Agriculture Committee on May 5th, 2020

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

True, but my point is it's not really new funding then. The money has always been there; it's just not been fully allocated.

[Chris Forbes]

It wasn't being spent. Whether it was—

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

I'm just saying, you know how it looks. Wow, we just gave $125 million that's always been available.

On my other point about the beef and the pork slaughter set-aside, that's great that they're actually keeping the money there because they're needing to buy more feed, but the problem is the price has dropped significantly. How is that still going to help the farmers with the costs of production when they're just helping with feed costs that they didn't need to have incurred in the first place because of a lack of slaughter kill?

[Chris Forbes]

I think there are two comments. One would be that by allowing the farmers more flexibility in terms of keeping animals longer, it certainly helps them avoid having to sell into a difficult price situation. It gives them flexibility as to when they sell. The second point would be that there are other programs out there to certainly help with revenue-side issues, most notably AgriStability being the biggest at the federal/provincial/territorial level.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

My other comment, then, is this. Because these are costs shared with the provinces, what happens if the provinces don't commit to their funding? Alberta is actually in some pretty financially difficult times. Will these programs still go through or not?

[Chris Forbes]

One of the things we confirmed today was that if a province does not have their 40% share, if they want to go ahead with it, which we'd like them to do, we would still want to go ahead with just the federal contribution. Previously, we would have to make sure the province was putting in their 40 cents to the dollar. What we're saying now is that if they are unavailable to do that, we will go ahead and put our amount in.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

On the $77.5-million emergency processing fund, my understanding is that there has been work on this program since companies like Regency closed their doors. Has this been in the works for some time, and if so how long has this program been trying to get funding for emergency slaughter kill?

[Chris Forbes]

Are you asking how long it was in the decision-making process?

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Yes.

[Chris Forbes]

It came out today. We've been working on these kinds of programs. As I said before, as the crisis has developed, we have certainly looked at what we need to do to respond.

I would just say that we also have, under the agricultural partnership programming with the provinces, existing programs for food processing capacity, and they have certainly been available in certain cases for a range of things like investments in slaughterhouses.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

When it comes to the borrowing capacity, it seems to be the fallout for a lot of things insofar as it doesn't really give money to the producer; it just either defers their payments or gets them deeper in debt.

How can we develop a program instead of just getting them to borrow more money through farm credit?

[Chris Forbes]

I think one of the options that's part of the surplus food program was the idea of getting product that was otherwise not going to have a value or have a hard time returning a value to the farmer or the processor from where it was to where it will be used by those in need. That's hopefully bringing value.

I think working on food processing capacity is an important piece of ensuring value to primary agriculture in Canada. I think all these things together.... Certainly deferral of debt payments is helpful in the kind of financial times we're in now, but I would agree that our programs intend to support growth, and income is certainly a priority and remains a priority.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Forbes.

Thank you, Mr. Soroka.

Now we go to Mr. Kody Blois for five minutes, please.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm pleased to be joining my colleagues from across the country this evening to discuss the concerns of Canada's agricultural sector and the opportunities available to the sector. Like the other members, I want to thank the House of Commons employees for their work on the virtual meeting of this committee.

I'm going to start by saying that in Kings—Hants we have the largest concentration of agricultural producers east of Montreal, including the most supply-managed farms. I'm very interested in today's announcement about the $200 million to the Canadian Dairy Commission.

Perhaps, Mr. Forbes, you could quickly speak to what this program entails and what it means for the dairy industry and the legislative process.

[Chris Forbes]

I'll let Mr. Seppey provide a few more details about the program, as he is the expert in that area.

[Frédéric Seppey]

Yes, thank you.

This increase of the limit of the ability to borrow from the Canadian Dairy Commission from $300 million to $500 million would allow it to implement programs that it has put in place and agreed to with the dairy marketing boards in the various provinces—so the producers—to use that money to purchase more cheese on a temporary basis. We have a surplus of milk. As Mr. Drouin said earlier, a cow produces more milk at this time of the year, more than usual. That capacity will allow the CDC to purchase cheese from the processors who will use the milk that is in surplus to produce this cheese. Then they can put it in storage so that it can be sold back to the processors when the market is able to absorb that additional amount of cheese.

It's a very useful mechanism policy that balances the supply and demand of the system. This is a stabilization mechanism that the dairy farmers and the dairy processors are really counting on in this difficult period.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

It's certainly great to hear.

This type of investment is historic. We're in unprecedented times, but I have to assume that, in the history of the Canadian Dairy Commission, we haven't seen this type of initiative, assuming we can get parliamentary approval.

[Frédéric Seppey]

Yes, that's correct. The situation right now is exceptional. It's in very rare circumstances that dairy farmers would be forced to dump milk. They always want to find a home for their milk.

CDC's increased borrowing capacity will allow them to manage the system temporarily. It requires a legislative amendment, but the government has indicated that it would work closely with all parties to make sure that these changes can be implemented as quickly as possible.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you very much.

I want to turn to labour because this has been a topic of interest in the Annapolis Valley in particular. We have a large horticultural industry. I've certainly been working closely with the Nova Scotia Federation of Agriculture, but perhaps, Mr. Forbes, you could speak to the effort that has gone into making sure that our agricultural producers have the labour that they need.

Perhaps you could do that in about 45 seconds.

[Chris Forbes]

Okay, I'll try to be quick.

For temporary foreign workers, as I mentioned, there has been a big effort to make sure they're brought in in a way that respects public health, treats their own personal health as paramount and also gets them to the farms where they can make a contribution.

We are working, as are the provinces, on a variety of job-matching sites to match unemployed Canadians with farm jobs. In Nova Scotia, I know this for sure, as the provincial minister is an advocate. The federal government is also working with provinces on an offer to top up wages for workers in essential services. It's not in my area of responsibility, but I understand that those discussions are ongoing.

[Kody Blois, Liberal, Kings—Hants, NS]

Thank you so much.

I have one final point. I had a conversation with Michael McCain, president of Maple Leaf Foods, and he talked about supply chain issues.

Could you quickly address where we are with that and how today's announcement may have addressed some of those concerns?

[Chris Forbes]

I think the big issue comes in a couple of places, but it has been in the manufacturing or transformation side that we've obviously seen some challenges.

As one of the previous questions focused on, we may see a lot of manufacturers and food processors who need to take steps to adjust their processing systems to deal with a world where we're trying to mitigate COVID-19. I think the investments there will help them do that and will therefore help keep supply chains functioning and get food into the grocery stores.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Forbes, and thank you, Mr. Blois.

Now it's over to Ms. Rood for five minutes.

[Lianne Rood, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Forbes.

I put myself in farmers' shoes today. I'm a farmer myself. I have been talking to many of my constituents, and the minister has been telling us that they're there for us, to hang tight and be patient, and that they're working with industry. We've been waiting for months and months only to find out that the funding that's available is not new funding. Some of my farmers are facing bankruptcy.

I just wanted to ask the question again about the $125 million under AgriRecovery. Is it new money, yes or no?