Bill C-359 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Feeds Act, the Seeds Act and the Pest Control Products Act (provisional registration and approval)

This enactment amends the Feeds Act , the Seeds Act and the Pest Control Products Act to provide for provisional registration or approval of feeds, seeds and pest control products that are already approved by two or more trusted jurisdictions.

Opposition Motion—Food Affordability

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague from Madawaska—Restigouche this afternoon.

I rise today to speak to the opposition day motion on food affordability. I believe that if we were to ask every member of Parliament in this place, they would agree that there is work to be done to address this particular challenge, there are initiatives that have to be introduced to support some of our most vulnerable Canadian citizens and there is work we can do across the supply chain to be able to tackle this persistent issue. However, I think there are differing viewpoints about how best to get there.

When I take a look at the opposition day motion put forward today by the Conservative Party, what I worry about is that it fails to recognize the nuance of the situation. I worry that the proposed measures from the policy shop of the Conservative Party are not going to get us to the tangible goal we need to meet, which is stabilizing food prices and perhaps even lowering them, where applicable, in our global supply chain.

I want to start with industrial carbon pricing. The Conservatives, in the last Parliament, made the case that the consumer carbon price was the ill and that it was causing all affordability challenges in the country. I agreed with the Conservatives on the applicability of how the carbon rebate was structured in rural Canada, but not that it was the ill of all challenges facing Canadians.

Now we are in the 45th Parliament. In the last Parliament, the Conservatives stood up and said that if we listened to them and got rid of the consumer carbon price, everything would be fixed. Now they say, “Let us get rid of the industrial carbon price.” The industrial carbon price is recognized by economists, Conservative governments and, frankly, a wide political spectrum as being the most effective way to reduce emissions in the country and globally.

Conservative governments in western Canada were some of the first in the country to introduce industrial carbon pricing. Now the Conservatives would have us believe that just getting rid of that policy is going to solve the challenges that exist in the global supply chain and here in this country. That is a fallacy, and I look forward to talking about that.

I want to highlight a few things. In 2007, Alberta was one of the first governments to introduce an industrial carbon price in the country. It is a policy that is still supported by Premier Danielle Smith.

I would make the connection that there is a fallacy in the way in which the Conservatives are tying the industrial carbon price to food price affordability. In fact, the Canadian Climate Institute says there is a negligible impact in tying industrial carbon pricing to the price of food, so the Conservatives want to throw out one of the most effective climate policies we have to reduce emissions to perhaps get a negligible impact on the price of food. That is important to recognize.

I have said repeatedly in the House that the Conservatives had absolutely nothing in their entire platform for farmers. The member who is heckling me from across the way ran on a platform with nothing for farmers. In fact, when they stand up in question period and mention farmers twice, that is two times more than they did in their entire platform. It is embarrassing for a party that represents so many people. Farmers across this country should know that the Conservatives had nothing to say about them in the referendum we had in April on who was the best to govern this country.

What about the clean fuel standards? My colleague earlier mentioned that this is a similar policy to when we took lead out of fuel, yet the Conservatives are suggesting that we should walk it back. This is the continuation of the clean fuel standard and being able to have measures to help reduce the carbon intensity in our fuels. It is a policy that has very good impacts in rural Canada. A biofuel policy is important for farmers in western Canada. The member across the way continues to suggest that this is a bad policy. He should go and talk to farmers in his own constituency.

The Canola Council of Canada and the Canadian Canola Growers Association consistently highlight that this is an important policy for demand-side signalling. It also reduces emissions and is good for investments, which we are seeing across rural Canada.

Again, the fact that this is not going to demonstrably reduce or stabilize food prices makes it a complete and utter failure of a policy suggestion from the Conservatives.

We agree on the continued need to work on competition reform in the country. I would highlight to members and to Canadians that this work has begun. I agree with my opposition colleagues that if we want to move, we need to move quicker. I agree on that dynamic.

The government has announced a national food security strategy. We have not heard a whole lot in the House, particularly from the opposition, about the opportunity this represents for the agri-food supply chain and farmers across the country.

I am going to put a few thoughts on the table in the time I have remaining, which is about five or six minutes.

When we think about this policy, there are three angles, if we are going to be comprehensive about it. We have to think about the farm gate, our supply chain and agri-food processing, and short-term income measures along with procurement and public initiatives that can help drive demand and support regional processing across the country.

First, there is a national youth strategy to get young farmers into the profession. I would submit to the House that on the cost of capital associated with paying out the retiring farmer, the math on the economic margin in many commodity groups has represented a real challenge in finding access to capital. Even if a young farmer has the opportunity to access the capital, debt management has become a real challenge in terms of that debt cost, where the capital has become quite significant over the last number of decades. It is incumbent on the Government of Canada, along with the provincial governments, and maybe the FCC and the private banks, to identify a financial mechanism whereby we can help smooth the transactional costs. That is an important measure that I would like to see.

On agricultural land trusts, there is a lot of good work happening across this country to identify agricultural land, put it into a trust and make sure that it continues to remain available for farming. That is important, not only in Ontario but across the country, so that young farmers can access and buy land at a price that is comparable to the yields and the return going in. There is a lot of speculation happening in this country around the price of land. That is something we could do to reduce the cost of farming, and we should be taking it up more earnestly.

I am a big proponent of an HST input tax credit for farm housing. I represent Kings—Hants. We welcome somewhere between 1,500 and 2,000 international farm workers coming to the Annapolis Valley, particularly in the fruit-growing and horticulture sectors. These workers are extremely important to our food security in this country. They do incredible work. There is a requirement for our farmers to have housing in place. I believe it is important, because right now, the CRA does not actually determine that housing is a foundational piece of the farm business. Therefore, although farmers can reduce the capital costs of building or repairing homes for workers over the lifetime of that home, with an HST input tax credit they would be able to reclaim that cost up front early, perhaps in year one or two, which is important for cash flow. We should have that type of measure. It is something I have spoken about with the Nova Scotia Fruit Growers' Association and Horticulture Nova Scotia. It is something I hope the Minister of Finance will consider.

The Conservatives have said nothing about business risk management tools. It was actually the Harper government that cut these tools quite significantly, walking back the compensation amount and walking back the trigger before farmers could benefit under AgriStability. Our government has consistently brought back the BRM tools to a greater extent. I am proud of the work we have done in this last programming year to increase the compensation amount. We have moved the $3-million cap up to $6 million. We have reduced and eliminated the reference margin limits. There is more work that can be done, and I think there is also an opportunity to bring in private sector insurance to complement the BRM programs, which are provincial and federal cost-share programs.

I would like to note that on the cattle industry side, I believe there is an opportunity to create equity in terms of how we finance these risk management tools. Crop insurance has more contribution than the livestock index amount, which is something we could work on.

In my last 90 seconds, I would like to talk about two things. One is controlled environment agriculture. I offered a question to my hon. colleague from Windsor West about the importance of the immediate expensing of greenhouses. We have a competitive advantage in this country around greenhouses in the Leamington area in southwestern Ontario. There is a great opportunity to continue to build upon this with the government's announcement in this domain. I hope Conservative members are at least acknowledging this in their riding, making sure that their stakeholders know about these investments. This is going to be an important measure for competitiveness.

The last thing is regulatory reform. I introduced a bill in the last Parliament, Bill C-359, which was about using the science and evidence of other jurisdictions around farm inputs. We can think about crop protection products, feed additives and vaccines. We have some work to do. The Minister of Health has been dialed in on this question. This is important for reducing costs on farms and the overall cost portfolio in the industry. All of those things will have benefits.

I wish I had more time, but those are some of the ideas I put on the floor today.

Opposition Motion—Measures to Lower Food Prices

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to be in the House to debate and discuss initiatives presented by my opposition colleagues. Today, we are debating an NDP motion that was moved by the hon. member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford.

The Deputy Speaker said that extremely well and we will have this exchange. The 90th Apple Blossom Festival just took place in the Annapolis Valley. I think that the Deputy Speaker was not able to get home for it, but I know he was there in spirit. I will take the opportunity to recognize that the Apple Blossom Festival was created in 1933 as a way to celebrate our agricultural heritage in the Annapolis Valley and also to market our world-class Annapolis Valley apples. It was great. I thank all of the sponsors and the volunteers who helped make that available.

There was the 50th anniversary of the Woodville chicken barbecue. I think about people like Ron Rafuse and Alice VanHattem and all the volunteers, the army of volunteers, as well as Dan Keddy, as the president of the Woodville Community Centre. Good on them.

I thank the Deputy Speaker for teeing that up for me accordingly.

I will now talk about the motion before us today. It consists of measures and initiatives proposed by the NDP that target food prices. When I saw the motion moved by the member for Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, I was not convinced that the initiatives presented by the NDP would really lower grocery prices.

The motion lays out three points. Point (a) calls on the government to “force big grocery chains and suppliers to lower the prices of essential foods or else face a price cap”. We can discuss that initiative. Point (b) calls on the government to “stop delaying long-needed reforms to the Nutrition North program”, and point (c) calls on the government to “stop Liberal and Conservative corporate handouts to big grocers”.

I am the chair of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, and I do not see any measures for our farmers in this motion. Farmers around the world, particularly those in Canada, are having a really hard time right now, because of labour shortages, the effects of climate change and the high prices resulting from the war in Ukraine, the war in the Middle East and other factors. In my opinion, it is very important to present specific initiatives for our farmers, not just partisan elements from the NDP.

I will talk about the price cap. This is something that we have dealt with before in the country. During World War II, there was intervention from the government to establish a variety of prices across the board. I do not know if all Canadians are at that point but I think it is important for parliamentarians to understand that we have to be balanced when we are talking about the conversation on food prices. Yes, I think we can highlight and ask large retailers to do more to reduce prices at retail, but we have to be careful not to push those cost savings down on the margins of farmers. When we talk in this way, sometimes the agriculture community asks about its ability to make a profit and its ability to return money. What about that dynamic?

Of course, we have heard a lot of testimony before the agriculture committee about the actual margins in grocery. They range between 2% and 4%. Could those margins be lower? I think anyone here could have an opinion and say that, yes, they could be lower or they could be higher. It is really subjective. Certainly, the actual gross profit in the sector has grown and there are moral and ethical questions about how much profit is too much.

I will give the NDP credit on that idea, but the price cap becomes an interesting question of whether the Government of Canada is the best constitutional authority to implement those types of price caps, whether that is better suited under the Constitution at the provincial level and whether that can be done without having a major impact from putting price caps and price mechanisms through the entire supply chain for the agriculture and agri-food processing sector. Those are some reflections that are not really well articulated in today's opposition day motion and those points would have to be borne out before we could ever move in that direction.

I want to talk about other initiatives that are important to our farmers. I mentioned the impact of climate change. In the Annapolis Valley, extreme storms, extreme cold and hurricanes in the Atlantic are causing problems for our farmers. This is having a direct impact on their products. We are having conversations at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food about the importance of improving the risk management programs.

When the Conservatives were in government, Mr. Harper slashed programs that were very important to our producers. I am talking about risk management programs, specifically agri-stability and agri-insurance. It is important to study these initiatives for our farmers.

With regard to the horticulture sector, I think it is also important to explore how the federal, provincial and territorial governments are going to find a way to increase the supply of local vegetables and fruit, particularly for the apple and vegetable sectors.

We think about our hospital system and education system, and I certainly applaud the government in its work to establish a national school food program. It is long overdue. We were the only G7 country without it and this is going to help make a difference on the affordability for individuals to access healthy, local food, but I think we can do more on procurement. It is a tough line. We have to be careful because we have trading relationships and we are a trading nation, but we have an ability to buy vegetables and fruits that otherwise could not find their way to the market, and we can find this in an affordable context in an institutional procurement setting.

I also want to elaborate a bit on the programs that highlight how important foreign workers are for the horticulture sector. We need to improve the permit process for the use of pesticides and other necessary farm products and tools.

I introduced Bill C-359, which is further down on the order of precedence for private member's bills. However, I hope the government will consider some initiatives in that area. I think that is important.

I must admit that I would need more than 10 minutes to discuss this very complex issue.

Finally, when it comes to the connection between our farmers and grocery store prices, what comes to mind is a code of conduct. It is very important to introduce and implement a code of conduct, an agreement between farmers, the links in the supply chain and Canada's grocery giants. It is important to create a good relationship within the supply chain.

I am going to leave it at that. All parliamentarians should be calling on major grocers to join the grocery code of conduct.

Department of Health—Main Estimates, 2024-25

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Madam Chair, I have a suggestion. It might even be a possible solution. It would involve recognizing what is being done in other countries, and perhaps partnering with other countries. A private member's bill has been introduced, Bill C‑359, which proposes taking into consideration the fact that a given product has been approved in two different jurisdictions recognized by Canada in order to develop a system that might be faster. I am just tossing ideas around. Obviously, the Bloc Québécois will be there to collaborate, always with a view to maintaining the precautionary principle, the sovereignty of the decision-making process and the independence of the scientists.

I have one last question, which has to do with regulating tolerated thresholds in products. I say this in a constructive spirit to improve communication. How does the minister explain increasing the threshold for fludioxonil on beet roots for products imported from the United States last year, when, the year before, an increase in thresholds for glyphosate and fungicides in berries was announced during the summer construction holiday?

This news was released on Friday afternoon to keep it under the radar. I would not call that an attitude of openness, transparency and communication. It also spreads fear among the public. I would like my colleague to comment on that, and assure me that this summer, during the construction holiday, we will not be in for another nasty surprise.