Evidence of meeting #69 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 agriculture.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Mr. Groleau. We have to wrap things up because we are going to proceed with the second hour of our meeting.
I want to thank the witnesses. You were very insightful, and we could have spent the entire two hours with you.
We are now beginning the second part of our meeting.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
We will begin the second hour of our meeting where we are studying our food policy.
Joining us is Annie Bérubé, director of government relations at Équiterre.
Welcome, Ms. Bérubé.
From Moisson Outaouais, we have Sonia Latulippe.
Welcome, Ms. Latulippe.
We are also hearing from Shannon Benner, chief executive officer of 4-H Canada.
Welcome, Ms. Benner.
You will each have up to seven minutes for opening remarks.
Ms. Bérubé, you can start.
Annie Bérubé Director, Government Relations, Équiterre
Good afternoon and thank you for inviting Équiterre to testify in your study on a food policy for Canada.
This is the first time in Canada we have had a national discussion on the quality and the source of our food. Today, we want to talk to you about a threat to the sustainability of agriculture in Canada, a threat to the abundance and quality of the food we produce.
That threat is all too often overlooked in our conversations, but it can and must be considered in the context of food policy in Canada. That threat is the dependence on synthetic pesticides in farming.
The importance of the national food policy cannot be understated. We finally recognize that food security for Canadians is linked to the viability of Canadian agriculture, including the conservation of the ecological foundations that underpin our food production, like healthy soils, clean water, biodiversity, and healthy pollinator populations.
Unfortunately, our mounting dependence on pesticides in agriculture threatens all of the above. While pesticide sales continue to increase in Canada, the most recent census on agriculture shows that farm profits are not increasing. Our food supply depends on the viability of Canadian farms, and we should all be concerned about the rising costs of agricultural input, including the cost of overreliance on synthetic pesticides.
Our recommendation to you today is that the committee recommend a comprehensive national pesticide use reduction strategy as part of the national food policy. I'll explain briefly why this is necessary, and how it can be done.
First of all, the myth that pesticides are essential to feed the growing population is no longer supported by evidence. It's quite the contrary. The seminal report from the international assessment of agricultural knowledge, science, and technology for development at the FAO and the World Bank back in 2008 concluded, based on the experience of 80 countries, that industrial agriculture with its heavy dependence on pesticides was not going to feed our growing population. It was rather agricultural practices that are locally adopted and work closely within ecosystems that will improve human health and ensure food security for our growing global population. Since then there have been several other large-scale studies worldwide showing that agricultural yields will drop and sometimes even crash on farms, as soil health and ecosystem functions reach a tipping point after years and years of overuse of synthetic pesticides.
The UN's special rapporteur on the right to food, Dr. Elver, co-published a report earlier this year denouncing the myth that pesticides are necessary to feed the world. She lays the blame on the pesticide industry for “systematic denial“ of harms, “aggressive, unethical marketing tactics“ and heavy lobbying of governments that has prevented national and global restrictions on pesticide use, creating a threat to national food security. Those are her words, not mine.
She proposes several recommendations that should be considered by your committee, including the urgent need for national pesticide use reduction strategies in agriculture.
Globally we know that synthetic pesticides threaten food security, but at home pesticide overuse proposes threats to the viability of Canadian agriculture. First of all, pesticides degrade soil quality, which is essential for plant growth and carbon sequestration. Pesticides kill important soil bacteria and fungi, which are essential for plant growth and production yields. We know, based on the latest Agriculture Canada data, that small organic matter is declining in several regions of Canada.
Canadian water quality is also deteriorating because pesticides are increasingly leaching into our watersheds across Canada. As one example, atrazine is now found in the vast majority of Canadian waterways and is now even measured in Canadian drinking water. It is water contamination that led to a complete ban on atrazine in the European Union 13 years ago, yet corn producers in the European Union remain competitive. Many studies now show that atrazine in Canada only contributes to at best 3% increase in agricultural yields and in most cases to no increase in agricultural yields at all.
Pesticides also threaten the ecosystem services upon which agriculture depends, including the health of pollinators, which are vital to agriculture. Declines in pollinator populations such as bees and monarchs are in part the result of exposure to insecticides. Neonicotinoids, best known as “neonics”, are the most commonly used insecticides in Canada. They have been found to be 5,000 to 10,000 times more toxic to bees than DDT was. DDT was banned 45 years ago.
The Task Force on Systemic Pesticides just last week released its worldwide assessment on the ecological effects of neonics, and they were in Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto presenting the results of their research. The results are truly alarming.
You should also know that France will be the first country to completely ban neonics, not only because it makes sense to preserve biodiversity, but because farmers recognize the need for pollination for successful agricultural production. France's ban on neonics goes hand in hand with a strategy to reduce pesticide use nationally, with financing and support for farmers.
As the committee has seen in the case of the proposed ban on imidacloprid in Canada, agricultural producers are often vulnerable when we must restrict or ban a pesticide. They are left with no alternative. Had we had the funding, the financing, and the programs to globally reduce pesticide use in agriculture, it would make it much easier for agricultural producers to adapt and respond to a restriction on specific pesticides when it is necessary to do so to protect the environment and human health.
Agriculture Canada and provincial agriculture departments must share the responsibility for reducing pesticide use, and this is where a national food policy can make a significant contribution.
In conclusion, I would point out our detailed recommendations to reduce the dependence on synthetic pesticides in Canada, which I hope you've all received. I would just briefly like to point out that Quebec has a pesticide use reduction strategy with targets and would now propose a piece of legislation to achieve those targets. Denmark committed to reducing its national pesticide use in agriculture by 50%, and they achieved that target in 1989. France also has very generous financing and crop insurance programs to reduce pesticide use in agriculture. There are plenty of international examples to draw from.
Director, Government Relations, Équiterre
That's it for me. Thank you very much.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
We give the floor to Ms. Latulippe from Moisson Outaouais for seven minutes.
Sonia Latulippe Chief Executive Officer, Moisson Outaouais
Thank you for your invitation.
I am happy to participate in these consultations and to have an opportunity to present our views, especially on the accessibility of quality food at affordable prices for people experiencing food insecurity.
I am here as a representative of my organization. My comments do not necessarily reflect the views of organizations from my region.
As a regional food bank, Moisson Outaouais is the primary provider of food assistance in the Outaouais region. We supply a network of 32 organizations that respond to thousands of requests a month.
We work with agri-food businesses, tackle food waste by salvaging unsold products in supermarkets and establish partnerships with the corporate world. In addition, we educate Canadians about hunger and are constantly developing new projects in a collective effort to alleviate hunger, while encouraging food self-sufficiency as much as possible.
The fact that we are part of a large structured network, Les banques alimentaires du Québec—which in turn is affiliated with Food Banks Canada—gives us access to significant quantities of food acquired through donation agreements with industry and enables us to benefit from national fundraising drives.
Here are some figures on the situation in the Outaouais. Every month, from 7,000 to 10,000 individuals use food assistance; one-third of those served are children; half of the people served are individuals living alone; finally, nearly 80% of users return every month, and in 28% of cases, they return more than once a month.
The number of immigrants, seniors and persons with disabilities who use the service is growing every year.
Right now, we redistribute over 600,000 kilograms of food every year. Despite all our efforts to improve our supply and meet the needs, last year, 37% of organizations in our network lacked food. Since we essentially give away what we receive, there are shortcomings in our food supply in terms of quantity, but also in terms of quality. Among the products we lack regularly are milk, eggs, and fresh fruits and vegetables.
Poverty forces people to turn to food assistance. Food is abundant in stores, but low-income people don't have access to that food, since they cannot afford it. The vast majority of people who use food assistance are living on public support, be it old age pension, disability pension, social assistance or employment insurance. This shows that those programs are inadequate because they are largely insufficient to meet basic needs.
However, I do want to mention that recent measures taken by the Canadian government in relation to the guaranteed income supplement for seniors and the Canada child benefit have led to a slight drop in those clienteles in food banks.
Food banks were mainly created in the 1980s to deal with a difficult economic situation that was supposed to be temporary. Thirty years later, they are more active than ever and meet real vital needs to address food insecurity. This has been especially true since the 2008 recession, when the demand skyrocketed and has remained high.
The food balance sheet for Canadians is not very gleaming. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Right to Food made sure to remind us of that during his 2012 mission.
The rate of Canadian households affected by moderate and severe food insecurity is estimated at 7%. In the Outaouais region, that represents about 30,000 people. Of that number, one-third of the individuals resort to food assistance. Those are the people who are the most seriously affected. They have used up all their resources before they get to that point. They have moved into cheaper housing, obtained wage advances, gotten into debt and defaulted on payments. They have skipped meals and received help from friends and family. By the time they come to a food bank, they are extremely disadvantaged.
Food is the most elastic part of the budget. That is where people cut back when they have to tighten their belts. They can't risk losing their home or having their car seized, especially when they live in the regions, where public transit is not widely available.
Using food banks is neither a rewarding nor a normal way for people to feed themselves. Yet 863,492 individuals in Canada, with 171,800 of them in Quebec, use it every month because they have no other choice.
So the food baskets and meals provided by assistance agencies are part of their food supply. Without that assistance, their health and even their lives would be compromised, as would the country's cohesiveness and social and political stability.
While certain consumer products may be less expensive than they were 30 years ago, the opposite is true for food products. Our purchasing power has been reduced. Moreover, the gap between the richest and the poorest has widened.
The price of food forces the most disadvantaged to make choices that can compromise the quality of their food. The cheapest food is also the least healthy. Soft drinks are cheaper than milk. A bag of cookies is cheaper than a bag of apples. Since junk food is more widely available and accessible than healthy food, it is the daily diet of many young children in Canada. As a result, our children are increasingly overweight and the incidence of chronic diseases is rising steadily in our population.
Food is the chief determinant of health. Right now, three out of four deaths are attributable to chronic diseases that could have been delayed or prevented. Moreover, the incidence of chronic diseases varies with socio-economic status, and poor people have the highest incidence. Canada's food policy can reverse this trend by taking preventative measures before problems arise.
Canada's proposed food policy seeks to bring about social change. In order to be successful, this policy must be horizontal and interdepartmental, and involve the federal, provincial, and municipal orders of government. Moreover, it must address food insecurity and, more broadly speaking, poverty.
September 26th, 2017 / 4:50 p.m.
Chief Executive Officer, Moisson Outaouais
This is an ambitious project, but it is feasible. It addresses the aspirations of Canadians for a food system that is sustainable, fair, and respectful of the earth's resources. This Canadian policy is the stuff of dreams, but will it live up to its promises? We sincerely hope so.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Ms. Latulippe.
Now, with 4-H, Ms. Shannon Benner for seven minutes.
Shannon Benner Chief Executive Officer, 4-H Canada
Good afternoon. Thank you very much for the invitation to appear today before committee.
My name is Shannon Benner. I'm the CEO of 4-H Canada. I know some of you have relationships in your home riding with 4-H clubs and communities and work with them at a local level. For those of you not so familiar, I'll tell you very briefly who we are and what we do.
We're a national youth organization. We work with young people in four areas. We have 25,000 youth members in 2,000 clubs across Canada, and we have 7,500 volunteer leaders who work with youth. We work with youth in four key areas, our pillars: sustainable agriculture and food security, science and technology, communications and community engagement, and the environment and healthy living. These are all things that are very relevant to today's conversation, so thank you for having us.
4-H started 100 years ago as an organization that wanted to help kids succeed both on and off the farm. That meant it started with the principle of giving them not only skills, farming skills—literally giving them a bag of potato seeds 104 years ago—but also teaching them to be leaders in their communities and developing the character traits. Fast forward to today and that's still who we are at the fundamental level.
Globally, 4-H works with seven million young people around the world in the core pillar areas of sustainable agriculture and food security, and science and technology, so this is very relevant to us both at a global level and also at the community level.
The success of our program is evident not only by the number of highly engaged youth that we see across Canada and the topics they want to be part of and have conversations on, but also with the millions of alumni we have in this country. Whether they're Olympians or whether they're parliamentarians, we see that these are very important topics and that 4-H members really want to be engaged and part of this discussion.
What makes 4-H unique is that we have a public-private partnership. No matter where you are, whether you're in B.C., where the Minister of Agriculture partnered with 4-H B.C., or the United States—the USDA partnered with 4-H in the United States—it's always this public-private partnership that delivers agriculture and food security programming to young people.
We believe this helps us be very nimble and adapt to some of the emerging issues that youth can respond to and where we can work with young people. For example, in 2014, we surveyed our youth members across Canada. More than 80% of them indicated they were aware of careers in agriculture, and more than 50% indicated they wanted to pursue careers in agriculture.
When you look at some of the skills and labour gap statistics in the agriculture sector, we believe 4-H can help respond to some of the challenges and see them as opportunities.
One of the key things we believe, though, is that we don't consider them leaders tomorrow; they're leaders today, so we commend this government on its response in addressing youth and including youth at this table and in this conversation.
What we also see is that youth are very interested in pursuing many of these other crosscutting themes. I'll speak to generation Z—that's really who we work with. Generation Z right now means young people under the age of 18. They're a unique generation. They're the most connected generation in history. They're very socially conscious. They have a global mindset. They think of themselves as a we, not an I. They definitely embody the ability to think globally and act locally. We see that everywhere.
I'll use the example of Carp Fair just this past weekend. The Agricultural Society dedicated a plot of land. Kids grew crops that were donated to the food bank. They built entrepreneurial skills, they sold some of those crops in market, they learned to run a business, they banked the funds, and they donated them to a charity. We see an immense amount of opportunity to engage youth in these conversations. These are young people between the ages of nine and 15 who want to be part of this conversation.
I have a couple of recommendations I would like to put forward and leave with the committee on behalf of 4-H, which we think would lead to success in adopting a national youth policy.
The first is that we would suggest meaningfully engaging youth and ensuring that there's buy-in in a national youth policy. If we want this policy to have longevity—they're the generation that this impacts, not only with young people being able to access food today but in delivering this policy and ensuring its success for many generations to come—then young people should be engaged in the process to ensure that there's coast-to-coast buy-in for youth adopting the policy.
The second is that we would suggest there be an alignment with sustainable development goals. Whether it's taking 4-H members to speak at the FAO General Assembly, or whether it's convening them at a global level and hearing them talk about soil, food security, water, and air, as well as growing more high-quality food, young people want to be engaged in the high-level conversation. We see that sustainable development goals are of great interest and relevance to generation Z.
The last one is that we would suggest that a national food policy be—like 4-H—made crosscutting, in many departments, a very collaborative piece; and also that, like 4-H, it have public-private partnerships and be a shared accountability across multiple departments and portfolios.
Thank you very much for your time today.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Ms. Benner.
Now we'll start our question round.
Mr. Barlow, you have the floor.
You have six minutes.
Conservative
John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
I have a couple of questions for our witnesses, but I want to start with the motion I put forward last week. I would like to table that motion for a vote now. If it's okay with the chair, I will read the motion into the record.
It is:
That the committee immediately undertake a study on the government's consultations titled “Tax Planning Using Private Corporations” as publicly released on July 18, 2017; That the committee hear from witnesses on this topic for 15 meetings; That the hearings focus on the potential impact of the consultations, including making it easier to sell a family farm to a stranger than to a family member and how this will impact the Canadian agriculture and agri-food economy; That the findings be reported to the House; and That the government provide a response to the recommendations made by the committee.
The reason I think this is critical, Mr. Chair, is that we've heard from just about every witness we have had on this study that the importance of affordable food is going to be a key platform and part of our foundation of this study and, I think, of food policy moving forward.
In my opinion and certainly the opinion of every single farmer and rancher I have spoken with over the last several weeks, there is grave concern about how they can remain financially sustainable with some of these tax changes being brought forward by the Finance Minister, not only when it comes to passive income, but also in their ability to estate plan and pass on their family farm to the next generation. They have been working on these legacies sometimes for four or five generations. They are looking forward to passing that farm on to the next generation.
I think it's very disconcerting that we've had this much concern raised from farm and ranch families across Canada. I know my colleagues across the floor have been getting the same phone calls we have. Again, I think it is the job of this committee to be the voice of those farmers and ranchers who are raising those concerns.
It seems to me that as every day passes, it's quite clear that the Finance Minister is not going to extend the consultation period on these tax changes. I think this is an opportunity for the agriculture committee to step up, study these changes, and come back to farmers and ranchers with some answers on exactly what the economic impact of these changes will be. That's why I think it's so critical that we move forward with this study, Mr. Chair.
Thank you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Mr. Barlow.
Are there any comments or questions?
Mr. Longfield.
Liberal
Lloyd Longfield Liberal Guelph, ON
I think it's unfortunate that we have witnesses here. I'd like to continue with the witnesses.
The study on taxes is being handled by the finance committee right now. We had agricultural representatives there yesterday. We would be looking at duplicating an existing study that's going on with finance.
As well, we are in the middle of a consultation process. We don't have policy for us to look at while we are in the consultation process. It's premature, in any case, for us to be looking at this when we are in the middle of a consultation.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Mr. Longfield.
Are there any other comments or questions?
Mr. Barlow, please go ahead.
Conservative
John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB
I appreciate my colleague's comment on this, but the finance committee will have two or three witnesses from the agriculture industry on these changes; we have an opportunity to talk to every sector in the industry—farmers, ranchers, and agribusiness owners from across Canada, and not two or three, but dozens. I think that's what's important here. It's not just a chance to say we took a peek at it and let's shoo along. As the agriculture committee, I think it's our job to take a look at this, not just have the finance committee listen to two or three witnesses. This deserves digging into at a much greater depth than that.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
Conservative
The Clerk of the Committee Mr. Marc-Olivier Girard
We will have a recorded division.
(Motion negatived: nays 5; yeas 4)
Conservative
John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate that, and I appreciate our witnesses coming here today.
I know that my colleague apologized, but I think this is a very important issue for us to be discussing, and I appreciate your indulgence on this.
I want to ask some questions of Ms. Benner.
I know you had some great points on engaging youth, but before I get to you, I just want to make sure that it is clear to Ms. Bérubé of Équiterre that France is not moving ahead with banning neonics. It is reversing that decision. Even the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations has said that bee populations have bounced back to a record high. Germany, Britain, and some other countries are also looking at reviewing those decisions with the collapse of the canola industry in those countries. I just want to be clear that to say that all these other countries are banning neonics is.... I think, they've seen that they need to bring some of those things back to ensure that they have a strong agriculture industry.
Ms. Benner, I think one of the things that we need to talk about really quickly is that you have a thing about getting youth engaged.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Mr. Barlow, I apologize. It was one minute, but I'll let whomever you want to answer. I thought it was two.
Conservative
John Barlow Conservative Foothills, AB
No, no, it's okay.
Ms. Benner, what are some of the things? How do we engage urban youth to get involved in the agriculture sector and learn more about that?
