Agriculture Committee on March 12th, 2015

[Ron Bonnett]

I think it goes back to several years ago, when there were a number of instances in some provincial plants, but we've had instances in federal plants. The perception developed that there might be some differences. I think one of the things is that we have to do a really good job of communicating that the standards are there. It's just the things that really don't impact on food safety that are different between the federally inspected and the provincially inspected product.

To go to your first question about whether it is the provinces or the retail, I think it's a combination of both. I think provincial rules and regulations were developed generations ago to help build capacity within the province. Some of those things don't exist anymore, but the bigger issue, I think, becomes the retail sector not wanting to purchase product from provincially inspected plants.

Talking about sheep, I was just telling Corlena that I had a neighbour a few years ago who was producing a huge amount of sheep for the Sault Ste. Marie market, but all of a sudden the retail buyers decided that head office said they had to purchase product from a federal plant. He lost his market. For him to ship that to a federally inspected plant and then ship it back, the margin wasn't there to do it. That's how it really hits the ground.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

Well, if it's not because of provincial protectionism, one might call it, but more because of the retailers, would the solution be to ensure that the different provincial inspectors are each conforming to high safety rules? In that case, the retailer shouldn't mind.

[Ron Bonnett]

That's where I suggested that we should take it one step further from the pilot project that was done in comparing and trying to harmonize federal and provincial inspection regimens, because the food is safe regardless of which plant it comes from, and I think there's a communications piece that has to be done there. I think that if there were recognition by provinces of each other's provincial inspection systems, and if there were also a recognition between the federal government and the provincial inspectors that the standards were compatible, that would go a long way to reassuring the retail sector.

[John McCallum, Liberal, Markham—Unionville, ON]

That's all I have for the moment.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much, Mr. McCallum.

I'll now move to Mr. Zimmer.

Five minutes please.

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

Thank you for appearing before committee today.

It's funny, because I was just talking to my colleague, Mr. Payne, about an issue. He has some members in Alberta who want to sell to Saskatchewan but have issues with the interprovincial thing, and I have the exact same issue. I have an abattoir in B.C., in McBride, that wants to sell beef to Alberta because they're so close to Jasper and that market. They're closer than the Albertans in some cases and have the same issues with this interprovincial barrier that shouldn't be there.

It's my understanding—you alluded to it, Ron, in your statement—that it is somewhat of a provincial issue because all federally inspected meat would be all right, but it's the provincial-federal issues that we still deal with. We have to deal with that. We're talking about it in terms of wine and spirits. We can do one thing at the federal level and the provinces just say that they're not quite with us on that and choose not to go that way. That's our challenge federally.

What would be some comments on this? We've already talked about solving the problem and we talked about silos and all that, but if you had your best wish, how would you fix this problem?

[Ron Bonnett]

Because of the respect for the federal system, I think even closer linkages between CFIA and the provincial regulatory agencies would be appropriate. I know that in some provinces CFIA actually does the training for the provincial inspectors. In some provinces there isn't the same type of link. I think having some of those links between CFIA's system and the provincial regulators would likely help.

As I mentioned earlier, I think it's about moving away from a perception that the provincial standard might be lower, and recognizing that there are just a few different ways that they're approached. I think really establishing that link between CFIA and the provincial inspection bodies would be the first step.

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

What you said is very similar to what we've done. In the environmental review process, we've had a similar approach: when it's provincial we'll respect their judgments and they'll respect ours. It's a reciprocity type of agreement.

From the stories I've heard—and I haven't been in an abattoir for a while—the provincial and federal inspectors are literally inspecting the exact same thing and doing duplicate jobs. It's really unnecessary.

For us the bottom line is that we want it fixed. We need to get the right people.

Do you have any more comments, Ron?

[Ron Bonnett]

One more comment.

I think we've been talking primarily about meat inspection, but I did have some contact with the dairy sector. Even in the processing side of the dairy sector, they face some different regulatory issues within provinces. Going back to what I was saying in the recommendation, I think we've really got to drill down and get a handle on the exact regulations that are causing the problems and see what the differences are and then identify where we can go from there.

I don't think it's that large a bridge to make sure that we update and modernize the regulatory systems, and make sure that there is an understanding of provincial inspection and federal inspection. At the consumer level that should be seamless; there shouldn't be any difference in the standards.

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

Corlena, do you have anything to add to that?

The reason I asked about preferred beef is that it relates to a situation in my own riding.

Corlena, please, any input?

[Corlena Patterson]

There was the comment that at the federal level we are challenged with what the provinces do and how they act. However, if there's some federal support for mutual recognition or mutual approval of those processes, with that recognition there might be an increased acceptance in turn by those major retail stores. It's the communication piece as well, but some recognition of it at a federal level might help with the communications and the mindset that we see at the grocery outlet, for sure.

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

It's exactly these kinds of points why we're having this study, so that at the end of this hopefully we can have some marching orders that we get things moving along.

Thank you for your presentations.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much, Mr. Zimmer.

We'll now go to Mr. Choquette for five minutes please.

[François Choquette, NDP, Drummond, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the witnesses for joining us.

My riding is called Drummond. Drummondville is a municipality surrounded by rural regions. So I have an opportunity to meet producers and visit dairy, poultry and pork farms. Those are the main types of farms in the Drummond region.

We also have a lot of berry producers, growing strawberries and cranberries, which are very prolific in my region because of the quality of our soil. We also have amazing tomato greenhouses. One of our companies, called Rose Drummond, is the only rose and cut flower producer in Quebec.

I just wanted to show you that I am quite familiar with the subject, although I am not an agricultural expert, of course.

In economic terms, people mostly talk to me about interprovincial trade and the importance of having a quality workforce. It's difficult for them to have access to a qualified, regular and available workforce. I'd like to hear your opinion on access to labour.

My question is for both witnesses.

[Ron Bonnett]

You've raised one of the issues that has bubbled to the surface in the last little while, namely having adequate labour in place.

I don't think it's any secret that agriculture producers use a lot of labour, some of it through temporary foreign workers programs. The systems that have been in place for the agricultural sector have been in place for almost 50 or 60 years now and are working very well. I think we're confident of the system that's been set up for that.

What we're encouraging government to look at is immigration policy, accepting refugees and things like that, to ensure that there is an adequate supply of workers coming in. I think there is a fairly strong demand for low-skilled workers. I think what we're seeing is that a number of Canadians going through the education system are attaining higher levels of education, and there's not a pool of people for some of the low-skilled jobs. I think we have to look at the labour needs. They can't be looked at in isolation of immigration policy. We have to take a look at how we build for the future and make sure that we have those workers.

This isn't only true for supplying the domestic market. I've heard a number of value-added processors talking about getting access to some of the new markets that are opening up, and if they don't have an adequate supply of labour, they won't be able to fill those markets.

There has been some improvement on labour mobility between the provinces. In another life I was a journeyman and practised as a steam fitter. I had a licence and worked across Canada. Having recognition for apprenticeships and trades, and things like that, and making sure there's provincial acceptance all the way across the board is critical, especially when we have a country where more and more people travel from one section of the country to another to work. Labour mobility is an issue, as well as having access to a large pool of workers.

[Corlena Patterson]

Yes, I would agree. In our sector, we have some serious limitations in being able to access the work force, or a reliable work force, both at the producer and processing levels.

When we talk to our processors and our abattoirs, they face some serious problems accessing skilled labour and continuous skilled labour. There are large turnover rates, and it's not a great job. It's a good job, but it's not a fun job. There's often resistance to finding abattoir workers, but at the same time we see our producers having those same issues. Moreover, agriculture is so seasonal and we have programs in this country that discriminate a bit against people who work in seasonal fields, and they don't have the same opportunities. That challenges a producer when they haven't the resources to engage somebody on a full-time basis, but certainly have times of the year when they have a real demand for it.

We're working with the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. We've worked in a number of different venues, including the all chairs round table and the workforce action plan that was put together there. We work with the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council on ways to address the labour shortage.

The access to temporary foreign workers remains important for our sector. I'll use a prime example, namely shearing season. When you can have shearers coming in from New Zealand and Australia, it's nice to have the same ones with the same skills and the ones you like coming back on a repeated basis. They're shearing in our country in the off season of their country. They're good at it and they process quickly. It's a great scenario for us, but we face increasing limitations on that, especially when there are only so many years in a row that you can access that same person.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Choquette. We need to move on.

I'll now go to Mr. Dreeshen for five minutes, please.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here today.

I'm going to talk a little bit about CFIA, the provincial and federal plants, and the coordination that you think is required there. I think that is something we can take a look at.

Ms. Patterson, I think one thing you were speaking of was primarily the different types of structures you have for an abattoir that's going to deal with sheep and lamb versus what you would have for cattle and others. Again, you're saying you have to transfer them. You only have a few in certain provinces, so you have to worry about the transportation, and then if you have to deal with transportation, you then have to deal with all the different rules that provinces have when you go from one province to another. Of course, they exist for beef and so on, but you're not as likely to see that occur, although it does occur.

I'm just wondering if you can speak a little bit about how that is working and where you see being able to bring in a federal level of inspection. There's going to be a lot greater cost associated with the small abattoirs that are dealing with this to try to bring in federal inspection for the number of animals you're running through there. I'm just wondering how you can take a look at that.

Then, Mr. Bonnett, one thing you mentioned was standardization of farm data. I just wonder if you could expand on that.

Corlena.

[Corlena Patterson]

That's a very good point. B.C. had a great model where the CFIA was helping in training and in providing inspection for the provincial government for some period of time. What evolved from that was a provincial inspection system that has almost equivalent standards.

I think there are some opportunities. We know that the CFIA has resource restrictions in increasingly hard times. Perhaps it's a methodology of using provincial inspection with some CFIA oversight and then recognizing that level of oversight as ensuring a certain amount of food safety, or recognition of being trained and having that oversight by CFIA means that we've seen the same level of inspection happen there despite its being provincial. Maybe that's one capacity for making it happen.

It's not the inspection that's the issue, it's maybe the paperwork, which Ron can refer to, that becomes the limiting factor. We want federal inspection. We want to be able to move product. For our facilities with a smaller volume, it's hard to recoup the cost of implementing the existing system. Is there a way to take the federal system, and again, eliminate a lot of the red tape that is just red tape and whittle it down to an effective implementation of a federal inspection without the unnecessariness of the paperwork, the reporting, the little things that don't have an impact on it? That can help not only conserve resources for a facility; it can also conserve resources and time for the CFIA if we can find a simplified system for doing it.

What that is exactly, I don't know. I can't say that we've taken it apart and said we could eliminate this chunk of what is part of a federal inspection and still have that same level of CFIA inspection, but it certainly would be worth the exercise of figuring out what that is.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

If there were an extra cost associated with it, though, and I believe you said that 70% at present is sold within the provinces, because they are provincially regulated and inspected, would your producers and your abattoirs simply say, “It's okay right now, we don't have to pay any extra for any more advanced inspection, so we're satisfied with where we're at”? Would you find a bit of a backlash there if they started to say that they had to pay more for inspections?

[Corlena Patterson]

Yes, and I think that was part of the second point I was making. We need to find that less onerous federal inspection system for those who want to be able to produce the volume and put it into the retail stores, should that remain the mindset of those distributors to do it.

At the same time we need to preserve these smaller processors with, really, just a small capacity. I'll take the Russell slaughterhouse as an example, which services people who do custom sales and farm gate sales. Asking them to be federally inspected and to maintain business would not be feasible.

Therefore, I don't know that the solution lies exactly in maintaining the system we have now on a per se basis and switching from one to the other, but in finding a more innovative system of either combining those requirements or eliminating some for one.... We don't want to lose the provincial inspection for those facilities, which make an easy, low-volume business for their local customers. We need to maintain that at the same time; so it's a balance, perhaps, of those two.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much. We're over time, so maybe somebody can pick up the next question.

We'll now move to Mr. Allen for five minutes, please.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Chair, thank you.

Thank you, folks, for coming.

Ms. Patterson, you were finishing up. You ran out of time on the issue of labour in shearing. I certainly would like to hear you finish that thought, and also the piece on how we can encourage folks to get into that type of a labour market, if you will.

Shearing is a specific skill, and I know that when Mr. Bonnett says “low-skilled”, he didn't mean that folks don't have any skills, but just that that is what the NOC says, which is a code for EI. I don't actually agree with a NOC code that says folks are low skilled. They just happen to have a different skill, in my view, one that I don't possess, quite frankly. I don't think you'd ever want me shearing sheep, not unless you want to see a hodgepodge thing that looks like it's—

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Not with electric clippers, anyway.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

As a Scotsman, I can do a few things with other things, but sheep's not one of them.

Ms. Patterson, I know you wanted to finish. Could you provide some thoughts around that?