Evidence of meeting #38 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 pork.
A recording is available from Parliament.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
How much should you get be getting per kilogram, then?
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
But that's your cost of production, just to break to even.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
You touched upon a point that I've often brought up, and that's the whole trade issue, the countervail and exports. The more I look at all these issues and see how it has hit our cherry producers and others, it seems we always seem to be fighting this. For all its good intentions--the government has programs--governments seem to be operating within this framework that we have to be very careful and step very lightly on trading partners because of countervail and borders being shut down. Yet we see all sorts of programs happening in the United States that are interfering with us. To me that does not seem fair. It seems we have to have some way of going around this.
My question is on the total production. Roughly how much is domestic, how much do we ship to the U.S., and how much do we export to other countries?
President, Canadian Pork Council
Our total pork production--and let's leave the live pigs out of it for a minute--is 21.5 million hogs, give or take. We're at a little under two million tonnes. Of that, a little over a million tonnes are exported. Of that, 28% goes to the U.S., with the rest going to the rest of the world.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
So most of the pork, 1.5 million tonnes, is Canadian or domestic, plus a million tonnes are exported?
President, Canadian Pork Council
I think about 700,000 or 800,000 tonnes are domestic. Then you have a million tonnes exported. Those are really rough numbers.
NDP
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
Now, 25% of our consumption in Canada is U.S. pork.
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
What would happen if we didn't deal with them? If we take it one step further, if we assist our farmers and they slap on countervail, then we could say we don't need their pork and we're not going to send them ours. We can develop those markets and move our domestic industry onto a stronger footing. Is that theoretically possible?
President, Canadian Pork Council
Alex, I think you've hit on something very important, and it is something government can do tomorrow. One of those things is that, number one, the pork coming in from the U.S. has to meet the same stringent rules and regulations as our pork does in Canada. That could be implemented tomorrow if the government were willing.
President, Canadian Pork Council
The same with beef, absolutely--everybody.
The other thing that could be done that we could implement tomorrow is the same type of charge that Canadian pork pays going into the U.S. for promotion and research. If there were a will by government, they could tomorrow implement exactly the same kind of charge for pork coming into Canada. It's not a huge amount, but it would give us money immediately to assist in promotion and research in this country. Right now we spend more on promotion and research in the U.S. than we do in Canada, because we're forced to pay the levy on our pork and hogs going into the U.S., but because of our Canadian boy scout attitude, we don't charge coming this way. If there is a will by government, that can be implemented tomorrow.
NDP
Alex Atamanenko NDP British Columbia Southern Interior, BC
It seems it would be logical to do that. I think it's something that would be supported by everybody.
Ultimately, if we do this and the Americans hit back hard, our industry could basically survive by saying that we don't need their pork and we don't have to export to the United States because we are trying to develop more markets and trying to work on our domestic industry. Could we do that?
President, Canadian Pork Council
It's not quite that simple, because we do have open borders. So if the regulations--whatever they are--are met, the American processor chooses to sell here, and the retailer buys here, we do not advocate closing the border, because it is important to us as well. A lot of our packers, processors, and exporters sell to the U.S., and we don't want to kill them either. It's a little more complex than what you say, but it would certainly lower our dependence on them.
The $17 million promotion fund working through CPI is very valuable to develop some of those other markets. We understand and agree that the less we're dependent on the Americans, the less we have to worry about countervail or the big cane attitude.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Your time has expired, Mr. Atamanenko.
If you have a closing comment, I will allow it, but there is no time left for questioning.
Mr. Hoback, you have seven minutes.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for coming here today to talk about the pork industry.
I'm a farmer myself, and I know your feelings and frustrations in dealing with banks. It was kind of interesting when, in our competition study, we had the banks in here. They basically recommended we get rid of Farm Credit, and they would take care of everybody else. I kind of laugh at that, because in a lot of cases FCC fills the void. These banks, based in Toronto or Calgary, just don't seem to understand that. So you've just confirmed that these banks take care of themselves, for lack of a better word.
I want you to know that I feel for you, and I really commend you for the courage it took to come here. I know it's tough. Nobody ever wants to air their dirty laundry, as you said. But sometimes that needs to happen so we legislators understand the impact. It's nice to have someone from P.E.I. come here to tell us that. It's important.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
I don't care what happened with the Liberal government before, or what has happened in the last three or four years. Maybe we had a bad trade policy, or maybe we should have started bilaterals earlier. We can blame a lot of people for a lot of things, but what can we do as we move forward?
I understand that with the program we have now, some people like it and some don't like it. Some people say it works, and some say it doesn't. That seems to be characteristic of any farm program. You can never seem to get a farm program that fits the bill across the table. Some people fit very well into a program, and some people don't.
But I think all farmers would say they don't want to get their money from the mailbox. They want their money to come out of the market. So how can we get this right so the market goes back to driving our paycheques?
On the avenue of trade, I know the Minister of Agriculture has travelled extensively. In fact, the personal sacrifices he has made in giving up his break weeks and the sacrifices his riding has made because the minister has been gone have been phenomenal. As a committee, we have to recognize that the minister has been out there flogging beef and pork in every corner of the world, whether it's in Russia or whether it's going to be Hong Kong and Japan next week. I hope you guys understand that he's out there doing that.
I also want to point out that he's willing to do more. If we could get some opposition members to pair off with him, I think we could have even more results in opening up some of these markets.
I got a little confused, Jurgen, when you spoke about shutting off the border, in response to Alex's question. What would happen? Realistically, if we shut off the border and said we were not going to deal with the U.S., how may producers would we lose in Canada?
President, Canadian Pork Council
As I said, I absolutely do not advocate shutting the border. I do advocate treating the Americans the same way as they treat us. So their pork coming in should get the same levy as our pork going into the U.S. Our regulations have to be adhered to, because there are labelling issues and other issues that the Americans do not properly follow. Our regulatory agencies don't follow up on them. That's all we're asking. We do not advocate closing the border.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
So as far as other countries go, whether it's pork coming from the U.S., Europe, or other countries, you expect them to follow the same Canadian rules and regulations as we have to follow. Is that correct?
President, Canadian Pork Council
We absolutely believe that. We expect to follow the rules of our export markets as well--and we do.