Agriculture Committee on Sept. 28th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Unfortunately, no.

Up next is Mr. Drouin.

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

Mr. Chair, I have to give a bit of context here and just remind some of my colleagues about what the Paris agreement is which 166 countries have signed on to. Yes, the U.S. may be withdrawing in 2020, but California still implemented a carbon pricing model. Any big country that signed on to the Paris agreement already has implemented a carbon pricing model. We're having access through CETA to 500 million consumers who all care about the environment and carbon. Anyway, those are the other facts.

On tax reform, I think that the Minister of Finance has heard you loud and clear. He has said that he doesn't want any unintended consequences. The longer we give uncertainty in the market, the worse it will be. Yes, it's going to end October 2 for the department, but there is legislation. It has to go through first, second, and third reading, which leaves plenty of time for comments once we know the final result. Right now we're still in consultation.

Mike, how are you? By the way, there are two days left of national chicken month.

You've talked about the cost of producing food. I was at a chicken farmer's about two or three weeks ago, and he talked about the whole bio movement, and he believes that the size of barns right now are probably too large because chickens tend to huddle together. I think he has about 20,000 chickens in there. He says that even that size of barn, per square footage—and I don't know the exact square footage required once you declare you're moving into bio-chicken as opposed to traditional methods. Anyway, he talked about how the size of the barn could probably be reduced because chickens tend to huddle together. He has all this extra space in there.

I'm wondering if you could talk about that and the impact on the cost of food, and again what activists are saying versus reality.

[Mike Dungate]

There was a person earlier who said, “Let's get into just organic and nothing else, and that's it.” I don't think it's one or the other. Our farmers are doing an incredible increase in organic to this point. Yes, there are requirements if you want to be certified, that you have to have additional space and that.

I was in a Costco in Vancouver at our summer meeting, and I stood beside the chicken counter. There was organic chicken at $22 a kilogram and conventional chicken at $12 a kilogram. I could not believe how many people picked up that organic chicken, kept buying it, and were willing to pay that price.

Is the point that everybody should pay that price or somebody who wants that? Let me tell you, there is nothing wrong with conventional chicken. That's what I said. We're moving up the standards in terms of antimicrobial, doing the food safety and animal care, and delivering across the board at an affordability piece, but if you want something that's more special, more local or whatever, it's available. It's increasingly available because there are people out there with disposable income who want that, but we can't force a one-size-fits-all solution and raise the price of every piece of chicken marketed out there. We have to make sure that we do stuff that is reasonable, is science-based, and is not emotion-based or done by groups pretending to be consumers and telling people what they should or should not want.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

I don't want to take time from Mr. Drouin.

I just want to give my colleague across from me an opportunity to clarify a statement. He's making it sound like signing onto the Paris accord is a commitment that every country has to impose a carbon tax. That's not the case. I just want to give him a chance to clarify.

[An hon. member]

Debate, debate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Order, please.

This is not a point of order, so I'm going to have to nullify that.

It's back to you, Mr. Drouin.

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

I do have a point of order.

It's about the motion that we adopted unanimously.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

The last one, yes.

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

I think it's important that we clarify some points. When are we going to write the letter? Will it be sent to all members? I want to make sure that we include a date by which we would like to have a response from the minister, because it's happened three times. I know that I brought it up in my motion to write to the Minister of Innovation, but I want to make sure that we clarify in public and on the record that—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

It's very borderline whether that's a point of order, but I can assure you that, if the group is in agreement, we will write the letter immediately, and we will certainly copy all of you. As soon as we get an answer, we'll get back.

Thank you.

We have to move on. Mr. Drouin.

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

Thank you.

Looking at the four pillars of the food policy, one of the issues is food affordability.

I'm looking at Ms. Lee. There have been some greenhouses that were built up north. Can you talk to me about that? Are there one or two, or is it a growing movement? There are pilot projects up north with some greenhouses.

[Rebecca Lee]

I think there is some work being done up north in the Northwest Territories and Yukon. There are some that are, as I understand it, exporting to other regions of Canada. I'm not too sure how big it is at this point.

There are a lot of different projects being done to try to figure out how greenhouses can be used to have production year round up north. They do have issues of lighting, of course. They have to see whether it's affordable or not.

There are different shapes and sizes, and different kinds of technologies that are being used. I think it's still very much in the prototype and experimental stages.

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

Do you believe that is something the government should be supporting more? We can talk about either producing it down south and providing subsidies to carry it up north or producing it up north which has more energy costs. What do you believe?

[Rebecca Lee]

I think it will depend on the type of energy that can be found to power the lighting and the heating that will be needed to have the product up north. There may also be certain parts of the year when, just like in areas further south, there is no production, such as during the deepest part of winter. That might have to be taken into account.

This is just me talking, and without substantiating it, I believe there are some possibilities with solar energy that could be involved if there were some technology that was developed to be able to better—

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

Store?

[Rebecca Lee]

—store, yes. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

That's a good point to jump in on.

Thank you so much, Ms. Lee, Ms. Delli Santi, Ms. Citeau, and Mr. Dungate.

This was a very good discussion. Our thanks to all of you.

The meeting is adjourned.