Agriculture Committee on March 11th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

We'll call the meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 22 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

Pursuant to Standing Order 81(5) and the order of reference of Tuesday, February 16, 2021, the committee is undertaking its study of the supplementary estimates (C) 2020-21.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021. Therefore, members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. So you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

I'd like to take this opportunity to remind all participants of this meeting that screenshots or taking a photo of your screen is not permitted.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name.

If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute yourself. Those in the room, your microphone will be controlled as normal by the proceedings and verification officer.

A reminder that all comments by members and witnesses must be directed through the chair.

When you're not speaking, your mic should be on mute.

As you are all aware, there's a vote scheduled at 4 p.m. eastern time today. I'd like to ask the committee members whether we have unanimous consent to begin the meeting so that we can hear from the minister. We can suspend after 20 minutes of bells to provide ample time for everyone to cast their votes. If that's agreeable for the members, we shall proceed in that fashion.

Do I have a commitment to do that? We'll go through the first 20 minutes of bells and then break for the vote. Is that agreeable for everyone?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Okay, we'll go with that. We'll continue until there's only 10 minutes left on the bells.

I'd now like to welcome our witness, the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food.

She's going to talk to us about the supplementary estimates (C).

We're truly grateful to have you with us today, Ms. Bibeau.

Also with us, of course, we have the officials. From the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, we have Ms. Colleen Barnes. Welcome, Ms. Barnes. Also, from the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food, we have Mr. Chris Forbes, deputy minister—welcome, Mr. Forbes, to our committee—and Ms. Christine Walker, assistant deputy minister, corporate management branch.

With that, Minister, we'll give you seven and a half minutes or so to do your opening statement.

Go ahead, Madam Minister.

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'm pleased to be with you today.

I would like to note that Ms. Barnes will soon be leaving us, as she is about to retire. I'd like to take this opportunity, on behalf of all of us, to thank her for her excellent service and to wish her a happy retirement.

I also want to thank the committee members for their dedication to the sector.

Your study on food processing capacity is timely, and I'm eager to read the report. I'm with you today to present, at your request, the supplementary estimates (C).

The estimates total a net amount of $472 million. Most of this additional funding, $468 million, will go to the dairy direct payment program. This is the second year of payments under this program.

Last year, $339 million were paid out. This year, $468 million will be paid out, and $469 million will be paid out next year. Finally, $468 million will be paid out in 2023.

This fulfills our commitment to fully and fairly compensate Canadian dairy farmers for the impacts of our trade agreements with Europe and the trans-Pacific zone. Over 89% of dairy farmers have already received their second payment, and they already know how much they will receive next year and in 2023.

We are moving forward on new programs for poultry and egg producers, and we are also determined to move forward with compensation for our food processors. After that, we will come back with compensation for the impacts of CUSMA. Furthermore, as demonstrated in our recent trade agreement with the United Kingdom, we have committed to no new concessions on supply management in future negotiations.

The supplementary estimates also include an extra $34.2 million to help farmers cover the cost of mandatory isolation for temporary foreign workers until March 31. The current program provides agricultural producers with up to $1,500 for each temporary foreign worker they employ to cover and reimburse eligible costs incurred during the mandatory 14-day isolation period as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

We're also prepared to help producers with the additional costs associated with the new border measures. Our goal is to help Canada's agricultural producers to get the workers they need this year. We also need to keep those workers safe and protect the health of Canadians and our food security.

Workers have started to come to Canada, and we're already ahead of pace compared with last year. We continue to work hard with employers, provinces and territories to ensure that temporary foreign workers get to our farms.

Finally, as part of these supplementary estimates, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada is transferring $30 million in support to Indigenous Services Canada to improve access to food for indigenous people. Including this additional funding, the department's total authority for the current fiscal year is approximately $3.5 billion.

Mr. Chair, tomorrow I will table the government's response to the committee's report on enhancing the business risk management program. This report is timely and critical for the long-term success of Canada's agriculture and agri-food sector. We fully support the committee's recommendations on making our BRM programs more user-friendly, bankable, predictable and accessible to under-represented groups, including the next generation of farmers.

We fully support the recommendation to remove the reference margin limit from AgriStability. As you know, I have submitted a proposal to provinces and territories to remove the reference margin limit and increase the compensation rate from 70% to 80%. Taken together, these changes could increase the overall amount AgriStability pays out to farmers by up to 50%. We have widespread support across Canada and across sectors for these changes. For them to be put in place, we need the support of the large majority of the provinces as well. I'm urging my FPT colleagues, especially those in the Prairies, to embrace these improvements as an important first step to reforming our BRM program.

As we look ahead, we want to ensure that AgriStability continues to drive the relaunch of our economy. Already the signs are positive. Our department is forecasting record farm income for both 2020 and 2021. Net cash income is expected to have posted an increase of more than 20% in 2020, thanks largely to strong grain receipts. It's expected to rise another 7% for the coming year.

Of course, as we know, there have been challenges in certain sectors, particularly for cattle and horticultural producers, whose income fell due to plant closures and worker shortages.

Last year, despite the challenges of the global pandemic, Canadian agri-food and seafood exports increased by 10.4%, reaching nearly $74 billion. This brings us close to achieving our target of $75 billion in agri-food and seafood exports by 2025.

We are continuing to diversify our trade in strategic markets around the world.

We will continue to work in partnership with producers to ensure their businesses remain economically, environmentally and socially sustainable.

Thank you. I look forward to discussing these issues with you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Madam Minister, for that update.

We'll now begin the first round of questions and answers.

For the first round, for six minutes, we'll start with Ms. Rood.

Go ahead, Ms. Rood.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for appearing here today.

Minister, your recent announcement seemed to limit food security to food banks, but food security encompasses much more. Food security and food sovereignty goes to the ability of food producers and processors to get food from the field, greenhouse, barn or feedlot to our grocery store shelves and coolers.

For example, social distancing restrictions have severely reduced the capacity of beef and pork processors, which has led to backlogs of livestock for producers. Producers have struggled to find adequate feed and space to accommodate the backlog of their livestock being processed. Processors have struggled to find labour due to the processing in a COVID environment. One independent Canadian processor in Saskatchewan was unable to obtain any funding support from your department, while hundreds of thousands of dollars went to processors headquartered in the United States and Brazil. More than 90% of beef processing in Canada is controlled by two foreign-based companies with very large processing plants, and a greater number of smaller plants would offer some flexibility when the larger plants are shut down.

Minister, my question is this: What are you doing to support Canadian-based meat processors to increase processing capacity and flexibility, especially for smaller plants that can offer that flexibility for producers?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you for the question; actually, there are a lot of questions in it.

I would like to start by making the difference between emergency programs to help everyone facing COVID—so, from those who have to go to the food banks.... You know that we have bought, for $50 million, food surpluses to send to food banks, in addition to the $200 million that has been made available to food banks.

With regard to the beef sector, I acknowledge that we depend a lot on a few big processing facilities. COVID has shown what the strengths are of our sector; it has also shown the weaknesses. This is something that we have noted, that we depend a lot on big processing facilities. This is why you've seen, in the fall economic statement, that we have made strengthening our regional food supply chain a priority. This is something I'm working on, and I'm having conversations with the industry to better understand how we can better support the food-processing facilities in the different regions.

You also know that we have put programs in place to support these processing facilities in putting into place the right measures to make their working environments safer, and we have done the same for the farms as well. Through the business risk management program AgriRecovery, we have also made available $125 million for provinces to open up the program, and this is what some of them have done, particularly in the Prairies with the set-aside program. This money comes from our AgriRecovery program.

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

Thank you, Minister.

Minister, fruit and vegetable producers still don't have certainty as to whether or not they can bring an adequate number of farm workers to Canada to work in greenhouses, fields and orchards. Producers were told that the workers they brought up until March 15 were exempt from the hotel quarantine requirements, but I'm hearing from workers bound for the Maritimes or western Canada that they're being forced to quarantine in Toronto or Montreal before proceeding to the farms in the Maritimes or western Canada. Producers are still uncertain about the quarantine requirements for workers entering Canada after March 15.

Minister, I'm wondering if you will offer producers certainty today about international farm workers so that Canadian food sovereignty and our broader food security for Canadians can be ensured for this growing season.

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Yes. I would like to reassure our producers that we're working extremely hard to make sure that all the temporary foreign workers we need will arrive in Canada safely and in a timely manner. We are in advance in terms of numbers now compared to last year, when COVID hadn't started yet. We have learned a lot from last year in terms of immigration and work permit processes. We are trying to streamline that and to be more digital to make it easier.

We have strengthened the sanitary measures. As you know, now the workers have to do a COVID-19 test before they board, to make sure they don't have COVID. Also, now when they land, they will have a second test, and then they will proceed directly to their farms. We are having discussions with the provinces and with organizations such as farms, for example, and the organizations that support a big number of workers to see what the best procedure is.

I really want to reassure our producers. We will be announcing this soon. I'm finalizing all the details with my colleagues Minister Qualtrough and Minister Mendicino, and with Minister Hajdu as well. We are finalizing the process right now with the provinces and these organizations. You will have all the details very soon, but I want to reassure everyone that we will make sure it goes smoothly and doesn't bring any additional costs to either the producers or their workers.

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

Am I finished, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

You have five seconds.

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

Okay. Thank you, Minister.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Ms. Rood.

Thank you, Madam Minister.

Now we will go to Mr. Louis for six minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Louis.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister, for being here, and thanks for the opening round of questions. In your opening remarks, you mentioned temporary foreign workers and how all levels of government need to work together. That's how we started off the questions. That's how important it is. We need to work together to help farmers and keep workers safe. You mentioned protecting Canadians and keeping our food supply safe. As you can see, at this time of year, those issues and bringing workers over safely are front of mind.

I know that last year we put in measures to help with the arrival of temporary foreign workers as soon as the pandemic hit. I can assure you that the financial support provided by the federal government was welcome. Some of the farmers in my riding of Kitchener—Conestoga consider the individuals who arrive here year after year their family. They refer to them as family. I'm sure that's so throughout our country. These workers are part of our communities, and I know that everyone is doing what needs to be done to keep people safe.

In the supplementary budget, there is an amount—I believe it's $34.2 million—to extend the mandatory isolation support for temporary foreign workers. Could you share with us, Minister, whatever details you can about that program and the reason behind those investments?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Yes. Thank you.

I think this program was extremely important. In the beginning, we announced $50 million in support of the producers and the employers of temporary foreign workers so they could have $1,500 per worker to cover additional costs related to the 14-day isolation period. I think it was welcome.

We ran out of funds, and because the act, the Quarantine Act, has been prolonged, we are committed to continuing to support our farmers as long as it is mandatory to do the 14-day isolation period. This is why we have put an additional $34 million on the table to make sure we can go until the end of the year, but it is our intention to continue as long as it's mandatory.

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

I appreciate that. Thank you.

I'm going to switch topics. I have only a few minutes here.

Something that's important to me—I know you feel the same way—is hearing from our next generation of agriculture workers, our young farmers. I'm honoured to have met some of these bright, young, inspiring minds, as I'm sure so many of our colleagues have.

We've seen that as Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food you've taken up the cause of young people in our sector with a lot of interest. I know that you've formed a youth council and you're investing in a youth employment and skills strategy. I was wondering if you could talk about that youth strategy, what kinds of funds have been invested and the importance of having young agriculture sector voices at the table and on the farm.

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Actually, when I entered into this position—two years ago already—I noticed that the leaders or the people representing the different associations were mainly experienced men. As the first female Minister of Agriculture in Canada, I thought I would have a role to play in encouraging them to bring women and young farmers around their decision-making table. I wanted to lead by example by creating the youth council. I can't tell you how impressed I am with these young leaders. They very soon got organized. They are already working on a strategic plan. It's wonderful to work with them.

Regarding the youth program, we actually increased the financing last year, and still this year in a significant way to support all our young people who are going through a tough time because of COVID. Last year we were able to provide agricultural jobs, 1,400 good jobs in the agricultural sector, for young people who are really interested in making agriculture their career.

This is something I'm very excited about. We know that we have to encourage and to make all the work related to agriculture more visible and recognized. I think this is a good program to face labour shortages but also to get more young people in the sector.

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

I appreciate the efforts, because they have a lot to offer. We've had these discussions in committee on how we can help them on their farms and even in processing, and how we can get them involved in the food sciences as well. There are good programs here in my region as well.

In our proposed budget, the government is helping with nutrition gaps and food security. I'm specifically referring to the transfer of $30 million to Indigenous Services Canada to help increase food supply for indigenous peoples. In the time we have left, could you expand on that?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Yes. You will remember that we first announced $100 million to food banks. We have been working with five major networks that have partners all across the country, including in the north and in our indigenous communities.

With the second round of $100 million, we decided that it could be even more efficient to partner with the Department of Indigenous Services. This is why we transferred $30 million to that department. They also have a very strong network, and we thought it could be more efficient.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Madam Minister.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

We'll now go to Mr. Perron.

Mr. Perron, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Minister, for being with us.

I would be remiss if I didn't begin by thanking you for the chronology you provided last night on Bill C-216. I would like to take this opportunity to thank all my colleagues on the committee who did the same.

This shows how serious you are about protecting supply management and not making new concessions.

Now, let's talk about the past in terms of compensation. I see that a large part of the money we're going to pass today is earmarked for that, but there are people who have still been left out, including processors. In your presentations, you always talk about your desire to compensate for losses in the egg and poultry sector. You did announce some money, but we don't have the details of the programs and plans yet.

Do you have a timeline for us?

You talk about processors in terms of the future and the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, CUSMA, but in terms of the agreement with Europe and the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, these people haven't yet received anything and are quite concerned. Dairy processors even ran an ad campaign about it recently.

I'd like to hear from you on that. Can you reassure them?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Absolutely.

The first step in my game plan was to announce compensation to dairy farmers in a very clear way. You'll recall that initially the investment programs received $250 million, then an additional $1.75 billion. We also reduced the timeline to four years because we wanted to provide predictability for our producers. The vast majority of them have received their second payment in the last few weeks. They already know the exact amount they will receive next year and the year after, as long as their quotas remain the same. So I would say that's settled for the first two agreements.

The second step in my game plan is really to launch the programs for poultry and egg farmers. The amounts that will be awarded will be $691 million for the first two agreements, once again. I am really finalizing these programs that will be announced very soon. As producers have asked us to do, we're looking to develop investment and marketing assistance programs.

The third step will involve the processors. That work's already begun, in fact. We're aware that COVID-19 has taken up too much space, to say the least, on the human resources side, and I'm not making a parallel here with the financial side. So we've fallen behind, but we haven't forgotten our processors. You'll recall that processors, at least dairy processors, received an initial $100 million a few years ago. But I want to reassure them that we haven't forgotten them.

Then we'll repeat those steps to address offsets for the U.S. and Mexico agreement.

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

Okay.

So we're not able to have an idea of the timeline. You've given us a chronology of your steps, but not a date. For example, we can't tell these people that it'll be done within six months.