Agriculture Committee on Nov. 15th, 2016

[Joe Peschisolido, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Okay.

[Ron Davidson]

The way that mechanism functions is that they prioritize everything into four categories. The reality is that there are so many on the list and so few people that they really only work on priority one, if you're lucky. They take a long time to resolve these market access barriers, and they take a lot of technology and scientific support behind them. They're a long, slow process, and frankly, we're depending on other countries to come around to our view, at the end of it.

The resources are the biggest challenge that we find. I can give you an example. We used to have a CFIA that had a meat division, and the whole division would get involved in trying to negotiate these access barriers in foreign countries. They reorganized and made an import and export division. We had one person in that division for a couple of years who had the whole meat sector. It was one person. Now she has a bit of help, but there just aren't the resources there to do it.

If you can't export the product, you're certainly not growing your industry. You're basically conceding and forfeiting the jobs that go with it. That really is the key, and that is a government mandate that we can't do. It's only the government's mandate, and that's why we put so much priority on our presentation. Where we need the government to be involved is where its mandate is. It's a unique mandate, and it takes a lot of work and a lot of time.

The resources have gone down. The support to exports has gone down. At the same time, you're talking about increasing them.

[Joe Peschisolido, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Following up on that, for the first time in many, many years, I think decades, we're going to be opening up a CFIA-inspected slaughterhouse or abattoir in B.C. There will be one in Kamloops, perhaps one in Prince George, or at least we're looking at that.

Is that viable? I'm assuming the answer is yes, and if it is yes, how do we do it? Does the industry have to rejig a bit to the focus on high value-added because these abattoirs are aiming for a market in China, Japan, and Korea, not in the United States?

[Troy Warren]

They're viable provided you can access labour. Ultimately, what those markets pay a premium for is a high-quality, consistent product, and in many cases a highly converted product.

We're in the disassembly business. It's easy to sell big parts of animals. When you do that, you're typically sending it to someone who's then going to provide the value. They're going to disassemble it into a consumer-ready product.

What our industry will thrive and succeed upon is producing consumer-ready products, both for this country and for countries around the world. There's lots of opportunity developing in Asia. They need to import their protein, based just on their own production capabilities and their growing demand. For us to move up the value chain and provide sustainable jobs, it needs to be in a converted value-added format. That can be viable, but if you're just going to sell pure commodity parts of...and I can speak for Maple Leaf. We run chicken plants as well. If it's chicken or pork or beef, if you're selling commodities, you have to be really, really cost-effective.

That's also a challenge in this country with some of the other regulatory issues we face. There are better places to make pure commodity meat products than in this country. You can go to Brazil or some parts of eastern Europe that aren't part of the EU, and you can get really cheap labour, really cheap pigs or whatever, and you make big chunks of animal, but you send it somewhere else for the value to be added to it.

[Joe Peschisolido, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

Up until about the Korean War—or as they say in Korea, the American war—the largest part of the hog industry in western Canada was in B.C.

Can we revive that, particularly given the fact that China, Japan, and Korea want our high-quality hogs, cattle? Perhaps we can just focus on them; I was going to ask something about chicken, but I don't think I'm going to have time.

[Troy Warren]

I think B.C. definitely has an opportunity. The breadbasket of Canada is more from Manitoba to Alberta, which has the grains and so forth. The challenge is then you've got to move the grain to where the animals are, and there's more land to put animals in those other parts of this country.

B.C. can have a viable marketplace, even relative to the population, even just to service the greater Vancouver area.

[Joe Peschisolido, Liberal, Steveston—Richmond East, BC]

There are a lot of folks who eat out.

[Troy Warren]

Yes. You don't need to go to the other side of the world to go see Asia, in some cases, if you go to Vancouver. There are definitely markets there to be serviced.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Warren.

Thank you, Mr. Peschisolido.

Ms. Brosseau, you have six minutes.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for taking part in this study on the next agricultural policy framework.

Mike and Lauren, thank you so much for yesterday. Francis and I had the opportunity to go out with some other MPs and staff to visit an amazing farm. I think it was in Richmond. It was Jonathan Fraser. I'd also like to thank them for letting us disrupt their day and have them answer all of our questions. It was a great visit. It wasn't my first time on a chicken farm, but it was definitely impressive to see all their chickens, all the work they do, and how far we have come.

Mr. Dungate, in your presentation you said that you had worked hard to develop a program and that you had conducted an audit of this food safety program without government funding.

Do you think the next policy framework should stipulate a specific amount to help you conduct those audits?

[Mike Dungate]

Thank you very much.

As to the farm food safety program, as in all other sectors of production, we received initial funding to develop the program. When funding is provided for program development only, however, there is a greater risk that production sectors will drop their program subsequently and not get past the first stage, instead of moving on to the second stage and so forth up to final approval of the program. That is what has happened in so many production sectors.

We want to establish a partnership with the government in order to share the costs and benefits. Whether it is a 50-50 split or 20% for the government and 80% for us, that kind of arrangement would be very helpful for us. What we really want is something stable, long-term.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Absolutely.

You also talked about audits of animal care or animal welfare. Consumers often ask us how to find out where foods come from and what their ingredients are. Moreover, it is a local market. There is a movement that supports buying locally.

Can you describe the scope of your work to promote animal welfare? What could the federal government improve to support you in that work?

Troy Warren or David could also answer that question.

[Mike Dungate]

Yes, of course.

We created the “raised by a Canadian farmer” program. Various retail outlets and restaurants participate in the program. As a result, chicken production and consumption have increased by more than 3% in 2015, and are expected to increase by 4.5% this year. People want local products.

Moreover, Canada is the world's eighth largest producer of chicken, but it accounts for just a small share of our market.

I agree with what Mr. Warren said about the importance of value added products, especially in gaining access to export markets. That said, offering fresh chicken and value added products in Canada is the best way for us to increase our production and generate benefits for the Canadian economy.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

I don't know how much time I have left, but I know there were comments by Mr. Davidson and Mr. Warren about market access. I know that Canada has signed CETA, and I know that for farmers in my riding—I represent chicken, a lot of dairy supply management, and also pork—when they saw this deal, they were like, “Okay: I'm going to be able export. This is great.” I know that out west there are lot of farmers saying that this is amazing and that they have this opportunity. We have to make sure we say it's an opportunity, because there are trade issues.

I know a lot of issues have been talked about when it comes to washing cattle. When we go to the slaughterhouse, there's an acid wash. You also mentioned cuts, and you talked about how there have been cuts to market access. It was also mentioned by Mr. Davidson that at CFIA there was a meat division, that we don't have a meat division, that there was one woman who was working really hard to resolve these issues.

Can you talk to us about the importance of trying to work past...and maybe better funding of CFIA? Perhaps you could talk to us more about the cuts that were made to market access and the importance of making sure they're well funded, because when we have trade agreements, but we have these irritants, and we're not able to work past them, then they don't really mean very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Sorry, Madam Brosseau. Your time is up.

Monsieur Drouin, you might be able to fit it in somehow. Go ahead, for six minutes.

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

Actually, that was going to be one of my questions.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

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

I'll be nice and say please elaborate.

[An hon. member]

What a gentleman.

[Troy Warren]

There are a number of what I would call unresolved technical barriers with the CETA agreement for the red meat sector in Canada.

We are extremely supportive of the agreement. Any market access is a very positive development for our industry. The challenge, though, is that it has to be meaningful market access, and that's what we're struggling with. For the beef sector in particular, where the use of a number of antimicrobial sprays is absolutely paramount in providing Canadians with food safety requirements to deal with E. coli and so forth, those treatments are not approved in the EU. Any product that goes through that process in Canada will not be able to be exported to the EU. For whatever beef plant is using those processes, there is really no access to the EU.

Our challenge here is that when we negotiated, we allowed them to come into our country with standards that are below ours. Ultimately our challenge probably with the agreement is they have full access to us, and what is their reason to now negotiate with us to accept our standards?

We're not going to give up on the sector. We are going to try to work with the industry to fund research to then support why these processing aids have no human health risk and are good from a food safety standpoint and so forth, but the industry is going to fund that. We certainly need government help and we need research. We are going to need to go to the EU to basically prove our point that these things are valid and appropriate processing aids. Doing that on our own, from our perspective, is not work that we should be having to do. The government got us the access to this market, and they need to create full access to this market rather than just having an agreement in principle with no ability for us to execute trade.

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

Fundamentally it comes back to a public trust issue. In Europe they want to be able to say not to worry about Canadian meat, it's safe. They'll have the same processes as us, yet the Canadian process is a lot safer than theirs.

If I can move on to the chicken guys, Mike and Lauren, thanks for yesterday. I appreciate it.

In terms of public trust, you mentioned that you have an animal care program. How do you see the next APF play a role in an animal care program? I know that most farmers raise their chickens and their animals with respect and security and whatnot, but there is always that one video that will be on social media and somehow the whole industry is acting like this when we know that's not the truth. We're not doing a good enough job communicating this to consumers.

How can CFIA or the government help, and how can we help your industry ensure that you communicate well with consumers?

[Mike Dungate]

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

I think the challenge here is that we're fully supportive: we've had our animal care program in place since 2009. It's on. It's fully audited every year, and from that perspective it's mandatory for us. There is no ability from any government regulations to make it mandatory. We use our supply management regulations in each province to do that.

I take it that it's the same way with our food safety program. If you don't meet it, if you're not certified, we will pull your quota, or we will say you don't have your licence to produce, so you can sell your quota, but you're not going to produce any chickens there. We can't take that financial piece away but we can enforce it.

I think the challenge for us is communication. If we have a government third party audited animal care program, a recognition protocol, then it says we've gone through it, and they've met the requirements out there. We're going through this animal care assessment framework, that is being funded by Agriculture Canada, through the National Farm Animal Care Council. There are animal welfare groups on the National Farm Animal Care Council. There will be animal welfare researchers on this assessment framework. There will be farmers and there will be veterinarians and others who will develop it. It has to be developed so it is absolutely credible. Once credible, our farmers have to do the right thing and follow the program. We will make sure they follow the program.

I think it is a sharing of the funding, but the recognition part, the assurance system and the government role in that, I think can speak to Canadians who are concerned about the care of animals but are not those who perhaps have a different agenda in terms of meat consumption. This is where we have to draw the line between the two.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Dungate.

Mr. Breton, you have six minutes.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Someone else can use my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Okay.

Mr. Longfield, you have the floor.