Evidence of meeting #30 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Thank you. I'll share with Frank. He has a few more questions.
My question is for Mr. Warren. We had a presentation at the first part of this meeting about the conflicts between Health Canada and opportunities in agriculture export, the new regulations coming in that are at odds with trying to develop an export market. You had mentioned something along those lines as well. Could you expand on that a little bit, on the situation where we have regulations that aren't working together?
Director, International Trade, Government and Media Relations, Canadian Meat Council
When we were talking about the regulations there, I think we were talking about the divergence between Canadian regulations and foreign regulations. For example, we are having regulations imposed on our industry that are not required in other countries, and yet those countries are allowed to export to us. That is one of the aspects that we addressed in our presentation. I'm not sure if that's the part you're getting at or if you're getting at something different.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
No, sorry; maybe I picked up on a nuance that wasn't there, that there were conflicting regulations within Canada that would hurt your industry in terms of getting processed product to market.
Director, International Trade, Government and Media Relations, Canadian Meat Council
I think that was Carla when she was talking about some of the regulations that are being imposed on food processors by Health Canada and about the cost of mandating all those regulations. She was getting into labelling regulations, as well: the cost of putting on the label, where you put it, and what you put on the various places on the label. I think that's what Carla was talking about.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
Right. I thought you were reflecting some similar comments. I'll be following up with her on that.
I'll share my time with Mr. Drouin...or Mr. Peschisolido.
Liberal
Joe Peschisolido Liberal Steveston—Richmond East, BC
I'd like to follow up with Mr. Dungate, if I may.
I have a lot of chicken farmers in my riding of Steveston—Richmond East, which is just south of Vancouver. There are also a lot of chicken farmers in the valley. I visit my guys all the time. I won't say who I visited, but some were very, very good, when it came to animal welfare, on the transitions, to go from one set to another. Some were saying it would take 20 years.
I'm one of the guys who want to have a strong agricultural meat sector. You need to have public trust, because people vote with their feet. They eat other stuff or they just won't eat the stuff. Can you talk a little bit about your code of practice and what we can do—to talk about what you said—to have a strong animal welfare program so that there isn't concern from consumers on that issue?
Executive Director, Chicken Farmers of Canada
We see it two ways as well. Our job as well, in doing this, is educating farmers. This is where we think we have right now....
The new code of practice came in and we took that code of practice. We have already decided that there are new elements in there that are not in our animal care program. Next week we will approve that all of these changes will become highly recommended in our program. They will not be “must do's”, but they will be highly recommended. Otherwise, we'd have to change our program. What we're doing is the animal care assessment framework. We think that it will actually add on some more compared to the new code we just did in 2016. We don't want to confuse people and go, “We're going to change here, and we're going to change six months later.” We're going right through the process.
We're going to go out and educate. Last week we brought in all the auditors across the country in two sessions, east and west. We brought them in on how they're going to audit these “highly recommendeds” and how they're going to educate farmers to bring in these new practices that reflect.... The last code of practice was in 2003, so we're updating it from that point. You may have seen some farmers who are not quite up to what we expect, but we're going to be there and have them there in the next year and a half.
Liberal
Conservative
Bev Shipley Conservative Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON
Thank you very much.
I have to be honest with you on this whole public trust issue. We take the innovation, and science and research, and we do all of those things that we're going to talk about in the Growing Forward program, but I have to tell you that if we don't have the public trust, all the rest of it sort of becomes less important. It seems to me, and Mr. Drouin said it, that one bad video becomes the standard.
The issue from what I see, or rather what we don't see, is this: what are we doing in terms of that communication? My assessment, and I have talked to groups, is that we talk about science and research and all of that, and people's faces just glaze over.
We need to take from the playbook that those who are opposing agriculture...whether it's in the cropping industry or in the livestock animal rights industry. We need to do that, to start with our little kids. We need to talk about it in a way that they understand when they're going to school, when they get through the grades, and then when they become the teachers or the professors at university. That integration has now become the social licence—whatever that actually means—because it's individually assessed. I really believe that, and I hope that there will be something that will come forward from you folks as an industry. This is not about chicken, and it's not about pork or beef. What can the government do to partner up to develop a communication strategy that will work with our young families and kids and become the norm to offset some of these one incidents that sometimes, quite honestly, get played up on a very short five-second or ten-second clip.
Mike or Troy, do you have any comment to this committee on how you might approach that as an industry?
Executive Director, Chicken Farmers of Canada
Chantelle Donahue from Cargill took a real lead in terms of developing this. This came out, from Calgary, on building public trust. It got presented to federal, provincial, and territorial ministers. It is taking a value-chain-centric approach to public trust. Right now, we are trying to fund a hub and a coordinator. Chicken Farmers of Canada just approved its funding for that, going forward.
You get science-based here, on one side. Where we're going to get public trust is where consumer acceptability and science-based meet. That's where we have to get to, and it is our point.
It doesn't matter; we can tell them “science, science, science”, but if they don't buy our product.... We can be dead right in terms of the science. At the same time, it is an education on our part, so that we're not downloaded costs that are consumer acceptance-based and have no basis in fact.
If that's the case, then you're just adding cost to our industry. The consumer is just adding cost to themselves in terms of what they're going to have to pay for, and we're uncompetitive exporting. That's why we have to have a real conversation here. We think we have this kind of hub convenor model that we're working on with the agriculture ministers and we hope we'll have it in place later this year, as the start.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you.
I think we have the bells ringing now, so we'll have to adjourn.
I want to thank the panel for being here. It has been a very interesting conversation.
Thank you, everyone.
We will adjourn the meeting.