Agriculture Committee on May 27th, 2021

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

Most of it actually, yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

Thank you, Madam Minister.

Unfortunately, that's all the time we have, but I really want to thank the minister for coming to our committee today.

The situation is very positive in the agriculture sector.

We wish everyone a good season. After the pandemic, I hope that everything will be fine, and we can sail in calm waters.

Thank you again for being with us, Madam Minister.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

We're going to take a short break, and we will continue our work afterwards.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

I think we're all ready to go, so we'll start our second hour.

I want to welcome the department official from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Madam Sylvie Lapointe, vice-president, policy and programs branch. Also, from the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food, we have Mr. Chris Forbes, deputy minister. Welcome again, Mr. Forbes, to our committee.

We also have Ms. Christine Walker, assistant deputy minister, corporate management branch. Welcome again. I believe it will be your last time at AG committee, but welcome to our committee.

I don't believe we have an opening statement, so we'll go right to our question round.

We'll start with six minutes. Ms. Rood and Mr. Steinley, I believe you're going to split your time.

Go ahead, Ms. Rood.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the officials for appearing today.

Thank you, Ms. Walker. It will be great to have you here today, and we wish you well as you move on to your next assignment.

We've had the recent review of the Canada Grain Act, and the deadline for stakeholders to submit their suggested improvements to the act was April 30. I sent a letter to Minister Bibeau on May 13, explaining that my colleagues and I had met with some of the stakeholders and they were very frustrated and felt out of the loop on what was coming next.

I'm just wondering if you have any indication of what the plan is for the next steps in the review process and whether it includes stakeholders. Do we have an idea of a timeline for reporting the consultations publicly at this time?

[Chris Forbes]

Yes, we will release a report—I don't have a precise time for you—on what we heard from the written consultations, and definitely, we'll engage with a range of stakeholders. Indeed, we have already done some open sessions. I think it was about two weeks ago now that a number of officials from the department and the CGC held some open consultations for producers—a couple of options. Then we certainly will do that with interested industry organizations as we go forward and make sure that voices are heard.

I don't have detailed timelines for you, but there will be a lot of consultation, for sure, and we'll make sure that information is shared.

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

Thank you for that.

Deputy Minister, in the 2021-22 budget, the government announced that your minister's department would fund farmers' purchasing more energy-efficient grain and oilseed dryers. However, my colleagues and I from farm backgrounds, as well as those of us who serve farming ridings, know that farms are businesses and that they operate on very narrow profit margins. Farmers work hard to keep their overhead, capital equipment and borrowing costs as low as possible to avoid eating into those slim profit margins. We've heard some prior testimony at the committee that there is not new technology out there for grain dryers.

I'm just wondering if you can reassure this committee and the farmers who we hear from that the dryer program funding will not require farmers to trigger capital outlays or borrowing costs that will further narrow their profit margins.

[Chris Forbes]

We don't have all the program details worked out, but there will be two parts. I think this is part of the broader agricultural clean technology program. First of all, there will be some funds for research and development to make sure that we build the commercial options available—to your point about what's out there.

The second will be, as you say, financial support. What our programs would normally do is a range. We rarely would fund 100% of the cost. Usually there's some cost-share, so there likely would be a capital outlay from a producer who's benefiting from the program. I don't have all the details, but that would be the plan.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Forbes.

I'll cede the rest of my time to Mr. Steinley.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thanks very much.

Thanks to the witnesses for joining us.

I met with the Prairie Oat Growers Association recently, and it talked about how in the budget there is money for international marketing. However, is there also some more money set aside for domestic marketing? Do you think it should be easier for Canadian farmers to promote to Canadian consumers, and is that consideration being taken by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada?

[Chris Forbes]

Yes, certainly.

We are working on what's part of the food policy for Canada, an agri-awareness program that would help build, really, understanding and better awareness of agricultural practices in Canada and also the domestic brand in Canada. We would link that, obviously, up to our international efforts, for sure.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you very much.

I'm switching gears to more of a livestock bent.

Regulations about time in transit for hauling animals have been in consideration for a while now, and producer groups are looking and collecting data and research that might be pertinent to some of the regulation changes. Would there be the opportunity to have an exemption continued until that data and research from the producer groups becomes available?

It would be very important to have that information before setting up and making any changes to the regulations for the hauling of livestock.

[Sylvie Lapointe, Vice-President, Policy and Programs Branch, Canadian Food Inspection Agency]

The regulations are in force, but we are in a period of compliance promotion, and that will last until February 2022. We're aware of the research that the industry is conducting, and we're awaiting the results of that. That will certainly feed into any considerations that we make to changes in regulations or to policies and directives.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you.

My last question will be in the same vein as Ms. Rood's, talking about grain drying.

We just went through Philip Lawrence's private member's bill talking about fuel for grain dryers. There has always been talk around the next technology, the next iteration of what we could use for grain drying. I'm from Saskatchewan. The farms are very large here, and so far natural gas is actually, by far, one of the cleanest available options for running grain dryers.

To your knowledge, is the technology ready for any other fuel, other than natural gas and propane, to run these huge grain dryers in our provinces?

[Chris Forbes]

I'm by far not the technical expert on this, but my understanding is that there are a couple of potential options out there. I don't have the details for you, Mr. Steinley, but certainly there are some options. How readily available they are, I wouldn't be able to comment on right now, but I think there are some promising opportunities there.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Forbes. Thank you, Mr. Steinley.

We'll go now to Mr. Ellis for six minutes.

The floor is yours, Mr. Ellis.

[Neil Ellis, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'd like to thank the officials for taking time in their day to testify in front of the committee.

We talked about BSE negligible risk status with the minister. I just want to know what it means for Canada's beef and live cattle access to global markets now that Canada is officially recognized by the OIE as a negligible risk country. This new negligible risk BSE status would enable Canada to seek new market opportunities for Canada's cattle and beef exports.

Which ones, and how soon?

[Sylvie Lapointe]

Thank you for the question.

As the minister outlined in her testimony earlier, the negligible risk assessment will definitely open up new markets for us. We have already started to engage in that exercise, as an example, in southeast Asia. That work is ongoing and is a priority for us, working with the industry.

[Neil Ellis, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Would this negligible risk status improve access to U.S. slaughter facilities?

[Sylvie Lapointe]

Yes, I think it will, but we are still working with our partners. As well, work is ongoing with the industry to work on the concerns that they have raised around SRM, but also more generally on some irritants they perceive in the way we implement the current regime. We are working very closely with the industry, and that work has already begun.

[Neil Ellis, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

Thank you.

Can you provide an update on the status of the local food infrastructure fund, and how the department is measuring the success of how those funds have rolled out? Are there any future plans to continue it?

[Chris Forbes]

Thanks for that question, Mr. Ellis.

The local food infrastructure fund was launched as part of the food policy. We've had two waves of applications so far, for both very small and mid-sized projects. I think they've been very successful. It's a very popular program.

Certainly from the applications we have received, reviewed and approved, we are taking an approach of lessons learned in terms of who the applicants are, what the success stories are and, in the outcomes we're seeing, who the beneficiaries are. I don't have any details for you right now, but I think there are a lot of positive signs. We're certainly keeping an eye on the program and looking at how we refine it. Of course, maybe I'll finish off by saying there will be future calls for proposal going forward, and we want to make sure we adapt from the learnings we've had thus far.

[Neil Ellis, Liberal, Bay of Quinte, ON]

In Canada's north, food prices can be significantly higher than what the rest of the country pays. Additional factors such as isolation and socio-economic challenges make northerners particularly vulnerable to food insecurity. This vulnerability has been shown by the COVID-19 pandemic.

What has been proposed in the main estimates to help beat this problem?