Agriculture committee  Should I start from the top or from where I left off?

Agriculture committee  Wonderful. As noted by previous witnesses, there have been excessive cost pressures on both the supply chain and the consumer. While the produce industry is seeing market improvements, we are still seeing parts of our system influenced by global markets and high-cost centres. As we saw last week, the 14th edition of Canada’s food cost report by leading Canadian universities shows projected increases to vegetables and other foods for 2024.

Agriculture committee  Hello everyone. Thank you for including me. I hope my volume is working for the interpreters. Is that strong enough for interpretation services?

Agriculture committee  Good evening, Mr. Chair, and committee members. On behalf of the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, I want to thank the committee for the opportunity to talk about food prices in Canada. CPMA represents over 830 companies that are growing, packing, shipping and selling fresh fruit and vegetables in Canada, which drives $15 billion within the industry and across the country.

Agriculture committee  There's no formal analysis that has been done just because of the volume and numbers of growers and the diversity of the supply chain, but I concur with Mr. Currie's testimony, as I mentioned earlier, and that of the witnesses on June 12. I do feel, as I mentioned earlier, that this is focused on bankruptcy protection, but it is a stability model.

Agriculture committee  I think that's an excellent point. That was my point relative to the timing and landing strip that we have. It's not one year. Looking at legislation and regulation, we do have time. We don't have five years, but there is a window, like I said, of two years or maybe a bit longer.

Agriculture committee  It is significant, because it provides them with the leverage. When they're negotiating on a dispute over quality and price, they are able to leverage in a way that they get access to the dispute resolution mechanism without having to post double the value in the form of a bond.

Agriculture committee  Within the jurisdiction, if we're talking about the bankruptcy and insolvency framework, the organization must be declaring bankruptcy. Because of the jurisdiction being federal and provincial bankruptcy rules, we have to make sure that the organization is insolvent. This is why we need this tool at the federal level, to have a harmonized approach across all provinces to protect the company selling across the country.

Agriculture committee  If we implement the PACA-like trust in the way it is being presented in Bill C-280, no.

Agriculture committee  Adopt it as is relative to the way we position the supplier. Why that's important is it will protect the first level of sale to the final level of sale. That's key in support of the entire supply chain and stability. I will say concerning the comments made around potential food inflation, again, we've reviewed this very aggressively to make sure we are reviewing all risk.

Agriculture committee  This is the first time the concept has been proposed. Legislation doesn't happen overnight. There's the introduction, and if we move through the process, it comes out from the Senate. The runway to deliver will be approximately two years anyway. As we move through that process and introduce it, as with many pieces of legislation when coming into effect, we will have the ability leading up to that to work with all the stakeholders to educate.

Agriculture committee  Looking at the introduction of the legislation within this Parliament and government and then the delivery of that, by the time we move, it will be the end of 2024, almost 2025, if all the ducks line up.

Agriculture committee  We have not heard from any other company.

Agriculture committee  The consequences would be ongoing impacts in the U.S. with our trading relationship and payments. We're receiving anecdotal statements from exporters on disputes over the quality or grade of a product and the payment process. They are taking 50¢ or 75¢ on a dollar and sometimes less, because they're not able to leverage the dispute resolution mechanism in the same way that they did when we had reciprocal arrangements with PACA.

Agriculture committee  I'd be happy to share that. As I mentioned, we've been doing this work for some time. That document is one of the earlier ones that we use to counter some of the discussions that we are having with ISED and Agriculture Canada, where they were looking at a similar approach on the risk of access to capital.