Agriculture Committee on May 28th, 2019

All right.

In conclusion, African swine fever could have catastrophic consequences for our producers. These risks underscore the importance of farm stabilization programs including AgriStability and AgriInvest, which help Ontario producers weather the volatility and uncertainty of the global markets. If an outbreak of ASF happens, how do we ensure business continuity, avoid an immediate liquidation crisis and prevent the widespread downsizing in the industry?

Lastly, one of the things I'd like you to consider is that quick and easy access to mental health resources will also be required. The loss of a producer's livelihood and economic uncertainty in the case of an outbreak like this would have catastrophic implications for farm families across this country.

11:20 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Mr. de Bruyn, we're going to have to conclude here. You'll have a chance to answer questions.

11:20 a.m.

Board Vice-Chair, Ontario Pork

Thank you.

11:20 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

We'll go right to the question round.

I want to welcome Dr. Doug Eyolfson to our committee today.

11:20 a.m.

Liberal

Doug Eyolfson Liberal Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB

Thank you.

11:20 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

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

11:20 a.m.

Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here today.

This is a fairly important issue, and I have a question that I have wanted to ask since we started talking about this disease, which could affect us at any time. It's been around for a number of years.

Have you known about this disease for a long time, Mr. Pelletier?

11:20 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

In fact, the disease was recognized in Africa in the 1910s and 1920s. It came to Europe in the 1970s and 1980s, but was successfully eradicated there, as well as in Brazil and some Caribbean countries.

The current spread began in Georgia in 2007, and the disease has spread to several countries in eastern Europe since then. However, what caught everyone's attention was the appearance of the disease in China and Belgium in August and September last year.

11:20 a.m.

Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

I listened to all the witnesses from Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec.

You have an outstanding plan to deal with the disease. Why is it not yet in place? If the disease has existed for such a long time, why are governments not taking the time to prepare response plans and are waiting until the disease is on our doorstep before taking action?

11:20 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

I think it's a bigger issue than we think. In my opinion, it's related to the fact that there are many aspects to be addressed in the sector. At the moment, it's this issue that is becoming the most urgent and deserves the most attention.

Some plans have been prepared, but there are always major issues that are difficult to address, such as reducing livestock.

A few decades ago, it wasn't a problem, so the industry was developed to participate in economic activity. We are more dependent on exports these days, which is why, if we were to face a border closure, the magnitude of the problem would be greater than it was a few years ago. This is why more resources and strategies are needed to manage the situation.

11:25 a.m.

Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

If I understand correctly, the government has already implemented an increase in the number of detector dogs in an attempt to prevent the disease from arriving here, in Canada. However, it's clearly not enough. If anything ever happens, in Canada, we will need to take even stronger, more solid measures to protect the health of producers first and foremost.

We have just submitted a report on the mental health of farmers. Their psychological stability is the most important thing.

Mr. Dickson, you gave a lot of recommendations about what we will have to do if we are facing this African swine fever. How long do you think it will take to put in place all these measures? Will it take too long to be able to react correctly if something happens soon?

11:25 a.m.

General Manager, Manitoba Pork Council

I think one of the issues that we're facing is that.... In psychology, they call it cognitive dissonance. This is such a huge issue that people are having a hard time getting their heads around it. The disease has been around a long time, and it's in China and so on. What's happened, though....

There are two factors. One is that half the world's pigs live in China. They've lost more in their production than we produce in total in North America, so the Chinese travel now. There's a huge trade connection with China. The U.S. buys a lot of its ingredients for its swine business from China. The second is that we're very dependent on trade, as Martin pointed out. In Manitoba, 90% of our stuff is exported out. If one market alone.... If Japan does not accept our pork, we're done.

To me, we need to start the process of getting financial programs in place so that producers on day one know where they stand.

I was involved in flood disaster assistance programs for many, many years when I worked for the department of agriculture in Manitoba. If we have these plans in advance, people know what to do. We don't want to be sitting on day one having a discussion about whether negative margins are covered under the AgriStability program, while producers are trying to get a hold of their accountants to find out what their cash positions are. This would be an absolutely ridiculous situation.

We need to start thinking it out now. Our basic hope is that this disease will never happen. We've had foot-and-mouth disease in Paraguay. It's been endemic there for many, many years. The last case that we had was in Saskatchewan in 1952. We can keep this disease out, I think, but if we do get a case, we need to have programs in place to be able to handle it. That's what we're trying to get across.

11:25 a.m.

Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

What I'm just hearing is that we must act right now to do something, to plan something and to let all the pork producers know that the government is still here. The government is still pushing you to produce more and more, to export more and to have some gains for our economy. However, at the same time, we must face the unintended consequences of that. If we are hurt by this kind of disease, it will all be cut down, as you said, in the night.

11:25 a.m.

General Manager, Manitoba Pork Council

This is a good business for Canada. We're very good at producing pork. We export across the world, and we should play to our strength on this thing. We have a big threat of ASF, but if we were to get a case on a farm, I think we could contain it. We could manage it with our modern production systems in place.

The big issue is market failure. If we can't export our product, we're done. It really doesn't matter whether or not we've wiped out that one farm in terms of the disease. It's the issue of how to get our business back up and running again, exporting to places like Japan, South Korea, the United States, China and so on.

11:25 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Dickson.

Thank you, Mr. Berthold.

Mr. Drouin, you have six minutes.

11:25 a.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for being here today.

Mr. Pelletier, you talked about the organization that brings together several organizations to deal with swine health. You focused on prevention, preparation and intervention.

We understand that if we don't protect ourselves, we may suffer major consequences, such as African swine fever.

How do you educate producers to change their ways and get them onside?

11:30 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

Producers are already aware of the significance of diseases. Work has been done in Quebec for several years. It's a key issue that Mr. Duval can speak to.

When a new issue like this arises, we, at the EQSP, will make many presentations to producers and stakeholders to communicate the situation. We then develop tools to help them to quickly detect the disease and establish protocols to enhance biosecurity to protect their herds, for instance.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Okay.

You mentioned the PigTrace traceability system. How far does this system go in terms of traceability?

11:30 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

The PigTrace program was created by a regulation of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, or CFIA.

Only certain people have access to the data, so CFIA operations people. As for the management of PigTrace, the Équipe québécoise de santé porcine doesn't have access to the data.

Obviously, in a crisis situation, we want the agency or database manager to know the movement of pigs from an infected farm and to have quick access to the data. This would facilitate disease control and provide information on the epidemiological links between the infected site and other potential sites to contain the disease as quickly as possible.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Okay.

You also referred to the zoning system. We know that an agreement was made last week with the United States. Mr. Dickson also mentioned a zoning agreement with Japan or South Korea.

Is this important for you too? Are your export markets in these countries as well?

11:30 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

Yes, these are all potential markets. They are the same markets that Mr. Dickson mentioned.

As we said, there are 80. Of course, they aren't all of the same importance. Our interest is to have as many prior agreements as possible that recognize zoning with as many of our trading partners as possible. If some people refuse to trade during a crisis, the more potential opportunities we have, the more it will minimize the impacts on the sector and the need to reduce livestock.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

I have one last question about market diversification.

You represent producers. Do you also work with processors? We may have access to markets in Japan and China. Do you work with processors to make sure all our eggs aren't in one basket? If a country is ever affected, it would be felt more by our producers.

11:30 a.m.

David Duval President, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

The EQSP board of directors is made up of producers and processors. There are also the mills. Everyone is working hard to find solutions. In our opinion, it is important that everyone talk to each other and that there is good coordination when we want to put something in place.

As Mr. Dickson said, the Japanese market is the most lucrative market for Canada. Clearly, it is essential that we maintain those markets. It took us a long time to reach those markets and to achieve some mutual respect. We have previously experienced the loss of other markets in Asia. It takes years to rebuild that. So we must not lose the markets.

11:30 a.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Mr. Dickson, you've mentioned an interesting stat. Regarding the diversification of our markets, you mentioned that if Japan were to close, for instance, that would be the end for pork producers in Manitoba.

On our side, you mentioned that the BRM programs are not responding, that they're not necessarily answering those types of issues. What are you suggesting? I know those conversations happen every five years with the provinces. How do we move forward from here in terms of ensuring that our BRMs are responsive?

11:30 a.m.

General Manager, Manitoba Pork Council

We're having discussions with the provincial government right now to look at how the BRM programs or a suite of programs could fit in. The challenge we're facing is that these programs affect all of agriculture. When you make changes in AgriStability, you also affect how it would apply to crop producers and so on. It gets very complicated.

We went through a downsizing with country of origin labelling in 2008. We went from shipping 110,000 baby pigs a week to about 70,000 to the United States. We've gone through a herd reduction exercise. The problem we faced at the time was that many producers ran out of cash. How do you design a program that puts some cash in place that can be accessed by producers, so that they have an orderly process in place to downsize and follows strict, humane practices?

11:35 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

Mr. MacGregor, you have six minutes.

May 28th, 2019 / 11:35 a.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Pelletier and Mr. Duval, I'll start with you. We had representatives of the Canada Border Services Agency appear before the committee during our last meeting. They have allocated $32 million over the next five years for detector dogs. I asked them about the rate of illegal pork product detections. Their detector dog service teams were responsible for just over 5,000 searches and they made 7,000 interceptions of prohibited food. Of that, about 25% to 30% of all of those food, plant and animal seizures were pork products. Those are pretty shocking statistics.

You have called for a faster implementation. Do you have any details? Do you want more money or just a faster timeline? Can you provide this committee with an update on what you would like to see specifically, so that we can include it as a recommendation?

11:35 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

I guess we didn't see any timeline on the implementation, so I don't know if they're spread over five years for the implementation. Our message is that we know it takes a few months to train those dogs, we fully understand that, but given the urgency of the situation, they should look at shortening the training or doing as many as possible in the shortest time frame so that they are implemented.

We understand that there are few dogs, and they have to focus on airplanes from Asia, but since the beginning of the year there are already four new countries that have been infected: Cambodia, and now they talk about North Korea, Vietnam and Mongolia. If it continues to spread to the Philippines and others, there are even more travellers. Our message is to do it as quickly as possible. Probably the agency services are in a better position to determine the best number of dogs they need to do the job.

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

You also made mention of backyard pigs and food waste. I have a lot of constituents in my riding. It's a pretty big rural area with a very long history of farming. A lot of people like to raise two or three pigs for their own family's use. They find it a good way to get rid of old food scraps. Is there anything in particular you want to identify as a more specific recommendation for the keeping of backyard pigs?

11:35 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

Our main concern there is if people use food scraps. I guess if the meat is from Canada, then the food scraps are not of much concern because we don't have the disease yet. The issue is if one family receives a visitor bringing some contaminated pork product carrying the virus from one of those infected countries. It just takes one event to bring a disaster. It would go in the food scraps of those pigs.

11:35 a.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Thank you.

Mr. Dickson, we had the Canadian Pork Council appear before our committee at the last meeting, and they did talk in some depth about the possibility of creating a pork promotion and research agency. Do you have anything to add to that? Basically in the context of African swine fever, do you think there are resources or avenues for co-operation that would be more effective under such an agency? Is there anything you can add to the testimony that was brought forward?

11:35 a.m.

General Manager, Manitoba Pork Council

Our council has always supported the formation of the proposed agency. If we had it in place, it would have provided some funds for us to come up with some innovative ways to improve our security, for example, through the research component of it. It will also provide some assurance of funding for our national organization through tough times as well. We're a supporter of the proposed program.

We're already paying the U.S. to have a similar program in place, because when we export product to the U.S., they have a national check-off that is in place already.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Mr. de Bruyn, I don't want to leave you out. Did you have anything to add to that? I'll give you a chance to put your voice on the record.

11:40 a.m.

Board Vice-Chair, Ontario Pork

On the last issue, we certainly agree with Manitoba that it's important to have a national agency. I think, as an issue of equity and fairness, since product going to the U.S. pays the fee, there should be a reciprocal agreement coming this way. Nationally they have a great plan on what to use those funds for, so we're in support.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

When you look at our efforts with the international community, you see we now have that agreement with the United States about zoning and so on, and of course there were, I think, those discussions in Paris. Is there anything further that you would like to see happen on the international scene in terms of co-operation, like a freer passing of information, etc.?

11:40 a.m.

Board Vice-Chair, Ontario Pork

I'll take your last comment about backyard-raised pigs. It's a plausible scenario that in British Columbia, the farm-raised pigs could maybe be the place where ASF lands in this country. The zoning issue would be the most important next step. That would put the whole country off the market for a predetermined amount of time.

The U.S. has already said that if we isolated it to a certain part of this country, we could have access again. But just envision Japan or some of our other largest markets not recognizing our zoning or our attempt to zone. That speaks to the traceability issue as well, that this whole country would be held hostage for a least a year, and possibly longer, if you look back to the mad cow case of 2013.

At that time, I think the question would then become, do we want an industry and at what size? I think a quick zoning recognition by other countries would give us the ability to rebuild this industry in a relatively short period, and we'd be the exporters that we'd like to be. A prolonged period of no access to international markets would force this country to rethink our position on pork production for the foreseeable—

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. de Bruyn.

11:40 a.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Thank you.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

Mr. Poissant, you have six minutes.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

Jean-Claude Poissant Liberal La Prairie, QC

My thanks to the witnesses. I have a couple of quick questions for them.

The first is about research. How is it evolving? You are saying that the disease was detected a number of years ago and is known. Do the existing cases mean that the disease is progressing more quickly?

Which one of you could answer?

11:40 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

What we know is that there is no treatment or vaccine for the disease. I was reading an article this week reporting that the U.S. Department of Agriculture—or was it an expert—is not expecting a vaccine to be available for at least five or six years. The challenge is that we are dealing with a DNA virus, which is therefore very complex. As for the other countries, I cannot tell you whether or not they have intensified their research in recent months, but they have not yet found a cure or vaccine, probably because of the complexity of the virus and the disease.

11:40 a.m.

Liberal

Jean-Claude Poissant Liberal La Prairie, QC

On another subject, Canada organized a first international forum on the ASF that welcomed 150 delegates from 15 countries. A map was submitted showing the countries where the disease is present, those where it is absent and those about which nothing is known. How can we find out whether a country is already infected but is not reporting it? Are there still countries where reporting the disease is not mandatory?

11:40 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

Most countries in the world are members of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), which receives formal international reports. However, member countries remain free to decide whether or not to report cases that occur on their territory.

For example, North Korea is a member of the OIE, but has not yet reported any cases despite recent suspicions in several media reports that the disease has entered the country. For its part, China has just announced that it has reduced its hog herd by 22.3% between April 2018 and April 2019, while reporting only 130 cases to the OIE. However, we suspect that the actual number of cases in China is much higher.

So there is a problem with some countries not reporting their true situation and I think there is no easy solution to that.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Jean-Claude Poissant Liberal La Prairie, QC

We have a lot of discussions with our neighbours to the south about the animals. Could you tell us about the transportation rules that apply to these animals?

11:45 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

I am not involved in transportation matters. Are you referring specifically to the shipment of hogs from Canada to the United States?

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Jean-Claude Poissant Liberal La Prairie, QC

Yes, and vice versa. I am particularly interested in the safety of animal transportation.

11:45 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

As far as I know, no U.S. hogs are coming to Canada for slaughter or fattening. Any U.S. hogs entering Canada must be quarantined and comply with CFIA health regulations.

On our end, we certainly ship a lot of hogs to the United States, but I am not familiar with the details of the paperwork that needs to be done. You could ask Mr. Dickson or Mr. de Bruyn.

11:45 a.m.

General Manager, Manitoba Pork Council

There is a difference between pork and live pigs. The pork products are governed by CFIA and all the regulations. We import a significant amount of pork from the United States as well, and there are long-standing trade agreements on that.

All our live animals in Canada have to have certificates of health when they go down there. Very few live animals come back from the United States. The only ones I know of are breeding stock through genetic companies, and they have to go into a quarantine period before they are released to farms.

At this time Canada doesn't import live animals from the United States for processing, that I know of. It makes no sense anyway to ship them here. They make more money processing them in the United States.

In terms of our transportation regulations, CFIA is in the process of changing the regulations, and one of the issues we have to deal with is the washing of trailers that come back from the United States. In Manitoba we've instituted a hog transportation program using our marketing regulation, whereby all trailers coming back from the United States have to be properly washed and disinfected at certified wash stations. Our problem is that we don't trust the wash stations in the United States to do that at this time. There is no certification program down there.

Currently trailers going to slaughter plants can come back into Canada as long as they've been scraped down. Our regulations will preclude that. All trailers coming back will have to be cleaned and disinfected at proper wash stations in Manitoba. It only applies to Manitoba. The regulations for other provinces have not been changed.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Jean-Claude Poissant Liberal La Prairie, QC

Okay.

Do I have a little time left?

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

You have 30 seconds.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Jean-Claude Poissant Liberal La Prairie, QC

As we know, the pork industry is a major one. However, when there is a disease, grain consumption decreases; there is a surplus of grain, and packing plants close.

Has the potential domino effect ever been assessed?

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Please answer very quickly.

11:45 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

No, not in detail, because each scenario is different. We would have to start with specific scenarios and try to quantify them. In any case, there is no detailed study showing all the potential and secondary impacts.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Jean-Claude Poissant Liberal La Prairie, QC

Thank you.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Pelletier.

I would like to acknowledge the presence of Nick Whalen.

I just noticed that you're here, so you're very quiet. That's good, but not always.

Mr. Longfield, it's your turn for six minutes.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

It's always good to have Nick in the room.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Nick Whalen Liberal St. John's East, NL

I thought you were going to recognize me.

11:45 a.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the presenters.

I want to start with Mr. de Bruyn and say thank you, first of all, for coming to my constituency office last week so we could talk about this in more detail. In our conversation, we talked a bit about PigTrace and going to PigTrace 2.0. Mr. Pelletier just said that the data is hard to get and that sharing of data is one of the difficulties. We talked about zoning and traceability.

Could you talk a bit more about PigTrace 2.0 and how it might be developed through the barn that's just north of Guelph, if we put some investment into the technology in the pig barn north of Guelph, the research station?

11:45 a.m.

Board Vice-Chair, Ontario Pork

PigTrace is a stand-alone product that represents traceability for livestock. The swine version is called PigTrace.

It's very important for us to get back into the market. I think, first of all, the best thing for North America is not to have ASF land in North America, and not to land in Canada is probably the number two best scenario. If it lands in this country, PigTrace will be vital to convincing our trading partners that we know where the disease is, that we've isolated it to a certain area, and that we can then assure our trading partners that other areas of the country will not receive pigs or products from that area.

I think I'm convinced that, if ASF landed on our shores, eradicating it in this country would not be difficult with the value that PigTrace adds to our knowledge of where pigs are and where they're moving.

From a producer's perspective, I guess there is still a learning curve, so there are some producers who maybe don't yet see the importance of submitting their data. There are some big government issues, I guess. Then I think the program has been funded reasonably so far to collect the data, but to my knowledge, nobody has indulged in searching how we would use it now in the case of a disease outbreak or whether we should maybe put a few more resources towards some analysis of the data and its effectiveness in the zoning process.

Does that answer your question, Mr. Longfield?

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Yes, it does. Thank you.

There is another piece of not going into data. You talked about the AgManifest software and getting electronic.... When you were in Guelph, we talked about electronic signatures versus having to get paper with penned signatures and how that delays the process of shipping and processing.

It seems to me that, if we went towards the digital version, it would be good for the industry anyway, and it's something we should be looking towards. Is that a fair statement?

11:50 a.m.

Board Vice-Chair, Ontario Pork

That's a very fair statement. I think most producers are at least at the cellphone stage, not all. I think the capabilities of technologies now would be that, when a producer markets his hogs, whether they're from one barn to another, or straight to a processor, or even to another province, that the technology is there.

Ontario Pork has built a platform above PigTrace, we'll call it, an interface that allows our producers to submit their information through the AgManifest platform, which then provides it to PigTrace. That allows for a couple of things. It also allows for producers to use that data in their own management of their farms.

The part that we're trying to add right now is what we call an annex 4, and that's a requirement. The CFIA has done a great job on protecting our international markets. Some of our customers demand that we don't use a certain product called ractopamine and, in order to assure our customers of that, we need to fill out this paper, annex 4. We're in discussions with CFIA right now to make that an electronic signature to facilitate better movement of information.

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

In fact, the ractopamine issue is the one that hit us with China and also with Russia.

11:50 a.m.

Board Vice-Chair, Ontario Pork

That was several years ago, yes.

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

We could have had access to those markets if we had installed some different technology to help us with traceability.

11:50 a.m.

Board Vice-Chair, Ontario Pork

Those issues certainly exacerbated the challenge of knowing everything we can about where our product moves.

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Great. Thank you.

To Mr. Dickson and Mr. Pelletier, from Quebec and Manitoba, if we look at how we could have a national umbrella so that data could be shared across the country.... The University of Guelph is looking at a food nexus idea of having data for all agriculture products available across the country in a food nexus federal development proposal they have put together.

Is that something that would benefit or is that something that...? We've talked about provincial relationships here, but there is also the national umbrella to make sure we have national security for our food.

11:50 a.m.

General Manager, Manitoba Pork Council

For your information, the PigTrace program is actually in our office in Winnipeg. There are two staff members associated with the program. One of them is seconded from our staff to manage this. It's a national program. The data is housed nationally through the ATQ system out of Quebec, so CFIA has full access to all that information at any time. We and other provinces are in the process of looking at how we release that information in an emergency situation to the decision-makers who are going to be sitting in these emergency operations centres, both in the provinces and at the national level as well. We're working closely with CFIA, and the CVO office will actually have some jurisdiction on this thing as well, to try to make sure all that information flows in.

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Great.

11:50 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

With regard to disease control, in addition to animal movement, we have to do tracing of all movement onto farms. I think eventually technology will help because when we do tracing it's not only the animal movement but also the feed truck movement. For anybody who has gone to the farm, we need to know if there are epidemiological linkings with other farms. That's another step we need to eventually tackle.

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Thank you.

Does it include feed as well or just feed trucks?

11:50 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Answer with a yes or no, please.

11:55 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

It's mostly the vehicles.

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Thank you.

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Longfield.

Thank you, Mr. Pelletier.

Mr. Shipley, we have about five minutes.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON

Thank you very much.

Mr. de Bruyn and all of you, thank you so much.

I'm not sure the general public reads about it and actually has an understanding of the significance it would have to a very significant part of our economy in this country. When you were talking about the traceability, it would seem to me that establishing the zones and getting that established with our trading partners is critical. It is vital, along with the pig traceability. You have your zones and then the traceability of how everything moves. I know in the chicken industry the trucks don't go into the farms unless they go through some disinfectant first. I've seen them stop at the laneway, do whatever they do on the vehicle and then proceed into the farm.

In terms of the zoning you have with countries, did you actually get what you want? Second, is there a continuity with the trading partners that we have in terms of establishing those zones, not only within a province? John's within Ontario, as opposed to Manitoba or Quebec. Did we get what we wanted in the zoning, and is there a continuity with it with our trading partners?

I'm not sure who wants to take that.

John.

11:55 a.m.

Board Vice-Chair, Ontario Pork

I'm not sure if I'm wise enough on the national stage to understand the difference of what countries would demand. If you look at this great country, though, in an ideal world, in a disease outbreak, one portion of the country could then focus on maybe providing domestic consumption product, while the other part or province still satisfies our international customers. There's an ideal situation.

How large the zone is and what defines it? If you go back to the PigTrace, it would be critical, I think, to create the zone and to assure our partners that we've been able to prove to them what's happened in this specific area, whether that's a farm and the small area around it, whether that's a township, whether that's a county or whether that's a whole province. I think PigTrace is critical before the fact. Zoning will become critical after the fact to decide what type of an industry we would have subsequent to a disastrous outbreak.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON

Mr. Pelletier, did you want to make a comment?

11:55 a.m.

Director, Équipe québécoise de santé porcine, Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec

Yes, I'll just mention that the principles of zoning have been determined by the OIE and are recognized. The issue is the recognition of the implementation of those zoning principles among trading partners. We know we have an agreement with the U.S. and we have an agreement with Europe. Now we need to have an agreement on the recognition of the zoning principles with more of our trading partners. That's the key issue.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON

There are two things that I'm concerned about. One is the producers recognizing the significance or seriousness this has on an industry. Maybe you're a small producer. Maybe you don't have a next generation coming. I don't know. Particularly with the backyard, I don't have any of that. I don't know of much in southwestern Ontario, but certainly in parts of the country, we do. Why are the producers hesitating to produce the data that is needed in terms of the traceability? Is it because of complications, that they don't have the expertise or that they don't see it as necessary?

John, do you have any thoughts on it in terms of Ontario? We have all sizes of producers.

11:55 a.m.

Board Vice-Chair, Ontario Pork

I think all of your reasons are relevant. Older producers don't adopt technology. Maybe some people don't see the importance of it, and I think there's always a little bit of that “I don't really want the government to know what I'm doing” factor. That's a tough one to beat as well.

I think, though, that this is the opportunity, with the threat of a major disease, to tell our producers how important it is for us to know nationally where things are moving, so that we can prove a—

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON

You want to have you, not us, telling your producers. Judging by the statements you made, John, they trust the ground roots a lot more than governments saying, this is what you should be doing.

I don't know what that promotional part is, but if there is some way we can help, I think we need to be there, because this is significant across our country.

How am I doing?

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

We're just about out of time.

11:55 a.m.

Conservative

Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON

I'll pass, then.

Thank you very much. I appreciate your time.

11:55 a.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you. I want to thank the panel—Les Éleveurs de porcs du Québec, Monsieur Duval and Monsieur Pelletier; Mr. Dixon; and Mr. de Bruyn—for taking part and providing very interesting information that will be part of our recommendations.

Thank you.

We're going to take a short break of a couple of minutes, and then we'll get back for our second part.

12:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Welcome to our second hour on the study of African swine fever, pursuant to Standing Order 108.

With us, we have a video conference witness from Maple Leaf Foods, Iain Stewart, the Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, from Toronto, Ontario. Also, from Olymel, we have Mr. Réjean Nadeau, Chief Executive Officer.

Welcome to our committee.

We'll start with your presentations, for seven minutes each.

Mr. Nadeau, would you like to start?

12:05 p.m.

Réjean Nadeau Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

Certainly.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

Olymel is already working with national associations, industry and governments on the issue of African swine fever. I will therefore try to avoid duplication with other presentations, and will focus on our own message instead.

For a company like ours that exports more than 50% of its pork products, the appearance and reporting of a case of AFS could have disastrous consequences for the company: a drop in sales of almost 50%, or about $2 billion; a reduction in the number of jobs by about 7,000; a decrease in slaughter volumes of about 50%.

This would, of course, have a major impact on all Olymel's service providers and suppliers. It would also lead to a significant loss of income for producers and farm families in all regions of Quebec. Finally, as the storage capacity for fresh and frozen products is already saturated, commercial hogs and piglets would need to be disposed of, and sow farrowing would have to be stopped.

In our opinion, it is almost unthinkable that a single case of African swine fever in wild boars, or on a hobby farm, could lead to the complete closure of Canada's borders.

One of Olymel's recommendations is that the federal government be very active in lobbying the World Organisation for Animal Health to address the fact that ASF should be on the list of diseases causing such trade disruption. Given that African swine fever has no implications for human health, but rather for swine herds, much like porcine epidemic diarrhea (PED), why not treat ASF like PED, and let the industry deal with the disease and its eradication, with no disproportionate impact on all the markets?

Olymel applauds and congratulates the government for its proactive role and the speed with which tangible actions have been taken to prevent ASF from entering Canada. All those efforts are necessary, of course.

However, we have concerns about the additional control measures put in place in seaports. To date, we have not had a concrete answer on the measures in place to detect illegal feed entries from countries affected by ASF. In light of what was discovered in the United States a few weeks ago, we can suspect that feed is passing freely through the controls in place.

A lot of work needs to be done to prepare for a prompt response in the event of ASF. Our preparedness and prompt response are essential to quickly containing the disease. However, a number of questions remain unanswered in terms of the key aspects of an intervention plan.

For example, what about epidemiological and screening investigations, increased biosecurity and cleaning and disinfection activities, quarantine and movement controls, mass depopulation and euthanasia on farms, and options for the disposal of carcasses following mass depopulation?

On March 27, Olymel held a discussion forum in Winnipeg with all stakeholders in the western Canadian pork industry. A number of the issues above remain outstanding. The role of government in preparing is important. Industry needs some officials to answer those questions.

The World Organisation for Animal Health has provided for zoning and compartmentalization as tools for countries to restore the security of international trade in the event of an infectious disease outbreak.

Olymel believes in the importance of having the compartments in place before a case occurs. The zones, however, will be established during an ASF outbreak. Olymel would like to stress the importance of the recent agreement with the U.S. on enforcing the zones to allow trade between the two countries to continue. The efforts to reach an agreement must continue with our primary partners. We are thinking mainly of Japan, China and Mexico.

Olymel is a member of the working group on zoning and compartmentalization. The pork industry, the Canadian Pork Council, the Canadian Meat Council, Canada Pork International, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada have a coordinated approach to zoning and compartmentalization in Canada.

Finally, the government has an important role to play in helping the industry define compartments and negotiate agreements with the major countries to which we export. It is important to quickly determine whether the Canadian pork sector will be able to establish compartments and whether the Canadian traceability system is sufficiently reliable to allow for setting up zones and recognizing compartments.

Thank you very much for your attention. I am ready to answer any questions you may have.

12:10 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Nadeau.

Now, from Maple Leaf Foods, we have Mr. Iain Stewart for up to seven minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Stewart.

12:10 p.m.

Iain Stewart Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

Thank you for the invitation to speak to you today.

I have had the opportunity to go through some of the other presentations, so I know there has been considerable detail provided on preparedness and prevention on ASF. I would like to change the level to discuss both macro and personal outcomes as they relate to the impact of ASF on Canada's pork sector.

I applaud the focus of careful planning for prevention and preparedness. I also recognize the motivating force of a guillotine effect in an instant trade embargo. However, notwithstanding all the careful planning and scientific rigour brought to bear on this vexing problem, most scientists and epidemiologists we've talked to tell me that ASF will certainly arrive on our shores.

I would like to tell a personal story. At Maple Leaf, we operate 205 hog sites that employ 714 people. We also operate two pork plants at Lethbridge and Brandon that employ another 2,500 people and process nearly four million hogs per year. We recognize the threat ASF poses to our employees' security and well-being. Many of our employees are new Canadians who have come here to make a better life.

Consider William and Selene, who both work in our Brandon facility. William has worked on our cut floor for 12 years. He started out as an hourly employee in the packaging area when he emigrated from El Salvador. Today, William is a supervisor on the loin line, our biggest production department in Brandon with nearly 200 employees. His wife Selene emigrated from El Salvador two years earlier. She also started on the production floor in the ham-boning department and now works as a food safety technician in our QA department. They have two boys. They own a home, and they are extremely proud of the life they have built for themselves in Brandon. Their hope is that their boys will continue their education and thrive as they have been able to do.

If ASF arrives in Canada tomorrow, thousands of families like William and Selene's would lose their livelihoods, and many of them overnight. Imagine that, overnight, thousands of families on the street.

While it's extremely difficult to quantify the full potential impacts of an ASF outbreak, economists routinely say the impact would be over $45 billion to the U.S. and Canadian economies and potential direct and indirect job losses for over 125,000 people.

This isn't about some sick animals, and it isn't about human illness. ln the 21st century, this is about economic Armageddon over sudden trade embargoes. That any person in this room would allow such human devastation over the outbreak of an inevitable animal disease is simply wrong, and we believe it's morally wrong. We have the tools, skills and intellect to do better.

At Maple Leaf, we are trying to do our part in prevention. We are stepping up our biosecurity, educating our employees and advocating for policies to protect our borders. We have also embarked on a compartmentalization project for our western hog supply to keep our business running and our ability to export intact. However, who knows if that will be acceptable. We are piloting a geofence for hog barns that tracks movements of trucks and the livestock they carry to help us analyze movement and isolate animal disease issues, like ASF, if they occur.

Despite all our efforts, we find ourselves like the proverbial Dutch boy with his finger in a dike trying to hold back a threat we can't see until it has done its damage.

We certainly have great respect for the OIE and what it has done historically, but 100 years later ASF is shattering old paradigms, and that means we must adopt a new one. Our goal of “prevent and prepare” is simply inadequate. Our new goal should be, take away the risk of financial ruin for these tens of thousands of families, and keep trade flowing.

We need to think differently, creatively and ambitiously. As an executive, two of the most powerful words in my vocabulary are “why” and “how”. Therefore, I challenge the government and industry to consider the following: Why does ASF in wild boar stop all trade? Why does ASF stop trade but PEDv does not? How can we ensure that decision-makers like you fully understand what is at stake here? Why don’t we have a progressive architecture that solves for risk and allows trade to continue? Why don’t we have a vaccine? Why don’t we have a kill step in the meat?

There simply is no overreacting to ASF. If trends continue, the virus could become truly pandemic and endemic. Therefore, we need to think differently and boldly. We need to make everything possible and not be bound by what seems doable.

I would urge Canadian leaders to never allow a pig virus to steal the livelihood of any of the hundreds of thousands who could also be impacted. I would urge government and industry to find 21st-century solutions to a new challenge and not be blinded by mere prevention and preparedness.

I would urge Canadian and global leaders to act right now. This could occur tomorrow. This has real human impact. These people who work so hard are counting on us.

I leave you with four considerations. First, we need to consider how we change the rules with OIE to allow trade to continue under certain scenarios. The human devastation isn't worth the benefit of not doing so.

Second, we need aggressive deployment of zoning and biosecure compartmentalization as an immediate outcome.

Third, we need to find testing protocols that can ensure the meat we ship is safe, even if the disease is close by. This is also the art of the possible.

Finally, there must be technologies that can provide a kill step as a last resort. For example, can ultra-high pressure pasteurization be made to work acceptably or irradiation or any other means that we haven't yet thought of?

Thank you for your time and attention.

12:20 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Stewart.

Now we will go to our questions and Mr. Dreeshen for six minutes.

12:20 p.m.

Conservative

Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Stewart, I was just going through some of the issues you mentioned, the four steps of making sure we can change the trade rules, aggressive zoning outcomes, the testing protocols for the safe movement of meat, and the kill step as a last resort. The things you mentioned are the why and the how. Obviously, we understand the why.

Do you have some ideas as to whether research or whatever would be able to at least help alleviate some of the concerns on the testing protocols or the potential kill steps for this particular virus?

12:20 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

Unfortunately, there isn't a lot of research out there for this virus. It's currently being done. We have reached out to folks in China and some of our customers in different areas to find out what has been done that we may have access to. It isn't clear exactly what will work on African swine fever.

What I can tell you is that I've been in this industry eight or nine years, and I've never seen closer alignment between some of the government agencies and industry, and the willingness to do what's required to make sure we are prepared for this and that we are good to go if it ever shows up.

The opportunity in front of us is to fund that research in Canada around ASF and rapid testing, and to look at the [Technical difficulty—Editor] for the industry. There are steps in the current plans that I think take too long that could be resolved between industry and government [Technical difficulty—Editor], therefore, shorten that risk.

12:20 p.m.

Conservative

Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB

Thank you.

One of the things we heard in a previous panel was that the U.S. gets some of its feed from some countries that are infected. Do we import feedstock for our hog industry that might have that same concern, or are we able to source all we require for the industry here in Canada?

Mr. Nadeau, do you have any comment on that? Have you heard any of that in your discussions?

12:20 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

Yes, we have heard about it.

We have made representations for controls to be put in place on all imports of feed.

We know that there are some in what we call premixes, that is, vitamins, for example, that are used when manufacturing animal feed. We have asked for additional controls and we have even asked the industry to limit importing those sorts of products.

12:20 p.m.

Conservative

Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB

Thank you.

Mr. Nadeau, you also mentioned the impact of the consequences of even one case and how disastrous it could be. I'm assuming you're looking at it in the same way, with the urgency and emergency that exists to make sure we have a plan and talk about the concerns we have with trade agreements.

You may be aware that I come from Red Deer where we have an Olymel plant and, of course, we have had issues with China on non-tariff trade barriers. Hopefully that is being dealt with, but we urgently have to make sure we keep everything on the straight and narrow so that people aren't concerned about it.

Can you give us a bit of an update as to how you feel we should be dealing with trade issues that might exist?

12:20 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

In terms of the trade problem at the Red Deer plant in particular, I will not make many comments. We are currently in talks and we hope that the matter will be resolved quickly.

As for developing zoning agreements, we urge the government to enter into or conclude negotiations with the countries that are Canada's major clients. Earlier, I mentioned China, Japan and Mexico, but there are others.

So it is very important that everything be in place to provide answers to the questions raised by both Maple Leaf and ourselves, in order to be ready should a case of ASF occur in Canada.

12:25 p.m.

Conservative

Earl Dreeshen Conservative Red Deer—Mountain View, AB

Thank you.

I just wanted to make one point. We are concerned about the backyard pigs and wild boars, and the issues and concerns that exist there. It is really important to get an awareness out to the public, so that they understand the consequences. There could well come a time when you'd see CFIA, or some group like that, needing to take some drastic measures. I think people should understand the consequences of some of their actions.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen.

Mr. Longfield, you have six minutes.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Thanks.

Thanks, Mr. Stewart and Mr. Nadeau, for being here.

Mr. Stewart, particular thanks to Rory McAlpine at Maple Leaf, who really brought this to my attention back in January or so, saying that this is an issue we need to deal with urgently. Thanks to the committee for approving this brief study we're doing.

I ran out of time in the last panel, but with the traceability of food being part of that, at Maple Leaf, how much effort are you putting into the traceability of the food going into the barns?

12:25 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

We put a fair bit of effort into that. There is PigTrace right now inside the pork industry, which needs to be reinvested in and updated. The speed at which the information goes into the system, it's taking too long. Among industry, government and some others, we need to be able to do that faster so that the traceability is there.

I mentioned earlier that we've started geofencing. We're doing that on behalf of the industry, with the belief that if we can get it done, it should be portable and available for everybody. That helps us in terms of things like trace-outs, whenever you get an issue.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Thank you.

The University of Guelph has a bar code of life program. They're bar-coding all life forms in the world. Do you know whether we have a bar code of the animals in China? Have we done a zoning on China to know.... Could we trace anything back to China? Do we know what it is we're trying to find in the DNA?

12:25 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

I'm not aware of that, in terms of DNA sequencing. I'm not aware that Canada is currently working on anything related to ASF, at that level. As you know, you would need very high-level labs to do that. I understand the U.S. is starting to look at those things, but I'm not aware that we would have that yet in Canada.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

The University of Guelph has done a field unit that I saw at a presentation last week. It seems that would be a big opportunity, to at least get permission to go to China and be able to trace. Do we know whether shipments from China have entered into any other markets in the world? Have there been instances in China or eastern Europe where ASF is present, and we've been able to see the movement into another country? How long ago did that happen? Do we know whether that's happened?

12:25 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

[Technical difficulty—Editor] the U.S. situation, but we do know that the Japanese test for ASF in the finished product they get at the airports, that they would stop at the airports. They have found at least two—that I'm aware of—live samples of ASF in product that was headed into Japan. They're testing their product as it comes in. A lot of countries do not test. They just destroy when they get the product. Japan does and I believe Australia does as well.

12:25 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

Thanks.

I'm staying with you. My apologies to Mr. Nadeau, but I guess I'm on a bit of an adventure going through the traceability.

This committee did a study on the shipment of animals. We talked about the trailers in the States doing washdowns with recycled water. There isn't any reportability on that. We can't force other countries to report, but now we have to do secondary washing to try to protect our food supply. There are non-reportable pieces to this. Do you have a list of things that we could maybe consider giving to the minister to look at in terms of reportability?

12:30 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

I don't have it handy with me today, but we could certainly pull something together on behalf of the industry that would be able to help us shore up some of those non-reportables. To your point, they do exist.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

That would be very helpful. They might or might not have that information already. However, if we're looking at risk management, I also come from business, and risk management is how to do this in terms of knowing it is going to hit and not creating a panic about it but knowing what we'll do in terms of recovery and treatment after it hits our shores.

Mr. Nadeau, going back to Olymel, are you working together with Maple Leaf and other manufacturers? It sounds as though you have a bit of a council going on in Canada and that these items are being discussed from the processors' point of view.

12:30 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

Yes, we have worked on various committees with the entire industry, including Maple Leaf, in order to submit recommendations and find ways to prevent it.

So the entire pork industry, our competitors and producers alike, and government associations have been working together.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON

That's great. That's where this committee works well across party lines. We collaborate as well and we need the provinces to collaborate with the federal government, so I really appreciate what you're doing from the business point of view and providing us information to try to help you succeed for those families that we just heard about.

Thank you.

12:30 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Longfield.

Now we have Mr. MacGregor, for six minutes.

12:30 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Thank you, Chair.

Mr. Stewart, I'll start with you. Thank you for putting on the record what's at stake here, not only in terms of what the pork industry represents to our economy in dollar figures but also the families that are behind that.

You mentioned in your opening statement that most epidemiologists have told you that it's not a question of if, but when, ASF comes to Canada. I'm thinking of those families. Do you have any suggestions about any type of special programs the government should have ready to help those families in the event of a catastrophic layoff?

12:30 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

I know we should be working on them now. I hope I'm wrong, but when this happens, everything needs to be in a bow and ready to go. There is not going to be a lot of time.

The nature of the hog industry in Canada only allows so much to back up. As you heard Mr. Nadeau say earlier, we collectively export 70% of the product we raise, so within three to five days, depending on who you talk to, every freezer is full and markets are collapsing around us. It will have an almost immediate impact on people who work in the further processing side and producer side.

I am concerned about some of the mental health issues that I'm sure you would have heard of over the last while. All those programs need to be put in place, as well as some things that I'm sure came up over the course of the day.

The CPC has a Canadian ag partnership application for $10 million; that's in play. Animal health Canada, which has just started, is such a good program and we just need to push forward with that for the future, but it is going to be challenging to help us right now. The other thing I would do is put in the pork promotion and research agency, which you probably heard about this morning, and put a check-off in. We need to find ways to get this funding.

In terms of the money from the government, it's a big number. I would be hesitant to put that forward. I'm sure there are smarter people than me who can come up with that answer, unless Mr. Nadeau has it.

12:35 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Thank you.

Thank you for also mentioning the pork promotion and research agency. I think we've heard a very clear message from everyone who has appeared before the committee that this is a necessity. It has been an ask for a few years now. I certainly hope our federal government is listening to this and that we can get the ball rolling on it.

You mentioned some of the biosecurity measures now being put into place at Maple Leaf. Could you elaborate on some of those? Perhaps Mr. Nadeau could also talk about what's going on at Olymel.

12:35 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

Sure.

There are a couple of things. We're in an enhanced buyer security situation today, so we take it to another level. This means that everything has to be signed in and signed out. All trucks are watched going in. Most trucks that go into barns where hogs would be or to deliver hogs are now baked. That kills basically.... Washing gives you a little bit of a break. Baking a truck will actually give you a thermal break in terms of disease that lands on the truck. Within our MLF facilities, every truck that would be going in is baked.

Within a plant we're very strict about who interacts with the animals. There are simple things. We just had a positive for PEDv over the weekend. What that means is that anybody who goes to that barn cannot go to another barn for 48 hours. No truck that goes there can go anywhere else for 48 hours, even with a thermal break.

Our people in our MLF facility, even in the head office, are not allowed to consume pork products. You can't take them into a barn, because you never know. It could be in a product at some point—it's fed to an animal somehow. We have just eliminated doing this altogether. Nobody in our MLF facility is allowed to bring pork products into a barn, or actually into our head office for MLF, as a sign of solidarity with the rest of the team.

There are much more heightened routines than that in terms of how we clean the plant, how we clean the barns, how we clean each of the trucks. We're now spending considerably more money than we would have in the past—I'd say two to three times more—just to give ourselves a better biosecurity break. I'm sure Olymel is doing something similar.

12:35 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Mr. Nadeau, do you have anything to add to that?

12:35 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

Yes, we are following the same model as Maple Leaf. That being said, PED broke out a few years ago. We were able to avoid PED contamination in our facilities, both in eastern and western Canada, through meaningful transportation controls, such as cleaning up all our transportation equipment and controlling the movement of animals and people from farm to farm. As a result, we were able to limit the damage and avoid being affected by the disease in both eastern Canada, particularly in Quebec, and in the west.

12:35 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Nadeau.

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

We'll now have Mr. Peschisolido for six minutes.

12:35 p.m.

Liberal

Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Nadeau and Mr. Stewart, for appearing before us. I agree with you that this is an extremely important issue.

Mr. Stewart, I hope you are wrong and that the swine fever will not be coming here.

I was in China with a delegation last week. We were having bilateral meetings with the executive of the National People's Congress. Agriculture was one of the topics. There's a great deal of concern for their hog industry—perhaps that's even understating it—and the effects this disease could have in China, into Vietnam and into Korea.

Having said that, you talked about a new paradigm for making sure our hog industry is safe, not just a “preserve and protect” one. Can you elaborate a little on that?

12:35 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

I think the challenge in front of us is the current OIE rules on ASF and not being able to trade. We've talked already today about how the minute that this happens—whether it's a wild boar in Cape Breton or Vancouver Island, even if it's away from the domestic hog production side—borders will close pretty much immediately. That is a challenge that you see in China, Vietnam and others.

The paradigm we're talking about is that we need to revisit the OIE and the rules around compartmentalization and willingness to trade. If you believe like I do that, absent a vaccine, this is going to continue around the world, then you end up in a place where you have a lot of protein in parts of the world and no ability to ship it into other parts where there is demand for it.

Last week when you were in China, their numbers on sows would say that they're down almost 10 million sows. That's the Chinese number. That's not somebody guessing. They tend to be conservative on some of those types of things.

We believe that is going to change the thinking around OIE and how everybody else interacts to get to a set of principles that will allow product to still flow and be traded, whether that's compartmentalization or not. That's the new paradigm that we're talking about that we have to push for.

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC

The following question is to both of you, Mr. Stewart and Mr. Nadeau.

Mr. Longfield talked about co-operation between and amongst your companies. The hog industry isn't one huge industry. Yes, there are supply chains, but I'm assuming that the precautions and what has to be done in Quebec would be or could be different from in Ontario and Manitoba. Is that accurate? What kind of co-operation would be required within industry, and also working with governments at both the federal and the provincial levels?

12:40 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

I've never seen the level of co-operation that exists today in the industry. I don't work directly with Mr. Nadeau. He would work with my boss, but I work with Sylvain who works for Mr. Nadeau and who is excellent. We were at the symposium that Olymel ran in western Canada. Even down to the provincial producer level, people were lined up wanting to know what we need to do in order to manage better for this.

I think with government it's been good. We just need to move faster and we need to be better allocators of our resources. We can do certain things that are good for the industry and others can do stuff that's good for the industry, but we're going to have to split that up, agree to work together and push it forward.

I personally do not believe I've ever seen it as aligned as it is today to take advantage of that.

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC

How about you, Mr. Nadeau? Would you like to kick in on this?

12:40 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

I completely agree. The positive side of African swine fever, if there is one, will be that it has brought all the forces together to work toward finding solutions. I think we must continue to build on that momentum.

I would remind you, as my colleague from Maple Leaf did, that in the short and medium term, we must ensure that this type of disease affecting animals is no longer a complete impediment to international trade. It is important that we find a way, whether through zoning or some other means, to continue our trade with major countries.

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC

Mr. Stewart, you mentioned four considerations or four planks in a possible policy approach. In the 30 seconds left, is there anything you want to highlight in those four areas?

12:40 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

Outside of the push with the OIE and managing for the trade, I think that in front of us now is aggressive surveillance and how we want to handle that surveillance across Canada—lined up properly provincially and federally. That could use some investment and support. I think that's the right next step for us. We are going to require that in order to build those zones and those compartments.

12:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Stewart. Thank you, Mr. Peschisolido.

Now we have Monsieur Drouin for six minutes.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Thank you.

Let me start with the representative from Maple Leaf Foods.

Mr. Stewart, I've seen what you've aligned and you've asked, “Why don't we have a vaccine?”

I'm curious to know this. To your knowledge, is there Canadian co-operation to invest in research for a potential vaccine in Canada? Is there a global effort to find a vaccine, or not really?

12:45 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

There absolutely is a global effort to find a vaccine. Unfortunately, the timeline that we hear about, because of the nature of the disease, is a minimum of three years and up to 10.

There is some work being done in Canada around looking for tests and being able to test, but candidly, that's being funded by the U.S. They're funding it in Canadian universities. It's not being funded by us.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Is there a researcher in Canada who would be really well equipped to take the bull by the horns and run with that?

12:45 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

For this bit, I would probably need to talk to Rory. He's a lot closer to that than I would be, but I can get you a name, or a series of names, if required.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Okay.

Mr. Nadeau, from Olymel, do you know whether Quebec researchers are trying to find a possible vaccine?

12:45 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

Research work is being conducted. I don't have a name, but with the magnitude of the consequences of this disease, all the major pharmaceutical companies are certainly looking for a vaccine. The first one to find it will benefit the most.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Yes, exactly.

Then there will be production issues. We will talk about that battle when the time comes.

Mr. Stewart, you've mentioned the kill step in the meat sector. I think I heard.... I walked in just when there was the example in Japan, where they test the meat right at the end. Is that what you were referring to?

12:45 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

What I'm referring to is.... The meat itself is perfectly fine for humans. There is no issue for humans. However, one of the things we know is that, if this happens, people will be concerned. Whether you tell people there is no harm in it—or not—people will be concerned.

The ability to point to a kill step of some kind...and by kill step, I mean the disease is dead. It is not live. Therefore, you wouldn't have to worry about it if it was fed somewhere else. It would be good for the balance of the food chain as you go through further processing.

Heat will kill it. We're not sure about ultra-high pressure. We're trying to get some of that tested. We're not sure about radiation and how that would work. I think people around the world are now starting to take a look at what we could say to consumers later on—even though the meat is safe—that would allow them to feel a degree of comfort.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Mr. Dickson mentioned the concept of a North American fortress approach. I know there was an agreement last week with the U.S., but do you also work with your U.S. counterparts to ensure we have a safe food supply, not only in Canada but also in North America? Is that something you see as a positive as well?

12:45 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

Yes, it is. It's a positive.

We're on a couple of teams that are out of the U.S. We are at the same table with Tyson, Seaboard and Smithfield—all the main players in the U.S.—and we share whatever we get out of that with our Canadian counterparts, so it's plugged in. There is a lot of effort going on there. We can learn from what the U.S. is doing about what works and what doesn't work. They can learn from us what does and doesn't work. It's much more collaborative than it probably ever was in the past.

12:45 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Mr. Nadeau, a witness was talking to us earlier about a North American approach, rather than focusing on animal safety in our own country. Mr. Stewart from Maple Leaf mentioned it, but I guess it's the same thing at Olymel.

Do you work with industry in the United States?

12:50 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

Yes, a joint symposium was recently held in Ottawa with the U.S. industry. We have never worked so closely with the United States. However, Canada and the United States are net exporters. Canada is to a greater extent, exporting almost 60% of the product, but the United States also has to export the product. It is therefore in the best interests of both countries to work together to find solutions.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

Francis Drouin Liberal Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON

Thank you very much.

12:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

Mr. Berthold, you have the floor for six minutes.

12:50 p.m.

Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much, Mr. Nadeau and Mr. Stewart.

I have a few more general questions. I understand the urgency for the government to have a response plan if a case were found.

Mr. Nadeau, I particularly appreciated your comment about the OIE. The industry must be allowed to respond more directly without closing all the markets, because there really is no danger for humans. People can be really scared about African swine fever, but they are not told enough about the fact that it has no effect on humans.

Statistics Canada has just published some statistics on pork sales. In 2018, sales of pork internationally decreased by 8.9%, but China will probably increase its imports of pork for some time. How are those major market fluctuations handled in the event of livestock diseases? There are positive aspects to the situation, but there is also clearly a negative side. At the moment, Canada is benefiting from a positive aspect of the appearance of African swine fever, but, one day, China will replenish its stock.

When that day comes, how will we be able to avoid employee lay-offs and to maintain the industry's performance? That question is for you, Mr. Nadeau.

12:50 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

It could take several years for the situation to be back to normal in China. Some people think that the situation will never be back to normal completely.

But, all things being equal, demand has grown recently in all developing countries, principally those in southeast Asia. That is true for China, and it will also be true for Vietnam, the Philippines, and so on. So the production growth in Canada in order to meet China's current demand will meet the increasing international demand anyway.

12:50 p.m.

Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

Mr. Nadeau, I do not want to talk about the specific case of China and about the ban on the plant in Red Deer.

When we concentrate a major portion of our exports in a single country that does not quite have the same trading standards as we do, it sort of poses a risk for our industry and our economy. That is what is happening with canola.

What measures are Canadian companies taking to guard against that risk?

12:50 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

We must not concentrate all our activities in a single country. There are some customers we have to keep, even if it means a sacrifice in terms of a reduced profit margin. In the short term, we have to let some opportunities go by in order to keep customers for the medium and long term.

12:50 p.m.

Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

Is that what we are doing at the moment? The situation is a concern. Currently, there is great demand in China, but we don't want that country to suddenly stop importing from Canada for any reason.

12:55 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

I feel that China is the only country that gives value to most of the products exported there.

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

Okay.

12:55 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

So, if the products are not sold in China, they lose a lot of their value. We are not really exporting to China at the expense of other markets. Products meant for China do not have a lot of other markets. In fact, even when they cannot be exported to China, they end up there by a different route in certain cases.

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

Okay.

Mr. Stewart, I imagine that the situation is the same for you. The disease is providing quite extraordinary opportunities in China.

Is it important for the Canadian government to maintain heathy relations with China so that our exports can continue and we can continue to sell in that country?

12:55 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

I think, given the fact that we export so much of our product, it's important that we have the availability of all the markets that we have access to today. I think the notion of China being open is great, obviously, to Mr. Nadeau's point. There are certain products that go to China that don't go really anywhere else in the world.

As to the size of the gap we're talking about here from ASF, if you took all the product that any exporter of pork ships anywhere in the world and sent it all to China tomorrow, it wouldn't fill the hole that they have right now. What that does is it actually opens up as more countries—for example, Europe sends an awful lot of product to China.... As that continues to go, those other markets are looking for product and we can also go to those through the effective trade negotiations that have been done in the past.

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Stewart.

12:55 p.m.

Senior Vice-President and General Manager, Pork Complex, Maple Leaf Foods Inc.

It can feel as if it's China, but it's just not all about China.

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

Luc Berthold Conservative Mégantic—L'Érable, QC

Thank you.

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Mr. Stewart.

Thank you, Mr. Berthold.

Mr. Poissant, you have a few minutes to ask a question.

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

Jean-Claude Poissant Liberal La Prairie, QC

So we have the Prime Minister to thank.

Mr. Nadeau, you talked earlier about controls that have been effective to a certain extent in the Maritimes. Can you tell us more about that?

12:55 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

Controls that have been effective to a certain extent—

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

Jean-Claude Poissant Liberal La Prairie, QC

In the Maritimes.

12:55 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

No, that is not what I said. I was talking about “maritime” imports, those coming in by sea.

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

Jean-Claude Poissant Liberal La Prairie, QC

Okay. My apologies.

12:55 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel

That has nothing to do with the country. We think that there should be better control over what comes in by ship.

Imports by land or air are relatively well controlled. We have our doubts about what comes in by sea. We saw what happened recently in the United States, where they found products, I forget how many tonnes, from China, some of which were processed products.

I was talking about maritime shipments, not the maritime provinces.

12:55 p.m.

Liberal

Jean-Claude Poissant Liberal La Prairie, QC

Right.

I have one final question.

In your opinion, on this matter, how are relations between the CFIA and provincial officials? In Quebec, for example, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food controls those imports.

How are those relationships, to your knowledge?

12:55 p.m.

Chief Executive Officer, Olymel