Agriculture Committee on May 28th, 2019

[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?

[Réjean Nadeau]

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.

[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.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen.

Mr. Longfield, you have six minutes.

[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?

[Iain Stewart]

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.

[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?

[Iain Stewart]

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.

[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?

[Iain Stewart]

[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.

[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?

[Iain Stewart]

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.

[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.

[Réjean Nadeau]

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.

[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.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Longfield.

Now we have Mr. MacGregor, for six minutes.

[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?

[Iain Stewart]

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.

[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.

[Iain Stewart]

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.

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

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

[Réjean Nadeau]

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.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Nadeau.

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

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

[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?

[Iain Stewart]

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.