Agriculture Committee on Dec. 8th, 2020

[Dennis Prouse]

I was going to say that this product-based system served us well for an awfully long time. There have been 125 novel traits approved in Canada since about the mid-1990s. We're 125 for 125 on safety on that. We haven't had one turned back yet, so it works well. It just simply needs a mandate.

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

It just needs an upgrade.

[Dennis Prouse]

That's correct.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Curran, you have touched base on the incubator in Leduc. I am curious to find out—and if you've been following that particular story for the last, I think you said, 20 or 30 years since it's been invented—how that incubator has evolved from when it started to now.

How do you measure success? Do you look only at the successful stories that move on to scaling up after the fact or...? Obviously, there have probably been some failures at some point.

[Jamie Curran]

For sure. Not every company is successful. It has evolved from food product development to more commercialization and trying to scale companies. We've grown and expanded that facility over the years.

In terms of measuring success, our hope is that we create a product, test the product.... Well, we don't create it. The business creates it, and we help it facilitate the creation. Not only are Alberta-grown products used, but we also use Alberta labour. We've come to a point where we're actually not only serving the domestic market but also an international market. We're continuing to grow and commercialize.

That's how we see success. Of course, not everyone is successful for whatever reason—the market isn't there—but, certainly, we have many successes.

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

Thank you.

In your opening remarks, you mentioned that access to capital is an issue, as is labour. Is the Alberta government looking to automation to solve part of the labour issue? That's something about which we've often had discussions with companies like Cargill, for instance, that access TFWs.

What about the automation that can replace some of those jobs to create new ones, essentially?

[Jamie Curran]

For sure, automation and technology definitely need to be considered as conditions change. At the end of the day, it just depends on how much capital industry is willing to put forward and how government can help support and incent that to support the overall automation of the industry.

It's coming. It's a trend, and we're very in tune with it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Curran.

Thank you, Mr. Drouin.

Over now to Mr. Perron for two and a half minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Perron.

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

Good afternoon once again.

Mr. Curran, when you were asked some questions about abattoirs, you said earlier that everything should be market driven. Over the past few months of the pandemic, people were nevertheless worried when processing capacity became compromised. Without casting doubt on any of the major processors, a number of witnesses spoke about the importance of diversification in order to allow medium-sized players to enter the market.

According to you, what are the ideal conditions, or what is still missing, in Canada to allow the smaller players to operate in the market?

[Jamie Curran]

I don't know specifically, but I certainly know that we have not only two large players in Alberta but also several meat facilities throughout the province in every major community. We have meat inspection throughout the province. Do we want it to grow? Of course.

We have not only JBS and Cargill but also Harmony Beef, which has been open for, I think, five or six years now. Certainly, the conditions are—

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

Do you think that interprovincial trade rules could be made more flexible?

Some witnesses spoke about that.

If so, what would have to be changed?

[Jamie Curran]

Yes, for sure. At an interprovincial level, our goal is to continue to create opportunities there. There is domestic equivalency work we're working through under the Safe Food for Canadians Act. Alberta is trying to advance this to demonstrate our domestic equivalency so that we can trade. As long as we have the standards and meet the food safety provisions, I think this creates an opportunity for strong interprovincial trade.

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

As for standards, do you believe that federal-provincial cooperation is adequate? Is it working well?

Do you have any comments about possible improvements to the risk management programs that were mentioned earlier?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

I too would like to hear the answer to that, but unfortunately we need to move on to the next speaker.

Mr. MacGregor, you have two and a half minutes. Go ahead.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Curran, in the motion that's guiding the study we're embarked upon, one of the items in the motion reads as follows: “while also supporting the goal of increasing local capacity to protect food security while providing safe food for all Canadians”.

Are there any thoughts you can offer to the committee in relation to food security and how processing fits in with that?

[Jamie Curran]

That's a very good question.

I guess I would say that we monitor the supply chain very closely around ensuring we have strong food security. There is certainly a trend toward local products. There's a trend in which retailers and others are using locally grown products in the retail community to support those food security needs, whether it's greenhouses, the vertical type of greenhouses, or....

I guess I would go back to our opening comments in terms of our strong belief that if you have a strong primary sector, it helps support a processing sector. We're making very strategic investments in irrigation infrastructure to grow up to 200,000 irrigated acres, and to leverage the current infrastructure using the same water allocation to add 200,000 acres and provide that consistent quality supply of food for the processors, for them to be able to grow and expand. We think it's interrelated, and we think there's an opportunity there with those strategic investments.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Affleck or Mr. Prouse, if you wanted to add anything, I have about 40 seconds.

[Dennis Prouse]

I was just going to say, Mr. MacGregor, that on the things we're talking about, there are a lot of very small companies. I don't want anybody here to have the impression that we're just talking about large multinationals. A lot of the examples Mr. Affleck gave are very small start-up companies. That's the exciting part about this technology and about gene editing, but it's why we need that regulatory capacity to change so that we can have homegrown crops, we can have local processing and we can enhance that food security.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you.

This is unfortunately all the time we have for this round, but I would certainly like to thank, from CropLife Canada, Mr. Ian Affleck and Mr. Dennis Prouse, and from the Government of Alberta, the assistant deputy minister, Mr. Jamie Curran. Thank you so much.

With that, we will pause to bring in our next panel. We'll be back shortly, so don't go too far. We'll be suspending.

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

I'd like to congratulate Mr. Prouse on the magnificent tie he is wearing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

So noted, Mr. Prouse.

[Dennis Prouse]

Thank you very much, sir.

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

I love Snoopy.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

We'll suspend to change the panel.

Thank you.