Agriculture Committee on Nov. 17th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Brocklebank.

Time is precious, so we'll move to Monsieur Drouin for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank the panellists for being here. I really appreciate it.

Andrea, I'm just going to build on what Mr. Shipley asked. Do you want to end your comments on quantifying the science behind the—

[Andrea Brocklebank]

We know that one of the biggest things we have to do is continue to improve productivity. The population in the world is growing. Canada has a really strong land base and resource base. If we can be a leader in production, we have a strong global position in that. Other countries don't have the same resources.

However, we need to produce more per animal and more per acre, and that's where the access to technologies and the public trust issues are important. Those technologies are what allow us to do that in a sustainable manner. Ironically, that's where consumers sometimes get confused.

With that, one thing we've found with the science, which I think is important, is that scientists can do a lot. They have a lot of credibility. The ones who have the most credibility are our producers. We're finding that you can give the science to your young producers especially and tell them to talk to consumers. Some of the programming we've done is in enabling producers to talk to consumers, because producers resonate far more than anybody else.

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

Are you collaborating with other partners? For instance, I know that in my riding there is a partnership between a beef producer and Ducks Unlimited. It's a farm that has 200 cattle. They've created this partnership over wetlands. Now they're working on quantifying how much carbon sequestration is happening on that particular land. I recall that when Ontario moved to regulate some of the wetlands on some of the farmers' lands about 10 to 15 years ago, it was seen as government overstepping its borders. Right now, it truly is a good story, with both organizations, the producer and Ducks Unlimited, working together. It's good for the producer and it's good for the environment at the same time.

Do you collaborate with them?

[Andrea Brocklebank]

That speaks to the point about incentives-based programming whereby you work with partners like Ducks Unlimited. Another major partner is World Wildlife Fund. They've come to the table with industry and are working together in trying to find solutions. Regulation doesn't always work to encourage producers to do these things. There's a huge critical habitat for important wildlife species, but we have seen very successful programming when we are working with those NGO partners and also working with government.

Producers have an incentive to maintain these habitats anyway, and if we can encourage greater.... I know that in Alberta the alternative land use services program has done a very good job of improving these sensitive areas. Those types of programs, along with partners like Ducks Unlimited and all these other ones, are where our industry is very much shifting, especially in the last five years.

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

I want to touch on market or non-trade barriers.

We've heard from the previous witness that the market access secretariat is working on over 300 non-trade barriers, and the list, she was saying, is probably even bigger. To me, 300 is having no priorities. How do you interact with that particular section of that department? Do you believe there's a lack of resources? Should there be more resources in that secretariat?

[Dan Darling]

Certainly I would agree that there need to be more resources put toward that. The number of issues they're dealing with are issues they have to deal with. If there were more resources, there would be more help to deal with them and they could pinpoint more crucial ones to deal with. It's a cultural change. It's something new, so they have to work with it.

We are huge supporters of it. We think it's very important for moving ahead on trade. As we can see with CETA, all sorts of issues pop up.

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

You bring up a few issues. Does somebody get assigned to your files to work on those particular issues, or does it depend on which country the issues arise in?

[Dan Darling]

That's probably a good question. I'd like to know that information myself, because it's not made available to us.

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

Okay, great.

Norm, I loved your presentation. I only have five seconds, but I wanted to get your opinion on processors and whether or not the 5% threshold that is committed to within Growing Forward 2 is enough.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Sorry. With that, we'll have to pass.

Madame Brosseau, vous disposez de cinq minutes.

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

Mr. Beal, would you be able to answer my colleague's question? It's also something I was really interested in, getting more information about the processing.

[Norm Beal]

Thank you very much. We feel really strongly. Not only are the food processors integral to the long-term wealth development of our primary agricultural fields, but it's the value added that we bring to the table. Processors take raw materials and make them more valuable, so we feel very strongly.

Possibly the largest manufacturing sector in the country feels very strongly that probably we don't, as I mentioned in my presentation, hold high enough weight in terms of how the funds through the agricultural policy framework are distributed. I think most people in the processing sector would say that we want to see a larger share of that. We don't necessarily want to take anything away from farmers, but we do believe that the importance of the sector and the ability for it to create jobs in the long term will be determined by how well the industry/government partnerships work and go forward in the future.

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

We hear often at committee about labour shortages and finding skilled labour, issues that have been going on for the last few years. In my constituency I represent a lot of agriculture, but I also have strong manufacturing. There are a lot of problems in finding people to work.

I know that you talked earlier about hiring more people and having 60,000 middle-class, great-paying jobs by 2020. How are you going to do this?

[Norm Beal]

That's a great challenge.

We consulted industry extensively a couple of years ago. The top issue for the food and beverage processing industry is attracting new people, new Canadians, young people, to the sector. The premier of our province launched the 120,000-job challenge several years ago. Sixty thousand jobs will come into the food processing sector, but if the folks out there who aren't trained or even excited about coming into the industry, then we have a real problem.

Food and Beverage Ontario launched a program last year called Taste Your Future. We went out and did a lot of research. Unfortunately for our industry, I think we've neglected trying to at least make our industry a little sexy and attract new Canadians and young Canadians into our industry.

The Taste Your Future campaign is all about reaching out. I'll tell you, it's going right back to junior high school levels, because nowadays that's where you need to start. You inform them about the great jobs that are in the industry. These are not just all plant floor-worker jobs. These are food scientists. They are product development people. They're tasters.

Actually, my second job is in the.... I own a winery in Niagara. You start talking to people about a winemaker or a craft beermaker, those sorts of things. Those are the new upcoming jobs that are coming into our sector, and people start getting really excited.

The first thing we have to do is generate some excitement around the industry, which is what we're trying to do with the Taste Your Future campaign. Then we also need to provide some major outreach to engage people in a discussion around the great careers in our sector.

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

Mr. Darling, do you want to comment about labour shortages, labour issues? I know it's going to be different on your side.

[Dan Darling]

There's nothing sexy about working on the kill floor, that's for sure.

Certainly our biggest issue is finding enough workers for our plants, and skilled workers. That's something that I think is forgotten. There is a skill to disassembling a carcass and doing it in the right way, so that the product is exportable and looks nice on the plate when you go into your favourite restaurant to eat. It's a challenge that our packers are trying to work through.

The problem with the shortage of labour is that in a lot of these markets we're developing, we disassemble the product here and send certain parts of the animals to other places. If the plants don't have people to disassemble and make the specialty cuts, that means they have to decide whether they are not going to kill as many cattle that day or whether they are going to put people on the line to kill more cattle. They can't do both. The labour shortage is actually hurting our chances of taking advantage of some of these trade opportunities.

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

Absolutely.

Do you have any suggestions about how the committee can work with you and the industry?

[Dan Darling]

We need to keep working with the temporary foreign worker program. There are a lot of skilled workers who are coming in from other countries who have always worked well on our behalf.

I always say that in Canada we are fortunate enough to want better for our kids. That means that sometimes our kids don't do those jobs that we need them to do, so if we—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Darling. I guess we're out of time, unfortunately.

I want to thank the panel for appearing. It was very informative for our report.

Thank you, everyone.

On this, the meeting is adjourned.