Evidence of meeting #48 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cherries.
Okanagan Kootenay Cherry Growers Association
We do not have a provincial ag extension program anymore. They cancelled all the district horticulturists.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
That's essentially happening in my home province of Manitoba as well.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thanks, gentlemen, for coming in today.
I can't let Wayne get away with his last comment about the documentation and information that we need. We'll just go and photocopy what I'm sure Anne McLellan got out to industry over all those years as minister.
Anyway, on your comments about call centres, Greg, I'll tell you, buddy, I'm with you on those. Maybe it'll help you to get rid of every other call centre where you can't get hold of anybody in this country.
Getting back to agriculture, we talk here about standards in other countries, and about produce and commodities coming in. As a farmer, I spent a number of years with a lot of farm organizations, particularly with the cattlemen. On the issue of country of origin, the Ontario cattlemen have been fighting for that thirty years.
There's one thing I urge each one of you to do in your different commodity groups. The problem we have isn't so much government as it is the message that we get from all the different groups. There are a number out there. The net exporters of produce—and beef is one of those groups—absolutely do not want country of origin. The reason is that they're afraid our product is going to get nailed in places like the U.S. and what have you. That's the reason behind it.
You need to poll all these groups and find out who's on side. If they're not on side, get them on side, because I think it has to happen to protect your industry.
The other option is—and I'd like to hear some comments on it—that if we're going to come up with a policy on this, do we worry about country of origin for net importers, which I know we are in the fruit and vegetable industry? Do we go that way and leave out the net exporters? Personally, I don't like the sound of that, but where else do you go? There's a problem here within the industry.
The other thing is getting back to standards. Very few other countries in the world have the quality that we have here. If you have products that you want to bring into this country because there's a consumer demand for them, but you can't get the kind of quality that we are used to here and our producers are put under, you have two choices. Either you say you will not accept their products unless they're as good as ours—which you can't find—or the consumer pushes you to bring them in, which is what's happening. It's a problem, and it isn't all government either. Government does have to take a lead role, but they have to do that in consultation with your group.
So laying out those two problems, I'd like to hear some comments on how you think the government should address them.
President, Delta Farmers' Institute
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Larry, you raised a good point, but if you're exporting beef, it's not Canada that will insist on that label. It will be the United States or whatever country imports your beef.
Conservative
President, Delta Farmers' Institute
I don't think that from a Canadian producer point of view we could change it, because I don't think we'd have the authority to overrule a U.S. decision. But if they accept Canadian beef as a high-quality product--and I'm sure they do--they are not likely, in my opinion, to push that issue per se against Canadian beef.
There is a food safety issue, and that's the basic reason I raise it. It's a food safety issue we are concerned about when it comes to country of origin, with all due respect to your point, and it's a good one.
Beef is a huge sector in this country, as far as export goes. They depend on it. You wouldn't survive without it, I don't think.
Conservative
Larry Miller Conservative Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON
I can tell you unequivocally the reason the Canadian Cattlemen's Association fights this. I'm a member so I can speak as more than just a politician. They are opposed to putting that kind of country of origin on foreign product in this country because they're afraid it's going to affect sales in other countries. Now, whether that's right or wrong I'm not going to argue about, but if it's legitimate, that's the reasoning behind it.
President, Delta Farmers' Institute
Yes, and that's a fair comment. I fully acknowledge that and recognize it, but as I say, as far as we as Canadian consumers should be concerned, the issue becomes the health and safety issue, and that's basically where I'm coming from when I talk about the country of origin. Then we can track it.
If you say it's a product of Canada, when it's changed and it actually was grown in Thailand or China or wherever it happens to be, and you have a safety problem, they look at the label, and it says, “product of Canada”. It never even came from Canada. So that's the issue in our mind.
Conservative
Okanagan Kootenay Cherry Growers Association
I think this is all about presentation. I think today particularly we see the dog food, and we see the spinach, and we see all the other things. As Canadians, I think we have an opportunity here to say, listen, for the protection of our consumers, the Minister of Health should announce this policy, not the Minister of Agriculture. For the safety of all Canadians, we want everything that the consumers in Canada are eating to be labelled with the country of origin so our consumers can then make intelligent decisions on what to buy.
You don't get into trouble with free trade, and you don't get into that beef thing you're talking about. I understand where those guys are coming from, but if our federal Minister of Health stands up and says, “Geez, we're quite worried as Canadians. We want the Canadian public to make an informed decision, and we're going to have country of origin....”
There's a real movement, Mr. Chairman, to buy within 100 kilometres. There are the environmental concerns about carbon loading. This is a really big discussion in Canada today. No matter what magazine or article you want to read or TV program or radio program you hear, there's a lot of talk about the environmental impacts of all the things we do. There is the discussion about eating fresh tomatoes in Toronto all winter long, and people are saying that the environmental deficit is huge with the fuel and all the problems.
So I think we're in a position to move on this as a federal government and say, listen, we're looking at this thing because our consumers are aware of this issue, and we want them to know at least where it came from. Let the industry jump in and start promoting our Canadian suppliers.
Director, British Columbia Milk Producers Association
Mr. Steckle raised an issue that I would like to speak to. It falls under this labelling issue, for standards in dairy products and the fact that Kraft opposed the dairy labelling legislation, and the House of Commons didn't have the guts to push it through. The dairy industry is very concerned that the standards for dairy products are going to fall under the same pressures as the dairy labelling issues did.
I would urge each and every one of you to stand up to it. It is a piece of legislation that has long since been needed and has only been identified recently because most of our processors are international in scope and are using supply management as a protection of their finished products without using domestic primary production to produce a Canadian food.
Conservative
Delta Farmers' Institute
Thank you.
I would like to comment a bit. I appreciate the complexity of the beef issue--I really do. However, in Canada we do impose significant standards on the growing of products. I think we all understand that. We have pesticide regulations, we have soil regulations, we have setbacks for this, etc. In fact, we have so many setbacks today we've expropriated farmland we can't use because we want to keep things clean for the environment. We understand that.
Our products are very good. We know that. Can we say the same about those products coming in? We don't employ the same standards, so who are we fooling? I wonder whether we have a double standard here. I think it has to cease. The standards for the products coming in should be as good as the regulations we put upon our own farmers. It should be no less.
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Before we conclude our hearings, maybe our clerk could get more information on this business about importing.
I always thought an importer had to get permission to bring in that carload or boxload, or whatever, of product. Maybe your organizations are not being notified of somebody who is wanting to do that. But you just don't drive across the border and bring an 18-wheeler load of cherries, can you?
Okanagan Kootenay Cherry Growers Association
I don't buy cherries, so I.... Let me tell you that whatever paperwork is required is of no significance. There is no--
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
Mr. Chair, we should probably look into that to see how it works. We have a similar problem on the east coast with cauliflower. It comes to the Boston market--maybe 20 carloads--they auction it off, and there are two loads left over that are sent into Halifax or Moncton.
There is another point we haven't heard anything about. There's a big problem with bees in the United States coming into Canada. We haven't heard anything today on that. I think it's very significant to people here in British Columbia. I don't know if you have evidence of a problem yet, but if there is, it's certainly going to be a very significant factor.
Greg, are you following this? Is research being done to determine how you can avert the type of mortality rates they're having in their bee colonies in the United States?
Okanagan Kootenay Cherry Growers Association
To answer the question, absolutely I'm following it. The man who supplies my pollenizing bees is also the provincial inspector, and I speak to him about every second day. He has been inspecting the local hives for this phenomenon.
They don't really know what it is yet. As far as I understand, it's some sort of virus. It's something they have never seen before. Right now we're okay. We've already looked into having bumblebees replace honeybees, because they are commercially available. But we're very concerned about it.
I'm assuming the federal government regulatory agencies are watching the importation of American bees. At least I'm hoping we're watching the flow and the movement of bees. As Canadians, we shouldn't be accepting any American bees. If they have to get bees to Alaska, as far as I'm concerned they can take them through Russia as opposed to Canada.
But we're very aware of it, and we are very concerned.
Liberal
Charles Hubbard Liberal Miramichi, NB
And with respect to the dairy producers, we haven't heard much from them about ethanol yet. In terms of their mix of foodstuffs for their animals, is that being watched quite closely? Has your organization made any presentations to our federal government in terms of your response and concerns with the conversion of a lot of feed grains to other uses?