Agriculture Committee on May 5th, 2020

[Chris Forbes]

As I said in my comments, thanks to my colleague Mr. Seppey, we talk to stakeholders almost every day. We're going to quickly discuss things with the processing sector representatives to make sure we understand their situation. I think we have a good idea of what their needs are, but we're going to make sure that we have a very concrete understanding of what they need to adapt. We're going to try to get the program up and running as soon as possible, because we understand this is an emergency for them.

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

Another announcement was made today. Within the Fromagerie St-Albert Co-op, there are members who are dairy producers. In fact, there is a large community of dairy farmers in my riding. As we have seen in the media, both in Canada and in the United States, it is not their fault if they have to throw away part of their production. You cannot stop a cow from producing milk, and unfortunately, you have to milk it every day. The role of the Canadian Dairy Commission includes buying butter and cheese. You mentioned that in your comments.

Why was a credit limit increase included in today's announcement?

[Chris Forbes]

The amount of credit provided to the Canadian Dairy Commission allows it to purchase more milk. The surplus milk production issue is solved by processing milk into butter and cheese. The markets are not ready for these quantities. So the commission will be able to buy some of this butter and cheese from the processors and keep it for a given period of time. The increase in the commission's credit limit will help it to keep larger volumes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Forbes and Mr. Drouin.

Welcome, Mr. Perron. You have the floor for six minutes to ask your questions.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Hello everyone.

I, too, am very pleased to join my colleagues of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

My first question is for you, Mr. Forbes. It's a general question about the amounts announced today.

First of all, I was very happy to finally see announcements concerning agriculture. Parliament shut down on March 13. However, it is now May 5 and these are the first announcements of direct support. However, the amount is rather disappointing. We are talking about $252 million in total. Compared to the United States, which offered $17 billion in support, that is about 12 times less money, all things considered.

Do you think that will be enough?

[Chris Forbes]

The government tried to respond to urgent requests today. It is not for me to decide if it is enough, but we are trying to meet the needs of the beef and pork sectors and the needs relating to the surplus of certain products, such as potatoes. We are trying to meet those needs today.

I just want to add that risk management programs are already in place in the provinces for producers.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Forbes, in the answers we get, there are a lot of references to programs that are already in place. We know that most of these programs do not work for many farmers. In the case of the AgriStability program, for example, only 31% of farmers participate. When an insurance program only pays out in the event of a major disaster, people stop contributing.

Before the crisis, discussions were underway to improve the AgriStability program, and I know you've been working on that since last summer. Are we going to get anywhere quickly? Isn't the COVID-19 pandemic crisis an opportunity to increase the insurability thresholds? It would be easy to raise the thresholds from 70% to 85%, as requested by farm organizations before the crisis. This could be a great help and give confidence to producers who are seeding their fields right now.

[Chris Forbes]

Provincial ministers and Minister Bibeau are discussing that. It continues to be a priority. I know that the industry and the ministers are looking at risk management programs to see how they can be improved. The ministers will decide on future improvements, and I can say that this is a matter of much discussion.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

I just want to point out that the need is here and now, quickly.

I want to address another topic, the ratification of CUSMA, which will come into force on July 1.

In other committee meetings, we met with dairy processors and farmers. They were very disappointed. They were told that this agreement wouldn't come into force before August 1. However, the promise wasn't kept. This isn't the first time. This also happened in recent international negotiations.

The representatives of the dairy processing sector spoke about the current issue of import quotas to comply with the percentages of goods that will enter the country as part of these announcements. They explained the importance of allocating most of the quotas to processors rather than to distributors.

Are you making any progress on this issue? Can you share any signs of progress? I know that this process will be established in the coming weeks, and I imagine that the department is working on it.

[Chris Forbes]

We're working closely with our colleagues at International Trade Canada. I can ask my colleague Mr. Seppey to comment on this.

[Frédéric Seppey, Assistant Deputy Minister, Market and Industry Services Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

The allocation of import tariff rate quotas plays a key role in the orderly management of market access commitments.

Over the course of the negotiations and since the signature of the agreement on November 1, 2018, we've worked closely with Global Affairs Canada and industry stakeholders, including dairy processors, to ensure that the quota allocation meets their needs. The allocation must comply with international trade rules. However, I can assure you that processors were consulted with regard to the terms of CUSMA.

I want to add that Global Affairs Canada was conducting a major review of all tariff rate quotas in every international agreement. This review is on hold because of the current crisis, but it will start again. The interests of dairy processors were really taken into account in the establishment of this allocation.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Seppey, decisions mustn't be made in two weeks when these analyses haven't been completed. It's important to take into consideration the requests of the industry, which has already suffered a great deal in recent years because of the significant losses resulting from various international treaties. I think that this is fundamental.

Lastly, I want to point out that the Canadian Dairy Commission is talking about increasing credit capacity. We're very pleased about this. The Bloc had suggested this increase. Do we know how much or to what extent the credit rating will be increased?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. Perron, your time is up, unfortunately. Mr. Seppey may respond to you when answering another question.

Mr. MacGregor, you have six minutes.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I'd also like to repeat the previous comments. I get to see everyone's face again.

Mr. Forbes, it's similar to what was asked about the amounts that were asked for. The $252 million is just under 10% of what the Canadian Federation of Agriculture members thought it would need, and I understand it's not really up to you as to whether the amounts are sufficient. But perhaps you could inform the committee, how long you anticipate the $252 million will last? What's the time frame that this amount of money will be adequate for?

[Chris Forbes]

If I were to break it up into the various programs, the purpose of the set-aside program for the cattle sector certainly has a duration of a number of months to help manage the feed costs, and this was linked to a request the cattlemen themselves made. Similarly, hopefully the pork producer amounts for the AgriRecovery program to help them with additional costs will cover those costs over the period of the coming months, and some of the ones that have already been taking place. With the processor fund, our goal is to spend all the money in the coming months as quickly as we can to make sure that money gets into the hands of processors.

We don't have a specific time limit for the $50 million for surplus food but we'd like to get the money out the door at the earliest possible chance to get the food out of storage and out of processors' hands and out of farmers' hands and into the food banks or other places where vulnerable Canadians will have access to it.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

The minister gave me a call today before the announcement was made about the change that you're hoping to negotiate with the provinces over AgriInsurance, including the absence of temporary workers as a risk. As things stand now, and looking ahead to the projections for the next few months, is the department aware of how many workers we might be short, for the upcoming agricultural season?

[Chris Forbes]

The one item we have a really good handle on right now is the temporary foreign worker arrivals. To be quite honest with you, I feel we're doing reasonably well, given the circumstances. We have close to 12,000 workers thus far if we take into account arrivals so far this week, which is 85% or 90% of where we would have been last year at this time, which given all the challenges, is significant. That is not to downplay that obviously for farmers, the fact that two weeks of quarantine means certainly they are delayed in some of their planting. Overall, we're doing pretty well in the arrival of temporary foreign workers, which has taken a great deal of collaboration inside the federal government and with provincial colleagues and producer groups as well.

As for the rest of the agriculture workforce, that's a bit harder to tell right now. Obviously we still have a hiring season on and reports from provinces of their job-matching efforts are just starting to come in.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

In your opening statement, Ms. Barnes, you were talking about the CFIA and some of the changes going on. In today's news, the head of the agriculture union called for the closure of a third processing plant in Alberta. I understand the enormous pressure on our meat-processing plants, given the situation they're in, but there are some grave concerns over worker safety. While I appreciate that does come under provincial jurisdiction, the CFIA union has made those comments. They are concerned about the state in those meat-processing plants. Could you inform the committee, if the situation gets noticeably worse, what role CFIA is going to play in those plants in keeping worker safety in mind if you can see much more of an outbreak?

[Colleen Barnes]

We've been working really closely with the sector. It's a very local conversation that happens among the local public authority representatives, CFIA and the plant establishment. Sometimes the occupational health and safety people from the provinces are participating as well. As a team, they're looking at the risk assessment in the plant and they're working through mitigation scenarios to make sure the risks are appropriate. At the end of the day, for us it's following that local guidance and taking the steps that are recommended by the provincial authorities that will make sure we can continue the operation of the plants. While we've seen a few shut for a couple of weeks, we've been able to manage to get them reopened and to continue processing. We don't have any authority to shut a plant down for that reason. It's really a local decision, working with multiple public health—

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

I have just a few seconds left.

Mr. Forbes, about the purchasing of surplus food and distributing it to food-insecure communities, can you add a little more to what you've already said, or the mechanics of how that's going to work?

[Chris Forbes]

To be honest with you, this is a bit of a new area for us. I think one of our first steps is to use existing relationships. We have developed pretty good relationships with a network of national food banks, which themselves have regional food bank networks. We're going to sit down with them in the coming days to discuss the nature of the program and how we might quickly get at some of the key surplus products that are out there and that people need.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Forbes.

Now we'll start our second round.

Mr. Soroka.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Under AgriRecovery, from my understanding, there was always funding for $125 million. Was there another $125 million put into the fund, which was announced today, or was this just reallocating the same fund?

[Chris Forbes]

In any given year, we have the authority to spend up to $125 million. This year we haven't really spent any of that thus far, so this is that $125 million. We're announcing effectively that we'll make all of that available, if needed, starting with the beef and pork ranchers and farmers, and then, if needed, in other areas.