Evidence of meeting #7 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 industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
Pierre Lemieux Conservative Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON
I think it represents a fairly substantial market opportunity in the future. My understanding is that meat consumption is expected to double in India over the next ten years.
12:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canada Pork International
We were told seven years.
12:15 p.m.
Conservative
12:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canada Pork International
Yes. Right now the demand for our pork comes from the major five-star hotels, such as the Oberoi, the Taj Mahal—those chains. That's where the demand is. You're talking about something like 300 million people who could afford meat eventually. If we only get 10% of that, it's a whole Canada that we're dealing with.
12:20 p.m.
Conservative
12:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canada Pork International
It's a huge opportunity, and it's the last one that needs to be opened.
12:20 p.m.
President, Canada Pork International
Just to add to that, I think export is a question of survival for the hog industry. We export more than 50% of what we produce. We export a million tonnes of meat every year. Compared with beef, we are not negligible. In truth, It's very important.
What we are exporting also, in beef and pork together, is grains. That was the alternative when the Crow rate transport subsidies were abandoned. That created some value-added activity. It is less costly to export meat in boxes than tonnes of grain.
I would also agree that the government is doing a lot of things with money, and there's always criticism that the money is too much. I know it as a taxpayer. But there's a benefit to investing in our industry.
What also needs to be done is something with all those little irritants from different departments, such as Health Canada for approval for drugs. All those kinds of little things—and Transport—become in the longer term very important.
12:20 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Thank you very much.
I would like to come back to the Canadian Pork Council and to the possible solutions that I mentioned earlier because we did not have time to discuss them in much depth.
You wrote to the Minister of International Trade and to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food at the end of February, but your purpose was mainly to discuss country-of-origin labelling. Did you raise any of these solutions that you propose in the brief that you presented to us with the minister or with officials, for example agri-stability payments, that should be a priority, the $3 million cap, which was suppose to be eliminated under agri-stability, and the agri-investment cap which should be increased? You also provided other possible solutions.
Have any discussions begun with the government? Do you get the sense that the government is open to what you are proposing?
12:20 p.m.
Chair, Canadian Pork Council
We're constantly in discussions with members of Parliament or the minister, but also with government officials. In fact, we have a meeting set up to talk to this specific issue in 10 days, so we will be exploring what possibilities might exist.
I don't know where those discussions are going to lead. We're going to need everybody, though. We're going to need government members and opposition members, we're going to need our industry, and we're going to need government bureaucrats. We need all of them to get their heads around it to see what we can put in place. We're going to have to be creative. It may be something we have never done before. I don't know. If you have ideas, bring them to me, and I'll present them, or you can present them.
I really think we need to throw everything on the table and have a wide-open discussion. As the stimulus packages are taking place for the whole economy now, the regular rules have been thrown out. What can we do to ensure that we keep jobs in this country? What can we do, in our case, to keep value-added agriculture in this country? I don't think anything is sacred. I think we have to throw everything on the table. We need to have everybody's input to come up with the best solution.
12:20 p.m.
Director, Board of Directors, Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities
Thanks for the question, Mr. Bellavance.
As I mentioned previously, we believe that right now the livestock sector is really falling between the cracks. There is no safety net program that addresses this economic downturn in the livestock industry, because as I mentioned, the margins are falling slowly enough in the beef sector that it doesn't necessarily trigger a payment.
For one thing, right now there is no insurance for livestock producers to be able to ensure any kind of prices. It is not considered a regional disaster because it's happening all across Canada, so in this case we're asking for ad hoc payment, because we see no other way around it. We've identified a cost per animal of $40. For a cow, an animal that's over 30 months of age, the cost to take this specified risk material away and dispose of it is a cost that they don't have in the United States.
So when we're talking about harmonizing the regulations between the U.S. and Canada, that's fine. We should be able to do that. If we can't, we are asking that producers be compensated. As the pork producers mentioned, if we don't have the primary producers, we don't have an industry, so we need to look at this seriously.
In Canada, 70% of the beef herd is in the west, in Saskatchewan and Alberta, with 40% in Alberta and 30% in Saskatchewan. We see this industry really taking a hit.
On feedlots, producer feedlots in Saskatchewan are in jeopardy. We're trying to keep more of the cattle in Saskatchewan to do the backgrounding. We're trying to get another packing plant. We had one producer-owned packing plant that was in serious trouble from day one due to competition from the big players in the industry. That certainly jeopardizes any future development. That takes us back to our resolution asking for help for the cow-calf sector.
12:25 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Mr. Orb, you represent Saskatchewan communities. What do your organization's members think about the current controversy over the Saskatchewan government's decision to provide $71 million to their cattle producers? Minister Ritz who is himself from Saskatchewan, denounced that decision and even went as far as making public statements and issuing press releases.
How is the government's decision perceived in the province? Do people feel that the Government of Saskatchewan has listened to the cattle sector and that the federal government should do the same, or do they agree with Minister Ritz in saying that the Government of Saskatchewan should not have taken that measure?
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you.
We are well over the time, but please answer as briefly as possible, Mr. Orb.
12:25 p.m.
Director, Board of Directors, Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities
I guess it's a fair question. Saskatchewan has asked for this money because they realize it's an emergency right now. It's in a crisis status. We have to get the money out to producers. I think what they're trying to do is keep the breeding herd stable--the bred heifers and the bred cows.
I can't answer for the federal Minister of Agriculture, of course, but I think right now they seem to be worried more about trade retaliation than anything else. We don't believe that should necessarily be so if you direct the payment to the right people, maybe as SRM cost subsidization or something like that.
12:25 p.m.
Conservative
March 5th, 2009 / 12:25 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Thanks.
It's a pleasure to have representatives of our pork producers here at committee today, and I say that as someone who spent the first 20 years of his life on a hog farm and spent many hours sitting around hog barns. As a matter of fact, we even bought sows--I believe they were sows, they may have been boars as well--from Mr. Preugschas at one time, back in my youth. So it's interesting to have that connection as well. I welcome him here.
My question is for both groups here on behalf of the pork industry.
On Tuesday we had representatives of the cattle industry here, the Canadian Cattlemen's Association. We had individual ranchers from different parts of the country. Certainly what I was hearing, I think for their industry, is that they felt a couple of the big issues they faced would be the country of origin labelling--we've talked about that today and I certainly recognize this is an important issue throughout the red meat sector--and also market access, which we've talked about a bit today as well. Those seem to be the two big issues the cattle producers indicate they're facing right now.
Would you agree with them that would those be the two biggest issues facing your industry? Are there other issues you think are top of the agenda?
12:25 p.m.
Chair, Canadian Pork Council
There's no question that COOL and market access are on the top of our mind. Right now, though, in addition to that is our viability and the ability to continue as producers because of our financial crunch. The financial crisis our producers are facing is extremely important, because if we don't solve that, then even the other ones won't matter a whole lot because we won't have any product to sell.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
President, Canada Pork International
I fully agree with Jurgen. All the other items look very small compared to those, which are huge. Also, we have the benefit to be able to export to more markets than the cattle guys, because they have BSE and they are out of some countries. So we have that kind of advantage. But those are certainly the major ones.
Some others are waiting. When we start talking about market access we presented all the SPS issues--the sanitary and phytosanitary--and animal welfare and all those kinds of things. That's why when we talk about an FTA or a WTO agreement with Europe, it's not that it looks nice on paper, but it has to be meaningful and applicable. It's real market access. They have some good talent and specialists to find other ways to avoid the imports.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
Blake Richards Conservative Wild Rose, AB
Okay. I asked our cattle industry representatives a very blunt question, and I'll ask you the same, because I have a real concern for young farmers trying to get into the business and how difficult that is. Do you see a future for the pork industry in Canada, and are young farmers able to get into the industry?
12:30 p.m.
Chair, Canadian Pork Council
I think that's a very fair question. We battle with this ourselves as well, because you can ask the question, is it worthwhile saving the industry? If the decision is that it isn't, then do nothing. But we feel that, yes, it is worthwhile saving, for a lot of the reasons we mentioned.
But with the way it's set up right now, it's pretty hard for a young guy to come in. My son farms with me, but he's wondered many times, should he get out of agriculture, is it worth it? And so, I think what we need to do is take what the Pork Value Chain Roundtable is doing, expand that and really build a system that will be sustainable over a long period of time.
I'll take a page out of Alberta's book. The minister and the premier have been very aggressive and have created the Alberta Livestock and Meat Agency, which is doing exactly that: changing the industry so it's going to be long-term viable and long-term sustainable. We need to do the same thing in Canada. I think it's critical for our industry. I don't want to speak for the cattle industry, but I believe it is for them as well. But we need to do that. We need to open the page. We need to become a supply chain, a value chain that isn't built in silos. Until we do that, we'll be coming back here every few years because we're in dire straits. We need to fix the system as well for us to survive in the short term.
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
12:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
No, your time is up.
Seeing as we are at our time unless I go to a great round that would take us up past quarter to, if it's okay, we have a bunch of committee business to do, motions and what have you. If no one has an issue with that, I'm going to leave it at that, I think.
I'd like to thank our witnesses.
I would just say as a beef producer--and I have grown a few hogs over the years, but they certainly weren't a big part of the business--that it's obvious there are some concerns out there. It was great to have you gentlemen in today and to hear your insight. I think it's going to help the committee. Thank you very much. I appreciate your taking the time to come down.
We'll just have a minute for the witnesses to exit.