Agriculture Committee on Oct. 8th, 2024

[Jack Chaffe]

Yes, we've been in those discussions with Europe, and part of the problem is that if we change some of our processing here in Canada—the guidelines and regulations—then it could force us out of some of the other markets in the world. With the CETA agreement, that trade agreement was actually devastating to the beef industry.

As a producer, I feel that the beef industry was a sacrificial lamb in that trade deal. It's been of no benefit to us, but to break through and get some exports into Europe, at this time, it seems like we keep running up against a brick wall. Just circling back, trying to change our regulations and processing to meet their standards could force us out of other markets, which we don't want.

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

I'm not saying we have to change that necessarily, but we have to get the discussion going. There are still benefits associated with your production, even in terms of environmental impact. Maintaining grasslands matters, as do the changes you make to livestock feed. These things need to be measured and encouraged.

Mr. Petelle, I know we don't always agree, but I'm sure we will on this point. When I see products coming into the country grown using crop protection products that are banned here, it bothers me. That needs to be fixed. How do you do that?

Would it be possible to launch discussions at the WTO on this? Obviously, these would be long‑term discussions.

What are your thoughts on that?

[Pierre Petelle]

I'll start, and then I'll turn it over to my colleague.

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

Okay, Ms. Bergeron can chime in as well.

[Pierre Petelle]

I'll answer in English, just so I don't misspeak. The issue with this reciprocity in the example I was giving is that Europe wants us to only use products that are approved in—

Can you hear me?

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

I'm sorry, but the sound keeps going down. It's a new machine and we have to get used to it.

I'm listening.

[Pierre Petelle]

If Canada were to take that same approach, that we shouldn't import products that are grown using crop protection products that we don't allow here, then Europe could do the same thing and not allow us to use products that it has banned in Europe, and then Japan.... Therefore, you see the point that after a while, you end up with very few products that can ever be used.

The growing conditions in Mexico are very different from those here, so that same carrot has very different pest pressures in Mexico from those here. Maybe they need additional insecticides registered or maybe there are disease pressures and stuff that we don't have in Canada, so they need those tools that maybe we can do without.

That's just one example, but the growing conditions and the pest pressures are very different globally, and we can't put one approach across countries.

I don't know if Ms. Bergeron has anything to add.

[Émilie Bergeron]

I think Mr. Petelle answered the question well.

One of the solutions is to give our producers the tools they need to be competitive. To do that, we need a Canadian pesticide regulatory system that is predictable, that is based on science and that makes it possible to make timely decisions in order to put these tools in the hands of producers.

We also recommend the use of international standards that facilitate international trade and give our producers access to foreign markets, such as the United States, Mexico and other countries around the world, and vice versa.

We also need to harmonize regulations so that producers around the world have access to the same products that are safe and allow them to be competitive and innovative.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Mr. Perron, your time is up. Thank you very much.

Mr. MacGregor, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to all of the witnesses. Thank you for being here today.

I'll turn to my friends from the Canadian Cattle Association first.

In the previous hour, we had a number of people who were experts in economics talking about the challenges that exist. It is a bit of a hypothetical area. One witness was quite sure that the European Union is nowhere near putting in a carbon border adjustment. I wanted to flip it. I was trying to turn the conversation towards how we measure the good that agriculture is doing. Certainly, we suffer from a lack of data, even just within Canada. I'm sure that problem is magnified several-fold when you're comparing international jurisdictions.

The Canadian Cattle Association set out some very ambitious goals. I think you've had some great partnerships with organizations like the Nature Conservancy of Canada. Also, you have shown how Canada's Prairies were great because of a symbiotic relationship with large herbivores. In fact, the grasslands suffered as soon as you started removing that. Cattle are now compensating for this traditional role that existed for thousands of years. You are identifying that data. You've set up your ambitious goals about how much carbon you want to sequester and so on.

Can you talk a little about the challenge that exists when comparing international jurisdictions? Let's take Brazil as an example. We know cattle farming in Brazil has, in many cases, come at the expense of the Amazon rainforest. In a jurisdiction like Brazil—if you were to put it on a par with Canada—would they have to measure the loss of carbon sequestration that came from the removal of forest to turn it into grassland?

Have you had conversations with international cattle organizations on how you might be able to set some kind of basic, commonly understood baseline?

[Jennifer Babcock]

I'll start, and Jack will fill in here. It's too bad we don't have our scientists along with us.

Within the cattle sector globally—even within Canada—it's so diverse. Each landscape has its own benefits, challenges and opportunities. Those conversations are not happening at my level. There may be scientists talking among countries and looking into those pieces.

However, in Canada, what we've looked at is getting the data we need to do our measurements. We have the national beef sustainability assessment. That's what we're working on to track our 2030 goals as well. We've worked on data and with government and industry partners, but there's so much that's still missing. There are a lot of benefits that cattle bring in Canada that we are not able to capture at this moment in order to showcase how positive we are for the environment.

One of the challenges, when we start talking about border carbon adjustments, is this: When you look with such tunnel vision at one specific piece, you miss the whole picture regarding all the biodiversity and species at risk that come and live on the lands with the cattle. Look at the grasslands. When you talk about ecosystems globally, the native prairie grassland is one of the most endangered ecosystems in the world. Cattle are preserving that land. Then there's carbon sequestration. As Jack mentioned in his remarks, we are looking at further greenhouse gas emissions intensity reduction.

We're doing all of these things. How do we make sure these are captured on the benefit side of it?

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

With the ambitious goals you've set up for yourselves.... I know that consumers are increasingly starting to pay attention to how their food was produced. Do you think that still lends you a competitive advantage, or is it another challenge to overcome?

Are you showcasing that sustainability? Do you think that gives you an advantage over your competitors because consumers are increasingly looking for that in the products they're buying?

[Jack Chaffe]

I'll add in there.

Through our Canadian Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, we're seen as world leaders in that on the global stage. They look to us to see what we're doing.

I'll go back to the grasslands, especially the native grasslands in western Canada. Part of the reason we've lost some of those is the inequality of government policies on the money available for different crop productions compared to livestock—I'll be quite blunt—like crop insurance. That's one reason we've lost a lot of grasslands. It's easy to break that land and grow a crop. If you don't get a crop, you have crop insurance, which is totally different from livestock production.

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

Just very quickly, you did talk about Bill C-59 and unintended consequences.

I know the Competition Bureau is trying to sort out some kind of an interpretation guideline. We will ultimately want to make a recommendation.

How is that going? Is there anything our committee can recommend to further that process for you?

[Jennifer Babcock]

We've requested to meet further with the Competition Bureau on this to provide some of our perspectives.

One aspect that should be considered by the committee and others is.... What the legislation seeks to do is.... Anyone can bring forward a complaint, but what if a certain group wants to keep bringing forward complaints? What's the penalty for doing that, with the amount of work that goes into having to defend it?

That's an aspect that has not really been discussed yet that we'd like to be included in the conversation moving forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you. We're at time.

We'll now turn to the honourable member for Regina—Lewvan.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks for that introduction.

We had a report that came out last fall about agriculture and climate change mitigation at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. It's an independent auditor's report from 2024.

When we're having this hypothetical conversation around carbon border adjustments, one thing I always wonder is what our benchmark is. Where does our dataset start? What are we trying to go down from?

Right in the overall message on the first page it says, “Despite this, the department had yet to develop a strategy for how it would contribute to Canada’s 2030 and 2050 greenhouse gas mitigation and sequestration goals. In the absence of [any] strategy, we found that the department had undertaken extensive science-based [due diligence].” We really don't have a mitigation strategy in the Department of Agriculture from the Government of Canada.

Mr. Petelle, you said it very well: The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I am asking all the witnesses. Can you unpack some of those good intentions that have resulted in some of these non-tariff trade barriers, which I think is the same road we would go down if we go to a carbon border adjustment?

I will start with Mr. Petelle.

Give some of the examples of what we've done with good intentions that have resulted in not being able to do some trading with some of our key partners.

[Pierre Petelle]

There are plenty of examples of specific cases where products have been stopped at the border for a residue, a canola seed or a weed seed that wasn't really there. We've seen many examples of barriers being thrown up.

For us, it's the more fundamental things. It's the institutionalizing of basically non-tariff barriers. It's things like the deforestation approach in Europe or the mirror clause that my colleague described. Those are things that would now be embedded in their way of doing business that would basically throw up barriers to any exporter. That's what's more of a concern.

We feel that Canada can play a leadership role globally in terms of enforcing those rules-based trading systems that we've all adhered to and signed on to, and really push that agenda forward.

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

Turning to the CCA, would you be able to add some of the issues you've seen through good intentions that have resulted in our having a lack of ability to get some of our world-class beef around to some of the markets?

[Jennifer Babcock]

Yes. I could probably think of many more if you gave me a few hours here, but just quickly, one of the first things that come to mind is the CPTPP. It's a very progressive trade agreement. It has been quite positive for the Canadian beef sector. When we lost market for non-tariff reasons, we didn't skip a beat, because we had the CPTPP and access to other trading partners. When we saw the announcement of the accession of the U.K. to the CPTPP and the non-tariff barriers that came along with that, it was very disappointing and frustrating for our sector. From what we've seen in some of the discussions we've had already on the non-tariff barriers with the EU that we're facing, the U.K. have now taken those as well.

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

I think you answered this before, but how much beef have we exported to the EU in the last little while?

[Jennifer Babcock]

There's been very little to the EU. To the U.K., we've exported zero dollars—

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

To the EU as a whole—

[Jennifer Babcock]

—and they are importing into Canada.

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

Okay. Thank you.

There's another issue that I think will raise concerns and make it even more difficult for our producers who've been hit by several government policies that have been difficult. Would you have a number on what the carbon tax costs a producer per calf?