Agriculture Committee on Nov. 18th, 2010

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Minister, thank you for coming today.

Last week, I took my yearly journey to Farmfair in Edmonton, and I had the opportunity to make an announcement on your behalf. As I was there announcing the carbon offset protocols, I took in a heifer show and a cow-calf show. I talked to several producers there. They wanted me to pass on two general messages to you, directly from producers in Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta who were on the ground at that Farmfair.

They wanted to say thank you for the great work you've been doing in opening up markets. They also wanted to stress, to you and our government, the importance of sound science in our agricultural sector, and how scary it is when they hear the opposition parties supporting a bill that would reduce the role of sound science in our agriculture sector.

That being said, Bill C-474 is heading back to the House for third reading. Our government's position has been principled and clear on this from the beginning: we oppose it. But we've been having real problems with Mr. Easter and the Liberal Party. Now, he wants to talk about backroom deals.... I mean, everybody in the industry knows that when they go to his door, he tells them, “Don't worry, we oppose this bill”. But in the House, he supported sending it to committee. In committee, he supported extending the study. In the House once again, he voted for it. That's an awful lot of support for something he's supposedly against.

With Bill C-474 hopefully behind us, the committee is looking at taking an in-depth look at the biotechnology sector here in Canada. This is something that I'm hoping we can all agree to move forward with. I was hoping that you could do two things for us today: talk about the consequences of the support from the Liberal Party on Bill C-474, and also outline some of the initiatives that our government has invested in and anything you'd like to see come out of our study in the biotechnology sector.

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

Well, I think everyone agrees. As I said, there's global agreement that the sustainability and security of our food supplies around the world, globally, are going to depend on biotechnology. They are, whether you throw in the mitigating effects of climate change and weather-related systems or the higher cost of inputs, it's going to take biotechnology to offset a lot of that and actually let farmers continue to do what they do best here in Canada and around the world.

On Bill C-474, you know, if you think with your heart, you think this is a good idea, that it will protect somebody, but I think farmers are best suited to protect themselves. If you think with your head at all, you end up thinking like JoAnne Buth, the Canola Council of Canada president, who said, and I'll quote it, “You wouldn't have canola in Canada if 474 went through”. It would completely drive that innovation right out of the country. It would go to some other jurisdiction.

That would be unfortunate, because canola, as I said, is king and now has supplanted wheat as the crop of choice in western Canada. Love the Wheat Board or hate the Wheat Board, you still grow more canola than wheat. You simply do. Wheat has become a rotational crop.

Even the president of the Manitoba Flax Growers said, “There's a legitimate concern that markets can be affected by the new technology...but at the same time we are concerned about frivolous claims...that...block technology for the people who want it”. Even the flax guys, who faced the hurt out of this.... Now, we were able to redirect the flax and were able to do different things with it, so that the flax was still moving and the price stayed reasonably good. Having said that, the people who lost the most in that dispute over flax were the processors in Europe and the value-added folks. Further down, they needed it as a feedstock and so on.

There's always that ripple, that trickle-down effect. Certainly there are certain parties who would love to put a wall up around Canada and we would only do so much and we would manage our supply so we.... It's very shortsighted. This country was opened and settled by agriculture and it continues to be an agrarian-based society, as are a lot of other countries. No one is an island, not even Australia, when it comes to foodstuffs. We all have to trade.

I love the idea of eating locally, making sure you're backstopping your local people, but there are a lot of cups of coffee sitting around this table. That's really hard to get in Canada. We just don't grow it, so we have to trade wheat or beef with Colombia to bring in the coffee beans. We do different things like that to augment our food supplies.

When you walk around in a store now and look at the amount and the variety of produce that's available to Canadian consumers, it's astounding. It is. And it happens on a daily basis, with boatloads and truckloads and trainloads, and so on. This has put a tremendous amount of strain on CFIA and public health at both the provincial and the federal level to stay on top of all of that, but they're doing an excellent job.

We continue to know that it's going to take science-based solutions to feed the future. We know it's going to take science-based solutions to keep that farm gate solid. As a government, we'll be there for them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thanks very much, Mr. Minister, and thanks to your staff. We have taken you a bit over your time, but we appreciate you—

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

My time's your time, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

There you go.

Thanks again.

In the essence of time, perhaps I could—

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Is the minister willing to stay a little longer, Mr. Chair? We have a lot more questions.

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

I would love to, Mr. Easter, but I have to go and get ready for question period in case you pop up again.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Well, you don't answer questions when I'm there, so why would I bother?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Order, please.

In the essence of time—

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

You use these organizations as cushions--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

The minister, Ms. Swan, and Mr. Knubley are leaving. Could I please have the next witnesses come to the table as quickly as possible and we'll try to continue?

Thanks again, Mr. Minister.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Our witnesses are moving in.

I'd like to welcome the new witnesses to the table. I appreciate you being here today.

Could I have the support of the committee to stay with five-minute rounds from now on?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay.

We had quite a bit of abuse of time in the first round. I'm not going to allow that to happen again. If people want to use up all their time asking questions, then I'm going to ask our witnesses to reply to those questions in writing. I try to be flexible--and I am--but it was pretty bad this time.

Mr. Easter, are you first up in the next round? Five minutes, please.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thanks.

I have questions both to CFIA and to the department. I'll start with the department.

I've travelled in the Interlake area of Manitoba in Arborg and across the border into Saskatchewan, and it is an absolute disaster for the third year in a row--the fourth in some areas. They've had in excess of 57 inches of rain.

Clearly what they're saying is that AgriStability is not working because of declining margins, especially in the cow-calf sector. They feel they're entirely left out of the AgriRecovery program. When I was there, it was Thanksgiving weekend, and even the hay—it had been dry for two weeks, so they were taking off some hay—was first-crop hay on Thanksgiving weekend. It is of such poor quality, in fact, that in the last week or two some of their cattle have had health problems as a result.

Basically, they're saying none of the suite of programs is working for them. They haven't been paid through AgriStability since 2008. These folks are in very serious trouble. There is foot rot in cattle. Even the pastures are ruined. The feedlots are swamped. Is the government considering anything to assist those producers beyond the current suite of programs? Or is there any way you can adapt the suite of programs to work?

We've maintained that the government missed the opportunity last year. You could have changed the viability test. You could have changed how margins are calculated. You actually could have gotten some money out to producers rather than just giving them loans. What is being considered for that area and the trouble it's in?

[Greg Meredith, Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Thank you for the question. I'll start off and then ask my colleague Ms. Moritz to fill in some details.

Just to go back a bit, on the context, we have responded to the really disastrous floods that affected Manitoba right through Alberta this year with a very significant package through AgriRecovery. In addition to that, the AgriRecovery program did kick in and address some of the drought problems we had in Alberta earlier in the year.

On the issues of negative margins and margin calculations, Mr. Easter, I mentioned to the committee the last time I was here that federal, provincial, and territorial ministers had looked at those suggestions for change and as a group had decided to stick with the current programs, on a couple of occasions, so that leads us to where we are now. On top of AgriStability and AgriRecovery, there is the ongoing program, AgriInvest, which provides—

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Greg, I don't want to interrupt, but I'm going to anyway.

[Greg Meredith]

Okay.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

On the last comment on the federal–provincial agreements and where you're at, is the federal government pushing a change? Can you tell me? Maybe you can't. I hear this excuse from the provinces. I hear it from the feds. But are the feds providing the leadership to say that changes have to be made here and they're asking the provinces to go along with this so we can get money out to producers by changing this program?

[Greg Meredith]

What I can tell you is that at the last FPT ministers' meeting in July, the ministers agreed to continue with the BRM strategic review and to make it an integral part of Growing Forward 2 consultations, so yes, we continue to look at changes.

I would ask you to give Rita a bit of time to explain some of the details of what we're doing specifically with regard to the Interlake situation.

[Rita Moritz, Assistant Deputy Minister, Farm Financial Programs Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, before we talk about the Interlake situation specifically, I'd like to go back to something. There has also been significant take-up on the AgriInsurance side, on insurance payments to producers who have that insurance in the Prairies. We recognize that this excess moisture issue is one that is in numerous pockets across the Prairies.

On the Interlake situation in particular, as we speak, there are federal and provincial officials working as quickly as they possibly can to assess the situation so we can document what those feed and forage issues are in terms of the costs to the producers and assess what the existing programming will pay to those producers, as is required under AgriRecovery, and as quickly as possible wrap that up to see if a further AgriRecovery response is warranted.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I think the problem in this issue, though, is that producers have to feed their cattle. They can't buy hay from elsewhere because they have no money. This is an absolutely critical timing factor. They have no crops. If they have crops, they're of poor quality.

They have no money and they have no way of buying crops. They don't know what the hell they're going to do. It's as bad as that. While departments, federal and provincial, bounce around, you have people who are in serious financial trouble.

Am I out of time? I have a question for CFIA so maybe we'll get another round.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay.

Mr. Bellavance.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am perhaps going to please Wayne. Even though I am not going to be asking the same questions, I do in fact have questions for the representatives of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Earlier, we touched briefly on certain issues with the minister. With respect to the inspection of imported foods, you no doubt are aware of an audit report produced by Peter Everson, the chief audit executive for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. I will read you an excerpt of a newspaper article which alludes to this report:

[...] CFIA management of imported food safety has deficiencies that represent multiple areas of risk exposure requiring significant improvements related to the governance, control and risk management processes.

Has the agency not only considered this report but also implemented a process intended at ensuring stricter monitoring of imported food inspection?