Agriculture Committee on May 30th, 2024

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

Are you saying that you don't think capital gains would affect the ag sector?

[Stefanie Beck]

I'm saying it would not have been the kind of proposal we would have made.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Thank you. I appreciate that.

We'll now move to Mr. Louis and Ms. Taylor Roy. They are going to split their time.

You have five minutes. Go ahead, Ms. Taylor Roy.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I am splitting my time with Mr. Louis.

Thank you to the officials.

I want to follow up on the question about the future of farms and the transfer to the next generation. This is not just for farm families that have farms right now. It's also for young people who want to get into farming, and perhaps their parents or other generations do not have farms currently. It's been a real challenge.

Likewise, some of the newer farmers I've met at farmers' markets in my area, especially from the smaller organic or sustainable farms, are struggling right now. Getting farmland, especially in Ontario, is very difficult.

Has the department looked at all at how we can help young people grow, sustain and enter this market in any way? I'm thinking in particular about the new national school food program, which could be a nice link, and whether there have been any conversations between the departments about how we might support local agriculture while having healthy sustainable food for our schoolchildren.

[Stefanie Beck]

There's a range of questions there.

We have a significant number of programs that support young and diverse farmers coming into the community. This is extremely important for the future of the sector. In fact, in pretty much every single one of our programs, we have extra oversight to ensure that if a successful applicant does fall into one of the categories, they may be eligible for extra funding. There's a built-in reinforcement for these kinds of applicants.

We were talking earlier about Farm Credit Canada. They also have some very specific programs for new entrants and young entrants in the farming business, to make sure they have an extra hand-up, as it were, in these programs.

For a national school food program and our corresponding local food infrastructure program, I would point to some of our other funding under AgriCompetitiveness—for instance, Agriculture in the Classroom. There are very similar goals as to how we can raise awareness among youth in Canada and maybe create some excitement about work in the agricultural sector, because these days there is such a diverse range of opportunities. You can be a data scientist and a farmer at the same time.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you very much.

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

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

Thank you.

I would send this message out to anyone here: Talk about supply management and the vital role it plays in the availability of fresh, local and high-quality food and dairy, poultry and egg products. We're talking about stability in our supply chain, the quality and safety of products for Canadian consumers and fair returns for our hard-working farmers.

Supply management is going to benefit consumers, farmers and processors. There are 62 chicken farms in my riding of Kitchener—Conestoga, and I've had conversations on that on the Hill this week and with some of those farmers in the last few weeks.

Can someone explain what specific initiatives the $507 million allocated for supply management will be used for and how those initiatives will support the stability of our supply-managed sector?

[Stefanie Beck]

We have significant funds in place to support the supply management sector and a range of different programs under that. However, before I go into that, I would like to add one more thing I find particularly admirable about supply management: It helps cut down on food loss and waste, which is something we haven't talked about yet today. Being able to plan for the amount of poultry, for instance, we will need means that we waste far less than we might otherwise.

Regarding our specific initiatives and the close to $500 million for supply management, a good chunk of that—about $250 million—is for the dairy direct payment program, and $114 million or so is for on-farm poultry and egg investments. We frequently receive input from producers and processors and applications to use that money for good programs that will, for instance, create more efficient processing. Again, there's less waste there, but also less waste of energy. More up-to-date instruments and tools will mean that, in a humane fashion, the poultry are processed more quickly and in a more efficient manner.

I could go on. There are lots of different programs, but we could come back to you with more detail if you'd like.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

You could go on, but your time is up, unfortunately.

[Stefanie Beck]

I'm sorry.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

That's okay.

Thanks, Mr. Louis.

Thanks, Ms. Taylor Roy.

Monsieur Perron, you have two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Louis, you spent several minutes listing the benefits of supply management, which was very interesting. However, it is important to remember that the bill has not yet been passed. It is still in the Senate, where a few people—appointed by your government—don't seem to be in a hurry to pass it. If you get a chance, send them the message that they need to get moving. This is an important bill that has been approved by your government.

Ms. Beck, if you have a comment on that, I'd like to hear it.

With respect to the local food infrastructure fund, we were pleased to see that investments were made. However, are you sure that the amount will be enough?

I'd like to bring up an unfortunate situation. A number of people in our ridings spent time and money preparing applications, only to be told that, because so many people had applied, the program rules had to be changed. Their applications would not be read, unless the situation happened to work out, so they'd applied for nothing. That's quite the response from the government. Could you comment on that?

[Stefanie Beck]

I'm very sorry to say that we won't have enough money this time either. We are looking at which criteria would allow for more flexibility, so that we can consider a large number of applications. However, I am pretty sure that the $20 million will be used up quickly.

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

Thank you for your honesty. We will miss you, because we don't often hear clear, honest answers. I gather it would be important to adjust the criteria so that people don't apply for nothing. It's fundamental. Our citizens have better things to do.

I'm going to take advantage of your clear, honest answers, once again, to talk about the tariffs on Russian fertilizer. We discussed them earlier, and they remain in place. There are still people who are saying that they will take steps to return the money to producers. However, we all know that the government is not in a position to return the money. It doesn't even know who paid.

At the same time, I learned this week that the aerospace sector was authorized to purchase Russian titanium without tariffs. I am not challenging the decision, which may be completely justified. However, given that we are the only G7 country imposing tariffs on its farmers, don't you think it's time to put an end to this measure, which isn't even effective? We could invest in other ways to help Ukrainians.

[Stefanie Beck]

Thank you.

I was not aware of what had happened with the Canadian Space Agency. That said, on our end, the fertilizer tariff remains in effect.

Perhaps Mr. Rosser would like to add something. I was pleased to see that our clients had managed to find other sources, which are certainly no cheaper. However, situations like this sometimes reveal unexpected truths. Canada, for example, is a major exporter of fertilizer components, but we can't get them to the eastern part of the country.

Tom knows more than I do.

[Tom Rosser]

Actually, I don't have much to add—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Tom, please keep it pretty tight; we're running close to time.

[Tom Rosser]

Okay. I just want to point out that, in the last two seasons, fertilizer has been found from non-Russian sources. Yes, there were problems in 2022, but things seem to be fine now.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to Mr. MacGregor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Beck, I met with some members of the Cattle Association yesterday. There's one thing they wanted me to bring to your attention. Going off my notes, in terms of triggering disaster financial assistance, they were talking about a $2-million cap on gross—

[Stefanie Beck]

It's $3 million.

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

Yes. I think they were talking about the cap on gross margins, not net, and said that there were some bureaucratic hurdles. For example, if you had more than two partners, you couldn't access financing. They said they raised these concerns with AAFC a couple of years ago, but haven't gotten a response from the department.

Are you able to fill me in on some of their concerns?

[Stefanie Beck]

I'm sorry, but I wouldn't have details on that. I can assure you, though, that we have regular contact with the Canadian Cattle Association. They would have had responses and discussions throughout. I'm sure we're not yet at a solution.

In any case, if this falls under our sustainable Canadian agricultural partnership, we need a solution that works for the partners in the provinces and territories as well. It wouldn't be unilateral.

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

Thank you very much for your appearance today.

[Stefanie Beck]

Thank you.