Evidence of meeting #67 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 products.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Second Vice-Chair, Chicken Farmers of Canada
That depends on the will of the minister to initiate that. I'm hopeful. We're asking. It requires some decisive decision-making. It's a win-win proposition. We're perplexed why we can't do it.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
Given that we've gone this many years and there has been no movement on the SSMs, I'm just wondering—and no reflection on current government or past government—why has government...? Is it a departmental issue? Is it the politicians? Where do you see the place where this all stops?
Second Vice-Chair, Chicken Farmers of Canada
There are overlapping ministries here. We have the Minister of Finance, we have the Minister of Agriculture, and we have the Minister of Trade. We look to our own Minister of Agriculture to be our advocate with other ministries also.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
Have your ministers traditionally been advocates for you on this issue?
Second Vice-Chair, Chicken Farmers of Canada
To the extent that they could be.
I think what's required here is a will to initiate something.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
You're also suggesting that possibly an article 28 should be involved. Where might you see the consequences on another part of the industry or other industries? Because there's a kicker here that comes into play. Where might that be? Might it affect the egg and poultry industry, or might it affect other industries? It's now something we have before the dairy industry. Where might that play out with you people?
Second Vice-Chair, Chicken Farmers of Canada
There are no competing interests as far as whether it should be done or not with the SM5.
Liberal
Paul Steckle Liberal Huron—Bruce, ON
So there's no one in the world who would have this rule? There's no one who would actually find this an impediment?
Second Vice-Chair, Chicken Farmers of Canada
If we take the European Union as an example, they just initiated an article 28 this past year. They had no reservations about protecting their domestic market.
Liberal
Second Vice-Chair, Chicken Farmers of Canada
I don't want to speak for or against, but in our case, in chicken, we have our industry partners onside. I want to emphasize that. We don't have our further processors saying don't do this. They are onside. They know the solution to our problem is an article 28.
Conservative
President, Fédération des producteurs de volailles du Québec
What I have to say follows along the same lines. As I said in my presentation, poultry further processors are in the same situation we are. Earlier we talked about raw and processed products. Products from Thailand, for example, are unique in that they are cooked products. Their price could be so low that not only the producers but the whole industry in Canada could suffer.
Chair, Canadian Egg Marketing Agency
Yes, and when we talk about the SSGs, to make it operational, it's under the Minister of Finance. So that's where....
Conservative
Barry Devolin Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
Thanks.
Thanks for being here today.
Wayne mentioned that many of us were in Washington the last couple of days, talking about the U.S. Farm Bill, meeting with members of Congress as well as stakeholder groups. What I found interesting is when they talk about their domestic policy in the context of trade, the WTO, quite frankly, it wasn't hostility to the WTO, it was just indifference. It was dealing with that later if necessary, but it clearly wasn't their primary focus.
Urs, you said repetition is a good way of teaching people. I've heard your speech now a couple of times.
Second Vice-Chair, Chicken Farmers of Canada
You're my MP, I should have said.
Conservative
Barry Devolin Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
This is complicated, but I think a couple of points need to be made around the 13%. I just want to clarify.
Under the free trade agreement, chicken cordon bleu, for example, was explicitly referenced as something that was allowed to come in. After the fact, someone determined that was about 13% non-chicken, so that number was extrapolated across all chicken products. There's no more logic to it than that; that's where it comes from.
Conservative
Barry Devolin Conservative Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON
So the growth in imports of chicken around the rules, so to speak, could be a consequence of two things. One would be consumers are buying more and more processed food products across the board. The second reason would be that companies are deliberately producing products to take advantage of this rule.
So which of those two, in your view, would explain the majority of the increase, the changing consumer preferences or companies deliberately setting out to take advantage of the situation?
Second Vice-Chair, Chicken Farmers of Canada
I would be hard-pressed to give you a number, where the balance lies. There's no doubt that consumers love ready-to-eat products off the shelf, many of which are non-lCL, so there is certainly a shift in the grocery store from buying a whole chicken to something that's ready to eat. So there is that shift.
As far as Canadian manufacturers, as I suggested before, because of this 13% rule, and it gives you at this point unlimited access to special supplementals in your manufacturing of those products, if you conform to the 13% rule, that popularity is driven, I think in part, by consumer interest in the product, plus by this access to special supplementals.
