. As Dr. Mithani has mentioned, a great deal of those are in publications and citations of publications, and those are standard indicators of science excellence. We could also provide information on the number of active patents we have that are now deployed as public tools and technologies for producers, if that would help.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Okay. Would that give us an idea of whether the department is moving more towards proprietary information or continuing to hold the public information as the strongest part of its mandate? How else would you judge what you're doing unless you could have an idea of where you've been and where you're going?

[Greg Meredith]

That's quite right, and that's why I say we do have metrics we collect regularly. Two good examples are citations and publications, and on the other hand, patents.

I'll give you an example. About 85% of the wheat that's sold in Canada is a result of varieties developed by Agriculture Canada. That information is all public. We can go back and collect those metrics. What the trend line would be I can't tell you. If it would help the committee, I could arrange for that.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

That would be great information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you, Mr. Bevington.

I think that would be of interest to all of us, because there has been a lot of discussion about public...and working together with other partners in terms of how that actually comes out in the metrics.

I'm now going to turn it over to Mr. Zimmer for five minutes, please.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you for coming today.

I just thought I'd preface what I was going to ask. We always find it interesting in the west that eastern politicians think they know what's best for western Canadian farmers. I guess the fact that marketing freedom has been here, something that they experienced long before—

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I'm not going to sit here and take that. I've probably been on more farms, as president of the National Farmers Union, than you have.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

That would be accurate.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Comment, Mr. Zimmer?

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

It's more just a comment on freedoms that the rest of Canadian farmers had prior to marketing freedom. The western Canadians were looking for equality and we finally have it. Even though I'm not a farmer, I'm a western Canadian.

That being said, with full respect to Mr. Easter and his resume, I just wanted to ask some questions highlighting what we do in innovation and research. I talked to the minster to ask some questions about it. We often see millions of dollars flow past us, and we can take it for granted, but again it's an additional $30 million, which puts us at $549 million. If you total in another $223 million, we're almost close to a billion dollars. That certainly doesn't speak to a government that's cutting back on research. It's quite the opposite. We support research and see the good investment that it is.

I think farmers support that as well. We see them taking up different varieties and using them. That's one part—sorry, I'm coming to a question—but I think what's impressive about AgCanada and the research there is that it's not just to put in a file on a shelf somewhere. This stuff is really rolling out. We're seeing dramatic changes in the returns that farmers are experiencing.

I just wanted you to speak to the increases in research and innovation. How dramatic have they been? Obviously, they've been impactful. From your department's perspective, can you just speak to that?

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

We have had a lot of impact in terms of trade, in terms of the work that we do with our industry partners. The fact that there are clusters that exist within the Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada partnership really sends the signal that without AAFC scientists, we would not be able to move the yardsticks.

We also have a lot of international collaborations that allow for the way science supports trade. I'm hoping that Mr. Seppey can talk a little bit about the role that science plays in some of the trade barriers.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

That's a perfect segue, because my question to the minister was about traceability as well. Originally, what was perceived as a boat anchor, the term I gave it, is actually a benefit to us in the trade files. People are looking for this in our global markets. They're looking for these kinds of things, so it's a benefit in a couple of ways.

Yes, please speak to this.

[Frédéric Seppey]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's true that given the type of products that we're exporting, we are highly dependent on having both the right science in Canada, and ensuring that the framework that's based on regulations in Canada and abroad is based on science. As an example, Mr. Meredith mentioned that the wheat that we export has benefited from the research done by AAFC. We are the leader in cattle exports. It's very important in terms of the genetic engineering that went into that.

We can have market development, resolve market access issues, negotiate trade agreements, but it's very important as well that through scientists, through the work of veterinarians at CFIA, we're able to influence the development of new standards internationally. This is one of the efforts we're making, especially when we talk about trade. That's why, for example, we are very active at the World Organisation for Animal Health, to ensure that with regard to issues such as BSE or the BSE status, we get the right status that allows us to export; or at the Codex Alimentarius Commission under the FAO, where we developed maximum residue levels for pesticides, where we discuss issues related to ractopamine, and where, with regard to drugs that are approved, we ensure that other countries are basing their restrictions and their policies on science rather than on other elements.

Given the importance of animal products in our mix, this is something that is extremely important to promote.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Zimmer.

I'm going to take the Chair's privilege since we have a couple of minutes. I have a question I want to follow up a little bit.

What I've learned in the agriculture area I have, which is likely about as diverse as you can get across the country.... In my riding, which is a little bigger than Mr. Easter's province—

[Voices]

Oh, oh!