Agriculture Committee on May 19th, 2022

[John Barlow]

I'm going to share my time with Mr. Epp. Thanks.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's good to see you, Minister.

The pest management centre of AAFC provides critical data to the PMRA on behalf of farmers, and particularly farmers of minor crops, yet their budget has been flat for a decade. Inflation has chewed away at their effectiveness. Numerous positions are vacant.

Can you explain to the community if you intend to increase the number of reports and projects they can support? They've really decreased over the last several years because of those concerns.

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

PMRA is an important component connected with the agriculture department. I don't have anything specific in mind, but I don't know if the—

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I'm sorry, Minister; PMC is the pest management centre under AAFC, not PMRA.

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

Okay, that was lost in translation.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

The industry's calling for another $5 million just to get back to the capacity that they had earlier. That's a major concern of the industry.

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

I'm sorry. I was lost in our acronyms.

I don't have additional budget in this budget, but this is something that we pay attention to.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

On August 4, the PMRA did announce a transformation process, and it is considering another layer of oversight. Dr. Gilles Saindon, the ADM for science and technology, testified at this committee. I asked him the for a definition of citizen science, which has been touted as being an element of that oversight panel. He basically explained that it's citizens reporting disease outbreaks or insect outbreaks.

I'm hearing back from the industry is that this is not their concern. Their concern is that it's going to lead to a non-scientific avenue into our whole regulatory process, which is not good for Canada's reputation. How are you representing agriculture's concerns on this issue to Health Canada? Can you comment?

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

I want to assure you that we definitely want this modernization to be strongly anchored in science. We know that farmers need inputs and fertilizer for good production and yields.

Minister Duclos is the lead on this, but I'm following it very closely. We have just completed a consultation, and a report will follow. I know that the agency is working on building the expert panel that will also support it.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

One more—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Mr. Epp, I'm sorry, but we're at time. I actually gave a little bit to be generous to you and the minister and to get the answers out.

We're going to go to Ms. Taylor Roy for five minutes.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, Lib.]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you so much, Minister, for joining us again and answering our questions about the main estimates.

I will be sharing my time with my colleague Mr. Louis.

I have a couple of questions to do with what's happening with avian influenza and canola, and globally as well.

First, avian influenza has been reported in many countries—in Asia, in Europe and closer to us in the United States—and in seven of our provinces. I'm wondering if you could explain what happens when the flock of a farm is infected and whether the producers in this case are losing everything.

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

Thank you.

When producers see an animal that might be sick from avian influenza, they would call CFIA. The inspector would come in a very rapid way, make the analysis and confirm. If it's confirmed that it's an avian influenza case, then there is a protocol that will be put in place. The other animals will most likely be depopulated. There is a whole process to make sure that it's done in the right manner. There is a zone that will be established around the farm to protect the region. Different measures will be put in place to avoid contamination.

To your question on whether they lose everything, with CFIA there is a compensation program. Farmers will be paid the market value of the animals that they have to depopulate. There is already a program in place for that.

I want to mention that biosecurity is extremely important. I recognize that our commercial farmers are taking it extremely seriously because avian influenza is a serious disease. This year apparently it came mainly from migratory birds, not from contamination from one farm to another. It just demonstrates that they are taking biosecurity measures seriously. I would encourage all of them—the small, medium and large poultry farms—to do so.

[Leah Taylor Roy]

Thank you very much. I know it's hit close to home here with King Cole Ducks farms, so I appreciate that this is in place.

I believe that is about half the time I have, so I want to turn it over and give my colleague Mr. Louis an opportunity to ask questions.

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

That's very kind of you. I thank the member from Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill.

Thank you, Minister, for being here. It's a real pleasure to have you appear before the committee.

Every day food is wasted from farm to plate during production, processing and distribution, as well as in retail sales, food services and even at home. About half of Canada's food is wasted, and it has economic, environmental and social implications for the agri-food sector and for Canadians in general.

In my riding, Kitchener—Conestoga, we have a company I've met with many times called Enviro-Stewards. They take a holistic approach and work with other companies to focus on resource conservation, helping them earn higher margins with smaller footprints. The benefits are multi-fold; they help with food loss, energy efficiency and water efficiency as well.

Can you tell us the latest initiatives taken by the government to tackle the issue of food waste?

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

Thank you. You will remember that we have launched the food waste challenge. This is a very exciting initiative that will bring us new, innovative solutions in terms of business models and technology as well. In my mandate letter, we can see that there is a fund for food waste that will also follow these challenges.

We have a few examples of innovation that have been put in place and that we supported recently. In terms of packaging, we have recycling and composting of packaging materials. This is a project we have done with the Canadian Produce Marketing Association.

Recently in my region, we supported a business that uses food waste to feed flies to make protein and peat moss. This is another very concrete example of the type of project that we can support in terms of innovation to reduce food waste.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Minister. Thank you, Mr. Louis.

Mr. Perron, it's over to you now for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to return to the 35% tariff on fertilizer ordered by producers before the war in Ukraine began.

As I understand it, you are still working on it and looking for a way to provide compensation.

Is that correct?

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

We are looking for a way to support producers so that they can deal with high input costs and the tariff.

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

Okay.

In the House today, I raised the subject of bees. Yesterday, the Union des producteurs agricoles gave a press briefing on this subject.

Have you begun discussions with its representatives?

I would imagine that the Union representatives met with you before making a public announcement and that you had discussions with the Quebec minister, Mr. Lamontagne. It is, after all, a Canada-wide problem.

Did that happen?

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

You're absolutely right. We had several discussions with the industry and the provinces, and we acknowledge that it's a particularly difficult year in terms of bee mortality. We have ramped up our efforts to find safe sources for bees, both queen bees and others, from abroad.

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

Do you mean nucleus colonies?

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

That's it. I have trouble remembering the term.

We would like to import large quantities of bees from reliable sources. We would also like to facilitate transportation, which has become problematic since the drastic reduction in the number of flights resulting from the COVID‑19 pandemic. We are really trying to facilitate this as much as possible.

I know that the Quebec beekeeping sector informed us of their requests yesterday. So we're going to study all that closely to try and identify needs and existing programs. We are in particular asking ourselves how we can become more resilient in the future so that the situation can improve rather than worsen from one year to the next.

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

We'll be there to see the outcome.

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

I'd like to add that in Prince Edward Island, people are working specifically on this in order to be able to meet demand.