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?