Agriculture Committee on May 28th, 2013

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

There are not many benefits?

[Edouard Asnong]

There are for the future, the demand, and the attributes. Certainly, there are benefits for the animal, if it's well managed, of course.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Could you comment on how Canada is right now when it comes to animal welfare as compared to other countries? How strong is our legislative framework for animal welfare?

[Edouard Asnong]

In general?

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Yes.

[Edouard Asnong]

I will ask Jacqueline to answer that.

[Jacqueline Wepruk]

The National Farm Animal Care Council really focuses on non-regulatory approaches to improving animal welfare. Most people want to do the right thing. In fact, there's science to show that education and good information extension is the number one way of ensuring that good animal welfare standards are in place. Regulations are really for those who refuse to follow through on what's expected. They are the safety net.

Where we really need to focus our energy is not on assuming people are not willing to look after their animals. They are. It's really about good information extension. That's one of the things the codes are all about; that is, getting that research that's been done.... We have world-renowned researchers in Canada. We need to get the work they've done into a format, like the codes, where it can be implemented and can be utilized. Then it goes even beyond that in terms of how you take that code and do further information extension about what's in the code, how it benefits producers, and how it can be implemented.

Then you have the animal care assessment programs, which are another way of ensuring that those codes are being followed. There are many options other than a regulatory approach to ensuring good animal welfare is in place. In fact, that's where you get the buy-in from people. None of us really likes to hear the siren and see the lights in our rear-view mirror. Certainly, if you can get people to understand why you need to follow the rules and the importance and value to them, that's a far better approach.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

I guess you would say that financial support, not just from the federal government but from provincial governments and industry, is very important for innovation research. It's something that needs to be maintained.

[Jacqueline Wepruk]

Absolutely. Research is fundamental to what we do. It's fundamental to the conversations we have around the table with the different viewpoints there are in animal welfare. If your value in animal welfare is on health, or your value is on natural behaviour, you can use science to inform that conversation and help those different viewpoints come together and understand each other so that we can create common ground to move forward on. That's why we work with the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you. I have to stop you there. I'm sorry.

Mr. Dreeshen.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to our guests. It is an interesting discussion that we are having today.

I think part of the issue is that many consumers are so far removed from their agricultural base. Their main contact perhaps is with the petting zoo or whatever, which is probably the worst thing that could happen to animals.

I suppose I could go back to my own experiences. We had chickens that were free range, but you'd also look at what they were picking through, the bugs and everything else that they had. You did see the roosting; you saw that. You saw them going into their own little stalls so that they could nest. The eggs did not come out overly clean, so you were the one responsible for cleaning them. That's part of it, but that's the reality. I think when people look at it from the outside, they say, “Well, jeepers, how could you manage something like that? It has to be pristine.” It's not really a reality, and then when people suggest, “Well, let's go back to that,” I think there are a few issues that have to be taken into account.

The same thing goes for hog production. I remember our having the little A-frames that the hogs would go into. I suppose it looks very romantic that this would be the situation, but of course the reason for that was so the piglets could get over to the side so they wouldn't be crushed by the sow, which is the same situation as far as the gestation stall is concerned. You're looking at the cannibalistic nature that exists when you put a number of hogs together. They get bored; they start chewing on tails, and as soon as they get one down, you see what happens to it. The same thing happens with chickens.

When you look at it from the outside, as you talked about, there are the activists and the turmoil, and the explanations that are required when you don't get ahead of the messaging. I think that's extremely significant. There are these realities that exist in all of these different commodity groups.

I'd like a quick comment on how you manage some of this turmoil, and how you look at it to make sure that people realize what the realities are.

Robin, I believe you spoke about the Canadian livestock transport certification program, and the web-based recertification process that was associated with each of your commodities, and the commodities have to end up being moved. I wonder if you could touch on some of those areas.

[Tim Lambert]

I'll start.

It is an interesting challenge, and I know Mr. Lemieux referenced it as well, getting ahead of the consumer view. What I find interesting in Canada, because of the amount of work we do in both the U.S. and Europe, the Canadian public is—I don't know if it's a Canadian thing—skeptical of extreme views. When they get a really strong message from the activist side, instinctively what we hear is they want to know what the other side of the story is.

One of the things we've done in our system is we have a producer and we have a couple of YouTube videos that are available and actually are bringing people, teachers, and others out to farms to show them what it's really like. We still find when we do focus group work that Canadian farmers have a high degree of credibility and trust with the Canadian public. That gives us a bit of a leg up, if you will, to get the other side of the story out. We match some work with consumers and we take on board your encouragement, from what I'm hearing, to do more of that, talking to the retailers as well, as we've referenced. We're in a better place than either Europe or the U.S., but obviously we have a lot of work to do for the reasons you've said.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Robin, could you speak on web-based recertification?

[K. Robin Horel]

Sure.

I had written a note here. I was going to say the same thing. There is all kinds of research showing that Canadians trust farmers. On the hierarchy ladder, farmers are right up there with veterinarians. Processors are further down. People who work for processors, like me, aren’t even on the ladder, I don't think. I haven't seen one with me on it.

I'm really proud of the Canadian system. I'm biased, and I'll state that I'm biased. What we seem to have developed, partly through NFACC, partly because of the culture, as Tim suggested, is our customers are in the tent with us. Our customers want to know the differences between the green column, the red column, and the yellow column. They want to understand the science. They have brands they have to protect. They're getting pressure from consumers, absolutely, but they want to do the right thing. They want to understand the science and they're in the tent with us.

As you said, consumers are further away from the farm, for sure. Consumers want to know more, but consumers also vote with their wallets. For example, in eggs, the percentage of regular versus omega-3, which is a health benefit and not an animal welfare benefit, versus free run, or free range, or organic...it just goes down and down and down. We have to take all that into account.

I like the Canadian system. I like the collaboration. I like that retail and food service customers aren't saying, “Effective next Monday, thou shalt do this.” I like that it's science based, as you mentioned before. I think that's good.

As far as Canadian livestock transport, CLT, goes, it's not only for poultry. CLT was originally for cattle and hogs. We have found in the industry that it seems to be where everyone's gravitating. Hauling livestock, hauling live animals, hauling poultry is different from hauling logs and other freight. You need to have a training module that allows people to understand those differences and that measures them.

What I tried to do in my presentation was go through the supply chain. I started at the farm and went all the way through to the processing plant. Live haul in the middle is a critical component. Having something that's standardized is useful. It appears that CLT will become that standard.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Allen, go ahead.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you very much.

It's fascinating.

Ms. Wepruk, earlier you wanted to talk about a particular issue, and it's one I want to talk to you about, that comes out of your report. You referred to it earlier. The chair, being as cruel as he is with the time, unfortunately, but with great kindness, had to cut you off.

It is this idea of what farmers do from an animal welfare perspective, which I would say they do very well. It's in their interest to do it really well. I think that Mr. Lambert, Mr. Horel, as well as Mr. Asnong have articulated that. They do treat their animals well. It makes sense to. It would not make sense to do the opposite, quite frankly. I don't want to be overly crass, but these are economic units, so if you want to prosper as a business, it doesn't do you well to mistreat those economic units. I recognize that's commodifying it, but I'm trying to make it make sense.

There's a distinction, and I think you started to talk about it earlier, between what farmers see and what consumers see as animal welfare. They're two different things that don't necessarily mesh well. Mr. Horel as much as said—and absolutely correctly, sir—that unfortunately, we're not on the ladder, either. I'm not sure if you and I, as a processor and a politician, are finding ourselves somewhere else. I wouldn't suggest where, but clearly we're not on that ladder, unfortunately. We need to work on that, you and I, about getting up that ladder.

Are you as an organization thinking about how to find that linkage of folks out there who are talking from an emotional context, sometimes from a knowledge context as well, about certain aspects? We'll use sow gestation crating as an example. I'm certainly not coming down on one side or the other. Their belief is that it's the wrong way to treat a sow, that it should be different, and that t here are reasons for that. Yes, I hear the other side of the argument, and Mr. Lambert put it very succinctly with his chart, which is bang on for the egg side. Thank you very much for that. Their belief is that we shouldn't do it that way, even with the other pieces.

That's the biggest group. We're the smaller group. I'm interested in some of your comments. I think you wanted to go down that road.

How do we work together in a collaborative fashion?

[Jacqueline Wepruk]

It's so fundamental to what the National Farm Animal Care Council is about. I refer to NFACC as being like a conflict resolution forum.

There was a question earlier which I never got to answer as to why it is taking so long to update these codes. In fact, it's only been in place since 2005. One of the fundamentals that we're based on is trust, and so for those groups that look at animal welfare differently, building that trust is a long-term exercise. We're all about relationships. It's from those relationships that we can actually have those conversations and find that common ground between what is right for animal welfare and how we are going to resolve some of our differences and what the middle ground is. Sometimes we may have to agree to disagree, but we can always be moving the bar forward.

One of the things that gets me really excited is when I see my Canadian Federation of Humane Societies representative sitting beside the cattlemen rep and they're having a good old conversation about what's important to animal welfare, or they're talking about their kids or whatever. Those relationships are really important because when an issue does arise, who's my CFHS representative calling? He's calling my cattlemen rep directly to get the real information on what's going on versus going off and doing a press release. It's that communication. It's about working through to the solution so that it doesn't become a public issue.

Yes, we need to do better outreach to the public, but most of our effort is very internal in terms of making sure that we're resolving things so they don't become public issues, so that the government isn't dealing with them as public issues.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

You talked about your funding model being this project piece, which we all know means reapplying and keeping fingers crossed that it's written really well this time. Is the priority still there? Has it drifted away?

My own personal view is you need sustained funding because actually, this won't go away. This is a 20-year project, in my view, if you want to take it down the road.

I see Mr. Lambert indicating that he wants to speak to that issue. Feel free, either one, to talk about what the funding model should look like as far as where we take this piece down the road, because the trust piece takes a long time to develop. It doesn't happen in a year. It doesn't happen because I got invited to a round table on a couple of occasions and got to sit beside a certain person and we talked about our kids playing soccer in the summer. Isn't that right? It takes a whole lot of time to do that and players change.

How do you see this developing over the longer term? What would your recommendation be on what we need to do, as a committee, as far as making a recommendation—because we are going to make a recommendation about this—about how this organization should go forward and what kind of funding it should look at?

Mr. Lambert, I think you wanted to comment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Before you comment, I'm going to give you about 20 seconds each to make a comment, and then I have to go to another member.

[Tim Lambert]

I'll be quick. It speaks actually to a question which Mr. Payne asked.

There is value in continued financial support from government for this process because it's seen more objectively than if industry pays for it all themselves. You lose a certain third party credibility. Yes, industry should pay, and we do, but there is value in government involvement financially.

Jacqueline.

[Jacqueline Wepruk]

Thanks, that's really helpful.

It's about a partnership. Certainly we would like to have that conversation more openly around what is the breakdown between what NFACC members are going to be contributing and the value of their contributions. There are tremendous contributions by each organization, but certainly we are seen as this kind of credible third party, and the government funding is very important for the codes development, the animal care assessment model portion of it. NFACC members keep the operations going around NFACC, but certainly all these active codes of practice definitely need more sustained support.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Richards, for a final comment.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for being here today. I've enjoyed listening to your presentations and your responses to the questions you've had so far.

I have a couple of questions. My first question is for you, Mr. Horel, from the Poultry and Egg Processors Council. You're going to be out in my beautiful part of the world, in Banff, in my constituency, next month for your convention. It's a great place to have a convention, let me tell you. You've picked just the right place, for sure.

I understand at that convention you're going to be having a session on animal welfare, and some of the representatives who will be speaking at that session will include the National Farm Animal Care Council and the Retail Council of Canada. I think even Tim Hortons is going to be on your panel as well. Obviously, I would like to commend you for having a panel on that particular topic. It's great that you're showing that animal welfare is really important to your industry by doing so.

Can you tell me a little more about that session? What will be discussed there and what are the objectives? What do you hope to achieve with that session?

[K. Robin Horel]

Thanks. I wish my members were as attentive to my program as you are. That's terrific. Thank you very much. I really appreciate that.

I've talked with Jackie, of course, who will be one of the presenters. I've talked with Al and I've talked with Tim. The idea in my mind is I'd really like to generate a discussion. There will be some presentations. Jackie will give a lot of the update as to what we've been doing for the last number of years, where we are, particularly with the poultry codes because that's what's important to my guys, and where we're going with the animal care assessment model, all that kind of stuff. But I really want my members to hear from our customers, one representing grocery retail and one representing a big food service company, on what's important to them from an animal welfare point of view.

I have these conversations with them a lot. I'd like my members to hear it as well. What's important regarding protecting the brand? What am I hearing from consumers? Why do I believe in the National Farm Animal Care Council process? What do I need from you, the suppliers?

I'm hoping that after about 45 minutes of presentations—Jackie, you only have 15; that's all you get—between the three, we can have a good, long chunk of discussion about where we're going, why we're going there, and whether we do it together.

I'll let you know in four weeks how it went. I'm looking forward to it. I think it should be one of the best sessions.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

That's great. Please do let us know how it goes. What I'm hearing there is you want to give a chance to producers and farmers to hear what the industry expects and wants to see. That's really what you're saying.