Evidence of meeting #51 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 41st Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was provinces.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
A one-hander, and I expect you to bring the Scotch, Mr. Allen.
First of all, Mr. Dahl, you talked about transportation issues and I just wonder if your organization has had any conversation with David Emerson, who is currently looking at the regulations. Have you had any discussions on what you think should be in there, or what he's actually looking at?
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Okay, can you give us any indication...or is that already in the notes you've provided?
President, Cereals Canada
I think the notes you have are a key summary of the points we feel need to be brought forward through the CTA review. Again, balanced accountability and a rapid dispute resolution process are some of the key points.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
I don't disagree with your comments there.
Mr. Lemaire, I was interested in your comments regarding shipments not being required to be unloaded and reloaded in the provinces. Could you expand on that—which provinces, all provinces?
President, Canadian Produce Marketing Association
Sir, that specific reference was shipping apples to B.C. and the requirement for the phyto to get into the province. Once the doors are closed on the truck they can't be reopened without having another inspection, which adds additional costs across the country. They would load a truck with as many apples as they could and if they didn't have enough volume they wouldn't go.
In many cases when you look at a retail model with national retailers trying to manage their supply chain and consolidate buying—let's say that they're buying out of Ontario and they happen to need Ontario apples to go out west to their same chain in B.C.—the issue they have is that those apples can't get there based on the cost factor. It means adding cost by procuring somewhere else and sometimes it's not Canadian, so we lose the opportunity for a sale and on top of that if they do ship, we add costs that the consumer bears at the end.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
That was my next point: the cost. Do you have any figures that would suggest what it is costing producers for additional transportation, or what it's costing consumers?
President, Canadian Produce Marketing Association
We know the cost of the inspection, we know the transportation costs, but extrapolating that, we haven't done the calculation to see what the added cost to the consumer is at this point.
President, Canadian Produce Marketing Association
We have no estimates at this point.
Conservative
LaVar Payne Conservative Medicine Hat, AB
Okay.
Anyway, those were some of the questions I had for you.
Mr. Dahl, I wonder if you have any comments you'd like to make about the changes—and maybe my colleague has already asked this because I missed part of his questions—regarding the Wheat Board and the changes that have happened there. We see that in western Canada it's certainly very positive. My farmers are quite delighted about that.
Liberal
Mark Eyking Liberal Sydney—Victoria, NS
Is that interprovincial? Point of order? How do you stretch that one?
Conservative
President, Cereals Canada
Cereals Canada was formed after that change occurred, but the new marketing structure is being well received by our customers abroad, for example. I know that just this last fall Cereals Canada, the Canadian International Grains Institute, the Canadian Grain Commission, industry and producers, together, visited over 20 countries to talk about the new crop and the marketing structure in Canada was virtually never raised. So this is something that is being well received by our customers abroad.
The producers that I work with on a regular basis are also looking at it as a new opportunity and also at the opportunity to grow perhaps some of those varieties, such as prairie spring wheat, that didn't have that large market slice before, but now can be pursued by individual shippers.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Bev Shipley
Thank you, everyone, for your questions.
To Cereals Canada and the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, thank you very much for joining us.
I'm going to break for about one minute and then we're going to come back to deal with very short business.
[Proceedings continue in camera]
