Agriculture Committee on April 2nd, 2012

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

Thank you very much.

You talked about the national approach to a food safety strategy. You talked about the importance of it being science-based. Can you discuss this a little bit, and how important it is that not only the food safety strategy is based on science but also our trade strategy?

[Albert Chambers]

We come at this as something that is a foundational statement, from our perspective. The approach we have taken in Canada for well over two decades is that we're looking for rigorous hazard analysis inside companies to determine what hazards they face, and what control measures they should put in place.

The on-farm and the post-farm industry programs I have talked about are all based on rigorous hazard analyses, albeit at the generic level, not at the site-specific level. That requires good access to the latest in scientific opinions, research, and views about how to turn that research into acceptable control measures, etc.

We certainly see that as a foundation to the approach we are looking for. Each time an industry group or a company undertakes an analysis of that sort, it turns up questions that have yet to be answered. What is the best control measure? What is the challenge we're facing here, and how do we overcome it with the tools we have today? Every time we look, we find new issues that we need to challenge in terms of science as well.

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

The last thing I will ask about concerns the importance of harmonizing our regulations with those of the United States. You're talking about the changes they are making, an example being HACCP. Could you talk about the importance of making sure that our regulations are harmonized?

[Albert Chambers]

What we're looking for is that we have comparability in our systems. We've seen the approaches I have mentioned, of looking at HACCP or HACCP-based preventive controls. Canada was a pioneer in the early 1990s with regard to HACCP.

If I may digress just for a moment, Mr. Chair, in the first package of information I got after the U.S. introduced the mega-regulation following the Jack in the Box incident in 1992, there was a video. That video had five minutes of introduction by senior officials at USDA, and the rest of the video was an Agriculture Canada Food Production and Inspection video on HACCP.

So we have been a pioneer in these areas. We're still a pioneer in many of them, but what we now need to do is look at whether we have brought our legislative and regulatory regime into a state such that it can be compared favourably with that of our major trading partners. From our perspective on harmonization, we're not talking about whether this regulation reads exactly the same as that regulation, but whether we're using the same tool kits, we're achieving the same results, and we're doing it within our context.

At the moment we are, but looking down the road the question has to be asked whether, given all the changes that are happening and given our not making changes, we would still be comparable. That is the question we need to really look at.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thanks very much.

We'll now move to Ms. Raynault for five minutes.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I thank our witnesses for accepting our invitation.

I will begin with Mr. Holmes. We know that in Canada we have several distributors and a handful of retailers like Metro and Loblaws.

Do your members find it difficult to market their products through these large retailers who control the supermarkets?

[Matthew Holmes]

Our members have products throughout the country with these retailers. In the case of national retailers, they often work closely with a variety of distributors of different scales. Some are very large and some are very small, independent distributors. Some focus more on the small, independent retailers, natural health retailers and so on.

Most of the members I work with have been part of one of the major retailers, or are currently.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

What do you think the government should do to encourage the development of the organic value chain? Should we seriously try to limit imports which seem to presently be supplying demand, in order to help our organic producers sell their products in our supermarkets?

[Matthew Holmes]

Well, in one of my capacities I serve on the world board of the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements. Our interest is in seeing the global development of the organic sector.

Often it supports developing nations greatly, and the producers in those nations greatly, to have access to a market such as Canada's. What we've seen throughout the world, and in Canada as well, is that where imports drive the consumer desire for the product, domestic products will eventually displace them. So we're very optimistic. Canadian producers are some of the best in the world, and consumers are going to choose Canadian organic products when they're available.

It's about creating some of the linkages to help those producers get to market and to help them value-add their products. That's where we would like to see more supports in place.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

There has been much talk about the value chain roundtables, which are a forum for discussing issues and developing common strategies.

How do you assess the approach taken by these roundtables?

[Matthew Holmes]

From my own perspective, I've seen it as a very positive development by the governments. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has invested a lot of time and resources into allowing industry to help establish the priorities and identify the challenges, and then work collaboratively with government and other players throughout the supply chain to meet those.

In the organic example, I think we're one of only a few who have such a broad part of the supply chain involved. Whereas others may be oriented around specific commodities, our organic value chain round table is horizontal. It includes horticultural producers, livestock producers, food service providers, retailers, distributors, and all points along the chain. It's a very diverse group, which can make it challenging sometimes, in the realm of herding cats, but also very positive, in terms of identifying and moving forward on common challenges and crosscutting issues.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Chambers, your submission states that "the coalition strongly believes that food safety must have a priority role in the framework. Food safety clearly cuts across major policy objectives outlined in the 2011 Saint Andrews Statement".You also say that it is essential for competitiveness, innovation and infrastructure.

Could you please elaborate on this?

[Albert Chambers]

Sure. Thank you very much.

We've seen in previous federal-provincial-territorial agreements going back to CARD, to APF, to the first round of Growing Forward, that food safety has been a priority within those. We'd like to see it again be a priority in Growing Forward 2.

For Canada to continue to have the reputation that it deservedly has of being able to export product that is safe and is seen as safe, we have to have initiatives that are going to support the development of food safety systems, especially by small and medium-sized businesses, and by what I refer to as micro-businesses as well.

These industry programs need to be continually refreshed. As my colleague from the organic sector has pointed out, sometimes the dollars to refresh them are hard to get from industry, but in partnership with government this has been a very successful formula. I realize that in this day and age it's a challenge to do, when we're going through some tight budgeting times, but if we play the priorities right, I think there are some opportunities there for work.

We have some serious challenges in terms of infrastructure, and this isn't just in the public sector. It's in the private sector as well. I mentioned a forum held in Edmonton in January on food safety. It was a forum at which industry, both levels of government, and academic institutions were represented in pretty well equal numbers. There was a lot of agreement that we need strategies to ensure that we see graduates coming out of academic institutions—colleges and universities—with the right kinds of skills and competencies to move into the agrifood and fishing industries from a food safety perspective. There are some initiatives in that area as well.

So we see a number of areas in which there are some initiatives. We have listed, in our submission, some of the areas in which we've made previous recommendations concerning potentially new institutions that would involve the feds and the provinces together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Lobb, you have five minutes.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Chair, my first few questions are for Mr. Holmes.

Mr. Holmes, I should just tell you that last fall I planted 200 garlic bulbs, or garlic cloves, and they're all up, even in cool southwestern Ontario, so they're off to a good start.

I'm going to go back to the questions Mr. Hoback was asking, because it seems to me that things just aren't quite square here. One is that we understand there's a very small percentage of Canadian-grown organic goods actually sold in Canada. I think less than 10%, if that's right.

I'm just trying to understand. Your organization's goal is to try to promote trade internationally, I'm guessing. Is there a group that promotes the selling or retailing of Canadian-grown organics in Canada?

[Matthew Holmes]

There are a number of groups, and we're not exclusively oriented towards exports. It's one area we've seen where we can scale up Canadian production. We've also gone out and developed something called Organic Week, which is a national, week-long campaign we've developed with our partners, the Canadian Organic Growers. The Canadian Organic Growers, or COG, is probably the oldest organization in Canada at the national level that speaks for organic producers and growers at that level.

Together, we've launched Organic Week to celebrate the organic sector in Canada. This year it will be September 22 to 29. It's everything from farmer's market events or school events to an MP reception that I invite all of you to.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

To get back to the specifics, then, let's say I grew 100 acres of organic garlic and I wanted to sell it to a retailer.

Would your organization help the farmer in Huron or Bruce county make the connection to sell to Loblaws or Sobeys? How do you work with that?

[Matthew Holmes]

We see the business element as integral. As part of our service to our members and to the sector, we try to create business linkages. We have members that are very small—small family-operated independent organizations, or small family farms—and then we have some of the larger organic brands in the world, all of them from Canada.

What we do is we try to set them up with the right type of buyer, the right type of distributor, or the right piece that they're missing. We play a role in the value chain and in the supply chain by trying to create that referral. We sometimes hold meetings so that there's a certain amount of respect and collegiality, and bring two parties together so that they understand each others' needs. We try to help those players at all scales along the way.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Correct me if I'm wrong. I believe when you were talking with Mr. Hoback, you indicated that, from what you know, anybody who wants to sell to a retailer has pretty well been able to sell to a retail chain.

Would I be surprised if any of your members disagreed with that, or is that the case?

[Matthew Holmes]

I'm sure many of my members would disagree. There are always challenges working with these large organizations. Many of them have centralized warehousing—

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

What would the challenges be, specifically?

[Matthew Holmes]

Well, some of them would be supplying only at a certain scale, so they may not be interested in that small producer you've characterized. Our role is not necessarily to try to move the retailer to a smaller scale, but perhaps they need to work with somebody who is brokering that product, and amalgamating or aggregating the product.

[Ben Lobb, Conservative, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Okay.

Now, Mr. Chambers, you mentioned earlier that you supported the modernization of the CFIA, which I think we would all agree with, right?

Do you have any specific examples of where CFIA falls on its face, and where modernization is a good thing?

[Albert Chambers]

I think it would be difficult for me to give you specifics. If I understand what you mean by specific examples of a situation where it's fallen, in your words, on its face in the relationship with a particular company....