Agriculture Committee on Nov. 27th, 2014

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

Oh, there is no short answer to this.

Yes, there is a plan going forward. The existing one takes effect until midnight, November 29. There is another plan in the works to carry on from that.

When it comes to what happened last year, of course everyone was caught off guard. You know that the railways blamed the severity of the winter. Everybody works with winter. It comes around all the time in Canada, so we don't buy that excuse. No one really does, including the railways.

They are going to have to pick up their game, no doubt, not just on grain but on other commodities as well. That's part of the work that needs to be done. There's a lot more collaboration between shippers and rails. The rails have to get it out of their heads that they are the ones in control of the logistics. They are not. They are a valuable link in it, but they are only one link.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much, Minister.

We'll now go to Mr. Hoback for five minutes, please.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here this morning.

Minister Ritz, you've been very aggressively promoting Canadian goods abroad. We thank you for that, our beef producers especially. I've had them come through my office quite regularly, and they are really complimenting you on the work you've done. I want to pass that on to you, because it's made a world of difference. I think you can just imagine what it was like, not three or four years ago, when somebody would mention the words “bred cow” and they would all run away because nobody wanted anything to do with them. Today if you say “steer” everybody is running to it.

Can you just give us an update on the beef sector in relationship to COOL and let the committee know where that's at right now?

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

The next step.... Of course, we have won all three challenges at the WTO and the appeals that the Americans have brought forward. My gut feeling is that they will appeal again, simply because they'll ride this to the bottom. They'll go as far as they can with it. That would be unfortunate, because it just delays the inevitable at the end of the day.

The WTO is meeting again on November 28, and I understand this will be an agenda item. The Americans wanted it pushed off until January or February; we've held it to this meeting. They may ask for a week or 10 days to get their papers in order. I'm hopeful that we can keep the pressure on them.

Everybody recognizes now that this is a political fix to a problem that really doesn't exist. American consumers have the ability now to know where their product is coming from. If somebody wants to address it and say “Product of the U.S.”, they can. It doesn't have to have a full passport attached to it that shows it was raised here, born there, moved there, and all that, because of the integration of the North American market.

The harm we have seen on the Canadian side is mirrored on the American side as well, and the American administration tends to look the other way and try not to see what's happening. But three major plants have closed and three more are on life support, simply because they do not have the capacity, without the economies of scale of Canadian and Mexican product moving down there.

When you talk to guys like Roger Johnson, who was the head of the NFU down there and is now an adviser to Tom Vilsack, it appears that the whole purpose of this was to save the small farm. Well, it hasn't, not at all. It is ridiculous policy, very bad policy.

There's a growing agreement that they have to do something about this. Secretary Vilsack is now saying he's working within the letter of the law. Well, you're the administration; change the damn law. He's asking for time to negotiate. There's no negotiation. All I want to talk about is how soon they're going to fix this, because we're not going to see this hurt continue.

We still rely on the Americans for some 70% of our processing capacity. It's very valuable to us, and the processing sector down there needs it. We've seen Tyson stop buying Canadian cattle simply because of the way they have to be segregated and discriminated against, and that's the very argument we keep winning at the WTO.

We'll keep the pressure on. We have a very vibrant list of retaliatory measures. We hate to do it, but I'll tell you, at the end of the day we're not polite Canadians; we are proud Canadians who want to see this fixed. We'll continue to underscore how this is harmful on both sides of the border and does not serve anyone at any time.

The retail councils, the wholesalers, the processors, the ranchers, and the vast majority, for the most part, in the U.S. are with us on this. They've taken their own government to court, working with our industry in that regard. They lost the initial suit and they're going back with an appeal. This time around they have more than 100 congressmen and senators signing on to that appeal, asking the administration to fix it. It can't be ignored much longer.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Do you think there's anything this committee can do to help you in regard to this? About a year or two ago, we travelled down to Washington and had meetings. Is that something that is helpful?

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

I think that would be helpful again. We're just waiting now to see the structure after the mid-terms. The Republicans will now be chairing the committees and so on, not Democrats anymore. Senator Stabenow might be the ranking Democrat on the agriculture committee, but she will not be the chair. So we're waiting to see the structure of that. Then, meeting with your counterparts probably would not be a bad thing.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Of course, that's all contingent on the NDP's actually allowing the committee to do its work and travel—

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

I thought that was fixed.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Well, I'll leave that with the NDP at this point in time.

Minister, the other thing is that when you were abroad.... I'll go back to the fact that you went into a lot of markets and got rid of a lot of various cuts that Canadians did not necessarily want to eat. What impact does that have on the—?

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

That's the great thing about all of the markets we're in. The Europeans are looking for the high-end cuts. Of course, we eat those domestically as well. It has always been the second- and third-tier cuts that we've had a problem moving. Much of it was going as trim to the U.S. to be ground into hamburger. Now much of it is being diverted to the Pacific Rim—to Korea, Japan, China, and so on—for hot pot. They'll take many cuts that, as I said, were going down as hamburger trim for very little money and are now going as AA beef into the hot pot over there. It has made a difference of a couple of hundred dollars per animal. It's keeping everybody else honest when they're bidding on our animals.

We're paying a little more over the counter here than we ever did before, but still less than 12% of your disposable income is going to the food basket. Europeans pay in the 30% range and so on. It's still a good value when you look at the quality we have and the consistency.

We've done a number of cooking demonstrations throughout China. They just love our beef. They love the grain-fed part of it. I sat down in an interview with some agricultural magazines' writers when I was in Guangzhou, I think it was, the last time. We had done a cook for them on some steak, and they all tried it and just loved it. It's a better quality of beef. I was explaining to them that what they've been buying from the rest of the world—Australia, predominantly—is grass fed. These animals are 44 to 45 months old. I said it's hard to put on weight when you're eating salad all the time, and that's basically what grass-fed animals do.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

No, that's no slam on vegetarians.

But when you top it up with good barley you get a sweeter meat, a better-marbled meat, and that's exactly what they're looking for.

They view short ribs as a luxury, and of course here nobody eats a lot of beef short rib, so there were tremendous opportunities to market a lot of that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you, Minister.

I will now move to Mr. Bevington, for five minutes, please.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Thanks, Mr. Minister. I'm very pleased to be here. I think over the nine years, this is the only time I've ever really had a comment on agriculture in Parliament.

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

Welcome.

Everybody should have a comment on agriculture; we all like to eat.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Exactly, and certainly in the Northwest Territories we're moving towards more agriculture, and that's rather fun.

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

We're happy to support that.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

Good.

I know the research has to be done, but I want to talk a little about climate change. Living in the region of the country where the largest increase in temperature is, I understand climate change. I understand weather patterns. These things are happening right now across North America. They're affecting agriculture, especially the larger-component agriculture businesses.

What efforts is the Canadian government making right now to understand the impact of climate change on our agricultural industry?

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

One of the most important things we're doing, Mr. Bevington, is passing bills such as Bill C-18 to make sure that farmers have access to the new varieties, which will be shorter in growing season, more drought tolerant or flood tolerant, and so on. It's very important that we have access to those new varieties sooner rather than later so that we can adapt to climate change.

As I said earlier, agriculture in Canada has a very good story to tell. When it comes to adaptation, when it comes to a lighter environmental footprint, we're not part of the cause; we're part of the cure.

We tend to sequester CO₂ in our crop rotations far more than anybody else. Canada is 2% of the global problem. When you measure the slipstream coming in, we actually, because of our reforestation and our crop rotations and so on, have cleaned some of the slipstream coming across from China and elsewhere.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

There are a couple of troubling things in your department, though. One is that I did a question on the order paper about renewable energy, and it seems you have completely left that field. There is no investment from Agriculture Canada in renewable energy. In 2013 it amounted to $9,000. Peer-reviewed publications in agri-environment research have dropped from 100 down to 34 papers. These are two areas that—

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

I think the quality of the papers outweighs the quantity.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

How about the investment in renewable energy for the agricultural field? What's happening there?

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

We made those investments, and now the industry itself is picking it up. We have a growing ethanol industry. We have a growing biofuels industry. One of the larger canola crush facilities in my country has added another arm to do biodiesel. There's a lot of that work going on.

We're working with Mustard 21 on new lubricants. We're working on a number of fronts to make use of some of the offshoot products from grains. We have composites being made. We have a number of different things. They're not necessarily fuels, but they're actually growing in value.

[Dennis Bevington, NDP, Northwest Territories, NT]

There's no money at all. That's a bit of a problem, isn't it? Where's the investment in, say, solar energy that can be used in the agricultural industry?

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

It doesn't have to be Agriculture that does that. It can be Industry Canada or other aspects of the government. You have to look at the whole of government, not just one department.