Agriculture Committee on March 11th, 2021

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

No, I don’t want to fall into that trap, which is always tempting. All I can say is that these issues are clearly on my radar.

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

You'll understand that it's also tempting for me to have dates. We want them, and people want them. In fact, it's not so much us who want dates, but producers and processors.

In your presentation, you told us about the investments you made during the pandemic to help processors. I'd like to talk to you about the emergency processing fund. You know that a number of companies had applied for the program and had started investing in their facilities, but that these companies were told that, in the end, the funds had run out and that they weren't eligible.

I'd be happy if you could tell me that the funding is there; today, I have not seen any additional funding for this program. It's a program that's already in place and easy to administer. Wouldn't that have been a good opportunity to put another amount of money back into it to help people modernize their facilities?

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

I'm pleased to report that we've added $10 million. The fund increased from $77.5 million to $87.5 million through internal transfers. So it wasn't a request for supplementary estimates, and that's why you don't necessarily see it in the 2020-21 supplementary estimates (C). So I can tell you that the $10 million has been added.

There was certainly a lot of demand for this program, but the priority was to put measures in place to protect the health of workers. All requests have been processed. The second objective, more ambitious or a little broader, if I can put it that way, was to increase the processing capacity or to organize it differently. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do that with the help of the fund. Still, everything that covered worker safety was done.

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

Okay.

Don't you have anything to announce to give a glimmer of hope to these companies that have gone into modernizing their facilities and have invested resources in them thinking they have government support? I presented a specific case directly to your office, but a number of these companies are in trouble.

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

As I told my colleagues in English a few minutes ago, COVID-19 has allowed us to see how strong and resilient our food supply system is; however, it has also allowed us to identify weaknesses and discover that our regional supply chains are more scarce in certain sectors, including beef. That's why, in last fall's economic statement, we made strengthening regional supply chains a priority. So that's on my radar right now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Perron.

Mr. MacGregor, go ahead for six minutes.

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

Thank you so much, Chair.

Welcome back to our committee, Minister Bibeau. I'm glad to hear your comments in support of our committee's report on the BRM. The full report and its recommendations are a very faithful representation of the testimony we heard at committee, so we very much hope to see some action.

Recommendation 15 did recommend that the Government of Canada implement a statutory deemed trust. That of course follows two unanimous reports from the previous Parliament. Your department was kind enough to follow up on some questions I asked you last year. They mentioned it was indicated that any future policy consideration would require compelling and significant evidence of widespread harm.

So, first of all, the government already recognizes the need for agricultural producers to have access to financial protection through the super-priority provisions that already exist in the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act. But fresh fruit and vegetable producers have always told us that this existing provision doesn't effectively protect them.

If the government is already recognizing a need for agricultural sectors to have this protection without requiring a demonstration, why have we not yet seen any action from your government on putting in place a mechanism that would provide the same kind of protection to the fresh fruit and vegetable sectors?

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

Once again, some tools are already available to protect the fresh produce industry in case they have a client who is not paying them because of bankruptcy. There are the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act and the safe food for Canadians regulations. Through these, processes are available for our producers to address this.

The department has been working quite a bit with the industry. We see that the losses related to such a situation represent less than 0.1%—not one per cent, but 0.1%—of the revenues. When I meet with the industry, the agriculture sector, they talk to me about labour and about business risk management. These are their priorities. This is why I put a lot of effort into meeting and addressing their priorities.

We are always open to working with them, but we need more data to make it happen, and we can be creative and look at different options. But, even for them, what they're talking to me about is never PACA; it's always labour and BRM.

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

I find that interesting, Minister, because every time we've had the CPMA before our committee they've brought up PACA. But, that aside, I understand your comments on that. I hope you consider that they do want to have that kind of reciprocity with the United States, to have that preferential position put back in place.

You mentioned labour, and some of my colleagues have already referred to the temporary foreign worker program and so on. This is a perennial problem, and it keeps coming up before our committee. I realize the struggles the sector and the Government of Canada have gone through in trying to get adequate supply to meet our needs.

Minister, what kind of long-term vision does your government have in trying to address this? We've had representatives from UFCW appear before our committee, and they want to see more of a commitment from the federal government to work with labour and industry to try to source a little more home-grown talent.

I want to have a vision five or 10 years from now. Where is the Government of Canada going to go with a strategy that's going to start solving these problems that keep coming up before our committee?

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

The labour shortage was there before COVID, and it will still be there after COVID.

We are working on different streams. Immigration is one, and we want to make our foreign workers, migrant workers program more efficient. This is one thing. Investing in automation is another way to face the situation, and also trying to encourage Canadians to get more interested in this sector. If COVID has done one good thing, it is that it has made Canadians realize how the food workers, in a large way, from farmers to food processors to scientists, are essential workers and we value them. They realize they should be much more valued. We're finding different strategies to get Canadians interested in this sector.

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

Just quickly, to the recommendation about the working group set up between the federal government, labour and industry, do you have any comments on their suggestion on that?

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

I think it's interesting. I'll be pleased to look into it.

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

Okay. Thank you.

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

I'm always open to collaboration.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Minister.

We have about 12 minutes left. I think this a good place to break, because we won't cut anybody off.

I understand that the minister is going to come back and finish her one-hour commitment to us. If that's the case, we can log off and then come back as soon as possible right after the vote announcement so that we have as much time as we can with the minister and with the officials.

I will suspend the meeting as of now.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

We are resuming the meeting, and we will go to the second round of questions.

Mr. Dave Epp will split his time with Monsieur Lehoux. You have five minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Epp.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Minister, it's good to see you again. The last time we had a chance to interact, we talked about the carbon tax and its impact on our farm community. We talked about the figures that came out. The charges were between $210 and $819 per farm, which are fairly low, and those were the average costs reflected in the federal backstop of $50 a tonne.

I do note that at our last meeting we had our colleague Philip Lawrence here talking about his bill, Bill C-206, which would further exempt some carbon costs on some farm fuels. I also note, for the record, that the Liberal Party voted against that bill. If it's a minor cost, perhaps it's understandable. I wonder if I could ask this, then. Why would the government consider a fairly expensive and bureaucratic rebate program if the cost to the average farmer is so small?

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

Thank you.

First, I would say that the price on pollution is a very important tool for us to meet our targets of reducing—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Excuse me, Madam Minister.

The interpretation doesn't seem to be working.

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

It's working now, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Okay.

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

The sound of Mr. Epp's wireless headset isn't very good. Perhaps he should be sent a headset for the next meeting.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Okay, Mr. Epp, your high-tech headset might have to be—

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

I'll have my staff look into one, then.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Sure.

Okay. Did everybody understand the question from Mr. Epp? Is that all good? Can we proceed with the minister's reply?