Agriculture Committee on Nov. 9th, 2017

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

All right.

(Motion negatived: nays 5; yeas 4)

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you very much.

We will now turn our attention back to our witnesses.

Mr. Peschisolido, you may go ahead for six minutes.

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

Dr. Gray and Mr. Rosser, thank you so much for attending and providing me and everyone here with a great deal of insight into issues that are complicated and technical. It's at moments like this that I wish I'd taken chemistry and biology at university.

Mr. Gray or Mr. Rosser, I'm assuming both of you put together the presentation. Page 9 encapsulates the broad strokes of it. The first part says, basically, that we want to try to prevent climate change, but that in the process, we also want to take advantage of possible opportunities from climate change. You put it much more eloquently than I just did. We're trying adapt to it while simultaneously trying to mitigate it.

The second point you discussed was the whole notion of increasing productivity, but also decreasing the resources that you're using, basically producing more stuff, but making sure that, while producing more stuff, you're not getting more emissions in the air, but preventing climate change.

As a government, we're looking at two main areas. You have the side of laws and regulations and then funding. Not getting into the specifics, are there any particular areas of funding you think we should look at in those four areas that I talked about, beyond what you've talked about here? Also, on the regulatory side, we had witnesses, either at the last session or the earlier one, saying that perhaps the regulations are a bit too onerous, and other witnesses said that perhaps they're not onerous enough.

I'll leave that to Dr. Gray and Mr. Rosser to comment.

[Dr. Brian Gray]

Mr. Chair, I can take a stab at the funding question, and I'll leave it to my colleague to talk about the regulatory question.

As Tom mentioned, we're in what's called Growing Forward 2. It's the tail end of the existing five-year agricultural policy framework. It has evolved over the three policy frameworks. In that, there's a program of industry-led clusters. Those are industry-led research and development clusters of dairy, beef, pork, and pulses. Those are examples of big ones. Within that, there are opportunities for industry to tell us the big things they need developed and what they need answers to. Those are complemented by the science that our branch does, which is further upstream, longer term, more risky, more foundational, and with longer periods for getting answers to questions. We collaborate together on those.

As I mentioned earlier, we're not in a position to talk about the next one. We'll let our minister announce that and speak in more detail, and I would be happy to come back and unpack that.

Producers, the producer organizations, will tell you that the way we've been doing the collaborative research led by industry and Agriculture and Agri-food Canada has been working. We've evolved through the policy frameworks based on their input and on evaluations by our internal evaluation program. Again, I can't speak to the details on funding, but in the current policy framework, there's a fair bit of money that goes out to industry that has to be matched by industry for big clusters and then for smaller research projects.

When it's appropriate for us to talk about the Canadian agricultural partnership in more detail, I would be happy to do so.

[Tom Rosser]

I might just add briefly, from a policy standpoint, that emissions from the agricultural industry are fairly significant and contribute to the national total roughly 10%, I believe. Many of them are biological in nature. They don't lend themselves to being addressed by regulatory methods, for the most part.

Through the agricultural partnership, we do have programs in place to help producers identify opportunities to improve environmental performance. We have some incentive programs to help them effect changes. There are tools in place, and they've proven to effective over time at reducing the emissions intensity of the agricultural sector. I think there is scope for additional policy thought, in terms of another mix of tools and how one might most effectively encourage further reductions in those emissions.

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

I believe it was Dr. Gray who talked about the new domain sciences, that there has to be a rethink in chemistry and biology to get a handle on this. In my neck of the woods you have UBC and Simon Fraser. In my riding specifically, you have Kwantlen Polytechnic. Is there anything that we're doing in the policy framework now that will provide either funding or guidance to institutions across Canada? If there is not, can there be?

[Dr. Brian Gray]

Yes, for example, we have a partnership with the University of British Columbia at our Agassiz Research and Development Centre. They have their experimental dairy there. We're negotiating the new MOU. In that, we're going to collaborate more deeply in the area of manure management and what it's doing to the soil microbiome, water runoff quality, and also greenhouse gas emissions. That's a very specific example of one of the universities we work with.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Gray. I have to cut you off.

Ms. Boucher, you may go ahead for five minutes.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll be splitting my time with Mr. Berthold.

We've talked a lot about climate change. Mr. Rosser, when you develop a climate change policy, you meet with the scientists studying climate change, but do you also talk to producers—the people who are on the ground, literally, working the soil?

When you develop programs, do you make sure they are adapted to the needs of the region where they will be implemented, or, conversely, is the process static and one-sided?

[Tom Rosser]

I'd like to thank the member for the question.

Before negotiating the renewed framework with the provinces and territories, we held nationwide consultations with producers and stakeholders to gain a clear understanding of their priorities.

The lion's share of our environment and climate change programs are implemented by the provinces. Although the objectives are the same across the country, the provinces retain some flexibility to address the priorities of farmers in their own regions.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

What you're saying, then, is that programs are developed unilaterally, but that it is up to the provinces to adapt them to their own needs. Is that correct?

[Tom Rosser]

The provinces implement the programs. Program implementation and funding are the subject of federal-provincial negotiations, during which, provinces have an opportunity to adjust priorities and a say in managing the program in the best way they see fit.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Very well. Thank you, Mr. Rosser.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. Berthold, you have two minutes remaining for your questions.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Although we talk a lot about climate change and the environment, it's a pleasure for the members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food to have you here. It shows how various issues can be intertwined. On some issues, it's important for the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food to hear about matters of environmental concern. That's a nod to my colleagues across the way.

I'd like to ask you about policy development, be it in the area of climate change, food, or other. Over the past few weeks and months, we have witnessed instances where newly developed policies met with unintended consequences a few weeks later. The tax reform package is one such example.

When you develop a policy, like the food policy, do you assess its economic impact on producers? Do you systematically assess the domestic and international impact on production and trade? The differences in tariffs and production costs from province to province and country to country are a huge factor.

[Tom Rosser]

Thank you for your question.

Yes, we do have a group that performs economic assessments of trends and opportunities in the agricultural sector. From time to time, we do evaluate the impact of certain policies on the sector.

Something else we do in connection with that is work towards better co-operation with the provinces and territories when it comes to sharing data on program effectiveness. That helps us measure outcomes better and make appropriate adjustments.

[Luc Berthold, Conservative, Mégantic—L'Érable, QC]

What I gather, then, is that you do not systematically assess the economic impact of policies. In the case of the food policy, are you conducting an economic assessment in conjunction with the current policy study?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. Berthold, I'm afraid your time is up.

Ms. Trudel, you have the floor for three minutes.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to pick up on the topic I brought up earlier.

You touched on it with Mrs. Boucher, but I'd like to revisit the AGRI programs.

Where I'm from, Saguenay—Lac-Saint-Jean, people were hit hard by a hailstorm that completely wiped out corn crops in Saint-Bruno. Vegetable growers in Saint-Fulgence saw their fields ruined by a tornado, costing them not only crops, but also their entire season.

I realize that negotiations take place at the provincial level, but producers in my region tell me that the program eligibility criteria are so strict that they do not always qualify. Some of them suffered huge losses—their entire summer income.

How do you plan to adjust the crop insurance program?

[Tom Rosser]

I believe we already discussed that. The federal and provincial ministers announced a review of all the programs. We want to make sure the program takes into account climate change and the risks it represents for the agricultural sector. As part of that review, in addition to conducting assessments, we want to give farm operators and producers an opportunity to share their priorities and program concerns with us.

We are hoping that, by next summer, we will have enough information to advise the minister on how to make the program better, so that it reflects the actual effects and risks farmers are facing on the ground.

[Karine Trudel, NDP, Jonquière, QC]

That's great.

Now I'd like to discuss water and soil conservation, which we haven't talked a whole lot about. What approach are you going to recommend to the government to help the agricultural sector better manage water and soil conservation?

[Dr. Brian Gray]

As Tom mentioned, in the current framework we have programs that are decided bilaterally between provinces and the federal government on what sort of beneficial management practices a province and the federal government would like to make available to producers. Those practices would include the conservation of soil and the protection or conservation of water, whether it be too much or too little water.

In that process, we know a little bit about a lot of those beneficial management practices, enough to know that we think they're pretty good, so let's try them. What we're proposing with the living labs, les laboratoires vivants, is to actually work with producers to scientifically measure how much carbon it will captures. We think it will capture carbon, but how much will it capture? In the process of capturing carbon, it's also building the microbiome in the soil at the same time.

That's something that we need to do. We need to take a systematic approach because we need to understand the entire system—what was growing there three years ago, five years ago, and last year—so that we can provide science to help producers protect their systems and farms from catastrophic attacks of pests. In the existing framework, the department does have backup risk management for those situations where a producer faces a catastrophic loss.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Gray.

Thank you.

Folks, we have gone through our two rounds. We have about 25 minutes left, and if our panel permits, do you want to go with another round?

[An hon. member]

Yes, sure.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Okay, if we allow all parties 6 minutes, would that work?