Evidence of meeting #10 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was trade.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
How much product do you sell domestically and how much do you export?
12:25 p.m.
President, Canadian Sugar Institute, and Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance
Do you mean beet sugar?
12:25 p.m.
President, Canadian Sugar Institute, and Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance
Well, it would vary with our crop.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Give us a ballpark figure, such as last year's sales.
12:25 p.m.
President, Canadian Sugar Institute, and Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance
Last year was an anomalous year, because we had a very small beet crop. It was about half the normal size.
We would normally produce about 100,000 tonnes of sugar from sugar beets. We produce sugar beet thick juice and a variety of other products. We have access to a 10,000-tonne U.S. quota, which is fixed. The value of that quota will vary, depending on the U.S. market price.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
I'm more focused on the domestic aspect. Where I'm going with this is that I'd like to know how the “Product of Canada” label helps the sugar industry, your sugar industry, the sugar beet industry here in Canada, domestically.
12:25 p.m.
President, Canadian Sugar Institute, and Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance
It really doesn't help our industry, because the vast majority of food products are produced in Ontario and Quebec. Given the transportation costs to ship beet sugar to the east, in many cases it would not be financially viable for a food processor, for example, to bring beet sugar into Ontario or Quebec in order to label a product “Product of Canada”, whether it was a sweetened dairy product, a bread product, or something else. It's not really a financial incentive to beet sugar production in Canada.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
What can your industry do to take advantage of the “Product of Canada” labelling?
There are industries in Canada that use produce, but you're right. The sugar is a complicating factor for them, but they have to make business decisions. They feel they can gain market share by using a product of Canada, but sometimes there's an additional cost or an additional complexity.
In our Canadian market, what can you and your industry do to take advantage of the “Product of Canada” labelling?
12:30 p.m.
President, Canadian Sugar Institute, and Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance
We've always labelled Canadian beet sugar as Canadian--as a product of Canada--so there's no change from a Canadian beet sugar perspective.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Right, but how would you market this to other producers in Canada? Wouldn't you tell manufacturers in Canada to buy our Canadian beet sugar? Wouldn't you tell them that if they buy our sugar for their product, they can label it “Product of Canada”, and their domestic sales will go up?
12:30 p.m.
President, Canadian Sugar Institute, and Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance
That would be nice if it weren't for the cost disadvantage of shipping sugar outside the Prairies. Further processed products in that part of the country may be able to be labelled “Product of Canada”, but in our industry, from what we've looked at, it's certainly not going to be a significant factor in driving sugar beet planting--
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
It sounds to me as if you're selling yourself short. I'm trying to encourage you to grow your domestic market and to tell other companies to use Canadian sugar and you're--
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
No, it's not. I'm saying that businesses have to make decisions. They make decisions based on market share. They make decisions based on labelling. They make decisions based on how they want their products to appeal to consumers.
I'm asking whether you're telling companies that if they'd like to use the “Product of Canada” label, they should consider buying Canadian sugar. You're saying.... I'm not sure what you're saying. Are you saying they shouldn't do that?
12:30 p.m.
President, Canadian Sugar Institute, and Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance
I represent the trade association. We don't sell Canadian sugar--
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Yes, but you're involved with the market, though.
12:30 p.m.
President, Canadian Sugar Institute, and Director, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance
Our member company, Rogers Sugar, is certainly fully apprised of the “Product of Canada” labelling and will take that into account in its business decisions. Certainly their information to me is that this is not a significant driver of their business.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
I'm surprised at your answer.
All right. That's good.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
12:30 p.m.
President, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance
Can I comment a little further on that?
You make a really good point around “Product of Canada” and how it works and sells in Canada. There's a real benefit to being able to tell your story as a Canadian producer or a Canadian food processor. You can use that to sell a product in Canada.
The only downside is that you had better produce something darn good, and you had better produce it at a cost that's acceptable as well. If you're in a competitive market, even though it says “Product of Canada”, you're still--
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
Quality plays a role too, because when Canadians reach up on the shelf...they used to see “Product of Canada”, but the oranges weren't Canadian. Yes, cost was a driver, but they didn't like it. That's not a Canadian product. That pineapple juice, that orange juice, is not Canadian, and yes, it might be the lowest price, but they didn't like it. Now with the “Product of Canada” legislation, consumers, when they reach for that product, will know that it is all or virtually all Canadian, and that's a great comfort to them. It's also a great comfort to our farmers.
Certainly in my riding I meet with a lot of farmers, and as parliamentary secretary I have had farmers tell me they want the government to encourage Canadian produce, especially for internal consumption within Canada. That is a marketing feature for them and they want it broadcast all over. There's always the difficulty that no matter where you draw a threshold there will always be someone just below it who will say, listen, how about me, I'm just 2% short? That's where I'm saying it's consumer driven here, where the consumer says, I want to know when I grab for that can, when I buy that package off the shelf, that it is all Canadian or virtually all Canadian.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you, Mr. Lemieux. Your time is well up.
Mr. Bellavance, could I ask you to take the chair just for a second?
Go ahead, Mr. Eyking.
12:30 p.m.
Liberal
Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses here today. For the record, I'm disappointed that my colleagues are spending so much time on the character assassination of the Wheat Board. The Wheat Board is represented by farmers and we should be listening to the board.
Anyway, I have two questions that I think we should be asking here dealing with the international scene. My first question would be dealing with WTO. The negotiations seem to be at a snail's pace. My first question is, do you think that because our lead negotiator, Steve Verheul, was given other duties the team is now weakened? Do you think our focus is weakening on the WTO talks? That's my first question.
I read an article in The Economist just lately about organizations or individuals buying a lot of land around the world--farmland. You hear about Saudi Arabians buying land, you hear about big private corporations. Jim Rogers is buying a lot of land around the world, kind of sucking it up, in order to be in control of the food supply in the future I guess. My other two questions--to any of your organizations--are about what your position is on that. Should that be allowed in this country? Where are we going with this? Will we have a situation where farmers are going to be really employees, similar to what you see in chicken production in the southern states where the farmer just has to pay for the feed and he gets the price for his chicken when he sells it to Tyson? Are we going down that path in our agriculture. And what's the danger of it?
So there are three questions. One is on the WTO. What are your concerns there about our team? The other two questions are about this thing that's taking place on the world scene as far as farmers not being in control of the production and the ownership of their own destinies is concerned.
12:35 p.m.
President, Canadian Agri-Food Trade Alliance
I'll answer the first one quickly. I don't believe our team is being weakened. I would believe the government will appoint someone who has the skills and talents to carry forward our position at the WTO. I think the fact that Steve has been moved over to the file on the EU bilateral shows the emphasis the government is putting on trade, and this bilateral, which will be a big one.
Of course, as you've heard from us in a couple of different ways, we prefer the multilateral system for a number of reasons, but the reality is that's the way the world is going. I think there's a lot of work to be done in the Pacific region, around the Asian markets, to try to open those markets as well.
New Zealand and Australia are setting up different coalitions and different agreements in those areas, and we need to be a part of some of that, I believe. So there's work to be done in a whole number of different realms, not just the WTO. The WTO is probably where we're going to base a lot of those agreements, so it's very important, but I would think that the bench is deep, I hope, and that we can continue on with the work that needs to be done. If you want to talk about the land ownership issue....
[Technical difficulty--Editor]
March 24th, 2009 / 12:35 p.m.
President, Grain Growers of Canada
Maybe I'll just touch a little bit on that, as we're getting into land use and stuff like that. That really needs to be something that municipalities look at. Be very careful. We get the same thing out west with how the Hutterites are going to eat up all the land and eventually they'll be doing all the farming.
The key here, and it gets right back to what we're here for, is how do we make farming competitive and farmers competitive so that we can make a living? Farmers are pretty independent cusses, and we'll figure out a way to make a buck on something if we possibly can, if there isn't something in our way like regulations, impediments, market signals, etc. I don't really care what the market says the price of something is. For instance, if the price of barley is $1.75 and I know I need $2.50 a bushel to grow it, I won't grow barley that year—unless I have to for a rotational reason, but generally not. Farmers are pretty good at adjusting for that type of thing. We need to think about how to make it competitive enough that farmers want to be farming.
I had to encourage my own son not to become a farmer because he couldn't make a living at it. He's teaching, and he can make a living teaching and farming part-time. It's unfortunate. We're losing a lot of the kids who have the experience and would like to farm.
So how do we do that? One of the things is we need to stop this fixation as Canadians that our only opportunity is to export a raw product. That's crazy. We have to have exports, for sure. We should be value adding and keeping those jobs in Canada so that we keep communities employed, people employed, farmers employed. We have situations right now where I cannot grow my own grain and establish my own business using wheat or barley to produce a product. I'm not allowed to. I have to sell that through the Wheat Board and buy back my own danged grain. This is nuts. What kind of a system is that? How am I going to add value? We tried to have a prairie pasta plant where people owned their own grain to put into their own plant, and they weren't allowed to do that. We need to get those impediments out of the way.
Value adding would help us a lot.
