Agriculture Committee on March 19th, 2019

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Welcome, everyone.

We'll continue our study on perception of and public trust in the Canadian agricultural sector.

Today with us we have, from the Canadian Trucking Alliance, Mr. Stephen Laskowski, president. We also have Lak Shoan, director of policy and industry awareness.

Welcome to our committee, both of you.

From the National Cattle Feeders' Association, we have Janice Tranberg, president and chief executive officer.

Welcome to our committee, Ms. Tranberg.

From Egg Farmers of Canada, we have Roger Pelissero, chairman and egg farmer, and Mr. Tim Lambert, chief executive officer.

Welcome, both of you, to our committee.

We'll start with opening statements. Usually we allot seven minutes, but as we have three panellists we'll go with six minutes. Please keep it as close to six minutes as possible, because we do have some questions afterwards.

Also, we will have to cut five minutes off this panel and another five because we need 10 minutes for business at the end of our committee meeting.

We will start right away with the Canadian Trucking Alliance.

Whoever wants to lead, go ahead.

[Stephen Laskowski, President, Canadian Trucking Alliance]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and committee members.

By way of background, the Canadian Trucking Alliance is a federation of provincial trucking associations from across Canada. We represent over 4,500 trucking companies. Our members are both big and small. If you did it on a numbers count, the vast majority of our members would be 20 trucks or less. We are a $67-billion industry employing over 500,000 people.

With regard to the agricultural sector, increasingly our industry is becoming somewhat of the face of it. More and more people in Canada are becoming urban, and as such, are perhaps disconnected from the farming community. It is our members who move over 800 million animals a year. That becomes the connection point between the people of Canada and livestock movement.

With regard to the carriers themselves, drivers in trucking companies have had increasing responsibility for the handling of livestock animals. We accept and understand that responsibility, but we also would like to discuss the complete supply chain responsibility, and accountability and enforcement, which may come in the form of questions.

Accepting responsibility and accountability becomes training standards and licensing standards. Recently, Minister Marc Garneau announced a national pre-licensing minimum training standard for the trucking industry. That was a great announcement. From coast to coast beginning on January 1, 2020, we will have a national pre-licensing standard with regard to the specifics of livestock. It doesn't end there with the safe movement of a piece of equipment; it also involves the training and responsibility of handling livestock animals.

With that will come training, which is something we as an industry would like to work on with the Government of Canada. We understand that training is important and that all sectors want training dollars. One of the things we would like to do is change the lens a little bit on how those dollars are handed out. Currently, truck drivers are not deemed as skilled, even those who move livestock animals. Any farmer or anyone who knows will tell you that the handling of animals with regard to transportation is an extremely skilled profession. It requires a lot of training in handling. We want to be treated like other sectors of the economy.

So you understand the demands and the pressures facing our industry, in 2024, we expect to have a 34,000 person driver shortage in Canada. It is more acute when it comes to handling livestock. It's not a job that is the first choice of everyone, because of some of the demands that involve moving livestock and training. That is why we'd like to see more training dollars head to our sector, not just for all of the economy, but specifically for livestock.

I have a couple of points with regard to some improvements. With changes to the amount of time that animals can stay on a truck, which we support, we'd like to see an investigation, or perhaps more dollars, going toward feed and rest locations in Thunder Bay and the Manitoba and Saskatchewan areas. That would help our sector and our customers.

The other aspect that I'd like to bring to your attention that will help—there is no hindrance—is the introduction of electronic logging devices that will govern the movement of livestock transportation. It will govern all transportation, but for the purpose of this committee, it's livestock. There are zero issues associated with moving toward electronic logging devices. It's going to help the Canadian economy move more safely. It's going to help livestock transportation be safer, and it's not going to impede the supply chain. It's a good news story, and it's going to help the movement of livestock.

Thank you again to everyone for this opportunity. We look forward to any potential questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

We will hear now from Janice Tranberg of the National Cattle Feeders' Association.

[Janice Tranberg, President and Chief Executive Officer, National Cattle Feeders' Association]

Thank you very much for the opportunity to present this morning. My name is Janice Tranberg. I'm the president and CEO of the National Cattle Feeders' Association. NCFA was established in 2007. It represents Canada's cattle feeders on issues of national importance and works collaboratively with other beef organizations to strengthen the value chain.

Our farmers produce safe, healthy and affordable food for families in Canada and around the world. They take great pride in growing this healthy food and maintaining the land that has been in their families for generations and will be passed on to future generations. People are losing their trust in agriculture, often because they don't have the full story. These misconceptions might result in such negative impacts as undue regulation and limited access to the tools and technologies they rely on. Therefore, I commend the committee for taking on this study. I am pleased to contribute today.

Canada's cattle feeders are committed to providing safe, healthy and high-quality food in an economically, environmentally and ethically sustainable and socially responsible way. We do this through our dedication to four pillars: following and exceeding industry standards of safe and humane animal care, employing the best practices in animal health and production, practising good environmental stewardship, and investing in our people and their communities. The dedication of NCFA members to these four pillars demonstrates our commitment and continually improving industry reputation. For example, in 2014 NCFA developed a workable, credible and affordable animal care assessment tool for the Canadian industry in order to provide assurances to customers on feedlot animal care and handling. This auditable feedlot animal care assessment program covers multiple aspects of production, including transportation practices, facility design, cattle handling, nutrition and feed, and animal health management.

Another example is NCFA's recent and ongoing efforts to monitor the use of antimicrobials and their potential for resistance buildup. Antibiotics are used in feedlots to prevent disease and the resulting infections from cattle sharing close quarters, especially when new cattle are introduced to an existing group. lt's of the utmost importance that cattle feeders have access to these important medicines so that their prudent and judicious use is taken very seriously and closely monitored to keep animals healthy and comfortable. Our producers employ the best practices in animal health and production. They work in conjunction with feedlot veterinarians and nutritionists to ensure this.

There are many opinions on food and agriculture, its impact on the environment, and its safety to humans, and yet so few of these opinions come from the people who are actually in the know. No one knows more about food than the farmers who produce it. How do the voices of farmers and agricultural researchers get heard? While modern agriculture is often criticized as being the major source of air pollution, research shows that North America has the lowest agricultural greenhouse gas emissions in the world. Africa, on the other hand, is the lowest adopter of modern agriculture and has the highest emissions. So increased production actually has an inverse effect on emission intensity.

I recently attended the Alberta beef industry conference and heard Dr. Frank Mitloehner, a professor from UC Davis. According to his research, the balance of emissions in beef production is net zero. ln other words, the greenhouse gas emitted in cattle production is equivalent to the greenhouse gas sequestered by the same industry. Beef production is not contributing to the increase in global greenhouse gases, yet we are still often targeted as the main emitter. If the public does not understand science such as this and continues to paint modern agriculture as a major polluter, our fear is that new technology will be taken away from producers. We'll have to revert to postmodern practices that will be more harmful to our environment and decrease production potential.

How do we address the challenge of public perception? The NCFA offers the following recommendations to the committee for consideration. First, government legislation and regulations must be based on sound science and research from reliable and peer-reviewed sources. The sector will always defend the government if this is the case.

Canadian regulatory agencies serving agriculture and food have a global reputation for excellence that plays a critical role in public trust. The government needs to regularly defend these agencies and the work they do to keep Canada's food safe.

Government must also provide officials at these regulatory agencies ongoing training on the current and evolving tools and technology for the agriculture sector. These officials need to have an understanding and trust of modern agriculture for the public to have the same. Government must play a proactive role in communicating to the public the positive Canadian agriculture story and support industry-led education, communications and awareness initiatives.

Finally, you can do more to ensure marketing campaigns are based on fact and do not mislead Canadians.

Be assured that NCFA will continue to do our part by following world-class standards of animal care, employing best practices in animal health and production, serving as faithful stewards of the environment and investing in people and communities.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you very much, Ms. Tranberg.

Now it's the Egg Farmers of Canada. I'm not sure if both of you will speak, but you can split your six minutes. Thank you.

[Roger Pelissero, Chairman and Egg Farmer, Egg Farmers of Canada]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having us here today.

My name is Roger Pelissero. I'm a third-generation egg farmer from St. Ann's, Ontario. I'm also the chairman of the board of Egg Farmers of Canada. Here with me today is Tim Lambert, CEO of Egg Farmers of Canada. We welcome the opportunity to share our perspectives on the perception of public trust in the Canadian agriculture sector. We are also pleased to be here today with our agriculture colleagues, the National Cattle Feeders' Association and the Canadian Trucking Alliance.

Egg Farmers of Canada manages the national egg supply and promotes egg consumption while representing the interests of regulated egg producers from coast to coast. There are over 1,000 family egg farms across Canada located in every province and in the Northwest Territories who are dedicated to producing fresh local eggs. In fact, surveys conducted by Canada's top polling firms confirm that over 88% of Canadians say it's important that the eggs they purchase come from Canadian farms, and 89% of Canadians say they trust the quality standards of food from Canadian farms.

We believe that many of the issues encountered by today's food system are related to the fact that people are often disconnected from their food and that the players in our food system have shared responsibilities to connect with Canadians who want and enjoy our products. Egg farmers do this by approaching every aspect of their business, from operations to policy development to governance, with the utmost regard for our communities, our environment and our society. Our collective efforts are amplified through Egg Farmers of Canada, who engage in a number of activities and raise the profile of our farmers and strengthen the connection with Canadians and our stakeholders.

These efforts include promoting eggs as a high-quality protein and a nutrient-dense food. They also include showcasing many of the farm families behind the work we do. I'm pleased to say I've had one of your members, Mr. Longfield, at my farm and given him a tour. By all means, if any members of this committee would like a tour, I'd be happy to open my doors and bring you to our family farm and give a tour.

We also do activities advertising national campaigns like “Wake Up To Yellow”, which is an event we did across cities in Canada, like downtown Toronto, Vancouver and Halifax, as well as our “Downtown Diner” event here in Ottawa. I know many members on this committee have attended that. Canadians living in urban and rural parts of our country have an opportunity to meet our farmers and see that the eggs they purchase come from a family just like theirs.

Our provincial egg boards take part in similar and complementary outreach activities. For example, Manitoba Egg Farmers and Egg Farmers of Ontario travel around their respective provinces with a portable hen-housing display to show Canadians first-hand what modern farming looks like. This unique approach bridges the gap between the farm and the table by helping Canadians experience egg production up close.

Additional activities include farm tours, which I mentioned, virtual farm tours, and are shared and promoted online with a mix of other activities that showcase our production practices and the people dedicated to producing made-in-Canada eggs.

[Tim Lambert, Chief Executive Officer, Egg Farmers of Canada]

I'll just pick up the thread from there.

Thanks for the opportunity to address the group.

As Roger pointed out, we see public trust as a core principle of our future, our industry and our business. Societal expectations have clearly changed. Society wants to know more about where their food comes from. They want to know it's safe. They want to know it's high quality. They want those standards to be public. For those of us who deal in animal agriculture, they need to know and want to know that we care for the animals humanely, so it's not good enough that we just say we're doing these things. We need to back the talk up with meaningful actions, communicate those actions and build that trust.

This generation—in fact, we just had Mr. Drouin address our young agriculture leaders group—we've engaged them as well. We're very active, as Roger has pointed out, on social media and a variety of means, telling our story. The fact of the matter is that the story of food production is going to be told. It's going to be told by us or it's going to be told by activist groups, environmental groups, vegan groups or any other number of groups, so it's really incumbent upon us to lead this, be proactive and tell our story.

We're proud to say that all eggs produced on regulated farms, whether they're in Newfoundland or on Vancouver Island, are all produced to the same standards. They're all audited by a third party. Recently, we've launched an egg quality assurance program, which matches both animal care and food safety under a common brand that we will promote across Canada so that Canadians can know that they're buying Canadian eggs.

Canadian egg farmers believe in the intrinsic link between public trust and business success. We nurture that acceptance nationally and internationally, not just because it's the right thing to do but because it strengthens our industry, our sector and our communities. Our engagement includes a number of national and global initiatives focused on dialogue and discussion. Through these initiatives, we work side by side with industry, government and other stakeholders to advance matters that affect the public's perception of our sector.

With that, I'll conclude. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Lambert.

Now we'll start our round of questions, but before we do, we welcome Mr. Randy Hoback in place of Mr. Berthold.

We'll start with Mr. Dreeshen for six minutes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses today.

What precipitated this particular study was the previous study we did on mental health for farmers, ranchers and producers. From that we heard from various groups that they feel they are being denigrated by certain actors. That is one of the reasons we're now talking about public trust and perception, because we need to have your groups and organizations helping us move in that regard, giving us some advice, but we also need to realize that all of our members—our constituents and your members—have to be listened to as well. There are some serious things happening that sometimes we just don't want to talk about, which is one of the serious issues that happened with mental health. I know my colleague Mr. Shipley will, perhaps in his questioning, talk about some of the issues with the way animals are moved, transportation.

I would like to talk to Ms. Tranberg on the issues as far as beef is concerned. I was at the Red Deer beef conference last week, and I heard the professor from UC Davis talk about how, in both the beef cattle industry and the dairy industry, there is less greenhouse gas now being produced than there was in the past. The efficiencies that have come about in that industry have helped reduce that. Also he raised the fact that, as far as methane is concerned, it basically becomes a wash. So here is an industry that is being denigrated in the media by those people who haven't seen that information. It was very well presented.

My point is this. How do we make sure people see that information and are educated in that particular way?

There is another point that I want to ask about. There was a discussion about how officials need to understand and trust modern agriculture. If you take a look at the Canada food guide and if you look at the picture very carefully, you might see a couple of little slivers of beef. These are the kinds of things. Officials have to get their act together, but we also have to make sure this message is presented.

Ms. Tranberg, could you present your views on that? If there's some time, maybe some of our other guests could as well.

[Janice Tranberg]

It's not an easy question to try to answer.

I think the main point is that there isn't a single way. When I address the first part, it's how do we get those messages out? I don't think there is a single way that we're going to do it. We need to use all the tools in the tool box.

Certainly we need to inform our farmers and give them the support they need. I'd say a lot of this conversation happens right at the dinner table. That's where it really starts. If you have relatives over and you're scared to talk about agriculture and what you do, and you don't have the resources to do that, then that's where it needs to start.

There are other things we can do. For example, agriculture has not been a conversation in our education systems. I think it's simply because we haven't needed it to be in the education system. It used to be that one in six people was related to the farm, and now I think it's one in 52, if I remember correctly, so there's that broadening gap. We need to consider how we put agriculture back into the education system and how we promote that.

We also need to ensure, as I said, that our regulatory agencies are kept up to speed on the most current science being used. Sometimes we even find that there's a breakdown between them and farmers, and they don't understand, so can we get more people coming out to the farms? Certainly our producers are more than willing to bring people onto the farm, but as we heard just the other day, there were some biosafety concerns. People just walked onto their farm without being invited. It's helping to bridge all of those different gaps. Can we make tools and can we make farms more accessible to the general public so they can come out and see the care that the farmers take in working with their animals?

Then we need good speakers like Dr. Frank, who was here last week, to go out and really make the science available to people, to you, to me, in a way that we can understand it. There isn't a single answer. I think we need to try to use all the tools in the tool box. As I said, the government can help by perhaps making resources available so that we can increase those different opportunities.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you.

Mr. Dreeshen.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Mr. Pelissero, on the egg side, we're back again to bad cholesterol now. It was good; it was bad; it's gone back and forth. If you look at the Canada food guide, you can get four meals out of that one egg, because you have a quarter of an egg that they think you should have for protein.

What are the egg producers doing to try to have some common sense there?

[Roger Pelissero]

On the egg side, we feel egg is the golden protein choice. In terms of that article that came out in the U.S. the other day saying that eggs are bad for you, again, I'm going to be like the President of the United States and say, “false news, bad claim”. Eggs are healthy.

We have really good engagement regarding our social media. We have good engagement on Twitter and on Facebook. We engage with food bloggers. I've had a busload of food bloggers to my farm and I invited them in. Before we went into our production facility where the hens are housed, I asked them if they had a cellphone. They all looked at me as though I was going to take it away from them. I told them I wanted them to take multiple pictures inside our production facility—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Pelissero, but we're over time.

I will move to Mr. Breton.

You have six minutes.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank all of you today for being here for our study.

I'd like to discuss research, development and innovation in agriculture and agri-food. Innovation can increase quality and productivity in our agricultural sector. Productivity is extremely important, as we are told that there will be 9 billion people on the planet by 2050. You are all going to contribute, I hope, to this large increase.

Mr. Lambert, the funding for private sector research and development has declined over the past 10 years. In parallel, research and development is being done in the public sector, by the federal government, notably.

Here is my first question: can you explain the decrease in investment in private sector research and development and innovation? Personally, I am concerned. The agricultural sector should also be concerned.

[Tim Lambert]

At Egg Farmers we've made, I would describe, a pretty massive investment in research and development. We sponsor a network of research chairs across Canada. We have a research chair in ag economics at Laval University. We have a research chair in public policy, Dr. Bruce Muirhead, at Waterloo. We have a research chair in animal welfare, Dr. Tina Widowski, at the University of Guelph. Most recently, we launched a research chair in environmental sustainability at the University of British Columbia's Kelowna campus.

What's exciting about that is not only the research and innovation that comes out of it. For example, Dr. Pelletier at UBC did a life-cycle analysis which shows that in the egg industry, we're producing 50% more product while using half the resources that we were using 50 years ago. What we intend to do with that is build benchmarks so we can continually improve our resource efficiency and continually evolve technologies to produce more protein while using fewer resources.

It also provides a large group of young people, graduate students.... Some will stay in academia, but many will come to work in our industry. We've put R and D as an extremely high priority, because we think it's, as you point out or asked in the question, a critical part of our future. We're encouraging government to maintain or even increase its investment in research. It should be, really, about public-private partnerships.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lambert.

Ms. Tranberg, the Government of Canada funds several research and development initiatives. Our country in fact ranks seventh for its public investment in research and development. Given our vigorous agricultural sector, we, of course, dedicate a lot of energy and effort to it.

Can you tell us what impact this has, here, on our Canadian producers? How could we help them more? How could our programs be modified?

You have a minute and a half to answer.

[Janice Tranberg]

Obviously, research and investment constantly have an impact, as Tim mentioned. We don't see the herd increasing in numbers in Canada, but what we do see increasing is the weight per cattle. We're taking the research, exactly as he said, and we're looking at how we can increase production. How can we grow more using fewer resources?

As for the actual numbers and the impact, I'm sorry, but I don't have that. I can certainly provide those numbers for you.

The cattle industry has one of the biggest research clusters this year that has been received through the BCRC. I'm going to echo a little bit of what Tim said. I think it's a matter of how we leverage those dollars and how we pull together industry with government and farmers. We've been seeing a lot more farmer dollars getting invested into research than, perhaps, private company dollars.

I did want to question that we're seeing investment decreasing. I'm not sure that investment is actually decreasing. I think it's just getting spread out, and it's going into different areas. For typical investment in the past, you might have thought of production or you might have thought of genetics, but there's also investment going into technology such as micro-feeders so we can have the exact amount of nutrients that the cattle need and are able to monitor exactly their feed intake to increase weight gain. I think there is a lot that's going on that might not be considered typical research.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Tranberg. I have to cut you off.

Thank you, Monsieur Breton.

Mr. MacGregor, you have six minutes.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you, Chair. I'm going to try to get through three questions.

Ms. Tranberg, I would like to start with you. I found very interesting in your remarks the reporting that in the beef cattle industry, greenhouse gas emissions are at net zero. I'm really interested in agriculture's role and the important role it can play in combatting climate change. I assume a lot of that comes from the sequestration of well-managed pasture lands. Can you talk a little bit more about that, the carbon sequestration potential of well-managed pastures?

[Janice Tranberg]

The cattle-feeding sector is the sector that I represent, so I'm sorry I can't talk as much about grass-fed, but I can certainly talk about the cattle-feeding sector. There is a lot of research that's being done right now in feed efficiency to make sure we have the right feed and to look at proper management techniques.

I'm sorry, I'm going to—

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

There is a proposal in my riding at a dairy operation to try to set up biogas capture from manure, and so on, and try to feed that back into FortisBC's natural gas link. If this is successful, then we may not have to rely so much on fracked natural gas.

Is there anything like that going on in your operation, capturing methane and using it for biogas?

[Janice Tranberg]

Not that I have heard, not in the cattle-feed sector.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Okay.

Mr. Laskowski, I appreciate the comments you made about the training that goes on with respect to your drivers, and so on, and the labour shortage. We've heard that echoed among many different sectors.

Last month there was an article in the Calgary Herald with respect to the new livestock transportation regulations that are going to come into force.

The CFIA's own figures show about 98% of livestock shipments are already in compliance, but when you break down the remaining 2%, I think the CFIA's own figures show about 16 million animals are arriving slightly injured, and there are about 1.6 million that arrive dead.

We're talking about public perception. If we're going to try to address public perception, I'm just wondering what more can be done to address that remaining 2%.

[Stephen Laskowski]

The question of animal health prior to transportation and then upon delivery is one that's ongoing between my membership and the customers, and it's a high priority. Drivers are trained to identify animals that perhaps shouldn't be moved. Also, the farmers themselves who are loading the trucks will go through that process, so there is a check and a countercheck.

Those are ongoing discussions within the supply chain, and quite frankly, they're a high priority and something that my membership and the customers and CFIA do have ongoing discussions about, how to deal with this issue.