Evidence of meeting #26 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 41st Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was consumers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Vice-President, Labour and Supply, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association
I don't know off the top of my head what the percentage is for each province.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
I'm with you on some of your issues here, but you've quoted this a couple of times, so I would like to know what that percentage is. Perhaps you could get that to the committee.
Vice-President, Labour and Supply, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association
Sure.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
On your suggestion with pizzerias, what would the cost be to the local restaurant?
Vice-President, Labour and Supply, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association
The cost of...?
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
In your analysis, you're saying that there's a cost to the pizzerias because of the competition they have, not with fast food but with frozen pizzas, because of the increased price of the cheeses. What would that cost be?
Vice-President, Labour and Supply, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association
On the cost of a pizza, 60% of the cost of the pizza is the cheese that's on the pizza. So if you have one competitor that's getting a 30% price break and one that is paying full price, that's a huge input cost differential.
I can't tell you what the impact has been on consumer purchases and the overall calculation; it would be an estimate. But we have seen the frozen pizza market growing by 9% year over year, for two years in a row, whereas fresh pizza is stagnating and declining. It really is starting to show in the bottom line of a lot of these restaurateurs. I can't tell you a dollar amount specifically because it would be a lot of estimates, but we are really seeing an impact.
Conservative
Vice-President, Labour and Supply, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association
Well—
Vice-President, Labour and Supply, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association
Yes.
Vice-President, Labour and Supply, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association
People are eating out less, but the thing that is—
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
I haven't had a pay raise in three years. I can't afford to eat out anymore.
Vice-President, Labour and Supply, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association
When the reason that a product costs less in a grocery store is that a government policy allows them to buy their input costs at a lower price, that's very frustrating for us. That is really at the heart of it. We believe in fair competition. We compete against items bought in grocery stores every single day. That's what restaurants have to do. But with this segment of the market, it really is a government policy that creates inequities.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
For my last question to you—and I've worked in the sector before, so I understand you when you say you have discounts for natural gas, discounts for that—it did blow me way when you said that this is the only sector where you're not able to get a discount because it's not an open market.
You talked about the evolution. What would that evolution look like, that change to what you were talking about? If this is going to be a 10-minute answer, perhaps you can just give me the synopsis and give me a written answer that would be more fulsome.
Vice-President, Labour and Supply, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association
I don't think anyone could give you the perfect solution, and we don't think we have a silver bullet. What we're saying.... I started this off at the very beginning realizing that supply management is very controversial. I have had meetings with members of Parliament who cover their ears and walk out of the room when I bring up the problems we have with supply management.
We don't have a silver bullet, and we don't have a perfect solution. I think that for some of the examples that were given, where there needs to be coordinated marketing to ensure that livestock and dairy production in Canada is viable, we don't disagree with those things, but we think the points we brought up today are points that really do need to be addressed. If we have a population in Canada that continues to grow in the west—
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
I actually fundamentally agree with your argument. You've brought up some complaints, but you haven't given me the answers. You're about to get back to this percentage in the west, and you've brought up Alberta a few times, which is the province I'm from. It's alarming, but you don't have the numbers for me.
Vice-President, Labour and Supply, Canadian Restaurant and Foodservices Association
The solution to that is to allow what's called differential growth. It means some provinces' allocation and production of chicken grows more quickly than other provinces', based on their population. Right now, that's something we're trying to work on with chicken farmers in Canada, but the way the structure is set up, each region gets to hold on to its amounts and can refuse to accept any change to the system. It's one of those “all in or no in” situations. That's one example.
On the 5A cheese, we think we should be able to buy cheese at the same price our direct competitors can, so either everyone producing pizza gets access to 5A cheese or no one does. These are all very simple answers to those specific questions, but I think it would be naive of me to say that I have a silver-bullet solution for how to change supply management to make it perfect. We need to start a national dialogue in which everyone gets involved to try to resolve these problems.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Excellent. Thank you.
I have to tell you that, unlike Mr. Lobb, I have had a constituent come into my office and complain about exactly what you're talking about. It was actually my wife. I encouraged her to go out to the family farm this year with my dad, and they'd grow their own chicken. She was just as appalled at that process, because, as Mr. Eyking said, you get a little more square footage, but not a whole lot. When I asked her, she said she's just as turned off chicken now, whether it's farm-fed or free range. Whatever you want to call it, she ain't eating it at this point in time. I don't think the alternative to that part of the scare tactic you're talking about is necessarily your end goal and where you'd like to go.
I have a question for you. Let's say you were in the industry beside you, would you support cage-free U.S. chickens over Canadian chickens if they weren't cage-free?
Campaigner, Humane Society International/Canada
Are you talking about egg production or meat production?
Conservative
Campaigner, Humane Society International/Canada
All chickens raised for meat are raised cage-free. All broilers are raised in a barn environment.
With regard to egg production, when you say that free-run environment presents challenges as well, of course it does. Every production system presents welfare challenges, but the inherent thing is that when you put an animal in a cage, the challenge is that the welfare problems that environment raises just cannot be solved in that environment, because they're inherent to a cage environment, as opposed to welfare issues in a free-range environment or a free-run environment, which can be handled by good management.
Conservative
Conservative
