Evidence of meeting #12 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 43rd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was production.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Ryan Koeslag  Executive Vice-President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association
Janet Krayden  Workforce Expert, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association
Portia MacDonald-Dewhirst  Executive Director, Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council
Cyr Couturier  Chair, Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council
Ken Forth  President, Foreign Agricultural Resource Management Services
Pierre Lampron  President, Dairy Farmers of Canada
David Wiens  Vice-President, Dairy Farmers of Canada
Michael Barrett  Chair, Dairy Processors Association of Canada
Mathieu Frigon  President and Chief Executive Officer, Dairy Processors Association of Canada

4:40 p.m.

Workforce Expert, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association

Janet Krayden

We are very appreciative of the Ontario program. If there was more support for that, for mushrooms, some farms would be able to consider it as an option, because “skip the grocery store” is very popular.

I totally agree that it's the new way of doing business, the boxes that come to your home. A lot of companies are actually very successful with that. I've heard of one mushroom company that has done that in Vancouver and they're very successful. Therefore, yes, we'd be interested if the federal government would support that.

4:40 p.m.

Bloc

Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC

There is also a demand for a more developed postal service. A delivery used to take three or four days; today, it takes more than two weeks, or even three weeks, with Canada Post. There would surely be investments to be made in that area as well.

I'm going to talk to you a little bit about labour.

As far as seasonal workers are concerned, we in the Bloc Québécois still think the same thing, that the federal government should have been responsible for quarantining seasonal workers arriving in Quebec. That would obviously have saved a lot of energy for the farm owner-operators.

Farmers like those on Île d'Orléans should have been in the fields working to save the day by planting as much as possible with the help of their families, cousins or neighbours while waiting for foreign workers to arrive. Instead, they spent all their energy trying to house the workers, enforce physical distancing, and get equipment.

Do you think the $1,500 per worker could be made more accessible now? The application process is complex, and farmers are in the fields right now. So they don't have time to send out invoices, receipts. They are being asked to do a lot of things so that they can benefit from the $1,500, which is not enough anyway.

What do you think? I'd like your comments on that.

4:40 p.m.

Workforce Expert, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association

Janet Krayden

Is that for mushrooms again?

4:40 p.m.

Bloc

Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC

Yes, or perhaps Mr. Couturier, who handles the labour side of things, could answer.

4:40 p.m.

Workforce Expert, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association

Janet Krayden

For mushrooms, our workers are actually year-round and they're in Canada already. We have about 50 workers who were outside Canada on vacation when the travel restrictions began. About 10 of them have been able to return, and they'll be using the Ag Canada $1,500-per-worker, $50-million program.

Our farmers have been investing a lot of money into hotels and extra housing, to create extra space and also to isolate workers if they might have come into contact with COVID.

4:40 p.m.

Bloc

Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC

Is that—

4:40 p.m.

Workforce Expert, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association

Janet Krayden

We get no expenses. We are not allowed to use that program.

We're completely on board, but please loosen up the criteria so that some of our mushroom expenses can be covered.

We're totally on board with that.

4:40 p.m.

Bloc

Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC

That's what I think too.

Briefly—this is addressed to either of you—with respect to the gap between what the United States has given in support to their farmers and what the Government of Canada is giving, is that—

4:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Ms. Desbiens—

4:40 p.m.

Bloc

Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC

My time is already up?

4:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Unfortunately, yes. We have to move to the next person.

4:40 p.m.

Bloc

Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC

Are my questions too long?

4:40 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Yes, they are.

Okay. Now we'll go to Mr. MacGregor for up to six minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. MacGregor.

4:40 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses for helping us understand how this crisis is affecting yet more of our agri-food and agricultural sectors.

Maybe I will start with the mushroom growers. First I have a comment for Ms. Krayden.

Ms. Krayden, your comment about the two weeks' supply of face masks is very concerning, but it echoes concerns we've heard in other committees. At the government operations committee, we have had troubling questions about the status of our national stockpile. It's certainly something that we, as a country, really need to take note of.

Mr. Koeslag, I want to go back to your comments, because you were the one who said that mushroom growers are still fighting for access to major programs and that it's going to be too little, too late.

Before COVID-19, our committee was engaged in a study on the business risk management programs and a litany of complaints that exist.

Our federal Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food said earlier this week that farmers, growers and producers need to access already announced support programs in order for her to make the case in cabinet that more money is warranted. You're saying those programs are hard to access, but she's saying you need to access them before she makes the case for more money.

I would like to get your reaction to that, please.

4:45 p.m.

Executive Vice-President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association

Ryan Koeslag

Yes. We spoke to the minister directly about this as well, identifying the issues with accessing these programs. There are really two major issues for us. One is that there is a cap, and these farm operations are running into the cap for the $3 million. If you think of the scale of operation, when you're capped at a certain amount and you have losses greater than that, this isn't going to be enough to sustain that farming operation.

In addition, there is a situation where we are having expansions, and investments in capital in order to expand the operations. When there's a weighted average elimination of your highest sale year and elimination of your lowest sale year, if your timing is correct, you eliminate a substantial amount of revenue from that calculation, which would again put you in dire straits for any kind of payment that you'd receive from that.

Those are the two major issues we have with it, in addition to even, say, the premium costs that would be incurred for some of these farm operations for potential payout, which would be maxed at the $3 million. Those are the things these farms are weighing. They have accountants and they have people who are examining this all the time. We hear from them that this isn't something they want to be participating in. At this point, they need some assistance and this is not the program to do that.

4:45 p.m.

Workforce Expert, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association

Janet Krayden

I would add that we had the accountant for one of the farms use the new Ag Canada AgriStability calculator. It's a case study that we have in our report that we're going to make available to the committee later this week. Basically, it's unsustainable. The farm goes broke by the time they're able to access the money.

We have that in a case study and we'll share it with the committee.

4:45 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Great.

We hear repeatedly from every one of our witnesses about the great concerns they have with our access to a reliable labour pool. One of the themes I've been trying to build is how to build resilience into our system. We had the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship appear before this committee to talk about the pilot program that has been established to provide a pathway to citizenship, and I know the mushroom industry is going to be one of the eligible industries for that.

Can you offer some comments on that? A pilot program and a pathway to citizenship is something that has been talked about for some time, but I'd like to get some of your feedback on how that might help you establish some resilience in your access to labour in future years.

4:45 p.m.

Workforce Expert, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association

Janet Krayden

Yes, thank you. We're actually very excited about the agri-food immigration pilot, and we've worked very closely with the immigration department for four years.

We had workshops with the farm workers until the economy was shut down in March. We felt that we would have maybe 100 to 200 workers who would apply this year, but we've been very disappointed because they have a small criterion that applicants have to have their high school certificate. The problem is that the schools are closed in their country. They can't get their certificates.

The education assessment company said, if they have a high school certificate already in Canada—and I saw about 30 or 40 at all the farms I visited in March before COVID struck—why don't we get started with that and then we will go and get their original high school certificates when the schools and economies open? So far, Immigration hasn't been interested in that, but to us that makes sense. Otherwise, you have nobody who can apply this year.

4:50 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

How many opportunities are there going to be during this pilot program for you to give feedback to the department on an ongoing basis?

4:50 p.m.

Workforce Expert, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association

Janet Krayden

We provide feedback unofficially and we spoke with the minister's office about two weeks ago, but we're hoping they will take some official feedback and make some additional changes very quickly, which could include this simple administrative thing, a little change of wording so that our workers could start applying right away. That's what we hope.

4:50 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

Thank you, Ms. Krayden, and thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

Now we'll go to Jeremy Patzer for five minutes.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to start with questions for the Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council. Either one of you can answer.

About a month and a half ago, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture was calling for support for agri-food. From your perspective, is Canadian agriculture better off now than it was, say, two months ago, and is it receiving enough support?

4:50 p.m.

Chair, Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council

Cyr Couturier

I'll answer that question, because I sit on the Canadian Federation of Agriculture board, as well as CAHRC.

I don't think they're better off now with the support programs that are out there. Mushroom folks have already said that the AgriStability is not applicable. We know that BRM is not suitable for a lot of the crops that are produced in Canada.

From that perspective, in terms of labour supply and so on, you've already heard from some witnesses today that they're not better off. There is still lots of uncertainty. People are going bankrupt and there will be lots more over the next year or so.

4:50 p.m.

Conservative

Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK

Yes, for sure. It's definitely a dire situation that's being painted there. The gross lack of interest in supporting agriculture as a whole has been a problem.

When it comes to the number of staff, as well as the health and safety standards in place for COVID-19, do you believe we are on track to maintain food production here in Canada, or are we at risk of any break in our domestic supply?

4:50 p.m.

Chair, Canadian Agricultural Human Resource Council

Cyr Couturier

There has already been some breakage in the distribution channels initially. It's starting to come back up, but there's still a dire need for production, for farmers to be able to get their crops off the fields, or out of the ocean in my case, because I also work with seafood farmers.

In particular, because of the way the value chains have changed from retail to back and forth from the restaurants, that's causing major problems with a lot of the small producers, in fact, throughout Canada.