Evidence of meeting #20 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was standards.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4 p.m.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
Good.
Mr. Falk, you don't seem to be having the same positive experience.
Can you tell us a little bit more about your experience which, if I understood correctly, was unpleasant?
4 p.m.
President, Fraser Valley Specialty Poultry
By all means.
I've been at this battle with CFIA for over six years. Mr. O'Shaughnessy has entered the scene more recently. Mr. O'Shaughnessy's predecessor, Claude Trottier, was involved in the battle alongside me and members from King Cole Ducks in Ontario.
We saw a marked change several months ago when the president did become involved, and we've appreciated that change, but it took years of battle to get to that point, and it should never take that long. It should never be that much of an issue. There was denial and deflection. They were basically saying that it was produced in an equivalent system, so therefore it's fine. Well, we knew that it wasn't fine, yet there was an attempt to discredit any information we would bring to them.
Yes, my experience is quite different, because it's been such a long, protracted battle.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
I understand.
I would like to ask you the same question. What would be your recommendations to prevent this from happening again, or to have it happen in a related industry?
4:05 p.m.
President, Fraser Valley Specialty Poultry
In my estimation—and I referred to this point in my presentation—without civilian oversight, I don't see that there's going to be change in the agency. There have to be consequences when things go so wrong, and they have gone wrong for years. There is very much an acrimonious relationship that has built over many years. The adoption of the Safe Food for Canadians Act resolves some of it, but it doesn't resolve the cultural piece, and that's the piece, in my view, that has to change. That culture has to change within government.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
I see. The organizational culture must change. In addition, more accountability should be demanded as a result of the measures taken.
You both said you had a labour shortage problem. Mr. O'Shaughnessy, you are the first to ask us to increase the limit on temporary foreign workers to 30%. It's funny that you mention it because that was the limit before and it has gradually been reduced to 10%. I often ask this question of witnesses who ask for a 20% limit. I ask them if that's enough and whether we should raise it to 30%. I understood your answer earlier. There is a regional dynamic.
Is that the reason why?
4:05 p.m.
General Manager, Canards du Lac Brome ltée
Personally, I attribute this to a regional dynamic. I know that for some slaughterhouses, a 20% limit on the number of temporary foreign workers would solve the problem. In my case, I would have the same problems even if the limit were 20%.
4:05 p.m.
Bloc
Yves Perron Bloc Berthier—Maskinongé, QC
I see.
With respect to immigration policy, you mentioned in your statement that part of the solution would be not only to welcome temporary foreign workers, but also to keep them.
Do you have any suggestions on this subject? What could we do to help you?
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
4:05 p.m.
General Manager, Canards du Lac Brome ltée
Okay.
The obvious solution would be to bring this population to live in the Val-des-Sources region, among others.
4:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
Thank you, Mr. O'Shaughnessy and Mr. Perron.
Mr. MacGregor, you have up to six minutes.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for contributing to this study.
Mr. Falk, I'll start with you. It's in line with what Ms. Bessette was asking Mr. O'Shaughnessy. On the foreign imports, most of our competition in terms of duck is coming from Europe, right? Is that pretty much it?
4:05 p.m.
President, Fraser Valley Specialty Poultry
Yes, it's from Europe and from the U.S. The challenge with it coming from Europe is that what's coming in is so terribly cheap.
4:05 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
In line with that, I wanted to get your view, because I'm very concerned when we don't have reciprocity. If we have high standards here—and you correctly pointed out that we should have faith in our high standards here—and if other countries are not meeting those same standards.... Is the problem in the actual agreement that we signed, the implementing legislation, or is the problem in how it's being interpreted?
I just want to know where we can clearly fix this, because this is definitely under the federal government's jurisdiction and it's something we need to address.
4:05 p.m.
President, Fraser Valley Specialty Poultry
We argued from the outset that the legislation really wasn't the issue. The agreement wasn't the issue, because it stipulated that it needed to be as if it were produced in the Canadian plant. The problem was that we do a good job of signing these agreements, but we don't do a great job of implementing or executing them. Unfortunately, we can quickly become the dumping ground for the world if we're not careful. We need to manage those standards very carefully, and they can't just be equivalent standards on paper. They have to be equivalent standards in practice.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
By way of comparison, when you look at other sectors in Canadian agriculture that export products to Europe, what kind of scrutiny are they faced with?
4:10 p.m.
President, Fraser Valley Specialty Poultry
If a plant in Canada wanted to become EU certified, there is a substantial process for them to go through. If a plant in the European Union wants to be certified to ship to Canada, it's basically a paper-pushing exercise, because we say we've recognized the equivalency of the EU system. The problem is that there are so many member states in the EU, and visits to those plants in the various member states may happen every three to five years, so really the standards aren't necessarily upheld in the individual EU member states.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Obviously the problems are quite evident. If we want to develop a significant homegrown processing capacity in Canada, the policies are not being applied equally.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Yes. Okay, thank you for doing that.
Throughout the testimony that we've heard during this committee's study, a lot has been said about the grocery code of conduct. From Fraser Valley Specialty Poultry's point of view especially, have you had any significant difficulties with Canada's large retailers' hidden fees and so on? Do you have any comments on the proposed code of conduct?
4:10 p.m.
President, Fraser Valley Specialty Poultry
Yes, I do.
I absolutely would support there being a grocery code of conduct.
We have faced situations when we have delivered product to various of the larger chains. There are challenges right through the process in terms of getting dock times or delivery times. Our trucks end up having to wait one or two or three hours just to drop off a couple of skids of product. It messes up the rest of the delivery schedules.
There are chargebacks and a number of things that we just have to accept if we want to ship product to that store. There's a large imbalance of power that needs to be made right.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Absolutely. That's very much in line with what we've heard throughout the study.
Finally, I'll go to the subject of access to capital. You made that as your third key point for barriers. You talked about the struggle that you've had with lenders.
I have had a recent conversation with Farm Credit Canada. They are interested in this area. They were looking for some suggestions about how they could reform themselves, like maybe going a little bit more into venture capital and so on.
If we were to make a recommendation that specifically applied to Farm Credit Canada, what could we give to them that would bring about some substantive change?
4:10 p.m.
President, Fraser Valley Specialty Poultry
I think there are a number of areas where lenders in general could do better.
I'm not sure I could even identify one at this point. I'm sorry. I've dealt with Farm Credit in the past, and they're good to work with, although I'm not with Farm Credit at this point.
The process by which we can apply for money is complex and time-consuming. For example, the supply-managed industries have a lot of baseline data that backs up their request for financing. We, in a niche market, don't have that, so lenders have to rely on numbers that we give them. The process is just made much more difficult by that.
4:10 p.m.
NDP
Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC
Okay, great. I think that wraps it up.
Just as a closing comment, I have a few ducks around my farming property. They are fantastic animals to raise. I no longer have a slug problem as a result.
4:10 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan
I guess the question is, are they in order? Are your ducks in order? Sorry; I had to say that.
We're now into our second round.
We have Mr. Epp for five minutes. Go ahead, Mr. Epp.