Agriculture Committee on March 23rd, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

That's about all the time we have. Sorry about that.

Ms. Brosseau, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for their presentations about the transportation of animals and their proposed changes.

Mr. Manningham, can you tell us about the training for truck drivers? I suppose there is some training since they have to get the animals into a truck and transport them for a period of time. They have the big responsibility of caring for those animals. Can you tell us about the expertise of those truck drivers and workers?

[Alain Manningham]

We currently have two choices in terms of transportation training. There is the American training, TQA or Transport Quality Assurance, which is very good. In Canada, there is also the Canadian Livestock Transport certification program. These two programs focus on animal well-being. They cover various aspects, such as procedures in the event of an accident, as well as legislation. Transporting animals is all well and good, but you have to know the laws in order to comply with them. Increasingly, meat processing plants are requiring that we take that training, since there is a demand from their clients, to whom animal welfare is very important. So the plants require the transporters to be trained.

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

Is it mandatory currently?

[Alain Manningham]

It is not mandatory for all plants, but it would be under the new regulations proposed by the CFIA.

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

Suppose we wanted to modify the trucks to have heating, more ventilation and air circulation, or equipment to water the animals. Do you have any idea how much those changes would cost? I know there are adapted trucks in Europe. In Canada, additional equipment is installed in trucks that transport animals over long distances to animal shows. Approximately how much would it cost to make those changes for livestock that is transported?

[Alain Manningham]

I could not give you an exact figure.

I will say though that Europe does not have the same climate as we do. With regard to Europe, people are often talking about England and France, which do not have our nordic climate.

There are certainly swine being transported to Mexico, for example, and some transporters have the necessary equipment to water the animals. That equipment is turned off in the winter, though, or else it would freeze. I would say those systems are quite expensive.

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

Madam Rastogi, can you talk to us about the consultation period? We know that the law was brought into place in 1977. Now, so many years later, there's been a consultation period of 10 years. Can you talk to us about your dealings with CFIA and the consultation?

[Toolika Rastogi]

Yes. Thank you very much.

The consultation process has been in place for a long period of time. There have been several different iterations of the agency presenting or going out to stakeholders as a whole on different proposals. There have been opportunities where we have provided our views from a science-based perspective on what animal welfare and animal health science show is important for the animals to have during that transportation period. We've reiterated them time and again, and typically, we find that those perspectives don't seem to be held as strongly in subsequent consultation processes as the industry viewpoint, which has been a little bit disappointing.

In particular, the last set of revisions that came out regarding the food, water, and interval times were a little bit more acceptable than the proposed regulations that came out in the Canada Gazette, but we were still quite disappointed with that.

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

I've been speaking with farmers this morning and the gentleman brought up the fact that we all know it's stressful for the animals to transport, but sometimes loading and unloading the animals and trying to get them to eat or to drink water, especially when they're younger, can be more stressful than just trying to keep them on the trucks and get them there as fast and as reasonably as possible. Do you think maybe if we made modifications to the trucks, like adding water or certain things, that would be a better option than stopping and having to unload?

Also, Alain brought up biosecurity. That is a huge issue too, but maybe that would be an option or compromise.

[Toolika Rastogi]

I think those are really important points, but it comes down to the length of transport that we're starting from. If we're starting with shorter transportation times, there's less of a crisis situation that would need to be addressed by providing that water and feed. Similarly, there would be a reduced need for handling of the animals. Again, it's these extremely long journeys that put food security at risk, through handling or disease transmission, or risks to the animals themselves during unloading and loading. I fully agree that loading and unloading are the most stressful aspects, so outcome-based are good measures to use, but within the context of a reasonable length of transportation.

Having provisions on trucks is an excellent approach to use and we would recommend that, even if the industry isn't necessarily able to do that immediately upon the regulations passing. If we're so fortunate as to have them pass in the short term, then I think that, as they are coming into force, a delay could be implemented for certain provisions to allow the industry time to put in place the technological requirements needed to provide food and water for these animals.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Rastogi.

Unfortunately, that's the time we have and I do want to apologize again to the committee for this shortened version, but I guess that's the reality.

Thank you, Mr. Manningham.

Mr. Bonnett, thank you again. Ms. Rastogi, thank you for coming here today.

The meeting is adjourned.