Agriculture Committee on Jan. 31st, 2022

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to everyone for being here today and to the witnesses who have come to answer our questions.

Like other members.... I'm not from British Columbia. I'm from Ontario, but, like all Canadians, we have very much felt the pain and suffering of the farmers and residents in the areas that have been so affected by these extreme climate events. It's not just the flooding, but also the fires and the drought throughout western Canada. Thank you for all that you are doing to help.

My questions follow up on some of the questions that Mr. MacGregor began.

To Mr. Hoffort from the FCC, I'm interested to know how many loans are being taken out. What percentage are being taken out for climate adaptation and mitigation projects, as opposed to other kinds of projects? You mentioned earlier that you felt you had authorization under the current statutes to engage in this kind of lending. Are farmers availing themselves of this? Are there any special programs to help farmers improve their infrastructure and get ready for these kinds of extreme climate events?

[Michael Hoffort]

I will probably have my colleague Don Anderson join me in the response.

At this stage, I would say a lot of the investment goes into more typical land buildings, technology and investment in the operation. Some of that technology can definitely...precision agriculture or areas that will be very applicable to adjusting practices to meet expectations for the future climate. We have a loan program for energy and for environmental purposes and stuff. Our uptake has not been as much as I would expect it will be in the future, and we will be doing some tuning on those programs to improve their applicability.

Don, maybe you can answer from your perspective, more boots-on-the-ground, about what you're seeing in British Columbia and Alberta in particular.

[Don Anderson, Senior Vice-President, Western Operations, Farm Credit Canada]

The focus of producers there is anything they can do to manage risk in their operations and maximize returns for their business. It's utilizing things around energy and lessening demands on energy.

We're seeing growth in areas where irrigation is now available and more in play. It's more so on the Alberta side, with the expansion of the irrigation districts there, but if we're looking over into B.C., the water licences that are in place are utilizing irrigation in that aspect.

Specifically going in as far as focused efforts on managing impacts of climate change are concerned, it really is part of the overall risk management strategy that producers are incorporating overall.

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

To follow up on that, when you're looking at the loan applications, are you doing any specific kind of risk assessment regarding environmental disasters or the potential for them? Are you looking at the effect they have on the farms, so that the producers and the farmers are considering the long-term costs of some of these extreme climate events? Are you looking at those when you're approving loans or making suggestions about what those loans are being used for?

[Michael Hoffort]

For our risk assessment on any loans, it would be nearer-term and not so much on the tail event side of things. If you think about interest rate risk and some of the production risks, are there programs being utilized that have been discussed by the province and the federal government on the business risk management side of things?

Increasingly, in the future, as we get more information on what different scenarios there could be, that could be much more a part of our risk assessment. However, at this stage, it would be more in line with what you would expect in terms of price, production. Some of those things from an interest rate perspective, market risks and that sort of thing would be the primary focus of the assessments at this stage.

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

Thank you. You mentioned that maybe in the future.... Are there any specific plans?

I was just talking to the Intact Centre at the University of Waterloo, where they're doing a lot of assessment on the impact these different extreme climate events will have on many insurance risks and also, obviously, on loan risks. These climate events are here now. This may be called a one-in-a-hundred-years event, but it seems as though a lot of one-in-a-hundred-years events are happening—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Ms. Taylor Roy, I apologize. We're at our five minutes, and I want to be respectful of time.

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

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you for those questions.

Mr. Perron, you now have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I don't know if Mr. Del Bianco has left the meeting, but I would like to address, again, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada officials about the ongoing discussions with British Columbia regarding the development of AgriRecovery, as well as the timelines.

Mr. Albas made a good point earlier that these producers need money now, need support quickly. Now, my concern is that these discussions can go on for a long time.

Is there a timeline in relation to this issue?

In the meantime, beyond the interim payments, which come under the AgriStability program, do you plan to lend these producers some money, interest free, much like what was done for the citizens that Mr. Albas was referring to earlier?

I don't know who can answer my question.

[Francesco Del Bianco]

Mr. Chair, I am still here, but unfortunately I will have to leave the meeting after giving my answer.

With respect to AgriRecovery, we are working closely with our colleagues in British Columbia. Obviously, the Minister will be the one to announce the decision, but we understand the urgency of the situation and are working to get a program in place without delay.

On the subject of immediate access to certain monies, I can say that under the AgriStability program we have put in place measures to allow producers to apply for interim payments. Our colleagues in British Columbia are ready to receive those applications and respond as quickly as possible. Producers also have access to an AgriInvest account.

According to risk management programs, these are the measures that are available immediately to support producers.

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

All right.

Thank you for your reply.

Are you also planning measures for a future crisis? As we know, another crisis may occur again within the next hundred years. I am thinking in particular of problems related to global warming.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Mr. Perron, your time is up.

Mr. Del Bianco, I would ask you to answer the question quickly. You have the floor for about 15 seconds.

[Francesco Del Bianco]

The aim of AgriRecovery is to help producers get back to business as soon as possible. In addition, a committee will look at longer-term measures.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Perron.

Mr. MacGregor, go ahead for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you so much, Mr. Chair.

This question is for Mr. Pellow from AAFC, and maybe Mrs. Durand could chime in as well.

Whenever we're confronted with these types of disasters and we look at the way the federal government enacts its procedures and works with its provincial counterparts, there are always learning opportunities. If we were to have another extreme flooding event this year in some other region of Canada, what lessons could we apply from how we reacted to the one in November in British Columbia? Is there anything you would do differently? Is there room for improvement? Is there something that we as policy-makers need to look at, to make sure that we are being there, to the best of our abilities, for our hard-working Canadian farmers? Thank you.

[Scott Pellow]

With regard to the AgriRecovery process, whenever we complete an initiative with the province, we do take the time to conduct a “lessons learned” to see what worked well and what didn't work well with that initiative, with the idea of looking forward to how we could better respond to those disaster events and to how we implement programming. It's a very key thing we do when we finish these initiatives.

We work with the province to identify whether or not there are any gaps within the current core BRM programs. Particularly with AgriInsurance, are there ways in which we can improve the insurance coverage to deal with some of these risks going forward? When we do that, again, we're looking to make sure that the producers have the BRM tools they need in order to manage the significant risks that are threatening the viability of their farms. Of course, if there was another flooding event like this, we would try to take those lessons learned as much as possible to be able to react more quickly.

That being said, as you guys are aware, each disaster can have its own unique disaster costs with respect to the different regions of Canada and the different types of production that are occurring in sometimes localized areas. We do have to take the time to do the proper assessment with our provincial colleagues and make sure that we have the most complete information when looking at what disaster recovery costs are there. Then, what is the appropriate program response to help producers be able to take those recovery actions and get back into business as quickly as possible?

Again, we try—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. Pellow.

[Scott Pellow]

—to learn from our experiences and apply them going forward.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

Mr. Fast, it's over to you for five minutes.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As the member of Parliament at the very epicentre of this flood event, I know well how devastating this event has been for our farmers. I mean, you can talk about the dairy farmers. You can talk about the poultry folks, about the chickens and the eggs. We have the greenhouses. We have the nurseries and the flower growers. Then we have the blueberry growers and the raspberry growers. Some of these industries will recover relatively quickly. Others will not. The blueberry growers will not.

Mr. Pellow, Mr. Del Bianco suggested that the AgriRecovery program isn't actually a program but a framework that gets triggered for extraordinary events. Is that correct?

[Scott Pellow]

Yes, that is correct. It is a framework that's part of the Canadian agricultural partnership and that allows us to work together with provinces to put in place the AgriRecovery initiatives to respond to disaster events.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Would this be an extraordinary event?

[Scott Pellow]

Yes. This would be characterized as an extraordinary event.

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

Mr. Del Bianco also said that it would have to be a collective experience. I assume this would be a collective experience.