Agriculture Committee on March 12th, 2012

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

As it turns out, the issue you're talking about on the Douglas Lake Ranch, the anaplas turned out to be not aniplas. But science testing doesn't happen at the speed of CSI events on television. It takes longer than an hour to get all the good stuff back and figure out who dunnit. There are protocols to be followed. CFIA did that. Could they have done it quicker? Possibly.

We're working with a reportable disease. You go through all of that process, and then all of a sudden you have other people looking over your shoulder. So there are time constraints. Part of what is helping us when it comes to those types of search-outs, which makes things go quicker, is the tremendous job our Canadian cattlemen are doing on traceability.

Just the other day I was able to announce an enhancement of that. A year ago we put $6 million into the Canadian cattle identification. We are now going on top of that with another $3 million on the BIC's program. This makes it more important for farmers to keep track of what they sold, because packers are going to come back and demand particular products they want more of. It's all part and parcel of food safety, disease traceability, and quality. We're about 90% plus now in tracing our herd, which helps.

Part of the problem on Douglas Lake is that there are a great number of cattle moving around in the province, within western Canada into the U.S. We need to know where they are and how to track them down. This will help if there's an outbreak of TB, say, which happened there as well.

It's all a work in progress, and we're getting much better at it because of the traceability.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We're out of time, Mr. Zimmer.

Thank you, Minister, for being here and for coming back after the delay.

Mr. Da Pont and Mr. Knubley, thank you as well.

We have department staff here, Mr. Corriveau, Mr. Meredith, and Ms. Moritz. And from CFIA we have Mr. Peter Everson.

We'll suspend for a couple of minutes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay, we'll call the meeting back to order.

It was not intentional, but I forgot to include Mr. Mayers and Ms. Jordan.

I understand there are no statements, so we're going to go right into questioning.

Mr. Allen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Let me talk to the CFIA folks. I want to talk about food imports and equivalencies, the testing equivalent of what we have here over there, wherever the “over there” is. We're going to take out the U.S. We're talking about everywhere but.

In 2010, how many audits did you do on food importation equivalency testing from those foreign markets?

[Paul Mayers, Associate Vice-President, Programs, Canadian Food Inspection Agency]

Thank you.

In 2010-11 there were ten audits. None of those were in the United States. We undertook two audits in the European Union. We were in Russia, Peru, Oman.... I'm going to miss some, because I don't have a listing in front of me, but we can provide the list of all ten. These are major markets. China was included.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

You're saying that China was audited?

[Paul Mayers]

That's correct. We did a meat audit in China.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

You said you were willing to provide documentation. You know how this works, Mr. Mayers: you send it to the clerk and the clerk will get it to us. I appreciate that.

Getting back to the issue of how much we inspect at the border, I have two conflicting statements. I believe, Mr. Mayers, you said when you were here a couple of weeks ago that we inspected exactly the same amount going out as we do coming in. Yet I'm hearing that we actually inspect only 2% of imports at the border, and that we don't have CFIA on a full-time basis at the border.

I should maybe declare a conflict here. My daughter was a CBSA employee for a number of years. She worked in the commercial sections on the Lewiston Bridge. I asked her if she remembered working with a CFIA inspector, and she said no.

Do we have CFIA inspectors there on a full-time basis, or is it CBSA? Is 2% representative of the things we inspect at the border, or is there a different number?

[Paul Mayers]

Thank you very much.

Let me provide some clarification. When I appeared at the committee last, I didn't use the word “inspected”. We talked about the “system”, because it is indeed, of course, a complete system. The Canada Border Services Agency is an important part of that system. In fact, as the committee will know, the responsibility for action directly at the border falls to the CBSA. They refer to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on the basis of fulfilling that direct-at-the-border responsibility. In fact, last year...on average every year they make 1.7 million referrals to the CFIA.

In terms of product coming into the country and product going out of the country, we take a risk-based approach. If we look at meat, 100% of meat exported from Canada is exported under CFIA certification, and 100% of meat coming into the country comes into the country under the certification of foreign countries. Every single lot of that product is subject to CFIA oversight. That oversight includes physical inspection of some lots but not physical inspection of every lot.

The reason we don't have a physical inspection of every single lot is that we operate in a system, and —

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

If I could interrupt, the chair is going to tell me I'm out of time. You just said not every lot, and we know that's not the case; I think we all accept that. It's a risk-based system.

Is it 2%, or a different number? I'm looking for confirmation of either 2% or a different number.

[Paul Mayers]

What I'm trying to explain is that it's dependent on risk and commodity. So if we're talking—

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Chair, I know it's difficult with the different numbers, so perhaps I could ask Mr. Mayers to provide that particular answer in writing to the committee. I'd appreciate that.

[Paul Mayers]

Certainly. We'll overview the import.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Storseth, five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much for coming.

We had a very interesting meeting with the minister, obviously, beforehand, and I'd like to talk a little bit about something the minister mentioned, the “Beyond the Border” initiative and the importance of trade to the agriculture sector, not only in the last couple of years but moving forward. It's one of the reasons why we're able to not have to budget as much, as I understand it, for business risk management.

What we'd like to see, hopefully, as western Canadians, is our producers being able to get their revenue from the marketplace. That's what they would like to see as well.

Part of this, and I think an important part, is making sure that we take a science-based approach to trade. That means not only for trade that we're putting out but also on imports coming in. I'd like to ask you gentlemen if you could talk a little bit—because the committee has seen a lot of debate on this—about the importance of a science-based approach when it comes to trade.

[Paul Mayers]

Thank you very much.

From a regulator's perspective, a science-based, rules-based approach is critical to predictability. Nothing makes the job of an exporter or an importer harder if they can't understand the rules, if the rules appear to be arbitrary.

That's one of the wonderful things about Canada's commitment to a science-based approach. It provides an assurance of predictability, because the bases upon which we're going to build our rules aren't on whim, they're on solid science. That means if you have a problem with a rule we have, you have a basis for challenging it. You have a basis for taking us to account in defending why we believe this requirement is appropriate for the protection of the Canadian environment, the Canadian people.

So for us, that commitment to a science-based, rules-based approach is the very foundation of an effective regulatory system.

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

If we went away from that, it would throw our entire system into disarray, would it not?

[Paul Mayers]

Well, it would mean that our system would then become based on personal interest, instead of fact. It would increase the potential for it to be manipulated in a negative sense. Most importantly, the ability to have predictability from a competitive perspective would go out the window.

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

Can you talk to us a little bit about CFIA's changing role, when it comes to trade, in making sure that we have somebody there to talk science and to back up the science?

[Paul Mayers]

Certainly.

When we think about the role of the agency from a trade perspective, it's not trade promotion. Instead, it is to provide assurance to those countries importing Canadian products that they can have confidence that those products will meet their requirements. The agency prides itself on its science, and we're not shy about explaining to any country the basis on which we are confident in terms of the productions we provide. That's the role the agency plays, and that's why there are professionals in terms of agency staff in posts abroad. In all of the current cases they are veterinarians, so they can talk the science.

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

Can you tell us where we're putting most of our resources abroad, at least which countries are our focus?

[Paul Mayers]

Right now we have veterinarians posted in China and Russia, as the minister has said. In addition to that, we also have veterinarians in place in Japan, the European Union, and we previously had a veterinarian in Mexico, but that position is not filled at the moment.

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

My last question is about the supplementary estimates and main estimates that we have before us.

Mr. Meredith, you'd probably be best to talk about this. It's the issue that we hear that business risk management for the main estimates funding is below what it has been for the total of the last couple of years. Could you just walk the committee through a little bit about the process, and how, in the last few years when we've had floods and droughts on the prairies in different areas, it's the supplementary (A), (B), and (C)s that are more reflective of that funding level?

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

Sure. I'd like to take a couple of minutes.

The four elements of the suite are, as the minister said, demand-driven. So if there's a disaster, the program AgriRecovery responds. AgriInvest requires an application, so the producer has to stimulate the distribution of the payment. AgriStability is the most well-known demand-driven program, and when times are good, when commodity prices are high, and net income is at record levels, they are not triggering payments.

The BRM estimates reflect the health of the sector. In the case of AgriInsurance, people just ought to take insurance. The minister has recently managed to enhance that program with the western provinces, so they get better coverage in the case of a flood. We don't expect a third flood in a row—hopefully—but the insurance product is there, and you would see payments under the insurance product. The indemnities would go up if there were a demand.