Agriculture Committee on Nov. 27th, 2014

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Just on that point—you mentioned jet fuel, for example—there was a question earlier to the minister about renewable fuels and how there is just a small amount of money that happened to show up on a line. What you're saying is that through the clusters you are getting this research and you're able to bring in others from other areas. Especially when we talk about greenhouse gases and we look at the different types of engines that we have right now and the different regulations we need on tractors and also the different ways in which people are seeding, the zero till and the different approaches that are being used, the reality is that agriculture is doing more than its share. It should never be one, in my opinion, that should be held up as something that is hurting Canada's approach regarding any types of responsibilities for greenhouse gases.

But, if I have time, could you just comment on this concept of how jet fuel may be being used in these renewable fuels but doesn't make its way to the other side as far as the budget line?

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

Just in terms of bringing that forward, with respect to carinata being a concrete example of where we are working with industry, this is obviously going to take a few years, but the fact that there is a partnership that allows for some development of intellectual property, that provides for information to be generated where there is an application, not just for food but for non-food, is very important. Part of our objectives also within the science and technology branch is not to just look at economic prosperity. You cannot talk about economic prosperity without talking about sustainability, and part of sustainability is making sure that you have good environmental performance and sustainability as you move forward.

Mr. Chair, those are all objectives of the science and technology branch at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Okay, thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much, Madam Mithani.

Now I will go to Mr. Allen for five minutes, please.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to our guests.

I guess I'll go back to Mr. Meredith. I understand the issue of the CWB in terms of confidentiality as it moves into the private sector. One of the things the minister said, though, in his testimony here today was that, when it came to the money being spent, because part of the legislation—I was there during that legislation process—was indeed the fact that the Government of Canada would be the backstop now means that public dollars have gone in. The minister said here that the old CWB was over-leveraged—his words. That being the case, that meant the public had to pay to get it back to balance.

Do you have those numbers? If you do, sir, can you table them with this committee?

[Greg Meredith]

Well, yes, but I'd like to clarify. What the minister was alluding to is the policy decision that I mentioned earlier, which was that we as a government would backstop the debts that were incurred as a result of removing the single desk. For example, the old board had an asset in the building, but the building was entirely financed on debt. The CWB continues to service that debt. It's not the Government of Canada doing that. The CWB with it's own borrowing power and it's own retained earnings is financing its acquisitions across the Prairies. The taxpayers are not on the hook for those expenditures.

What we do is backstop, through the borrowing guarantee of the Government of Canada, the operations of the board in terms of originating wheat, and what that does is make sure Prairie farmers get paid.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

It begs the obvious question. Are you backstopping the pension plan, through the public purse, or is the CWB backstopping the pension plan as you've just described the other aspects of the CWB?

[Greg Meredith]

That's a very good point, a very good question, in fact.

The pension plan was obviously fully financed when the CWB was in the monopoly world, but as a much smaller organization it couldn't change its liabilities, which are the accrued liabilities of the pension obligations that the board had. As a smaller organization with less cash flow, it couldn't possibly afford those obligations, so the Government of Canada took them on.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

If I heard you correctly, what you just told me is that, when the minister said they were over-leveraged, that may be true or not true; that depends, with your board against your asset, right? You can make that determination to be 10% of asset or 130% of asset. I would think 130% of asset is over-leverage.

What you just told me, sir, is that indeed the CWB is meeting it's financial commitments as far as what its borrowings are against its assets. Is that correct?

[Greg Meredith]

Yes.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you.

Madam Mithani, could I ask you this?

You've actually used the terms “market-driven” research versus “discovery” research. Let's put it in the context of the performance reports of the department, which talk about a gap of 645 full-time employees in the last cycle, going back to basically last year. That being the case, I get the piece that you talked about—and Mr. Dreeshen spoke with you as well—about the clusters, the industry, and basically if you lose 645 employees and you do something different with the group over here, you're kind of doing the same. You get the same amount of work done because you've now taken on new partners. That's not a bad thing.

But as you correctly said, in my view, that's market-driven research and it comes at the expense of—in your words—“discovery” research. If we had indeed kept those 645 employees, I don't know what they would be doing. Could they not have been then working on discovery research, which can in some cases—not in all—discover things we don't find we have any need of until later, which we may even need at the end of the day? Might we be losing out on things that might potentially end up in the cluster later on, because we're no longer doing the discovery research to the same degree we were once doing it before?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Chair, I just want to know, perhaps, your view on whether that is a fair question to put to government officials.

There's government policy that's brought about in terms of focus and readjustment, and I'm not too sure if Mr. Allen's question is venturing into opinion, as opposed to stating the more quantifiable facts about the situation regarding science and innovation in the department.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

There's a fair bit of discussion in the estimates on the research and innovation, so I'm going to allow the answer to go ahead. I don't know if Mr. Meredith is going to touch on it or who is. The answer, I think, has to be fairly factual.

Mr. Meredith, go ahead, please.

[Greg Meredith]

I'll respond, Mr. Chair.

I think you're posing a hypothetical question. It's very difficult to answer what might have been or what would have—

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Since you think it's hypothetical, if you have more, can you do more? Or can you do less?

So if you have 645 additional scientists, could you do more or do less? That's not hypothetical. You have more people. Do you do more or do you do less? It's pretty simple.

Of course, we're highly efficient, the other side says.

Well, you took up—

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Excuse me, Mr. Chair, it was the witness' testimony that we are doing more market-driven research at the expense of discovery research. I'm simply trying to follow the avenue of the witness' testimony.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

He's being mischievous. Actually what he's doing is trying to convince or suck him into a policy debate instead of an actual factual debate about what's in the estimates. It's totally unfair to the witnesses to try to answer that type of question.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Heaven forbid that I would ever try to draw our good folks in the public service into a policy debate. As I witness my friends on the other side talk about policy with the witnesses, heaven forbid that I would ever suggest that I'm ever trying to do that.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Now you're into the hypothetical.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I didn't ask a hypothetical question. I said that if he had 645 employees could they not be doing work that they were doing before. That's a pretty simple answer. It's not hypothetical. There are 645 scientists, but clearly my friends have decided they don't like it.

Mr. Chair, I'm sure I've probably exhausted my time by now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much.

Now we're going to go to Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

I'm glad my colleagues have such a strong interest in science and innovation.

On the question of doing more with more, I highlight again the question I posed to the minister, and that is that these supplementary estimates (B) move more money into science and innovation to the benefit of our farmers. That's why I hope that at least the members here on the agriculture committee will vote in favour of these estimates because they are providing more funding, more resources, for science and innovation.

As I mentioned previously, we're talking about roughly $550 million—these estimates will move extra money into science and innovation, raising it to over half a billion dollars, and I'm wondering if the officials could perhaps provide some indication to the committee of what types of initiatives this will fund.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Who wants to take the question?

Dr. Mithani.

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

Thank you very much for the question.

The science and technology website talks about some of the work we do in strategic science, and how we identify the areas where the research dollars are going. We have a very elaborate and robust process for calls for proposals that come in based on the needs of the sector, some of the work that has been done by other organizations, and where science needs to go in agriculture.

Within the sector we have nine sector strategies. We have four objectives within the sector strategies: productivity; environmental sustainability; attributes, which means food or non-food attributes; and threats to agriculture. Then based on that, areas and gaps are identified for every single strategy. These gaps within science and technology are identified in consultation with the stakeholders so that we are able to look at exactly where the calls for proposals need to come from. That's how the funding is allocated for science and technology.

There is a robust system by which funding is being allocated into the science and technology branch.