Agriculture Committee on Dec. 12th, 2007

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. Time has expired.

We'll go to Mr. Miller.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I will be splitting my time with Mrs. Skelton.

Thank you, Mr. Minister, for being here today. I, for one, welcome you here any time, even if it is only for an hour.

Mr. Minister, we all know the issue and the problems right now in the pork and beef sectors. There are some things the government can do and some we can't. One, of course, is dealing with a high dollar. High feed costs is another one that's hitting those industries right now. There's a bit of overproduction in there that figures into it, and also, especially in the cattle end of it or the beef end of it, we're still not fully over the BSE whack. So we have a lot of things ahead.

One thing this committee did not too long ago was pass a motion unanimously to have the department look into a review of all CFIA inspection costs--not just at slaughter and packing plants, but at the border as well--which affect both pork and beef heavily. I know that when I came to you with the idea of having that, you were very favourable towards it, and I thank you for that. I believe the study is well under way.

I'm wondering if you have any kind of update you can give me on how that study is going, what you may have found to this point, and what we may do about it?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

I've had those discussions with CFIA officials, Larry, as well as with the departmental officials at Agriculture Canada. They are seized by this at the moment. They are looking at every regulation, every cost, and comparing them with those of our major trading partner, the U.S., and seeing what the USDA does and doesn't charge for what we do. They will have some numbers for me on certain portions of that by the end of this month, and then by the end of January, they hope to have the whole package ready for me showing what we charge for that the Americans don't and what the effect or significance is, and so on.

We have to be careful that we do not jeopardize our food safety in any way when we're doing this. Having said that, there are a number of operations and things we do on a cost-recovery basis that the USDA absorbs. The basic taxpayer pays for it out of the global money in the States.

We are cognizant of that. It's one of those things that is not trade challengeable. You can take away taxes and take away regulatory costs, and it's not trade challengeable. We'll look at that. Even if the dollars aren't as significant as we think, because there has been a moratorium on price, on cost-recovery, for the CFIA since the mid-nineties, there's the psychological benefit of saying that we're not doing that anymore. Certainly I'm more than willing to have a look it.

It may be the type of thing we can't say, carte blanche, we're not going to do anymore, but we can certainly implement a holiday, year by year, on some of those regulatory costs, and that's what we're working with right now.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Ms. Skelton.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you, Minister, and it's great to see you again this afternoon.

You mentioned a couple of things. You mentioned food safety, and I would like to find out more about your science and innovation agenda.

When you were speaking about trade with countries, you mentioned the Russians. Are you looking at live animal trade or are you looking at embryos? Can you explain a bit more about that, too, please, sir?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

The Russians and a number of countries--Mexico, Cuba--and the Chinese have all expressed interest in live animals as well as boxed beef. They're very impressed by the genetics we've developed.

Of course, our cattle and hog producers are some of the most innovative in the world. In Alberta we have a producer who has developed a hog that is circovirus immune, so they're very interested in those types of things.

Out of the University of Alberta and with some work at the University of Saskatchewan, we have developed vaccines that make animals less susceptible to E. coli. Even as you grind the hamburger and carry on down through, I won't call it a preservative, but that immunity is there. So there is tremendous opportunity to market those types of innovative situations around the world.

In light of food safety--of course, we've seen the media stories on this--we were already starting to do some work ahead of that. We have 10,000 food importers in this country, and a lot of different product comes in that does not have the same scrutiny applied to it as to our own domestic product. That has to start to change.

We're looking at programming whereby that would be done at point of exit, not after it gets into the country. Certainly that would make us much more proactive than we are now.

We are trading more and more. I know there's the food sovereignty movement out of Quebec, but it's very hard to have food sovereignty when.... I think it was Bernard Landry who said we don't grow pineapples here. And I take his point, but there are things we can and should be doing.

I'm very concerned with what constitutes “product of Canada” as opposed to “made in Canada”. We are starting to look at a regulatory regime that would correct some of those anomalies. It's a concern.

There is work under way with the Minister of Health, the Minister of Industry, and me to address some of these labelling challenges and some of these food safety challenges we're facing.

[Carol Skelton, Conservative, Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. Your time has expired.

Mr. Atamanenko.

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

Thank you very much for being here, Minister.

I wanted to let you know I've had good discussions with your deputies, both at CFIA and your deputy minister. We have a good working relationship, and I'd like to thank you for facilitating that.

My first question is with regard to biofuels. This is a major initiative. It's something that's been thought about for a long time. There are concerns about that, and I know we will be addressing some of them later, in the next year.

Are there safeguards built in to ensure our producers aren't undercut by, for example, cheap U.S. corn coming in as fuel for the ethanol industry? I think that is taking place in southern Ontario. That whole potential of palm oil and sugar coming in from the southern hemisphere has just devastated many countries and forests.

If they're not in place now, I'm wondering what safeguards you can envision to protect our producers and make sure that what we do is right and that we're not making life worse for people in the southern hemisphere.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

I'm not sure how we'd make life worse for them, Alex. I'll start with that point first.

As we develop more and more free trade.... I had the great opportunity to meet with Dr. Braithwaite, who heads up a group, and the initials are IICA, based out of.... Oh, I've just lost it.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Costa Rica.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Costa Rica. Thank you, Wayne.

It involves a number of Central American countries who have gone together to get economies of scale when they start to negotiate on agricultural situations. Canada is one of the largest contributors to that group, and in working with them on a case-by-case basis we have developed some trade lines bringing their products in. We are cognizant of the sensitive products like sugar, dairy products, and other SM5 products, and so on. We're working around those situations.

Having said that, there's a tremendous opportunity for us to take our expertise to them and help them grow better products, more environmentally and organically friendly products, and those types of things. It's working very well. He thanked us for our input on that.

We are doing a number of bilaterals with other countries as well to facilitate trade in agricultural goods. We do overproduce in this country to some extent and we do export a tremendous amount of that product. But we have to make sure that what's going out is safe and what's coming in is safe.

On the biofuel side, it's a tremendous chance for producers to be involved. We have structured our products for the biofuels industry so that there is producer involvement. A lot of the subsidies that are available from the federal government are based on the fact that there are producers involved in any particular physical structure and in delivering a product to that. They will make a case-by-case basis as to where they buy their product.

Having said that, there is no surplus of corn in the U.S. and there won't be for the near future as their ethanol industry ramps up. They are an energy-starved nation, as are we, and an industry-challenged nation.

I don't see the use of U.S. corn. I toured the GreenField facility in Johnstown just by Prescott the other day. They are going to be buying between 20 million to 25 million bushels of local corn on an annual basis to produce some 175 million litres of ethanol on an annual basis. They're looking at feeding into that Ontario market. They're also looking towards the future where they can double the capacity and start to export ethanol across the line.

There's a tremendous opportunity for farmers to be involved, not just to deliver to a different warehouse door but actually be part of the next step up in the food or energy processing sector. I think it's a tremendous opportunity.

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

At this point in time, you don't see a threat by other feedstock coming in from other countries to displace what our farmers are producing?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Not at this point, I don't, Alex. That's something we might address on a case-by-case basis, but I haven't seen the demand for anyone. We produce some of the best product in the world.

Of course, corn is an excellent ethanol feedstock. In GreenField's mind, in terms of why they built in that particular location, there was that quantity of corn that really didn't have a market secured for it. They've gone in there, and they're actually contracting right now for farmers to start delivering corn a year from now, when they'll have their start-up date. It's a tremendous opportunity for local farmers there to fill that niche.

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

Also, you mentioned trade and some of the bilaterals we're doing. In the report we did, one of the recommendations was on food security. Other recommendations were to buy Canadian and institutional buying. Then we had the report from your department. One of the main threads going through that is that we've got to be very sensitive to our trade obligations.

I'm wondering what your thoughts are, as it seems whenever we try to really do something, do what's right, support local producers, or food sovereignty, we've got this big cloud of trade obligations, whereas other countries don't seem to worry about that. I'd like to know what your philosophy is in that whole regard.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

I don't think it's that other countries don't care to the same extent we do or don't adjust to their trade challenges as we do. It's economies of scale. We probably export more per capita than any other agricultural country in the world. We're just that good at it.

I think consumers are getting more and more concerned with what they're eating and what they're able to buy. They want truth in labelling on the store shelves so they know exactly what is in the product. There's a tremendous number of examples out there that you can point to that say “this is made in China”, “this is made in India”, but it's in a jar that says “product of Canada” because the label, the jar, and the processing was done here. We need to be better equipped to make those decisions off the store shelves.

I think it's very important too that we start to analyze the environmental footprint on the cost of that food. When you look at transportation of the little gherkin pickles from India as opposed to what comes out of the greenhouses in Quebec and Ontario, etc., you've got to start to analyze that environmental footprint and what it costs to get that product here. Even though it's cheaper to buy, what was the environmental footprint?

Consumers are getting more concerned with those types of situations as well. That's leading to the drive behind the food sovereignty movement and different things like that. We've actually put some money into the food sovereignty issue to try to drive a pilot project that we can work with on a federal scale. We'll have to see what that looks like at the end of the day. I had a discussion with some of the folks at the UPA the other day on that issue.

There's a tremendous amount of possibilities out there, and I think we have to be much more innovative than we've been up to this point. I don't think farmers any longer want to be hewers of wood and drawers of water; they want to be innovators, businessmen, and they want to sell their product to the world.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you. Time has expired.

We do have bells ringing. I don't think it's fair if we start into another round; we're not going to get all the way through, because we have to get into the chamber to vote.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chair, I don't think the vote is.... We are two minutes away from the chamber. I would strongly--

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

Those are 10-minute bells.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Well, that's fine. Maybe we have six minutes left--

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

No, we don't.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

--that would allow some important questions.

We've waited for months for the minister to get here; I think we should take the full time available. Those guys on that side can meet the minister in caucus, although they never say much, obviously, when they meet him. They can meet him any time at all.

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

I have a point of order.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Go ahead, Mr. Lauzon.