Agriculture Committee on Nov. 1st, 2016

[Hans Kristensen]

Another aspect we can look at is some type of policy in the new framework that would address geographic isolation, whereby a veterinarian's services would not cost me more because I'm located 300 miles away than they would if I were next door. If there were some way that we could offset those costs so that all producers would have equal veterinary costs and that we don't add—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Kristensen. Now we have to move to Monsieur Drouin.

Thank you, Ms. Moore.

Mr. Drouin, you have the floor and you have six minutes.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Kristensen, do you want to finish that comment?

[Hans Kristensen]

No, that's fine.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Okay.

I heard you talk in your opening statement about market access. You mentioned some of the non-trade barriers in marketing access. You've also talked about the CFIA maybe not having the proper tools to provide confidence in other markets. Can you expand on that?

[Hans Kristensen]

Sure. The issue we have as pork producers is that while we consider that the CFIA does a valued and great job domestically, a lot of people don't even realize the need for the service they need to provide to protect and enhance our markets internationally.

The problem is that when we're looking at foreign countries with the potential to buy our product, they send us a list, and it says that in order to buy our product, they have to see that our industry is doing A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. The CFIA is recognized as the body that has the authority and the ability to deal directly with other foreign government agencies and to certify and to do that. The problem with the CFIA right now is not one of mandate or one of willingness; it's one of capacity, budget, and staff.

It would be of great interest and great benefit to the Canadian pork industry if the CFIA were given the resources to enhance their capability to perform that service and to be more responsive to those questions, because a lot of times it's also about doing that in a timely manner.

We're in competition for a global market with another country. The better the job we do, and the more clearly we can give confidence to that buyer in terms of the fact that our product not only meets but exceeds any expectation they have, as certified by a government body, the more likely we are to access that market.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Is that list from other countries, which I would call the “laundry list”, provided in advance of when they start negotiating? Are we aware of what we need to do before we sign on to these trade deals?

[Hans Kristensen]

The laundry list changes between countries, and daily, so as we're in negotiations, the laundry list can change, which is why it's extremely important that the CFIA have the resources and the staff to react to those changes and demands.

Sometimes they can be changed simply in a part of a negotiation when another competitor—for example, the United States—is offering or showing that they're going to be able to do a certain thing for a product. The potential buyer will come back to Canada and ask if we can certify that we're doing the same thing. We need the CFIA to have the resources to react to that in a quick and timely manner.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Okay.

Ms. Patterson, I want to go back to market and traceability. I know that you guys were recent recipients of funds under Growing Forward 2 to help provide a strategic plan on scrapie. Why do you believe it's important that we pay a lot of attention to traceability under the new APF?

[Corlena Patterson]

Traceability does underpin a number of other very important components of Canadian agriculture. Trade is one prime example. We see trading partners require the ability to trace an animal to its farm of origin in certain instances. When we talk about disease management, health risk management, and disease surveillance, with that comes the need to be able to trace animals and find out where they've been and where they've moved to, and that sort of risk. It's essential for that.

From a producer perspective, traceability is a regulation that we're going to be required to comply with. In order to do that, it requires a tremendous amount of funding. It has definite value for producers— there's no doubt—in managing disease risk and disease spread should there be an outbreak, but by the same token, it's to meet a regulation. That comes at a significant cost already to producers, and increasingly so as we manage it.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

To rephrase my question, if we did provide some funding to help the industry convert to high-tech traceability, do you have confidence that if there were a disease, let's say, other countries would not completely shut down their borders? At the end of the day, that's what it part of it comes down to. Do you have confidence that Canada could go to other countries and tell them not to worry, because we have a system that's based on science, we know exactly where the animal was, and we've contained the disease? Do you have that confidence?

[Corlena Patterson]

That's a great question that maybe the pork folks can speak to as well.

We are not as massive as others in the trade or exporting sector. I think we've certainly seen examples in which being able to manage that sort of information and definitively understand where the risk lies does allow the opportunity to reopen borders more quickly. At the end of the day, there's always the idea of a non-tariff trade barrier and any trading country willing to take advantage of it in certain instances.

Again, we don't do a lot of trade in our sector, but the movement we've seen towards exports of late is that the very first thing people want to talk about is your traceability system and your ID program. They want to understand that you have the capacity to manage it. Whether or not they need to see proof that it has been managed is different.

We have a meeting with our Mexican counterparts. We talked earlier about certificates. It took the CFIA seven years to get that certificate, but it's finally been ratified. We'll meet with trading partners to talk about that. One of the key things they want to talk about is our traceability system. They want to understand what it does, how it manages the information, who can access it, and how it can at least zone for different diseases.

[Hans Kristensen]

Food traceability is becoming the hot topic. The goal of any food traceability program, as far as an industry and a government is concerned, is basically twofold: one, to limit the impacts on our trade, and two, to recover as quickly as possible.

We need to look at enhancing and developing our agreements and our traceability. If we do have a trade restriction due to an outbreak of disease or whatever, one of the biggest things we can have, and the goal, is regionalization, so that it affects western Canada and not eastern Canada, or maybe we can isolate Ontario. If we have full traceability programs with international confidence, we can do it so that it won't affect our entire industry but maybe only a portion of it. That way we can recover much better and much faster. The economic impact will be far less, because the areas that can't export can supply more domestic market, the areas that can export can supply the export market, and we can maintain our contracts and our reputation.

The other goal is to quickly recover from that and get those restrictions lifted.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Kristensen.

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

I want to thank the panel for being here today. This will be great for our study. Thank you for coming. Have a safe trip back.

We have some housekeeping to do, so we will move in camera at this time.

[Proceedings continue in camera]