Agriculture Committee on Feb. 13th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Now we'll turn to Mr. Easter for five minutes.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I want to be absolutely sure of what's being proposed here. Basically, under the current system, if we were to go with the GROU proposal, then people would still be able to use the one product that's really coming in under OUI, which is ClearOut, until the end of June. So they could get supplies for this year. If we're looking at a two-year trial, we're talking about one year of a potential problem when they couldn't bring in material. Is that correct?

And is part of the conditions by all the players involved in this proposal that OUI would have to be suspended for that two-year period, but it could be reinstated at any time?

[Karen Dodds]

If I'm understanding you correctly, since the task force recommendations, we've recognized that it's a very legitimate concern of farmers. What is the continued pressure to keep them actively participating? We have said there is a possibility of keeping the program on the books, having it at the ready, keeping that regulation as a possibility, but saying we will not entertain any products under own-use import as long as there are products that are under GROU.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

That means after June of 2007?

[Karen Dodds]

Yes.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

So if we're to do that, what exactly is the procedure that has to be followed to implement that? Is it just an order in council by the Minister of Health or is it by cabinet?

[Karen Dodds]

We've actually determined, in discussion with our legal people, that we can implement GROU without any changes to our regulations. So, indeed, it means we have to grant the equivalency certificate for the products that we've deemed eligible based on the fact also that there would be a Canadian label that was approved.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

So PMRA could do this on its own?

[Karen Dodds]

It could do it with the cooperation of the registrants. Again, we need to have the labels be the same. I don't know if that's been an issue. I don't think so. We know eight of the 13 products have already met our standard in terms of eligibility of the chemical under GROU. So we've got eight products ready to go under GROU.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

But you would, I think--you can answer this--feel much more comfortable doing that if the agriculture committee reversed its recommendation that it passed?

[Karen Dodds]

Do you need to reverse it?

[Craig Hunter]

No, I don't think so.

I don't think the committee has to reverse their position at all, Mr. Easter. I think the committee suggested that OUI be available, and that, to me, means it is not thrown away forever. It's available. It's sitting there. If GROU doesn't work, then you can go right back at it, and nothing's lost.

I think one of the concerns was that OUI would disappear forever, and then if GROU didn't work, you had nothing at all. As a person with some Scottish background, I never give anything away if I might want to use it again. You should have seen my basement last week.

So keep OUI on the books, but don't issue permits during the time that you evaluate GROU. You would have to work out the conditions of how you're going to evaluate whether GROU is a success or not--I think that's fair to do in advance--and then, and only then, decide if you want to keep it going or if you don't like it, and you can still go back to the other. It's like having a hotel room in two different cities and not knowing which one you're going to sleep in.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

But if GROU is going to work, all the players on that side of the equation are going to have to be given the assurance that we're not going to use the own-use imports.

[Craig Hunter]

That's the only way you'll get them at the table, yes.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I went through the list of organizations that were involved. Is there opposition to your proposal from any of the general farm organizations out there that you're aware of?

I hear David, but he doesn't—

[Gordon Bacon]

Having taken part in the discussions on crop production over a week in Saskatoon, having been out at FarmTech in Alberta, living in Winnipeg, and being part of some of the discussions that occur around Manitoba, I think the big issue here--and I think it addresses the question Mr. Anderson brought out--is the need for more information and communication. I think there is a need to be focused on all four elements of what the task force was recommending, and I don't think there has been enough of that.

So I don't know if I would characterize the question so much as opposition right now as the need to put out more information to address some of the questions and provide more explanation.

Further to that, I guess I would just say that groups like Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba pulse growers, as well as canola organizations, have submitted lists of questions to PMRA to get them to answer. I believe also that CropLife Canada has been asked to provide some information so that it can be shared through some of the grower publications and can be put out there as quickly as possible.

I think the people who sat around the task force table were provided, over the course of 15 meetings, with a lot of information about the complexity of the issue and about what we are really trying to achieve. I'm not personally aware of them, but there may be organizations that are in opposition to the recommendation. Mostly what I see is a need for more information to explain what can be achieved, what is expected, what kind of cooperation is going to be needed by regulators and by registrants, and what assurances farmers are going to have that this new system is going to work. That's what I believe is probably needed right now.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you, Mr. Easter.

I agree with you, Mr. Bacon. My farmers are concerned about the GROU program and whether it's going to do the same thing that own-use imports have accomplished for them. So communication is going to be a big issue for you.

I want to welcome Mr. Gaudet back to our committee. He took a leave for a little while and I'm glad to see him back.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Thank you. I am very pleased to be here.

Mr. Bacon, you said that Pulse Canada is a national organization. Do you represent all the provinces or only some of them?

[Gordon Bacon]

The organizations that make up Pulse Canada include grower organizations in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba; two in Ontario; and the Canadian Special Crops Association, which has a processor and trading members from B.C. right through to the Maritimes.

There isn't a specific grower organization solely focused on bean production in Quebec, so we don't have a Quebec grower organization. But we do have many marketing companies in Quebec that are members of the Canadian Special Crops Association. We're certainly open to membership. In fact, we've just changed some of our structures so we can bring in a broader group and include food manufacturers, ingredient companies, etc.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Could you describe you organization so that I can explain it to my farmers? Some of them are pulse producers and they are not very satisfied with the present situation. Many products are imported in Canada whereas they are unable to sell their own production.

This relates to the third component of the recommendations aimed at improving the registration of peptides. Why is it so hard to achieve the harmonization of the Canadian and American systems? I don't understand that. Mr. Hunter was saying a while ago that our costs are higher if we don't have access to them. Why can we not produce enough to be able to export?

[Gordon Bacon]

I'm sure Mr. Hunter can add some comments to this.

Because there's a difference in the regulatory approach in the two countries, there are additional costs to registering products in Canada, or costs that have to be incurred that can't be covered by work they might have done in the United States.

We want to move toward a NAFTA registration so it continues with issues like joint reviews. It will give us one set of policies so companies can approach the NAFTA market as one geographic unit. So we're trying to remove some geopolitical boundaries in the registration process. The U.S. has a bigger production base for many crops, so when companies look at the cost of what registration would be, they have to look at the market they're going to be selling to. Those are some of my comments.

Craig.

[Craig Hunter]

On the market size that enables a company to return their cost of registration, they have ten times the population, but for some crops they have 20 and 30 times as many acres as we do. Probably the only crop where it's different is canola, where we have 12 million acres and they have one or two million acres. With everything else, they have more acres to help pay for the cost of registration.

We've made a lot of progress in the last couple of years on having the NAFTA rules set the same and getting joint registrations, and I'd like us to do even more in that area. If we start with a level playing field of availability, I know Canadian growers can out-compete anybody in the world if they have the same tools.

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

What is your opinion, Mrs Dodds? Why is it so hard to harmonize the Canadian and American regulatory systems?

[Karen Dodds]

We're at a really opportune time in that it's a win for every stakeholder group to increasingly see joint registrations, Canada and the U.S. Farmers started it, and farmers were clearly, in the early days of NAFTA, saying this is where they wanted to go.

The regulators now really see the benefits and the farmers see the benefits of having the regulators on both sides of the border having the same decisions. Because the new pesticides are, generally speaking, better for human health and better for the environment, you actually have the health stakeholders and the environmental stakeholders also supportive of increased harmonization and increased access.

There is no doubt that some of the older pesticides were really problematic for either human health or the environment, and for the most part we've moved beyond the real problem ones, but there are still concerns about a lot of the older ones.

So you have stakeholders north and south of the border all saying it's better to move, regulators north and south of the border saying move, and user groups saying move. I've had experience in other regulatory areas, and this is absolutely the furthest advance, without comparison, in terms of international cooperation Canada-U.S.

You can see how quickly things start to change. Craig's been involved for a long time, and what was once positioned as an ideal joint review is now a routine way of work for many companies.

Having a NAFTA label--I've only been involved for a couple of years now--seemed to be something that nobody thought was attainable. Once we put the right people to work, it's been less than a year from when the group started working to having this as a reality and having other companies say “we want it”. And then to right away have a submission for a joint review, with a NAFTA label included as an outcome, is just really amazing.

So I think you can see a real increased momentum for Canadian-U.S. harmonization.

[Gordon Bacon]

I wonder if I could just add one additional comment, which was alluded to earlier. I think one added benefit of this NAFTA approach is that we are removing potential trade irritants by ensuring that there are not regulatory differences in registration--and MRLs were referred to--and I think this is something we see in our industry increasingly. I'm not speaking specifically about Canada-U.S. trade but where differences in MRLs between producing countries like Canada and importing countries are increasingly being used as a market access barrier. So we see this as an additional benefit of taking a NAFTA approach.