Evidence of meeting #33 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was grain.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Richard Gray  Professor, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of Saskatchewan, As an Individual
Tristan Skolrud  Associate Professor, University of Saskatchewan, As an Individual
Todd Lewis  Second Vice-President, Canadian Federation of Agriculture
Ryan Koeslag  Executive Vice-President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association
Mike Medeiros  President, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association
Hessel Kielstra  Mountain View Poultry Farms
Peggy Brekveld  President, Ontario Federation of Agriculture
James Bekkering  Board Chair, National Cattle Feeders' Association

5:05 p.m.

Liberal

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

That's great—15% to 20%. It's more than the price that's put on pollution, then, which is good. It shows that....

We were talking about returns on investment. I think it was Ms. Brekveld who was talking about that. I'd like to talk about it in this context. When we're looking at the price on pollution, which is obviously a cost that's added or put on the emissions, not on farmers but on the emissions they've emitted into the environment, I'm just wondering....

You were talking about the return on investments, Ms. Brekveld. Part of the calculation, as I recall from my finance days, is that you look at the costs you're going to save when you calculate whether a new investment is worth making—

5:05 p.m.

President, Ontario Federation of Agriculture

5:05 p.m.

Liberal

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

—so the price on pollution, rather than being a misguided policy, was actually one that was done intentionally, to try to capture the true costs of pollution. It's internalizing externality, if you will. When you do that, that allows you to look at your investments from a holistic perspective and see how much you save, if in fact we are looking at what pollution costs us, as well as what you're going to save in immediate costs. In those returns on investment, do farmers calculate the price on pollution that they will avoid by making these investments?

5:05 p.m.

President, Ontario Federation of Agriculture

Peggy Brekveld

When farmers look at an investment, they look at what will be the bottom dollar at the end of the day. This particular farmer, when he decided to do further insulation to his barn, saw a return on investment. He would have recouped the costs in his savings within a year and a half, so was this a wise investment? Absolutely. Even a five-year return, in general terms, would have been a very good return on investment.

Saying that, we still have to live every day. We still have to make a living. The amount of $10,000 a year might not seem like a lot, but it goes up. It continues to rise. It gets to $30,000. At that point, for some people, we actually see that as half of their income.

I can certainly justify making investments, but there is a point at which it doesn't make a lot of sense. There is an opportunity for government to continue to invest and help us adopt new technologies. If you want to do that, we could.

5:10 p.m.

Liberal

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

Yes, we have programs like the clean farm technology program as well, and I appreciate that.

5:10 p.m.

Mountain View Poultry Farms

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative John Barlow

I'll stop the clock.

Mr. Kielstra, you can't interrupt unless you're asked a question or unless there's a technical problem.

5:10 p.m.

Mountain View Poultry Farms

Hessel Kielstra

I just misspoke on something.

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative John Barlow

Okay, we'll come back to you, perhaps in another round, or maybe at the end I can ask you to clarify what was misspoken.

Ms. Taylor Roy, please carry on.

5:10 p.m.

Liberal

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

You know, I understand that, and I think that obviously we have to compare the extra cost to what the farmers are going through from the climate events. We are in the middle of doing a study on global food insecurity, and one of the things that comes up time and time again is the impact of climate events on food security and the operations of our farmers, who do an amazing job as stewards of the land.

As I said before, I come from a family with a lot of farmers, and I so appreciate the work they do and the fact that farming is essential to our carbon sequestration, but when you look at the fact that we all have to continue to do more.... We are all in this together, and we all want to make sure farmers don't have to face these climate events, so it's a really tough question. Do we back off the price on pollution, which—

5:10 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative John Barlow

Thank you, Ms. Taylor Roy. Your time is up. I appreciate that.

Ms. Larouche, you have six minutes.

5:10 p.m.

Bloc

Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses on this second panel for reminding us how crucial and vital a role they play in feeding us.

Mr. Medeiros and Mr. Koeslag from the Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association, I want to pick up on something you mentioned earlier. To what extent are the greenhouses of the growers you represent heated by fossil fuels?

5:10 p.m.

President, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association

Mike Medeiros

If you look at a mushroom farm, basically we have a super structure. The super structure is four inches thick with insulation. Within the super structure we'll have all the growing rooms, and those growing rooms are another four inches of insulation in each room, so they're very well insulated to try to mitigate extra costs. The problem we have is basically the fresh air that's needed. Come winter, we have to bring the outside air temperature up to about 14°C or 15°C. Here in Ottawa, we have winters of -30°C, so I have to take the -30°C fresh air coming in and bring it up to +15°C. That's huge.

About three years ago, my brother and I invested in basically bringing our own natural gas into our facility, which cost us almost $2 million. We were on propane before. Propane isn't as efficient as natural gas. We did that to sustain our future, basically.

We've also changed our routes of delivery, so we deliver four times a week to our retailers versus the traditional six times a week, which saves about 20,000 kilometres per vehicle, so that's another 100,000 kilometres saved to help mitigate the use of fossil fuels.

We're trying our best to do that. The figure I gave earlier was just the carbon tax we're paying on our natural gas and diesel—coloured diesel. All our input costs have gone up, and some of our suppliers have said—

5:15 p.m.

Bloc

Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC

I'm sorry for interrupting you. You're right, and we can come back to input costs, but I think you've clearly demonstrated that you've worked to find alternatives.

You talked about natural gas and less frequent deliveries. What is the cost of this carbon tax for a mushroom growing operation like yours?

5:15 p.m.

President, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association

Mike Medeiros

Basically, the carbon tax we pay is about $150,000 a year, but all the other input costs, like our transportation costs, have excess carbon taxes on them, so when we have trucks bringing us material, they have extra tax on their line item for carbon, and that's something we haven't captured. It's really hard to capture that with all the different invoices.

At the compost facility we have, farmers have increased the price of straw and deliveries. It's all gone up, and it's due to high fuel costs and high carbon taxes, basically.

5:15 p.m.

Bloc

Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC

We all understand the challenges you face and the importance of this legislation.

Mr. Bekkering, my question is about farm buildings that house livestock. Can cattle producers electrify the heating in barns?

5:15 p.m.

Board Chair, National Cattle Feeders' Association

James Bekkering

In Alberta, all our cattle are currently housed outdoors, so the heating of the barns is not as significant as it is in the eastern cattle industry. The only barns we heat are our medical barns, for treating sick cattle. It's not as significant a part of our operation compared to the eastern cattle industry.

5:15 p.m.

Bloc

Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC

What challenges do you face in arriving at using greener methods, such as electrifying heating?

I'd also like to know how the government could give you a better hand in moving to cleaner systems and really reward those who are already contributing by having good environmental practices.

5:15 p.m.

Board Chair, National Cattle Feeders' Association

James Bekkering

Some of the challenges that have been talked about previously are the technology and where it's going with electrifying some of the heating devices and their reliability. Someone pointed out that we need to make sure our technology is running at all times. We do not have the people to service some of these newer technologies.

5:15 p.m.

Conservative

The Vice-Chair Conservative John Barlow

Thank you, Mr. Bekkering, and thank you, Ms. Larouche.

Now we go to Mr. Masse for six minutes, please.

5:15 p.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I know you were here in 2019. I was thinking about the theme here of fairness in what we're seeing. In 2019, Loblaws got $12 million for fridges. At that time, they had $800 million in profits alone. They got an investment of $36 million, so it was a $1:$3 ratio that year. In 2018, they also got caught hiding money in the Caribbean and paid a tax of $368 million on that. That's not forgetting that this was an organization that had a 14-year history of fixing the price of bread. This is one of the most important staples we have, and it's nothing short of organized crime at the end of the day when you have that type of long-standing organization.

I learned from my other committee that they also magically got rid of their hero pay on the same day as the other grocery store chains. All three of them got rid of it on the same day.

I want to go to the mushroom growers, Mr. Medeiros and Mr. Koeslag. Is this what you're really seeing, an issue of fairness?

Where I'm from, just outside the Leamington area, there are mushroom farms right there, next to greenhouse plants in operation. A lot of money has gone into the investment for it, often using a lot of the same labour skill force in trying to develop it. I was puzzled as to why you can't get an answer from the Department of Finance, I believe it is, about that.

Can you please highlight that? There seems to be a common theme about fairness, but not even getting an answer doesn't sound appropriate.

5:20 p.m.

Executive Vice-President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association

Ryan Koeslag

I think those are accurate statements. There has been an issue about fairness, especially when it comes to how some get exemptions and others do not.

In addition to that, as I mentioned, 40% of what we grow goes to the United States, so there is an international competitiveness issue that we run into as well.

With that said, I think these guys have done a very good job of making sure that our industry has been adapting and making those investments to reduce our carbon footprint wherever possible. In addition to that, we always need to recognize that this is an industry that is already recycling material and growing food on it, too. That's maybe often the case in agriculture, but that's not being recognized.

It seems that systems are being set up so that they're being punished and asked to pay for things that are deemed bad, but there have been no payments for anything that is a positive, like sequestration and the investments they've made. There has been no recognition, and there's been no payback or benefit to the farmers who are making them, other than for being a good corporate citizen or trying to save the environment for the communities they live in.

5:20 p.m.

NDP

Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON

Loblaws in this situation got basically $1 of taxpayers' money for every $3 they put in. Does that sound a little generous to you? Are you looking for that, or are you just looking for a little more balance in terms of what's been invested? That's where the bill comes in. Does the bill finally provide some balance?

5:20 p.m.

Executive Vice-President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association

Ryan Koeslag

I'll let Mike answer that.

5:20 p.m.

President, Canadian Mushroom Growers' Association

Mike Medeiros

It doesn't seem very fair whatsoever. When we did our transition to natural gas from propane, we were able to tap into a fund. Basically, we got $24,000 to help offset the cost of switching from propane to natural gas. It cost us upwards of $2 million to do that, but we knew we needed it to stay viable. It was part of our future if we wanted to be sustainable moving forward.

When Dad started the farm here back in 1984, oil was really cheap. All our input costs now are through the roof, so we needed to do what was best, and natural gas was the best.

Anything that could be done to help us would be tremendous, but we don't get 33¢ on the dollar, basically, for anything we put in. We definitely don't get that.