Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's a pleasure to be here to speak to the committee on behalf of Minister Wowchuk and Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives.
I'll try not to be repetitive, but I will echo some of the comments that have been made. I think some of the comments are worthy of repetition.
First of all, let me state that Manitoba is fully supportive of the enhanced feed-ban regulations that will minimize the risk of potentially infected feed or fertilizer entering the ruminant feed chain. Going back to the beginning of the BSE situation in 2003, the international scientific panel, in its report, laid out some key points for Canada. One of them was the recommendation to enhance the existing mammalian-to-ruminant feed ban by moving to a full SRM ban. My province has lobbied vigorously for an introduction of this enhanced feed ban and has pressured the federal government to move more rapidly than it has.
Canada is in a position to have its BSE country status assigned to the controlled risk category, a categorization that will assist us in accessing more international markets for live cattle and beef products. A significant factor in moving into this controlled risk category is the presence of a full SRM feed ban. Without the implementation of the feed ban on July 12, Canada could be at risk of falling back into the uncontrolled risk category.
There will always be issues around the mechanics of the feed ban; issues of containment and disposal and destruction of SRM; and, most significantly, as has been pointed out by others, issues of the cost of the feed ban to the cattle and meat industry. However, the simple fact remains that the cost of not proceeding with full implementation far exceeds the aggregate cost of failing to meet the recommendations of the international community.
From the Manitoba perspective, as most of you will be aware, we have limited federal slaughter capacity. We have one federally licensed establishment in Manitoba, but we have 24 provincially licensed abattoirs. The province produces approximately 8,000 tonnes of inedible slaughter waste per year, and there's no segregation of SRM from the rest of the inedible waste at the present time.
We also produce something in the range of 12,000 tonnes of dead stock per year. We have no provincial capacity to render this material. In June 2003, our only provincial renderer elected to move to a dedicated line to render non-ruminant material only. Therefore, since that time, all ruminant inedible offal has had to be disposed of using alternative methods, primarily deep burial in landfills and composting.
Rothsay, the rendering company, continues to play a significant role in the movement of SRM and inedible offal from our provincial plants to landfill sites. Their service, with dedicated vehicles, accommodates our one federal plant and approximately nineteen of our provincial plants in the southern part of the province. The remaining plants that are outside of Rothsay's coverage area either use composting or deliver their SRM and offal directly to a local landfill. These are the plants that will be most impacted by the new regulations if indeed existing landfills are unable to meet the criteria as outlined by the CFIA.
For those plants that are currently using composting as their major means of SRM and offal containment and reduction, they will continue to use this methodology and will work with CFIA to procure the necessary permits to move the compost off-site as required.
With regard to dead stock, the other very major component of SRM, producers have had to resort to their own disposal systems since 2003, when the dead stock pick-up service for rendering was terminated. Apart from two provincial programs in the springs of 2004 and 2005, set up to assist with removal of dead stock from the landscape, as well as to provide the necessary BSE surveillance samples, the province's cattle producers have had to deal with dead stock disposal completely on their own, utilizing the approved methods under the Environment Act, mainly deep burial, composting, and incineration.
In terms of the Manitoba solutions, again in keeping with the disposal methods approved under our Environment Act, the province has been seeking SRM disposal options that concentrate on these methods of incineration, deep burial, and composting. We recognize that deep burial and composting provide containment only and do not address the issue of destruction of prions.
Municipalities must provide waste disposal services for waste produced in their municipalities, including dead stock. However, many municipal landfills refuse to accept dead stock. In addition, apart from the few class 1 landfills in the province, most municipal landfills do not have a leachate collection system, as required under the revised regulations.
Manitoba plans to utilize the funds from the program that we're now talking about to support regional solutions for the disposal of SRM and slaughterhouse waste. As I've indicated, these solutions will initially concentrate on incineration and composting. Other methodologies, including gasification, alkaline hydrolysis, and thermal hydrolysis will also be investigated. We are also already doing some research on various methods of gasification and larger composting sites.
An interesting twist in our province is that we are working side by side with Manitoba Health to look at some common sites for incineration, to dispose not only of SRMs and the inedible offal from our slaughterhouses but also medical waste. There's a synergy to be had by having one incinerator serving many purposes.
While the funding that's available is never sufficient, the combined $10.3 million from the federal government along with $7 million from the province will move us a long way towards a solution to the SRM issue. While we have not yet signed our federal-provincial contribution agreement, it has been thoroughly reviewed and is nearing completion.
The one area of concern that is left to be reviewed is the environmental assessment requirements under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. We anticipate that those will be resolved very shortly.
Again, I just want to reiterate our full support for the enhanced feed ban and the removal of all SRM, but I do want to point out a couple of areas of concern. One of them is the concept of risk. Regulations, when fully implemented, as Dr. Evans indicated, will reduce the risk of infectivity through the feed chain by 99%. What is not clearly communicated is the fact that the risk factor right now is essentially negligible. SRM is not a hazardous material given that the vast majority of the product is prion-free.
The focus of our regulatory environment should be on segregation and containment and less on the destruction of the prion. As one example, composting is a method we are using extensively in Manitoba, and I think it's a very useful method for reducing the volume of SRM. But at the end of the day the issue of what to use the compost for becomes a bit of a challenge given the regulatory environment we now work in.
The good communications Dr. Evans spoke of as well with regard to this whole program are essential. I think if we can take away some of the aura of a hazardous material regarding the SRM, we will have more success in dealing with our municipal partners, in particular with regard to accepting SRM into their landfills and other methods of disposal.
The main priority, again, must be to reduce the size of the SRM pile. Biosegregation is essential.There are some developments that have taken place in the last little while to reduce the size of that pile, including such mundane things as removing the distal ileum from dead cattle in the feed lot and not having to use the rest of the carcass as an SRM. I think a number of these rather simple measures will help us reduce the volume considerably.
Again, I want to recognize that these measures we are putting in place are adding costs. They're making our Canadian industry somewhat uncompetitive with the U.S. But I repeat, we have no option but to introduce and implement these stringent feed controls on time. The failure to achieve the control risk country classification carries a much higher potential price tag.
From Manitoba's perspective, we are well positioned to move forward prior to July 12 with implementation that will put us in control of something in the range of 90% to 95% of the SRM produced by the slaughter plants in our province.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I will terminate my comments.