Agriculture Committee on Feb. 1st, 2012

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Okay.

The other thing you touched on, and a few people have touched on this, is the rail. In my riding I hear about that all the time, particularly from farmers who are saying they can't get cars and there's a lot of difficulty.

But I'm looking at the larger chain, at the whole process from the farm right through to the ships. I know that people are using a number of different methods, whether it's trucking it to the elevators and then the railways taking it to the port, and then the port getting it onto the ships.... I know there are issues around some of those things. To me, looking at that whole transportation issue needs to be much larger than just the railways. I wonder what your comments would be on that.

[Mike Bast]

Yes, railways stand out as the big problem all the time. But you're right, they're only part of the chain. It goes from the producer all the way to the shipping. Many times we've seen ships sitting out in Vancouver in the port, for whatever reason, or we've seen them having to pull into a terminal and load, but then the terminal not having the capacity to fill them at a certain grade and having to pull back out and ship grain over from another terminal or go to another terminal. There are inefficiencies in the system that can be addressed, but the railways were just the prominent one.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Right. Okay.

How much time...?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You're out of time.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Oh, that's too bad.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Lemieux, five minutes.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you again, Chair.

I was just reflecting on my last discussion with Mr. Valeriote and recalling the Colombia free trade agreement and how long it took to get that through, Chair. If only we'd had the help of one other party, pork producers could have benefited even sooner from the Colombia free trade—

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Let's stick to Growing Forward 2.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I do digress, so let me move on.

Mr. Pomerleau and Mr. Coutu, your organizations receive funding from the federal government and also from other councils from the industry. Could you give the committee examples to show how you spend the money and what sorts of activities you engage in to promote your products and promote the agriculture industry?

[André Coutu]

I'd be pleased to turn things over to Francine, our expert on expenses and the budget. She hasn't said anything yet today.

[Francine Lapointe, Director, Programs and Government Affairs, Agri-Food Export Group Quebec - Canada]

Good afternoon.

At the Export Group, each year, we examine with the members the activities they want to engage in and what markets they want to target. I'd say that there are three areas where there are a lot of activities.

The first area is training. Training with regard to foreign markets is very important. We give about 15 workshops a year.

Then there are exploratory missions and trade missions.

The other part consists of about 20 to 25 international fairs, where the group is part of Canadian pavilions or has its own pavilion with about 5 to 25 food exhibitors and processors.

Those are the three focuses of our activities.

[Jacques Pomerleau]

We have similar activities, but we have a few other elements because we hold generic promotional campaigns. Right now, it's mainly in Japan, Korea and somewhat in China. We hold in-store demos. That's how we reach out to consumers in those countries.

We are also organizing technical seminars to show our potential buyers what the advantages and characteristics of Canadian pork are and how we compare favourably to local or imported products.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Just to follow up on a comment you made about origin, Mr. Pomerleau, I think when we're talking about exporting our products, and I don't mean to the United States but to Japan and Korea, then branding them as Canadian is a good thing to do.

When we're talking about the U.S.-Canada market, though, there is such a porous border that I think the Americans took a beating on the COOL legislation. Trying to identify the country of origin when two countries have such an integrated livestock sector—pork might be raised in Canada but slaughtered in the United States, and it might be back and forth—is too difficult. And the costs are actually quite high, as you know from seeing the COOL legislation implemented in the States, particularly at the slaughterhouse level. The cost of segregation and tracking these independent products or different products so that they can label them at the consumer level is quite expensive.

Were you talking about the North American market when you made that comment? Or were you talking about the international market and branding it as Canadian pork?

[Jacques Pomerleau]

It would also be in Canada. Canada has a very good name, to start with, and the Canadian government and the embassies and the posts have done a very good job branding Canada. Now it is our job to develop the Canadian pork brand.

In Canada, the problem is that nobody knows where the product is from. For us, to avoid that situation, we've always said that slaughter confers origin in beef or COOL or whatever. But in Canada, we know quite a few people who say that they would like to know where it comes from, because they don't have that.

We are not going to fight the Americans on price, even here in Canada, but at least give the proper information to the people. I'm not using the same argument as the Americans on COOL.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

It's a complicated argument, because, for example, hogs can be raised in Canada, finished in Canada, and sent to a U.S. slaughterhouse. It's actually Canadian pork; it was just slaughtered in the U.S. But it would come back into Canada, by your definition, as U.S. pork, because it was slaughtered in the U.S. Yet it was conceived, grown, and fattened right here in Canada. It's complicated, and I'm not sure that it would give consumers the transparency they are looking for. It went down there only for slaughtering.

[Jacques Pomerleau]

It's not that much, but at the same time, that is the argument the U.S. used against us for COOL; you know, you have to know where it's spread, etc. We've always said that slaughter confers origin.

You see, when their packaging comes to the supermarkets, they have that U.S. seal on the cartons. All we want is for them to say that it originates in the U.S. That's it, okay? They tell us that the supermarkets will say that it is marked on the cartons. But we're not selling the cartons to the consumer.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Now some of the finished products, of course, such as sausages, have it on the label.

[Jacques Pomerleau]

It's very clear.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

It's stamped on there.

You're talking about a styrofoam pack with cellophane wrap on it.

[Jacques Pomerleau]

Yes, it is for the prime cuts. At times I've seen how they will turn the packaging around so that you will not see the U.S. seal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Ironically, I wanted to touch on the subject based on some of your early comments.

Just to add to what Pierre was asking, you talked about the 25% of pork that still comes into the country. There is still a net export of pork out of this country.

The same thing happens in the beef industry. Because of geography, a lot of beef that is finished in Ontario goes south of the border to a killing plant or whatever. I'm sure that some of it ends up back here, but because of that geography I talked about, let's say in Alberta, Saskatchewan, or whatever, the beef goes down.

I want to correct you on the labelling. We have product-of-Canada labelling here that all processors can use, and consumers can, and dang well should, understand that if it does not say “Product of Canada”, they can assume that it isn't. At the end of the day, there's consumer responsibility.

If it is a product of Canada and the processor hasn't put it on, for the life of me I can't figure out why not, because to me it is a financial advantage. If it is not on there, you should probably assume that it comes from outside the country.

Do you want to comment on that? Then I have one last point.

[Jacques Pomerleau]

Yes, please.

Well, the threshold for the “Product of Canada” is very high. It has to be 97% Canadian.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

There's no problem with that.

[Jacques Pomerleau]

Yes, but if you add some salt or some spices, it could throw it off. That's what our people have been complaining about, that the threshold is too high to have that “Product of Canada”.