Agriculture Committee on Dec. 8th, 2020

[Daniel Vielfaure]

I don't know that they go with illegal practices, so I don't know if the Competition Bureau would find anything. Anyway, they had this first inquiry and they did not find anything. I think it's just the concentration that is too much.

These companies announce publicly what they do so the other guys know it. These letters are public. It's not against any laws to do this, and they're doing it. The concentration that they have allows them to do this. You even have American companies that are in Canada that do it in Canada and do not do it in the U.S., because in the U.S. they don't have that concentration. The same density from the manufacturers to the different distributors is not the same in the U.S. as in Canada.

In Canada, first of all—

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

My time is limited and I want to get one more question in here if I can.

Canada's regulatory environment is a bit of a two-edged sword. We're known for our food safety, our regulatory framework holds that up, but that also imposes costs on compliance on both your suppliers and you, and onto the retailers. Can you make a comment on what your assessment of today's balance is?

[Daniel Vielfaure]

I think it's a strength that we have these Canadian regulations as long as they're well applied and they protect the safe food we have. I think it helps us internationally.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Vielfaure. Unfortunately we're out of time.

Thank you, Mr. Epp.

Now we have Mr. Tim Louis for six minutes. Go ahead, Mr. Louis.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to our panellists for being here today.

I want to focus on how processing fits into food security in our supply chain, especially with the issues in the north dealing with Inuit, first nations and Métis.

Since we're testifying and appearing from all over the country, it's only fitting that I say that I am appearing on the traditional land of the Anishinabe, Haudenosaunee and the Neutral peoples.

I will focus my questions, then, on Ms. Yasmeen.

I read your report and it's very well done. I appreciate your testimony today. You talked about food insecurity and supply chains and how we can support indigenous food sovereignty. You have, hopefully, some ideas on how we can help, especially up north where they can have their own food systems and advance policies building that local food system there. You mentioned how important local is for environmental reasons, for health reasons, for a number of reasons.

What kinds of strategic investments can we make to ensure that we have co-operation from all levels of government—provincial, territorial and federal organizations—to help ensure food security for indigenous people, especially in remote and rural areas?

[Gisèle Yasmeen]

Thank you very much, Mr. Louis. That's a great question. Thank you for your interest also in indigenous food sovereignty.

I think the primary point is that it's about people defining their own food systems. Indigenous peoples, no matter where they were in the Americas, traditionally had control over their food systems. The indigenous food sovereignty movement is about reclaiming that control over traditional foods and country foods and being able to distribute, grow and harvest traditional foods within their own indigenous food lands as some call this.

As a result, we've seen lower costs, because.... Of course, imposing a southern diet particularly in remote and rural regions in northern environments is unwise, and the health consequences are often not very good and are, in fact, terrible.

The indigenous food sovereignty movement, whether it's up north or whether it's in southern latitudes.... Most first nations and Métis people are in southern latitudes actually, not in northern latitudes, and many of them are close to big urban areas.

My answer to your question would be that it is the approach. We have been critical of nutrition north as a program. I know the intentions are good, but nutrition north has sometimes reinforced these more colonial approaches. Really, it's about first nations, Métis and Inuit communities reclaiming and having control over their own distance. There are also innovations happening. There are low-input greenhouses being developed all over northern remote regions, etc.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

You've practically answered my next two questions, but I'd love to hear you expand on them. One, are there any ways of using technology to improve things, and two, what programs exist now and, because we're looking to improve things, how can we improve something like, let's say, a nutrition north system? You've already answered but if you can expand on those things, that would help.

[Gisèle Yasmeen]

I think nutrition north does need to be looked at one more time in terms of meeting outcomes, as I mentioned in my remarks, broadly defined.

We can't think about food as just filling bellies and eating whatever. We have to think about nutrition. We have to think about chronic health conditions. We have to think about cultural survival and biodiversity and those questions, all of which are very important overall and are particularly important to first nations, Métis and Inuit communities.

I would encourage you to look at that program or to work with your colleagues to look at that program, but most importantly, to have first nations, Métis and Inuit peoples at the table for these discussions, because there's nothing worse than having policy made for you by people who don't actually understand your situation and who are not members of those communities. What I would like to encourage you to do...and we would certainly be interested in co-operating. We have many in our network who might be interested in appearing before your committees. I am not first nations, Métis or Inuit. We all want to be allies, but at the end of the day, those communities have to have control and speak for themselves.

Furthermore, with COVID-19, they've been under lockdown in many cases, so things have been very challenging particularly in the isolated communities. With technology, again, it's the same thing. What is appropriate technology? Who controls it? What is the full cost-benefit analysis?

There are some interesting things that are happening. We published recently on our website some reports of activities that are happening in communities all over the country. As well, there's a new report on Inuit food sovereignty, which we had not been aware of before. There's a growing sovereignty movement.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Okay. I appreciate that.

I would like to concede the rest of my time, but this is fascinating. Thank you for your hard work.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Louis.

Thank you, Ms. Yasmeen.

Mr. Perron, you have the floor for six minutes

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

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here with us today.

Ms. Yasmeen, one of the major objectives of the study we are currently conducting is to analyze the local processing capacity. In your presentation, you emphasized barriers that had an impact on local processing capacity.

If you were asked to identify barriers that should be eliminated and come up with a specific recommendation for the committee, what would you suggest?

[Gisèle Yasmeen]

Thank you for your question, Mr. Perron.

As I mentioned, there are infrastructure issues. There's a lack of infrastructure at the small- and medium-sized levels, which causes many food processing problems. We had them before, but there has been a high level of concentration. I am thinking in particular of abattoirs. I'm aware of the fact that you heard a witness speak about this last week. I think that all facets of the infrastructure are relevant. For example, there's the cold chain.

Linda Best, of FarmWorks in Nova Scotia, told me that 30% of SMEs did not have adequate access to the cold chain in Canada. There are therefore infrastructure problems of that kind on a very small scale, but also on the medium-sized scale. Access to capital might also be considered.

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

Concretely, what can the federal government do?

Would it be to launch investment programs or to provide financial support to small processors to diversify the chain?

[Gisèle Yasmeen]

Yes. It should also work with the provinces.

In addition, as I said earlier, public-sector supply needs to be considered. Even Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada had the idea of supplying its own cafeterias. And the public sector has hospitals and schools. I mentioned healthy school food, but there should also be cooperation with the provinces to provide a solid base for all efforts to support our own industry and our health system, which would also help the environment.

We often think of hospitals and schools, where all food services are provided by big multinationals. Quebec is currently doing some interesting things on the food front.

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

An increase in federal health transfers would also be useful, but I digress.

[Gisèle Yasmeen]

Yes, but in health it's a matter of prevention, and nutrition is a major factor.

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

Let's talk about prevention and nutrition.

You emphasized lightly processed foods earlier. We spoke with earlier speakers about the development of new genetically modified crops, among other things.

Where do you stand on this? Do you think products derived from genetically modified organisms should be labelled?

When you say “lightly processed”, can you explain what you mean by that?

[Gisèle Yasmeen]

Yes, of course.

Our position on GMOs is that it's important to do all the required tests before new products that contain them can be marketed. Furthermore, labelling should list everything for consumers. Consumers are entitled to know what they're buying.

As for lightly processed and ultra highly processed food, we advocate the minimum required for consumption of various foods. What we find on the shelves often no longer resembles the original food. These products have been so highly processed and filled with all kinds of things that they are no longer really edible, by which I mean that they are harmful to health if eaten in large quantities. They contain sugar, salt and certain types of fat that are harmful to health.

The ideal would be to process food as little as possible, particularly fruits and vegetables. Half of every plate should be filled with fruits and vegetables. It even says so in Canada's food guide.

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

So you're in favour of the idea of developing regional processing operations because the additives in overprocessed food often extend shelf life. With fewer additives, products would have to be processed closer to home, by smaller processors, but of course the major processors would remain.

[Gisèle Yasmeen]

Yes. It depends on what we're talking about.

What has always intrigued me is the fact that we produce an enormous amount of lentils and legumes, which we export abroad, for bagging, and then we import them back again. These legumes and lentils are certainly healthy. But we could develop our own industry. We have a supercluster in this area.

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

So processing food locally would be a source of economic wealth. We certainly agree on that.

You mentioned foreign workers, which we have already discussed at length, farmers' debts and the fact that we tended to export our products. And at the same time, we're in a market that would like to increase its exports.

How can we reconcile these two visions?

[Gisèle Yasmeen]

Canada will definitely continue with imports and exports. That's only normal, but…

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Yasmeen. Unfortunately, that's all the time we have for this round of questions.

Now we'll move to Mr. MacGregor for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Yasmeen, I appreciate your bringing the theme of food security into our conversation on food processing, especially your comments about a national food nutrition program. My colleague Don Davies has sponsored Bill C-201 in the House of Commons, which aims to do just that. I was looking at a provincial example. Here in British Columbia we have the feed B.C. program, which links many of our farms and food processing centres with health care operations and with post-secondary operations.

Of course in every small community you have elementary schools and middle schools, so that infrastructure already exists. The demand is potentially there, and of course, many of our food processing facilities are located in small towns. They are smaller operations. I'd like you to expand a little more about what a food program for schoolchildren could do for the food processing industry.

[Gisèle Yasmeen]

Thank you.

I'm also calling in from British Columbia and hugely exciting things are happening here, but also in Quebec and other provinces, even P.E.I. There's already a lot of work under way provincially and also at municipal levels, school boards, to start connecting these dots. What we need is a standard. We need some principles around how to roll this out. The Coalition for Healthy School Food has a brief that we co-submitted with them to Parliament for a cost-shared approach. Since investments are already being made, it's not necessary for the federal government to pay the whole bill. There are opportunities there.

There are, again, infrastructure issues around connecting schools with producers and processors, and this is already happening on the ground. There's no need to invent the wheel. It's really about gap filling and making sure that all our children have access to a healthy snack or meal at some point within the school system. The same could be said for hospitals. McConnell has a whole program called Nourish around hospital food. Hospital food is notorious, isn't it? We know about hospital food. The one place where we should be eating healthy food—