Agriculture Committee on April 18th, 2016

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. Drouin.

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

Sorry, I just stepped out. What happened here? Somebody put a motion on the floor to study TPP?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

There is a motion and we're at the voting stage.

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

Okay. Are we not discussing committee business on Wednesday?

All right.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

I will read the motion again: “That the committee adopt a report on its study of the Trans-Pacific Partnership and report its conclusions to the House.”

We are going to have it reported to the House—that was requested.

(Motion negatived: nays 5; yeas 4)

You still have three minutes, Madame Brosseau.

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

Do you have anything you would like to recommend? I know there's been a lot of talk about this being a positive thing for producers, the potential of it, and there is still uncertainty about what's going on in the United States. We don't know what's going to happen with the presidential race in November.

Are there things that need to be worked out? When we studied CETA, people had concerns about the way we were transforming some of the cattle, the way that is done over in Europe where the animal comes in and they wash it all up because they are slaughtering a lot less. Here in Canada we're doing a few thousand head a day. I was wondering if those issues have been worked out, or if there are some recommendations that should be made to the committee.

[Dan Darling]

On CETA, no, those technical issues have not been resolved yet. Yes, we continue to work at them and certainly hope that in the very near future those technical issues will be resolved, because, barring the resolution of those technical issues, Canada's beef producers cannot gain meaningful access to Europe.

The TPP, for the beef sector, doesn't have those issues. For the countries involved, we already have access. It's the tariffs that stop us from sending meaningful amounts to them.

I will suggest, though, that the TPP and like agreements help force science-based reasons for disallowing or allowing trade. That's one of the good things we find about these deals. We aren't at the whim of a country that is not allowing us in. It puts safeguards in place so that we can continue to go in.

[Claire Citeau]

We've supported the CETA, as it's expected to result in significant benefits for our export-oriented agrifood sectors.

On the TPP, we've heard about the benefits, the risks, the costs. What I want to impress upon the committee today is the importance of having competitive access to global markets for our export-oriented agriculture and agrifood sector. The TPP is a very small acronym for what could be the biggest deal on the planet at this point. Trade is our future.

If I can make one recommendation, it is to study trade in the Asia Pacific region as well. We've heard about Vietnam, Malaysia. The EU has released the text of its bilateral agreement with Vietnam. It is a competitor for some of our producers, such as pork, for example, so if not the TPP, then what? The Asian market is fast-growing. Certainly, all our eyes are on this market.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Citeau.

Mrs. Nassif, the floor is yours and you have six minutes.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My thanks to all the witnesses for their presentations.

I am not a member of this committee, but I have a question about the rules governing commercial imports.

For example, are we going to consider trade in products that contain GMOs and growth hormones? Could you enlighten us about that, please?

[Claire Citeau]

In general, the rules are established by all the countries that are signatories to the agreement.

For specific products, I would invite my colleagues to answer your question in detail.

[Eva Nassif, Liberal, Vimy, QC]

I am talking about imports into Canada.

[Jim Everson]

I can't speak at all to growth hormones or anything of that nature.

Canada has regulations in place with respect to genetic modification, and the approval process for GMs has regulations in place for food safety and so on, so I don't see those compromised by a trade agreement.

Canada follows a very robust approval process for genetic modification. Canada follows the accepted international Codex risk safety guidelines, and the approach is a science-based process. It takes roughly two years to go through. The genetically modified product is looked at by Health Canada for human health, by CFIA for animal health, and by Environment Canada for its impact on the environment. It's a very science-based process and has no political implications to it.

A product that is approved in Canada is approved for import into Canada. Canada has a zero-tolerance process. If a product is not approved by our Canadian scientists, it's not allowed to be imported in any form into Canada, much like some other countries have done. In fact, Canada's system is a very broad system. It's actually based on novel traits. They look at the product that results from the process, and not the process itself. It's quite unique and very broad, so any product that changes, that introduces a novel factor to the food or the feed, is captured by the novel trait guidelines that Canada has. It's in fact broader in scope than most other nations.

[John Masswohl]

I would say the answer is very similar for veterinary medicine and products, whether you're talking about a hormone implant or a feed additive, or any other medicinal product used in livestock production to control parasites, etc.

Health Canada has its veterinary medicine directorate, and again they have a very lengthy approval process, so there is tight control over the use of the products in Canada. There are certain obligations, certain requirements, and certain withdrawal periods. Depending on what the product is, maybe it can't be used for a certain number of days before the animal goes for harvesting.

We would expect that through the Canadian Food Inspection Agency any food, whether it's meat or otherwise, that comes into Canada has to abide by those same regulations.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Do we have any more time available, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Yes, you have more than two minutes.

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

Okay.

I would like to go back to the question that Mr. Longfield asked previously.

We have heard what you had to say. You spoke very favourably about this agreement. However, the people you represent are members, producers. What concerns have you heard from your members about this agreement? They cannot be unanimous about it. Even if you have come out in favour of the accord, surely things came up during your consultations. Just because I am asking this question, it does not mean that I am opposed to the agreement. We have heard from you but I want to know what your members have said on the subject. Is there 100% support? Do you have carte blanche to announce that you are in favour of the agreement? Talk to us a little about the concerns that they have surely expressed in recent years.

I am asking Ms. Citeau to answer that question, followed by Mr. McCabe.

[Claire Citeau]

The concern is, what if Canada doesn't ratify the agreement, though? And that is directly related to the costs of not ratifying. We've seen what happened with the Korean deal, and we certainly cannot relive that experience again. Who knows what would happen if Canada were not part of the TPP? That's the first part of the answer.

The second is, if Canada is not part of the TPP and other signatories are, our products would not qualify as TPP-originating, so we would not have access to that huge trading bloc that is growing ahead of us.

To your question of what is the concern for Canada, I would say that it's more about looking at the risks and the costs of not ratifying the TPP at this point.

[Don McCabe]

We had the recent CFA meetings and all the rest of it, and I would say that the majority of members always see value in trade deals because we're an exporting country. By the same token, they're also not in a position to give a fully definitive or final answer because they're not going to go through that document; they rely on organizations to do that for them and give them the best information. So you have people who say, yes, we should have done it yesterday, and those who say we should never sign anything. However, the majority is sitting in-between on the issue of whether or not to have trade deals and whether to trust them, but believe that we also need to ensure that we take care of our own.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

There are still six minutes on that side.

You can continue, Mr. Breton, or anyone else who wants to use the six minutes.

Or would you like to pass? Are we all good?

[Pierre Breton, Liberal, Shefford, QC]

I would like to ask one last question.

Our next-door neighbours are the United States, a country with 10 times our population.

Let me put myself in a producer's shoes. Is there not a reason to be concerned that the United States, where producers are sometimes much bigger than ours and where the population is much bigger than ours, might go after that market instead of us?

I am just asking the question. I don't want to hear a simple yes or no, but whether or not the situation concerns you. This goes back a little to the question I asked earlier.

What do you have to say about it, Mr. Everson?

[Jim Everson]

I think it's important for us to do our best to ensure that regulatory programs and taxes are competitive and that we try to do things to make our farmers and industries as competitive as possible in international markets.

I think it is true that you can have large farms in other countries—not just the United States, but others as well—with economies of scale, but I think our producers and our industries in agriculture say they're as good as anybody else at farming and processing, so that if we have fair trading rules, they'll compete. Some countries will have competitive advantages on some products. Fair enough, let them bring products into Canada, but we're going to allow our industries to choose where they have a competitive advantage. We have a terrific advantage at the moment in terms of the credibility Canada has on food safety and the quality of our products. So our farmers and our industry will say, “Give us fair trade rules and access to markets tariff free, and we'll compete.”

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. Drouin, you have the floor.

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

Jim, I was going to ask you this question the last time round, but I ran out of time. You mentioned market access. Are you satisfied with the services that Ag Canada and the trade offices are offering? Do you think there could be improvements? I see this as directly linked to the trade agreements that were signed and that we may or may not ratify. Are you satisfied with the service offered? Do you have any suggestions on how we can improve the services?

[Jim Everson]

Our trade partners do an extremely good job, and the market access secretariat at Agriculture Canada too. Our industry went to South Korea and Japan recently. In South Korea, we're trying to harvest the benefit of a free trade agreement with that country, and the trade commissioner set up our program in South Korea and did a great job. We saw all the key people we needed to see in that country over a period of two and a half days. In Japan also, we put a heavy burden on those people, and they delivered really well. The cattleman may have a comment on that, too.

I think Agriculture Canada and CFIA do a really good job. I've been in situations where we've had to have the science part of the equation with us, the people who sign off on phytosanitary certificates, to guarantee to the import market that our product is free of pests on their pest control list and so on. Only scientists can do that and help us innovate in regulation, and that's an important part of accessing markets too.

So, the answer is that we can always use more improvements; we have a lot of market access challenges. All of us, I think, in the agriculture sector face these barriers that come up on a whole range of different issues, so resources are always important from that point of view. But by and large, I think we're very well served by our public service.