Agriculture Committee on Jan. 29th, 2008

[Karen Dodds]

I won't say it's certainly been the situation for much of PMRA's history. When I started, one of the first things I did, and encouraged other staff to do, was to get out and meet farm organizations. Within the first week one of the meetings I attended was the annual meeting of the Canadian Horticultural Council. I have pretty much gone from coast to coast meeting with farmers and farm organizations from P.E.I., Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia.

You can't meet with all Canadian farmers. There are hundreds of thousands of growers, but in going across the country you do meet with those who are very interested in their industry and interested in trying to make a positive contribution to where their industry is going. I have spoken with farmers who probably wanted to throw rotten tomatoes at me, but I have spoken with farmers who are very interested in trying to improve their growing practices, their agricultural practices.

I found their associations very open to discussion. We have certainly benefited enormously over the last two or three years from the input from farm organizations and grower organizations in terms of what pesticides they're interested in, the technology gap, and the difference in the number of products registered for different uses in the States versus Canada. We will never completely close, and we explained to farmers that a lot of the products they were interested in were older pesticides and they wouldn't meet our current standards, but we were very interested in working with them on some of the newer products where we realize there is either a lower risk to human health or a lower risk to the environment. Again, a project like 914, where all parties have a role to play in saying these are appropriate products for us to look at, has been very positive.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

That's good to hear.

I think what you're saying is that things are improving in that relationship, and there is more buy-in from the farmers themselves. It's been my experience that having people be part of the solution is the best way to address the problem.

Something that seems to be a bit of a concern is that over this transition from the one program to the other, from the OUI to the GROU, how can you make the industry feel comfortable? Is there a way to extend this transition to make sure that the transition is smooth and to try to minimize any differences or any minor problems that might occur? Is there a way to extend the OUI until the GROU is completely in place?

[Karen Dodds]

Under the OUI, the only product that currently has a permit is the ClearOut 41 Plus. Its permit expires at the end of June this year. That product is normally used in the springtime anyways, and farmers who wish to use it this fall can import their full growing season amount in the spring so it can take them over the full growing year. But as I said in my introductory remarks, the manufacturer has also said they are going to sell the product on the Canadian market. So there will be the same product north and south of the border. Why would the farmers want to go south of the border unless the manufacturers themselves maintained the price differential north and south of the border?

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Okay.

The other thing that caught my attention was the global joint reviews you mentioned. Can you expand on that? How do we compare? We know that our food supply is second to none. How are we matching up? Maybe you can give us a little more detail on that.

[Karen Dodds]

I will ask Dr. Aucoin to answer, because he has been a key person for us in that area.

[Dr. Richard Aucoin]

Through the global joint reviews, we have already spoken to some of the advantages we see to doing those from the standpoint of allowing our growers to gain access to some of these new chemistries in a similar timeframe. The other very important aspect of this is that because we're working with a number of other OECD countries at the same time, we also have access to each other's science. We have access to each other's risk assessors and scientists, and we're able to make much more robust decisions for all our citizens if we're working together in a larger group assessing these chemicals all at the same time. We gain a lot from that, and I think that adds a lot of confidence into the system regarding these chemicals, their properties, and their safety.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Do you see this as sort of opening up some extra markets for us or possibly some new markets, because we're getting to be on the same page, and we're meeting their requirements as well as our own?

[Dr. Richard Aucoin]

Absolutely.

Certainly among OECD countries, it levels the playing field in terms of the kinds of tools that producers have and also in terms of the export markets they would like to enter into. Those countries have already assessed that chemical as well, and ideally if we're working together and we can come up with similar maximum residue limits on food commodities, that will also encourage the free trade of those commodities among countries.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I think Ms. Dodds said that the relationship is improving in that process as time goes on.

[Dr. Richard Aucoin]

Absolutely.

I wanted to quickly point to a comment you made earlier about our working with grower associations with Canada. Another interesting outcome is that we believe that we have facilitated, at least to a small degree, the relationships between grower associations in Canada, the United States, and Mexico. Some of the NAFTA work that we do involves getting both these grower associations and stakeholders together with the governments at the same time to talk about these issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

Mr. Atamanenko.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Thank you very much.

Thanks for being here this morning.

We're doing a review, and we're trying to improve the system to make it easier for our producers to have a level field with those they compete with in the world. We've heard over and over again, “Why can't we use these products? They can use them there, and yet we're importing their food.” You know, that whole story. We know that sometimes we don't have a level playing field, because we have various organizations such as the WTO and NAFTA, which often make it difficult for us to institute a buy-Canadian policy in our institutions. We've seen that response from the government to our recommendation to the reports. In other words, we have all these trade challenges that we have to be careful of when we're doing business.

There is a growing number of Canadians who are worried about what they call the security and prosperity partnership, which in a nutshell is advocating more or less a complete harmonization of all aspects of our economies, not only agriculture, but other aspects of our life. A number of people are concerned. They see that often this means, or can mean, a lowering of standards, and of course there are health concerns.

The question is, if in part this can be the case when we're looking at various products for our farmers and for Canadians, how we get a balance where we keep in mind that we have to look at health concerns, but at the same time ensure that we can assist our producers to get that level playing field.

The fruit growers in my area have mentioned to me that there are actually better products that are more environmentally sound that Americans are using, that are better for the environment and for health, that we can't get here, and we have to use the old ones that are more damaging. So this is the other way where harmonizing would be better.

So I guess my question is, do we have a certain standard that we say this is it, when we're doing this--we're not going to get below this? Does this fit in not only with what's happening in North America, but does it address some of the standards that are in Europe, for example, in the European Union, which often, in regard to pesticide residue levels, are higher than what we have? How do you come up with an answer that meets the needs of our producers, that meets the needs of the health of Canadians? I'm just wondering if you could maybe shed some light on this. These are questions I'm thinking of and people are asking me.

[Karen Dodds]

I'll try. It's a difficult subject.

To protect human health, countries around the world have an absolute standard below which they will not go. We do as well. Protecting human health, we say, and the environment, are our primary mandates. But the act is clear: we have to consider the competitiveness of the agriculture sector and we have to consider providing tools--pesticides--to users in Canada.

For human health, when you think of consuming residues on foods, there is, based on the toxicity of a pesticide, an absolute amount that we won't let you consume above. Now typically, in any country, a number of pesticides are contributing to that amount. The difficulty comes because we don't have the same multiples of pesticides registered in every country.

In Canada, if I say, for chemical A, that we have ten products that have chemical A in them and we're going to make sure you don't consume above this amount, we might set an MRL of ten for each of the ten. In the United States they might have 200 different pesticides that have that active in it. They might have to set a lower MRL to make sure that the total consumption doesn't go above that level. They might have two pesticides and could set a higher MRL to make sure you don't go above that consumption.

The reaction of the human body to a chemical remains the same no matter if you're here, in California, in Cuba, in New Zealand, or in Japan.

With respect to the effects on the environment, that can be quite different. It obviously depends very much on the kind of environment in which you're using a pesticide. For example, we know that sun decomposes or breaks down most pesticides. So if you're in a tropical country with a lot of sunlight, the level of pesticide in the environment is likely to deteriorate faster with time than if you're in Canada, which has a northern climate. You're trying to control both environmental exposure and human health exposure through the use of the pesticides. Because they can be used on many different foods, you have this concern about maximum residue limits and differences all over.

When we look at safety, we look at the toxicity of the pesticide. We look at, in Canada, what foods it's used on and what foods are imported into Canada with potential pesticide residues. We have data on what Canadians consume, and that goes from infants right through to seniors, broken down by subpopulation group and gender. We synthesize all those things when we're setting an MRL.

There is often the ability to protect human health and protect the environment and change an MRL and change use, but sometimes there isn't.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

We know that we accept products into Canada for consumption that could have higher MRLs than those products would have if they were grown in Canada.

[Karen Dodds]

It might be higher, it might be lower. There are always products brought in that we don't grow in Canada at all, and we incorporate those residues, if we know they have those residues on them, into our risk assessment.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

So if you took a tomato grown in the field in Ontario and one grown in Mexico, it's possible, because of the exposure to sun and the type of climate, that the MRL could be higher in the tomato in Mexico and still be acceptable for our health here, as opposed to the tomato grown in Canada. Is that what you're saying?

[Karen Dodds]

When we establish maximum residue limits, they apply to both domestic and imported foods. The tomato grown in Mexico and imported into Canada has to respect the MRLs we've set in Canada for tomatoes grown with the same pesticide.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We're going to kick off our five-minute round. We'll go to Mr. St. Amand.

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

Mr. Chair, I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Easter.

Ms. Dodds, Mr. Aucoin, I'm relatively new to this committee, so if a couple of questions I have are on the naive side, just know where they're coming from.

You mentioned in your report some funding, specifically $20 million over four years, under the chemicals management plan, and some $19.3 million over four years under the enhancing access to pest management tools initiative.

Does the agency receive adequate funding to do all that you are required to do under the legislation?

[Karen Dodds]

Somebody who's working in the area of health and safety can always say, “If we get more money, we can do more”.

We do have some cost recovery. We have a cost recovery review underway now; it's at the latter stages of review. What we found for the first time in the history of PMRA--the last fiscal year and this fiscal year--is we will actually exceed the amount of cost recovery that we're allowed to keep. We've had more submissions come in in the last two years than we've had before. So the amount of cost recovery fees that we have brought in has exceeded the envelope that is set by Parliament for us.

One of our recommendations will be not to increase costs, but to increase the level we're allowed to keep. Because what happens now is those dollars flow in to us, and once we hit our ceiling they go into general revenues instead of our being able to keep them. As we've said, when you improve your reputation with registrants and you get more submissions in, we're collecting more fees and we're not keeping all of the dollars. A lot of those dollars are going into the central funds, whereas these are dollars the registrants have been paying for our work in reviewing pesticides.

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

On another tack entirely, I take it that Canada's safety record vis-à-vis our food is arguably second to none in the world. Is that fair to say?

[Karen Dodds]

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, since its inception, has been responsible for enforcing the maximum residue limits on foods, and its results are very favourable in terms of the number of samples they take and any that are in contravention of the maximum residue limits. I can't remember actual numbers, but it's very low.

Do you have them, Richard?

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

It's an impressive record that Canada has established.

With respect to the United States, and I'm not talking about volume but types of products sold, there are products sold in the United States that are not sold in Canada. Approximately how many, or can that be quantified? Again, not the volume, but the type.

[Dr. Richard Aucoin]

I don't think that's very easy to quantify. I know it's a very significant number of products available to you as producers.

Canada, especially in the area of minor use pesticides, is not a big market. There are a lot of manufacturers in the United States that for business reasons simply cannot bring those products to Canada. Our approach has been to try to do as much joint review work and encourage the simultaneous submission of those products.

[Lloyd St. Amand, Liberal, Brant, ON]

But there is a gap. For those farmers who contend that the gap is widening rather than narrowing, are they correct?