Agriculture Committee on June 13th, 2022

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

Thank you.

Ms. Lambert, you said we needed to do more to protect this group of people. What can our committee do to help women and children, besides what we are already doing?

Is more humanitarian assistance funding the answer?

Do you have any recommendations for us?

[Brittany Lambert]

Thank you for your question.

I think the pure scale of need shows that what is needed most of all right now is increased humanitarian response. In terms of how that response is happening, Canada is already very good at funding organizations and responses that focus on gender-sensitive approaches and take women's needs, unique vulnerabilities and also leadership capacities into account.

I think what needs to be done, just given the magnitude of the crisis in the world, is to scale up that humanitarian response and the levels of funding associated with it.

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

Thank you very much.

By the way, the interpretation is working for you, so feel free to answer in French if you wish.

Is the situation the same in the African and Middle Eastern countries that are expected to be hard hit by famines?

Women and children are affected by famine to a much larger extent. Does it have to do with displacement? Are there other contributing factors?

[Brittany Lambert]

Displacement certainly plays a major role. When people have to leave their homes, their jobs, their fields, their crops and so forth, it has consequences. In addition, those families tend to have lower incomes, so they can't pay today's prices for food.

We need to find ways to make sure that families have more money to buy food and meet all of their daily needs. We also need to think about the social security dimension so that vulnerable people who lose their entire crop, for example, can access emergency income in a time of crisis like this.

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

Thank you very much.

When the committee last met, we spoke with the witnesses about the importance of reopening Ukraine's ports, which are an export corridor. Talks are under way, and if any progress is being made, it's not being made quickly.

Ms. Lambert and Ms. Ravon, as Oxfam Canada representatives, can you tell us why it's so important to do everything possible to get this export corridor opened back up and, perhaps, what additional steps the west should be taking to make that happen?

[Lauren Ravon]

I'm happy to jump in here. Thank you.

Yes, the high dependency on grain from Ukraine to respond to the hunger crisis in Africa is very concerning.

I also want to loop back to your initial question, which was about what more Canada can be doing. There is an incredible generosity and response to the Ukraine crisis and every life matters equally. Our concern here is that we're seeing a displacement of humanitarian resources globally, so that we're not able to respond as we should be to the African hunger crisis in particular.

In addition to increasing Canadian aid, we're also calling specifically for Canada to put in place a matching fund. We know that Canadians have been incredibly generous in their response to the Ukraine crisis, as they should be, but we haven't seen that outpouring of generosity or even consciousness and awareness that hundreds of thousands of people are on the brink of dying of starvation in countries like Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya.

Canada can urgently put in place a matching fund to call on the generosity of Canadians. As my colleague, Brittany, was saying, not only is it a matter of food that flows, but it's also a matter of cash assistance. In some communities, food is actually available, but it is out of people's reach because of the price. Getting emergency cash assistance to families to purchase on local markets is incredibly important. It's just as important as opening up flows from Ukraine and other regions to get food into local markets.

Ultimately, local food production is the response to these types of recurring food crises. It's not global flows. In some parts of Africa, up to 70% of production is local. People are relying on their local family production and their local family farm. If we're not getting cash into people's hands to be buying on the local markets, then you have a further deterioration and a decrease in food security in the long run.

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

Thank you very much.

I also took note when you talked about the importance of supporting long-term local farming. We shouldn't wait for a crisis in order to gear assistance towards the development of local food systems.

I want to come back to the situation in Ukraine.

We have repeatedly called for chartered flights in order to bring refugees who wish to come to Canada here. We've had a few flights, but not many at all.

Do you think that initiative could make a significant difference in your work?

Do you think Canada should keep up those efforts, organizing more charter flights to alleviate some of the pressure on the ground?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

You have 30 seconds.

[Brittany Lambert]

Certainly, Canada has a role to play in that effort. I want to commend the Canadian government on its efforts to date.

I think helping to bring people here is a good thing, because it gives them an opportunity to find work and earn an income until the situation in Ukraine is resolved.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Ms. Lambert.

Thank you, Mr. Perron.

We now go to Mr. MacGregor for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to our witnesses for joining us today.

I would like to start with Oxfam.

Ms. Ravon, I was looking through Oxfam's website. Your organization has done a tremendous job at documenting the figures associated with extreme weather-related humanitarian funding. Just in the last 20 years, we have seen an 819% increase in extreme weather-related humanitarian funding appeals. We've gone from $1.6 billion to $15.5 billion in the last fiscal year. Your organization has also detailed the fact that the economic cost of extreme weather events in 2021 alone was estimated to be about $329 billion.

We're having a lot of conversations in Canada about inflation and I have always tried to stress the dangers of climate change-driven inflationary pressures. I want to put this in the context of the food security study we're doing right now and what Oxfam's projections are for the future if we don't really start addressing this in a meaningful way.

Could you expand on that a little bit more, please?

[Lauren Ravon]

That's a fantastic question. I'm glad you have done your reading about Oxfam's work. I appreciate that.

Our overall analysis is that we are no longer going to be in a world where we basically are in a status quo and once in a while there are humanitarian emergencies. We're entering a world where crises are a constant because of conflict, because of displacement and because of the climate emergency we're facing.

We need a new way of working. Relying on the humanitarian aid system that jumps in—often too late—when a crisis occurs is no longer going to work. We need to be building up and focusing on local resilience. When I spoke about building up local markets, it's in that sense.

We know there's going to be increasing drought. It's going to be increasingly hard to produce food in many of the countries we've been referencing, but we can be building more resilient agriculture in those countries by working on water infrastructure, crop diversification and different resilient strategies because, ultimately, we can't keep up with responding every couple of months to a new food crisis and a new agricultural failure in this context.

If you look at Canada's food aid, for example, we're only actually providing about half of what we used to because of the rise in prices. If our international aid and our humanitarian assistance is pretty much flat, we're actually providing less and less in response to world needs.

Resilience on climate change means that we're no longer in a world where Global Affairs Canada should be funding and having long-term development and humanitarian appeals separately. We need to be merging the two and focusing on climate-resilient agriculture, women's participation in local markets, small-scale agriculture and investing in local climate adaptations solutions. This is something that's still far underfunded. The global community's focus has been on reducing emissions, which is important, but for most of the communities that are hard hit today, they are already in the midst of the climate emergency. This is not somewhere far off on the horizon. It's today.

Adaptation means helping local communities protect their river flows, protect from erosion, protect from drought, build new economies based on realities—

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

Thank you.

I'm sorry to interrupt. I want to get to a few other questions.

I did take note of the fact that you want Canada to step up at the next G7 summit and commit to $600 million. I know that's in two week's time. It's a bit too soon for our committee to make recommendations, but we now have it on the public record.

Yes, farmers in those developing countries are not only experiencing inflationary pressures from the costs of a climate disaster, but also the costs of lost production and then the costs of the resultant increase in food prices because of scarcity. I appreciate you providing that.

I want to move, Mr. Chair, to Member of Parliament Zaburanna.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Mr. MacGregor, I apologize. Her connection has dropped. We've had a number of challenges. Our tech team is working to try to find that, but unfortunately right now you only have Oxfam present.

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

I'll stay with Oxfam—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Not “unfortunately”, but right now they're the only witnesses we can call.

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

It's not a problem.

My question for MP Zaburanna was going to be on the history of Ukrainian food production. We know that it has been used as a weapon of war. We know that Joseph Stalin used it as a weapon of war and forcefully confiscated Ukrainian grain. Adolf Hitler and the Nazis had the same goals and designs for Ukraine to feed the future Reich, and it seems now that this is being done in the same way by the Russian invasion.

Do you have any thoughts on this? Ukrainian food production is such a strategic asset to so many in the world. Do you want to expand a little more on how we, as the world community, have to try to protect that asset to guarantee Ukrainian sovereignty, territorial integrity and their ability to act without any future aggression?

[Lauren Ravon]

I wouldn't dare speak for a colleague on Russian history, but what I can say is that food is very political. Access to food is political. At a time when we're facing, as I spoke about, 350,000 Somali children on the brink of dying of hunger, at the same time we see that the world's food billionaires are gaining wealth. Not specific to Ukraine, but acknowledging the power dynamics here, we have large agricultural companies and monopolies that are increasing their wealth.

We've seen billionaires' wealth from food supplies increase during the pandemic, and at the same time we see millions of people at risk of starvation, so I don't think that we can look at issues of famine, of starvation, in an apolitical way and not look at geopolitical dynamics but also at the dynamics of our market and how wealth is increasingly accumulated.

As I mentioned, the issues of hunger and poverty are really profoundly linked to inequalities, the inequalities at the local level but also global inequalities in our food supply chain.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Ms. Ravon and Mr. MacGregor.

Colleagues, we've obviously had delays. We do have the ability to extend, but I know that many colleagues have activities right after this as you prepare for the House.

We are going to go to a second round. I'm going to ask Mr. Lehoux to keep it a little tighter. We're going to go for about four minutes to be able to tighten up for the next panel.

It's over to you, Mr. Lehoux.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Humanitarian organizations such as Canadian Foodgrains Bank and Oxfam provide short-term disaster response.

Has Oxfam Canada taken meaningful actions on the ground?

[Brittany Lambert]

Sure. Maybe I can take this one.

Just to give you an idea of what kinds of things we can be doing to respond to food crises, we're providing cash and vouchers to communities that don't have enough to eat. They can use this to purchase essential food items and meet their basic nutritional needs. We're also providing agricultural inputs such as seeds, tools and training on more climate-resilient production so that farmers can be better prepared for the future and the climate of the future.

In a lot of places, such as the Horn of Africa, the hunger crisis is caused by drought. We're also trucking water into remote communities and getting clean water to people. We're also helping people with their livestock, because one of the biggest problems is that when there's not enough to drink, livestock die as well, and that's people's food. We're doing livestock vaccination and treatment campaigns, and we're helping people who have been displaced by conflict, and who have lost their livelihoods for that reason, with things like protection, etc.

That gives you an idea of some of the things that we can do to respond on many levels.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I'm going to give my fellow member Mr. Epp the rest of my time.

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

Thank you to my colleague.

I know that the direction at times from our Canadian government to the NGOs working in this space has been a bit mixed when it comes to longer-term development. I'm referring specifically to the testimony that we heard just a couple of minutes ago.

Having had involvement with some other NGOs around the food side, it's always that push-and-pull between short-term responses and the longer-term development, as you know, between giving a fish, teaching to fish and making sure everyone has access to the pond to fish.

Can you comment on what the overall direction is from Global Affairs and our international development sector, from our government, particularly as to the short-term crisis we have, but also as to the longer-term solutions? Is the mix of funding and direction adequate or appropriate?

[Lauren Ravon]

Thank you.

I think the Canadian feminist international assistance policy provides the road map we need to do development and humanitarian response well, so we have the right road map in place. The issue is that we're all learning to do development differently. We speak about a different approach where we're merging or linking development initiatives with emergency response. This is something that organizations such as Oxfam and such as the Foodgrains Bank you mentioned—but all of our colleagues in this sector—are learning to deal with. It's a new way of working.

I think our main concern right now in terms of Canadian aid is that we want to make sure any Canadian aid that goes to respond to the crisis in Ukraine is additional to what aid had already been allocated by Canada for international development and humanitarian response prior to the war in Ukraine. This is really our concern. We're concerned about this because we're seeing that some governments are diverting aid to Ukraine from other developing countries.

We're also seeing that, sadly, the public awareness and generosity have been really going all towards Ukraine, and it's much harder to raise public funds to respond to the food crisis we're facing. This is really of serious concern and is why I mention the issue of Canada in stating that a matching fund for the food crisis would be much needed in bringing more resources to it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Ms. Ravon.

Thank you, Mr. Epp. We're at time.

We're going to go to Mr. Turnbull for four minutes, and then we'll close up with our Bloc and NDP colleagues.