Agriculture Committee on Oct. 29th, 2024

[Katie Ward]

When the dust bowl hit in the 1930s, it was beyond the scope of any one farm, commodity group or province to tackle on its own. It required a degree of co-operation and working at scale to craft a solution and implement practices that, for a lot of farms, were new at the time—reversing or taking out shelterbelts, instead of putting them in.

What we are seeing now, depending on where you are, is that you're either facing drought again, or atmospheric rivers and wildfires.

The system the PFRA put in place instituted expert knowledge exchange. You'd have agronomists and agrologists who were independent of profit motive going to farms and giving advice to farmers and ranchers. You knew the advice you were getting wasn't just trying to sell you something. It came with a mandate to improve sustainability on farms. Those civil servants were welcomed onto farms, no matter what the political winds of the day were, or what the jurisdiction was. It went on for decades. Those experts were very respected for facilitating knowledge exchange and passing along new information and science to farmers, so they could put in place more sustainable practices.

This is the kind of thing we really need to use as an argument against border carbon adjustments, which one of the members mentioned earlier, because we need to have a strategy in place. We need to have arguments built up, saying that we are taking action on these issues and improving our practices on our farms. This is going to provide the baseline scientific data, as well, that we're going to need to back up those claims.

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

I know farmers are deeply suspicious of an “Ottawa knows best” approach. Luckily, we have a lot of amazing farmers out there who are pushing the envelope and demonstrating real results. Their land has been able to withstand a major extreme weather event and come back much more quickly than, say, that of neighbours who are not engaged in the same kinds of practices. There's also a strong financial incentive there, in that you're not only protecting your farmland ecologically, but you're back up on your feet much more quickly, and maybe with less government intervention.

How do you think the establishment of CFRA...? Is this going to be, in your vision, a “by farmers, for farmers” kind of agency that avoids this sort of bureaucratic trap we might fall into?

[Katie Ward]

I think relying on the model of the PFRA.... There are still a lot of farmers in the Prairies—it was a prairie-specific agency—who had great respect for the scientists, agronomists and agrologists going on farms and doing workshops and knowledge exchanges, and for things like the experimental farms and stations that were, in some cases, spread across the Prairies. There definitely has to be an aspect of knowledge sharing among farmers, but there is a data-gathering, scientific aspect to this, which is, in a lot of cases, beyond the scope of many farms and ranches.

We need to be able to prove that our practices are working. As long as you are able to make the argument that you're taking the profit incentive out of this for the people giving the advice, that builds a large measure of trust.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Currie, I've asked officials repeatedly about whether business risk management programs are properly equipped for some of the challenges of farming in the 21st century. You said we can't wait until 2028, when the new partnership is to be renegotiated.

Can you give this committee a sense of the scale of the disconnect? How short are these programs now falling, given the realities so many farmers are facing with climate-related disasters and impacts on their operations?

[Keith Currie]

There are two aspects to it.

One is the timeliness aspect. Whether it's AgriStability or AgriRecovery, they're slow in responding to farmers' needs from a financial aspect, whether it's for an atmospheric river, a drought or the hurricanes in Atlantic Canada, whatever the case may be. The speed of delivering the funds is necessary to get people back on the road.

The other aspect is the capacity of the programs to meet financial demands. Environmental issues should not just be borne by Agriculture. All of government needs to be involved in making sure we are doing everything we can regarding preventative measures, so we can recover quickly—to your point—and prevent damage with this action.

That's why we feel this discussion needs to happen sooner rather than later, and not wait until 2028, when SCAP comes up for renewal and we need to open it up again.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

We're at time, Mr. MacGregor.

Thank you, Mr. Currie.

Colleagues, that brings us to the end of our round of questioning. Obviously, we're a little bit delayed, but I'm going to address the point that Mr. Perron raised.

I think it would be appropriate to release our witnesses.

On behalf of all my colleagues, I'd like to thank all the witnesses not only for their testimony, but also for the work they do to support agriculture across Canada.

Colleagues, very quickly, I wasn't in the chair last week, but I understand that on the advice of all parties on this committee, there were two letters drafted. One was on Bill C-280, which I have moved with your expediency. It is now going off to the Senate. On the advice of my vice-chair, as he and I discussed, all senators are going to be tagged on that, not just the Senate committee that is dealing with Bill C-280.

On Bill C-282, obviously, I did receive a bit more correspondence. I have the draft here. I just need some guidance because, ultimately, the letter in my name is a reflection of where this committee is at. You have all had the chance to review this letter. Are we good with sending this off to the Senate?

I see your hand, Mr. Barlow.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Certainly, in conversations with people around the table, as the Conservatives, we can't support sending this letter to the Senate, and I'll give two reasons why.

I'll stick with what my initial concern was, which is that this bill was not studied at this committee.

One paragraph in this letter, in particular, which I understand my colleague Mr. Perron does not want to remove, is the game-breaker for us. It says that, under the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement with the European Union and the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement, market access for Canadian supply-managed.... That paragraph basically says that it has undermined supply management, but supply management was part of the negotiations of all those trade agreements, and I think for us to say that free trade is a bad decision for Canada sends a very bad message.

If that paragraph stays in, I would ask that this go to a vote on whether we're going to send this or not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

I'm happy to hear other sentiments.

Mr. Perron, go ahead.

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

I thank Mr. Barlow for his comments. However, I don't interpret the paragraph in question in the same way at all. It explains that there have been concessions in the negotiation of the last three trade agreements. It doesn't say that we shouldn't trade and that trade isn't good for Canada—quite the opposite. All it says is that these concessions weaken one of the three pillars of supply management—import controls—and destabilize the system, which will eventually cease to function. If we took that away, we'd take away the argument that tells senators why they should pass this bill. I ask you to keep it. We can hold the vote, if you wish.

When we agreed to send a letter to the Senate about Bill C‑280, which I also think is very important, by the way, we added Bill C‑282 to it, and there was a consensus. So I think we could come to a consensus. If not, let's move on to the vote, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. Perron.

Are there any other comments from colleagues?

Seeing none, I will take up your request, Mr. Barlow, to have a vote on, as I understand it, removing the second paragraph of the drafted letter. That's what you're supporting. Is that correct?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

We can just vote on whether or not to send the letter.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Okay.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 7; nays 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

Colleagues, we will move forward as has been agreed on behalf of the committee.

I have nothing else for you. On Thursday, we will be studying the intergenerational transfer of farm assets. Two meetings are set aside, on Thursday and on Tuesday. I, unfortunately, won't be able to chair, but Mr. Barlow will. You'll be in good company with him helping to lead us along.

The meeting is adjourned. I will see you next week.