Good afternoon, everyone.
Mr. Chair and honourable members of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, thank you for your invitation.
My name is Richard Davies. I'm the senior vice-president of sales and marketing at Olymel, whose main shareholder is the Sollio Cooperative Group, formerly known as La Coop fédérée.
Olymel is Canada's leading pork producer and the leading exporter of pork meat. Many countries recognize its meat as being of superior quality. We export our products to over 65 countries.
Olymel has deep roots in Quebec. It has also expanded into Ontario, Saskatchewan, Alberta and New Brunswick. We provide direct employment to 15,000 Canadians. Our annual sales are around $4.5 billion. We generate considerable economic benefits for our regions. The entire value chain of our sectors is also very significant.
The goal of the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, is to increase Canada's total agri-food exports from approximately $67 billion in 2020 to $75 billion by 2025. However, this goal would be easier to achieve if the government, along with the industry, were to pick up the pace in terms of removing barriers that can only hinder the objective.
I'll list some of the issues that our industry is facing, starting with the issue currently described as the mother of all issues: labour. This issue is critical and essential not only for Olymel, but also for the entire agri-food sector. Even before the current pandemic, we were already facing a serious labour shortage. However, given its growth and major investments in recent years, our company can create thousands of new jobs wherever it operates in Canada.
We provide stable jobs with very competitive conditions in regions that need jobs. For example, we'll need to hire 1,200 people a year over the next few years to deal with the expected turnover rate, the retirement of baby boomers and adverse demographic projections.
We also need to hire an additional 1,200 employees right now to bring our plants up to full capacity and to optimize previous investments. Lastly, we'll need another 1,200 employees to handle opportunities that arise and future projects already in the works. In short, along with the 15,000 current jobs, Olymel will need the equivalent of 3,000 to 4,000 additional jobs in our regions over the coming months.
Obviously, the inability to find workers is a major barrier to our development and growth. Without sufficient labour, we'll be forced to abandon certain markets. This will mean fewer jobs and investments. This will also mean that processors from other countries will quickly take our place in foreign markets and here in Canada because of the labour shortage. The entire value chain is affected by the labour shortage.
We're already working with local elected officials and regional governments to make new workers even more welcome in regions that want to boost their economies.
In recent years, Olymel has brought in a good contingent of temporary foreign workers. These workers, who come from halfway around the world, are strongly motivated by a search for a better life in Canada. However, the federal government's temporary foreign worker program has a 10% cap per company. We've been advocating for years for this cap to be raised to 20%. We also want fewer bureaucratic delays that slow down the program.
Since the start of the pandemic, our employees have done an outstanding job of responding to the call from governments to maintain our processing activities as an essential service. We're the essential extension of the livestock farm. Our slaughterhouses are the essential end result of the farmers' activities.
Not only is the labour issue critical, but it urgently needs to be addressed.
On another note, the current pandemic has prompted us to look ahead at our modernization plans. These plans involve the development of new technology and greater integration of robotics and automation in our operations. Although robotics and automation aren't designed to replace labour, if the industry wants to remain competitive and effective, we must speed up the implementation of these tools, which require research and major investments.
We believe that the Canadian government must assist exporting companies in this area through appropriate and easily accessible support programs that are comparable to the same programs provided by the governments of our main competitors.
The barriers to accessing our priority markets constitute another challenge that increasingly limits our export capabilities. For example, our access to the Chinese market has been disrupted for several months. As a result, 70% of Canada's total production no longer has access to the world's largest market. There are some technical issues that can easily be resolved. However, the current political relationship certainly isn't helping to resolve the issues and lift the suspensions. Our plant in Red Deer, Alberta has been particularly hard hit since April 28, 2019.
Moreover, right here in Canada, a major issue is developing in the relationship between mass distribution and Canadian processors. The Canadian government could certainly help promote a better balance of power, as requested by most stakeholders in the processing industry. I'm referring here to the attempts by some retailers to unilaterally impose market conditions on processors that could threaten the processors' viability. We believe that the establishment of a code of good practice between the mass distribution and processing stakeholders would be beneficial to everyone, including Canadian consumers. When faced with the same issue, several countries have taken action to address the situation.
Lastly, in more immediate news, the current pandemic has forced the companies asked to continue their operations to quickly adapt to new conditions, particularly health conditions. We've done everything possible to protect the health of our employees, although we haven't been able to avoid periodic outbreaks. We believe, as the Canadian Meat Council already advocated last December, that food processing employees, particularly in the meat sector, should have priority access to a vaccine. This approach is in line with other sectors where the solution has already been implemented.
In closing, I've provided a broad summary to stay within my allotted speaking time. Olymel is, of course, willing to give you more information on these issues.
Thank you.
