Agriculture Committee on Oct. 30th, 2014

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank our witnesses for their presentations today on this very important agricultural growth bill.

I'm going to start with Mrs. St Hilaire, who is representing organic growers.

We've had other witnesses come to speak on organics. They have said they see darker days ahead with this bill. It may not be the best thing for the organic industry.

We know that we have more and more younger people getting involved in organic farming. It's great. Consumers, customers, and Canadians are wanting more and more organic local food. I was just wondering if you could again comment on what you would like to see in an agricultural growth bill when it comes to organics and smaller farms.

[Ashley St Hilaire]

Thank you.

Upon reviewing the bill, it was my opinion and the opinion of the board of directors that this bill did have a lot to offer. We were explicitly concerned about making sure those farmers' privileges were articulated and enshrined in this act.

Again, many farmers save and reuse their seeds every year. It's a way for them to cut costs. It's also a way for organic farmers to ensure that their seed is pure and free of GMOs. They usually retain their seeds, and will test them in a few years to make sure they are pure seeds and can can be planted and meet the organic certification criteria.

As I had recommended, we believe those rights to save, store, condition, and replant registered varieties of seed should be enshrined in this act and be legally binding, and that these are not necessarily considered privileges but rights and cannot be taken away from farmers through any regulatory changes in the future.

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

From what we understand, an amendment will be coming to clarify stocking and saving seeds, which is something we've heard a lot about from witnesses and we are definitely looking at in terms of amendments.

I think it's also important to make sure that farmers' interests are consulted when a bill is being implemented, especially when looking at regulatory changes.

Mr. Bouchard, thank you for your presentation.

I represent a riding in Quebec that is home to a number of dairy farmers and therefore fine-cheese makers.

Why is it important to carry out consultations when food safety is at issue? Could you elaborate a bit on the concerns producers have?

[Réjean Bouchard]

Thank you for the question.

When proper consultation is carried out, producers can see that they are being heard as the process moves along. This consultation leads to decisions that are, to a certain extent, recognized in Bill C-18. When producers become concerned is when they cannot see what is coming their way.

We are still in a comfortable situation and we hope it will stay that way.

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

Dairy Farmers of Canada represents organic farmers as well. In Canada, do those farmers have worries and concerns?

[Réjean Bouchard]

That is also a good question.

Organic farmers have learned to coexist with non-organic farmers. Some of our members have large organic farming operations in British Columbia. There are also some in Quebec, Ontario and other provinces. They don't have any major concerns, but adjustments still need to be made.

Our concerns regarding Bill C-18 mainly pertain to the clarifying of certain elements. Are the programs we've developed over the past 15 years at risk? New concepts have been introduced, and we'd like some clarity around them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much, Madame Brosseau, and Mr. Bouchard.

Now we'll move to Mr. Dreeshen for five minutes, please.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to all of our guests. It's a great opportunity to talk about some of the issues we see and, of course, Mr. Andrews, you mentioned the disadvantage we have globally. Again, you were also talking about the ability you feel that your alliance and your members will have to sell your research, and you have the unique position of having 10 hardiness zones, as you mentioned, giving you an opportunity for some new and innovative breeding opportunities.

So, I guess I want to start my questioning from there and perhaps with the potato breeders as well as the organic people. I see this as a great opportunity for the ingenuity we have in Canada to be able to take what we know and for our producers, whether they be small or large, to be able to take our skills and our research and expand to other places in the world.

So, first, Mr. Andrews could you just comment on what you would talk about and the hardiness zones?

And Ms. Hart, could you then perhaps talk about some of the issues as far as the potato industry is concerned and the opportunities you might see there?

[Chris Andrews]

Thank you, sir.

When it comes to Canada's hardiness zones, they provide our growers and our breeders and our researchers a huge amount of opportunity to provide a new, innovative, very beautiful, and hardy plant material to many different countries around the world that wouldn't ordinarily have the opportunity to be able to purchase these sorts of plant materials. In my years, having been in this industry since 1988, I have found by reputation, by conversations, and eventually by technology—which has grown hugely over those years, as you well know—that there are many demands from different countries around the world for Canadian plant material because of its innovativeness, its hardiness, its beauty, and its ability to shine when it comes to other countries. We're very proud of what we do here. However, to be able to protect those plant materials as they are shipped out to other countries is a big concern, and as I explained in my introduction, we lost our Explorer roses here in Canada because we didn't have plant breeder's rights in those days. So all those roses that were developed here in Canada went around the world, and we ended up buying them back with no royalties coming in to help go into further and more research.

This sort of stuff also creates more investment by our growers and our breeders, which in turn creates more innovative plant material and helps us do research that will breed out disease in certain plants. I think that's very important because of all the openness with respect to trade around the world: we're a global economy now. There are more diseases, pests, and insects as well that come into the country, which we have to fight with respect to our new varieties. So to be able to look at the research—

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you very much.

[Chris Andrews]

Does that answer your question?

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Absolutely, it does. Thank you.

Ms. Hart, I come from Alberta and there's certainly a lot of potato growing that takes place there. I'm just wondering if you could talk about how you feel the potato industry would be able to benefit from this opportunity to use your expertise elsewhere in the world.

[Deborah Hart]

Yes, thank you for asking me the question.

Globally, Canada is still a small potato-producing area compared to other parts of the world. However, there is so much potential in Canada to expand. As I said, over 50% of the potato industry in Canada is west of Thunder Bay, and there is a shift to coming from the west as opposed to most of it being produced in the east. Currently our PBR legislation only allows 18 years' production for protection, and it takes 5 years to get a variety actually generated in the field, to get it to a large enough production that you can actually do anything with it. If we could extend that, we would get additional interest from other countries. For instance, a lot of the PBR varieties we grow in Alberta and other parts of Canada are from Europe. Currently its potato production is 30 years. So, we are at a huge disadvantage to that. It would allow new genetics to come into Canada that our own breeding programs could introduce to their programs. With government cutbacks, our public breeding program is really struggling to meet the demands domestically for our own programs. So, we're starting to rely more and more on genetics than different varieties coming in from outside of Canada. By extending the PBR legislation it would certainly entice more investment and more interest from other areas.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen.

I'll now move to Mr. Eyking, for five minutes, please.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

And thank you, guests, for coming.

This is the last day for witnesses because we're going to be putting amendments in by this evening. So, it's a very important day.

I'm going to start off with the Dairy Farmers of Canada. Before you came here, we had the Canadian Cattlemen, the beef farmers, who came forward with quite a concern about this preventative control plan. You've also mentioned in your briefing that the dairy farmers have a concern about it.

Now, the government is saying that it's just going to go after businesses probably, and not farmers. Recently I visited some big farms outside Halifax, Nova Scotia. These are big dairy farms and they're businesses. That concerns me about this whole program. It was also brought up by the cattlemen that this is the way they're being treated—like the government is a big referee and is coming in with a stick, instead of coaching and helping the food industry move forward.

If the Dairy Farmers were to put an amendment forward, would they want an amendment saying that this does not apply to on-farm...? Would that be something that your dairy farmers would accept? You already have a program that has quality and everything in it.

[Dr. Réjean Bouchard]

Thank you for the question.

The problem is more with understanding the concept. The wording comes from elsewhere. It comes from some trading partners south of the border, and we are trying to accommodate their wording, I think. So what we need to know is what it means. For the last 20, 25 years, we have been working not just with producers, but the whole industry. It's all based on risk assessment, and then come these three new words that say.... Everybody is concerned about what it exactly means, and are we going to lose what we gained...? What adaptation...? It's a question of communication and explanation.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

It's too much of a grey area.

[Dr. Réjean Bouchard]

Yes.

We compared notes with the other commodities, too, like with cattlemen, with the pork, with chicken, and they have the same concerns. It's understanding what it means.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

They all have their own programs, too.

[Dr. Réjean Bouchard]

Also, yes, which have been highly supported by Agriculture Canada and CFIA since the middle nineties....

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you.

Madame St. Hilaire, you've mentioned an amendment, which I tried to write down quickly. In your amendment, you started off on the seed issue, “to save, store, stock.” Can you just finish your amendment? If you had the power to put an amendment in by this evening for this bill, what would you state?

[Ashley St Hilaire]

I would state that organic farmers have the right to save, store, condition, and re-plant registered varieties of seed, because I understand that the farmer's privileges apply to PBR varieties of seeds—

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Sorry, “save, store, condition, and re-plant”...?

[Ashley St Hilaire]

Yes, and that organic farmers maintain the right to store and stock seeds harvested for livestock feed; store and stock a supply of seeds to be used in the event of a crop failure, disease or frost; store and stock unsold crop on their property.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Right now, you don't see that in the legislation?