Agriculture Committee on June 6th, 2019

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks, Madam Minister, for being here for the second time in a month.

It's a great committee in terms of focus on agriculture and farms, and I think that even when we're working on reports we do have a common focus. One of the things I really enjoy in Parliament is the interaction that we have at committee, and I really like seeing our work end up in budgets.

The food policy study that we did was a big one. We worked on it together. We hashed out things. We made recommendations, and $19 million has been included in the 2019-20 estimates, with $134 million over five years for the food policy.

We've never had a food policy, so one of the questions is, how do we come up with the numbers? What process are we following? How do we allocate the funds? How are they going to be used?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

There had been very important consultations before that. I want to acknowledge as well the work of my predecessor, Minister MacAulay, of course. It has been a very interesting process, especially when we see that 45,000 people participated in this consultation. We could feel that Canadians were asking for such a food policy.

I would say that the estimates and the first phase...because I believe that it's the first phase that we have announced in the budget, and I strongly hope that it will be a lasting policy and will get into our DNA in Canada.

There will be a fund for local infrastructure. The amount that has been allocated to that is $50 million.

Another one will be working on promoting Canadian products. For the last three months, I've had the chance to meet with so many farmers, and I think we have so many good stories to tell. I want to make sure that this part of the food policy promoting Canadian products also includes getting Canadians to know more about our Canadian agriculture and the good work that our farmers are doing, getting them to better understand where their food comes from, and strengthening the trust and the pride between Canadian consumers and farmers. There will be $25 million attached to this portion.

Tackling food fraud will also be something important. Canadians told us that they worry. Even if we are confident in our actual system—I don't have any doubts about its safety—still, when there is a product that comes to us under one name, and later on we understand there are other ingredients in it, we want to be stronger on that to make sure that we buy what we think we're buying. This is something that Canadians care about a lot.

There will be some funds directly allocated for our northern and isolated communities. We're talking about $15 million specifically dedicated to these communities.

Food waste is also an important part of the food policy.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I'd like to build on that last point. I'm really glad to hear you say that.

Recently, the City of Guelph and County of Wellington were awarded $10 million to create Canada's first circular food economy. One of the main goals of that is to reduce food waste and to take food waste as an input for other things, like energy or like making bioplastics or other things we can do from food waste.

As a member of Parliament, how can I tie in some of these innovative programs to the food policy? Do you, your staff, or your officials have any idea? We talk about an all-of-government approach. There's a lot of innovation around food, and there's a lot of funding around innovation that's separate from agriculture. How do we bring all this good energy together?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Specifically, there's $26.3 million for reducing food waste. We want to go through a challenge program to find the best ideas to encourage the businesses and the NGOs to work together to find innovative solutions to tackle food waste. Hopefully, after that the idea is to have a second phase and then to use these vast ideas to scale up and bring them to other communities as well.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Super.

Food fraud is something the University of Guelph works on through the International Barcode of Life project. I know they've been participating with the department on that as well.

The main estimates also have $7.5 million for supporting the agricultural clean technology program. We did a study on climate change impacts on soil health and clean technology. This has increased $3 million over the previous estimates.

Could you please explain where we're heading with agricultural clean technology as a program?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

The clean technology program last year was at its beginning. That is why the amount of money was a little bit less than it is this year.

Things are now in full swing.

It's getting rolling. That's why we have an increase in the amount of money.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Perfect. Thank you very much.

It's always great to see you.

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Longfield.

Thank you, Minister.

We now have Ms. Rudd for six minutes.

I think I got it right this time.

[Kim Rudd, Liberal, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you very much. It's great to be here today.

Thank you, Minister, for coming.

I have two areas.

I come from Northumberland—Peterborough South, which is a rural riding in eastern Ontario. I was glad my colleague Mr. Drouin brought up the supply management package that we have provided or are providing.

I want to talk about another thing that my farmers certainly wish they didn't have to have, or need: the risk management programs. There are a number of those programs: for example, AgriStability, AgriInvest, AgriMarketing. I know that part of your role is to meet—and you mentioned the meeting that you're going to have this summer—with the federal-provincial-territorial ministers, and there's a number of things that you have on the agenda.

Could you talk a little bit about how you see your role and your ability to strengthen those partnerships with the provinces and territories—particularly the provinces—around those funds and how we can best deploy them to our agriculture sector when it needs them?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Last year, a new five-year Canadian partnership started.

This year, we will have an opportunity to look back on our objectives. Also, the ministers will be mainly new to their positions, not having been there for the previous meetings, so it will be a good opportunity for all of us to really understand why some changes have been brought to these programs. Obviously, I hear a lot from the producers on some of these agri programs. Sometimes they would like to go back to the previous rules, or sometimes they want to see a different type of approach. We are all thinking about it. Our teams are doing the analysis.

We are also open to new partnerships, such as bringing private partners on board in different ways. I would say that everything is on the table, but we are hearing what our farmers are telling us. Still, these programs have been developed to face the different types of challenge that a farmer can face. We can see that it's working. Considering the situation we have this year, we have seen a significant increase in the AgriStability this year. We can see that our programs are working.

Can we do better? Probably. We can always do better.

I really look forward to having this discussion and to sharing ideas. Our teams are already challenging each other and trying to make suggestions.

[Kim Rudd, Liberal, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Certainly I hear from my farmers that they are really at ground zero with the effects of climate change. They see it every day in the work they do. So I think the review of those programs to ensure that we're addressing the constantly changing reality for them is extremely important.

I quickly want to bring something to your attention. We have something in my riding called the Ontario Agri-Food Venture Centre. MP Drouin, and I think his whole municipal council, came to visit us last summer and we had a great tour. That centre was really a creation of the agriculture community. They saw it as something they needed that wasn't there.

What they do is small-batch processing of fruits and vegetables, but there's a whole wrap-around effect with marketing, production, business supports and those kinds of things. We've seen these small producers get into not just national markets, but now international markets.

You may or may not know that we are the largest saffron-producing area in the country. Who knew? We think that saffron comes from overseas. Saffron is from my riding is now on international markets. It's in a variety of things from mustard to vinegar, etc.

Can you talk a bit about how that partnership with international trade diversification is not just an opportunity for large producers and processors, but also for niche markets? We may be able to find those niche markets that maybe we never thought of five years ago.

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

You're right. Diversification is not limited to finding new international markets. It's a big part of it, as we have great opportunities, but finding new markets here in Canada and developing new niches, as you said, new products, is something that we want to invest even more in. Actually, we have increased our investment as well, because we are still exporting a lot of raw products. I think we have a lot to gain through investing and processing, and not necessarily the usual products, but finding specific niches that would be interesting.

This is why we are investing in different types of programs for innovation as well. You might have seen that there is now $100 million dedicated to agriculture in the—

[Chris Forbes, Deputy Minister, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Strategic innovation fund.

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

—SIF, in English, the strategic innovation fund. The acronyms in French and English are always a challenge. We are investing a lot in it to try to find new opportunities for our producers.

If I may come back to your previous comment, you said that our producers were the first to realize the impact of climate change. I was the minister of international development, and I was always amazed when I was with farmers in the middle of Vietnam or anywhere in the world, and they were talking to me about climate change. That was something very important.

In talking about your farmers, I think it would be interesting to follow up with the local food infrastructure fund. There might be opportunities for small and medium organizations in different regions to get better organized to work together, keeping in mind that the objective is to give access to safe, healthy and even culturally diverse food to the people who are most in need in our communities. That could be an opportunity they will see shortly.

[Kim Rudd, Liberal, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Madame Minister. Thank you, Ms. Rudd.

Now we have Mr. Dreeshen for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Minister, for being here.

I suppose one of the first comments I want to make is that an inquiry was made by David Anderson to the ministry on April 9 about the canola crisis. The response we got back on May 27 said:

The Government of Canada's approach has been to defend and support our world class canola industry and our farmers. Our goal is to find a science-based solution to a science-based problem within the rules based trading system.

In that response as well there was a parenthetical comment at the end: “(can be said better)”. This was both in the English and the French version that we received.

We heard for a number of weeks that all of this has to be a science-based plan. Fortunately, we've moved off of that; it's not the talking point anymore. It's more about the actual politics associated with this.

When we look at that, we've seen Italy, India, Saudi Arabia, Peru and Vietnam—all of these countries—impose unwarranted market restrictions on Canadian farmers. There does not seem to be a response from the government on each of these things. The Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association estimates that the above list of countries represents over $4.2 billion in direct export sales annually. With the multiplier effect, it's a potential loss to our economy of about $6.3 billion.

Do you see any connection between this and what has happened in China? If we are not standing up strongly to these other countries that have come up with these non-tariff trade barriers, is that not part of the reason China looks at us and thinks they can keep doing this and not get a response? Do you personally believe that the arguments by China are true in any way, shape or form?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

We are really engaged in all of the files in all of the countries you mentioned. We stand strong for our farmers. Once again, the biggest strength we have here in Canada is the fact that we are providing very high-quality products and our inspection system is very reliable. I was in Japan recently and I can tell you how the Japanese government and the minister of agriculture reinforced the fact that Canada is a very reliable partner.

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

Absolutely, I agree. You made a comment earlier that CFIA yesterday had followed up with the customs people in China. I'm curious whether or not that had anything to do with canola or whether or not it was back to the announcement that was made that there's going to be more intense scrutiny of meat products going to China. Was that a canola issue that the CFIA was looking at, or did it have to do with meat inspections?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

It was specifically related to canola.

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

Okay. I think folks would be interested in knowing that.

The other thing you perhaps might want to correct is that you had said there's $500,000 without interest for Canadian producers. That, of course, is only on the canola portion associated with that. You don't need to correct it; I think perhaps it could have simply been a slip of the tongue.

Food policy is something that you spoke of. Again, it's how you spin food policy. When people start to suggest that “We can do this to Canada to make sure it has a secure and safe food system” despite our having the best system in the world.... Unfortunately, we allow other actors to come in and say that they'll maybe pay a little attention to what's happening here and pay some attention to what's happening there.

The reality is we should be standing up and saying that we do have the best in the world and that some of these comments based, quite frankly, on some rather ludicrous arguments....

We've had a study and witnesses here when we were talking about analyzing public perception as far as food is concerned. With regard to front-of-package labelling, as you know or you've probably heard.... Whether or not you actually believe that yogourt is something we should be afraid of, that would on the front-of-package labelling.

We also hear of situations as far as GMO is concerned. When you have a list—as was mentioned by one of our witnesses—of genetically engineered maple trees, durum wheat, Hunt's tomato sauce, Himalayan rock salt, engineered tea, coconuts and genetically engineered bacon, the comments that are being made are ridiculous. People say to put that on the label. All it does is scare people.

When you were talking about a food policy, I'm wondering if our food policy shouldn't start by saying, “This is the very best we have and these comments by outside sources are being made solely to protect their own investments”. They are not doing it to protect Canadians.

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

There are many questions within that one.

I said earlier how important it is for me, in the buy-Canadian promotion campaign, not only to take marketing action but also to reinforce and strengthen the trust and the pride of Canadians in our Canadian agricultural products. I stand strongly for, and we all believe in, defending and promoting and are proud of our best system.

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

Then does that mean that you—

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

We agree.