Agriculture Committee on May 2nd, 2024

[Peggy Brekveld]

In general terms, farmers are very adaptable. When dealing with weather, climate change, etc., we're constantly trying to adjust.

The importance of this question is about the future of the temporary foreign worker program and other such programs. The most important thing you could do for farmers is give them stability in programs in a world where often we don't have stability because of things like climate change. As farmers, if we understand the rules on what we need to do to bring people in and help them have a very good life here in Canada, you will make it easier. Constant change to the rules is extremely difficult for farmers to adjust to. We saw this with COVID. Farmers struggled and constantly flexed to ensure the safety of their people. We did it. We worked hard to ensure their safety, but we also saw that it was extremely stressful for the employers.

The second thing I'll say is that, long term, through the national workforce strategic plan, we are looking at different pillars and ways to ensure there is a workforce forever for farmers going forward. That possibly includes foreign workers. It includes improving Canadians' knowledge and awareness of farm jobs and domestic labour. It includes technology and innovation as well.

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

I'm sorry to interrupt you. Please don't hesitate to send us those recommendations in writing so we can try to address them in our report on this subject. Thank you very much.

Time is running short and I would like to speak with Ms. Loftsgard and Ms. Flies.

Ladies, your testimony was really very useful. You have probably heard the questions I asked Ms. Gaboury-Bonhomme earlier.

I would like to hear your comments on that subject.

[Tia Loftsgard]

I want to highlight that the organic standards funding is a constant pain for us. Every five years, for our trade agreements with those 35 other nations, it's mandatory to have it renewed. If we do not have the funding, the agreements do not get renewed and trade halts for international exports as well as imports.

We can't highlight enough how important it is for us to get full, permanent funding. There have been two recommendations from the Standing Committee on Agriculture over the years. We still do not have permanent funding. We still have to fundraise a portion of that funding. We do appreciate that the Canadian General Standards Board's costs have been covered, but there's another $200,000 at least that need to be covered by industry. We have to fundraise that by 2025.

I love that you brought up the idea of a fair work environment as part of the standards process that we're in right now. I'm leading a working group on fairness. It ties in to the concept of labour and making sure that we have a workforce for the future. It really is part of the organic principles.

We have four organic principles: health, care, ecology and fairness. When we became regulated in 2009 by the federal government, we dropped all the discussion about fairness. It's time to bring that back because we need to motivate the workforce to continue to farm organically.

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

That's perfect.

Please don't hesitate to send us any specific recommendations you have. We will send you the list of questions I asked earlier, to refresh your memory.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you very much, Mr. Perron.

I'm going to take the podium, so to speak, for a few minutes.

Mr. Burgess, unfortunately, with the double panel, you haven't had a whole lot of opportunity to build upon your initial statements. As a proud Nova Scotian wearing a Nova Scotia tartan tie, I know that wild blueberries matter not only in our province, but also, as you mentioned, in eastern Canada. The export value is significant. I know you export around the world.

You talked about a number of things, but if this committee had to subscribe to one or two key recommendations, what are the one or two things that we need to get into this report that matter to the Wild Blueberry Producers Association of Nova Scotia to make sure that you can continue to find success?

[Peter Burgess]

Thanks for the opportunity.

Building resilience in our fields is important. Several other panellists here have mentioned that. That helps with drought situations, excessive rain and so on. Growers see the benefit of that, but when margins are tight, it's hard for them to invest in it. I think incentives to help build things like hedgerows and pollinator habitat around our fields would really help stabilize the consistency of production.

To that end, those adjustments won't affect what we've seen from extreme weather. In 2018, we had -7°C weather for 12 hours in the middle of bloom. That kills your bloom immediately. For things like that, our adaptations aren't going to have an impact. Having opportunities for timely help with disaster relief would be very critical.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Talk to me about the pest management centre. You and I have had conversations off-line before on that. Public research on minor-use pesticides and alternative types of pesticides takes place. I know they had a recent conference. I think you were part of it.

How important is that programming to the Wild Blueberry Producers Association, not just in Nova Scotia, but in Canada?

[Peter Burgess]

It's critical. It's important to have that tool, realizing that our markets around the world are looking for softer pest management tools. Having resources there to register new products that are effective and safe is critical to making sure we're on an even playing field and to making sure we have effective products that will control the pests that occur.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

This is the last thing I want to ask you, but I have a couple of other questions for other witnesses.

On research, you mentioned the unique nature of how regionalized the industry and the climate are in eastern Canada. Are any federal research dollars going towards the industry at this point ? I know that many groups will talk about some of the challenges of raising industry funding, but are there any federal resources? Where are the provinces on this? Is this something they're willing to partner on as well?

[Peter Burgess]

We invest a lot of money in our own applied research. It can be challenging to access federal dollars to work on a regional basis. There are examples, certainly, through Mitacs, NSERC and so on, where research is happening through provincial researchers and universities in our region, and it is important. If the research doesn't happen in our region, it doesn't happen, because this is where the crop grows. Having that regional focus of federal dollars would be very helpful. There is some happening, but as I said, we need to have the work done here.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Last, you mentioned pollinators and their importance. We did study them, and some of the recommendations from this committee were to have CFIA re-examine its policy, particularly the cross-border policy, on queen bees from California and other areas in the United States.

Is there anything in particular on pollinators that you want to highlight for a recommendation? Can you highlight the importance of their necessity in your industry?

[Peter Burgess]

They are critical for our industry. I think any decision obviously needs to be in consultation with the beekeepers across Canada. I think it needs to be science-based and needs to clearly allow beekeeping pollinator businesses to thrive. Honeybees are the base industry for pollination for us, and having a consistent supply of honeybees is critical for our success.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you.

I want to turn to the CFA, but particularly to the B.C. Cherry Association.

Mr. Bal, you and I spoke in Vancouver. You talked about some of the devastation from the extreme weather in the interior of British Columbia, and you mentioned AgriRecovery and changing the framework. Of course, that's a program where provincial and federal authorities do the initial assessment and then create programs above and beyond what is existing in the BRM.

What do you envision when you talk about a program that's different from AgriRecovery? Can you give us any parameters there that this committee could take away for recommendations to the government?

[Sukhpaul Bal]

Sure. What we've witnessed with how AgriRecovery is set up is that it compensates for additional costs due to a disaster—for example, if a flood occurs. The atmospheric river in the Fraser Valley had a tremendous amount of water and flooding, and barns were destroyed or heavily damaged. There were additional costs for farmers to get out of that disaster.

In our situation with the extreme cold and the extreme heat, I'm calling it the “silent disaster”. Let's use the extreme cold event. Our trees looked exactly the same a week after the event as they did a week before the event. Where the disaster lies is in extreme crop loss, which, in the current framework, directs us to go to AgriInsurance for our losses. We have been doing that, but what the cherry industry example highlights is that this is not a program to go back to year after year, because you can cover only 80% of your crop. You have a 20% deductible. In a one-off scenario, yes, a farmer can absorb that 20% and understands that they got their insurance and that next year they're looking for a better year, an average year or maybe a record year. However, this five years in a row that we're now in highlights that this is not the correct program.

I'm talking about a program that lies somewhere between AgriInsurance, AgriStability and, on the far end, AgriRecovery. If I had to give it a name, I would call it “AgriResiliency”. Within that, we'd have monetary compensation for extreme losses so farmers remain viable, and at the same time, we'd assess what caused that loss and provide funds for BMPs. If it's extreme heat, shade covers could potentially mitigate that in the future and open it up for farmers to invest in, because as mentioned by one of the panellists, farmers are very adaptive.

The Cherry Association is already looking for options, but we can't do this alone. It needs to be supported with some government intervention to help us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

I'm going to the mushroom folks.

You mentioned housing and a bit of an alignment. I didn't catch all of that. Can you repeat some of the concerns on the mushroom side in relation to that? I think what I'm hearing is an underutilization of housing in relation to the temporary foreign worker program.

[Ryan Koeslag]

I'll point out that the mushroom industry is all organic. We're either organic or certified organic. We're an industry that has always had organic beliefs, and certainly we feel as though we're an industry that could use more support.

We've had recommendations on the temporary foreign worker program. Our issue right now is essentially that there has been a fundamental change in the program. As you know, there has always been a housing waiver allowance for individuals who wanted to go out and find their own housing, live with their spouse or live with their family members. There's been a fundamental shift and change in policy, arbitrarily, and now, even if a worker chooses to live on their own, farmers must provide an empty space at all times. That means we need to find empty beds, empty houses and empty apartments just so we can continue to be approved under the temporary foreign worker program.

We mentioned needing to provide more stability. That is a huge instability for our labour issues in trying to harvest organic mushrooms.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Okay. I understand. Notwithstanding the existing policy, whereby farm workers can have a waiver and say, “I'm going to live in a different situation, but thank you for the opportunity if I need it,” now there always has to be an open unit. I can appreciate the concern there.

This last question goes to Ms. Brekveld. It's about the agricultural labour strategy, which is something the government has talked about. I know that ESDC is considering right now the number of foreign worker programs we have and trying to find ways to consolidate them.

I take note that the government has introduced the recognized employer pilot. If we can make sure that end-users are utilizing that program, I think it can be a way to reduce the administrative burden.

How are those conversations going? What can you share on the record here about that work and how we need to further advance it?

[Peggy Brekveld]

I think the most critical thing to remember is that the gap between the number of workers we need and the number of workers we have is still widening, so the program in the agriculture sector is necessary and critical. Even with the temporary foreign workers coming in and filling some of the unfilled jobs, we still see a gap of 28,000. There are too many jobs open. With that comes a loss of income.

The biggest stressor, I would say, whether for planting, tending, harvesting or processing food, is that those workers coming from other places are so critical. Outside of that, this conversation about building up our domestic workforce is important, but it's going to take a very long time. In the meantime, Canada has this ability to produce more food than it needs. It's one of seven places in the world that can do that. Why wouldn't we use that resource, that industry and that asset in this country to build a better Canada and feed the world?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. Currie. I don't have any questions for you, but thank you for your leadership within the sector.

Thank you to the Canada Organic Trade Association. I don't have any questions for you.

We have about three or four minutes, Ms. Rood. If you would like to put any final thoughts on the record or ask any questions, I'll turn it over to you. I'll gently tell you when we're at time, and we'll go on our way.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Koeslag, you were talking about the empty house policy. We know the government's new empty house policy will require farmers to keep, and in some cases even buy, vacant homes, even if employees choose to live on their own. Has there been an analysis of how many empty houses farmers will be forced to keep or buy across Canada?

[Ryan Koeslag]

Yes. We're doing our own survey. As of right now, we're into the thousands. Certainly, as I mentioned, this applies to mushrooms, dairy and pork. Anybody who is keeping temporary foreign workers year-round under the agriculture stream will be impacted by this.

It's a huge issue. We're going to have vacant houses and vacant spaces during a housing crisis across this country and in the rural communities in which these farms operate.

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

Do you think this policy could actually lead to a decrease in workers on farms?

[Ryan Koeslag]

I guess it could in the sense that it could increase costs for the farms. Certainly, there is going to be an impact when it comes to the entire viability of these operations, which is what we were trying to stress. Every time there's a new regulation or a new policy from government, it really has our farms contemplating their viability and how they're going to continue. This is just one of those major changes that's going to have a huge impact.

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

Thank you very much.

Mr. Currie, I've been hearing a massive amount of outrage from farmers in recent weeks, not just in Ontario and my own riding of Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, but across the country, about the government's announced changes to the capital gains tax. Has your association assessed the impact that such an increase will have on the viability of farm transfers? What have you been hearing from those you represent?

[Keith Currie]

Like you, we're hearing a lot of questions and we are looking into it right now. We haven't done a full assessment of what the total impact will be, but what does it mean for transition and succession planning? That's the biggest concern we're hearing about with this announcement. Is it going to affect that succession planning aspect going forward? That's really what we're concerned about.

I will end by saying something that was triggered when MP Taylor Roy was speaking about the preservation of farmland. Whether tax credits or other policies are made, if you can't save the farmer, what are you saving the farmland for? That's something this committee needs to think about as it makes recommendations going forward. You can do all you want to save the farmland, but if you can't save the farmer, what's the purpose? Making sure that our tax system is where it needs to be and making sure that our environmental policies are strong and where they need to be are what we need to keep in mind.