Evidence of meeting #34 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 waste.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Richard Lehoux Conservative Beauce, QC
After the start of the war in Ukraine, some policies were put in place, including a fertilizer tariff. Do you believe this contributed significantly to higher food prices in Canada?
5 p.m.
Professor and Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I can understand the geopolitical side of the decision, but think it was a mistake. It penalizes our producers and, by doing so, jeopardizes our country's food security, and that of other countries.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative John Barlow
Thank you very much, Dr. Charlebois.
Thank you, Mr. Lehoux.
Now we'll move to Mr. Louis for six minutes, please.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
I was fascinated listening. I forgot I was up next. I appreciate all of the witnesses being here.
Perhaps I can continue the conversation with Professor Charlebois.
You talked about the world food index and that Canada should be quite proud about food access, safety and food affordability. Then you said there are improvements that we need to do with the sustainable development, specifically food waste. I was hoping we could focus on that, because that's what our committee is doing, working together to see what we can improve on.
I'd like to talk about embedding efficiencies into Canada's food processing factories. That's something you said that we can do better. I want to talk about food loss prevention, because prevention is really the best way to be efficient.
I believe there is about $49 billion of food waste in Canada each year. Right now one of our major ways of dealing with that is diverting food loss to landfills. The problem is that we're still wasting food, and possibly the diversion target might be the wrong yardstick. Instead of measuring how much waste is recycled, we need to measure how much food is saved, and again, by embedding those efficiencies.
For example, in my riding of Kitchener—Conestoga, there's Conestoga Meat Packers. They took measures to save about 40% in energy and 20% in a reduction in water too. On average, these companies are seeing about a one-year payback.
Can you talk about some of the programs and best practices that food processing can do to get off that diversion target and talk about actually saving the food itself?
5:05 p.m.
Professor and Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
I think we need to adopt a language of rewards and merit instead of taxing and penalizing certain behaviours. I think this committee understands the nature of the agri-food space. It is all about high volume and low margins. As soon as you start talking about taxation or penalties, it really turns off a lot of people. It's important to reward behaviour.
Some of the programs I've seen coming out of Ottawa in recent years are good when it comes to food waste, but with processing, I think we need to do more. The sector is suffering, just because it's hard to remain competitive.
Some of the things we can do with food, of course, is to repurpose food. Look at other sectors like energy, for example, and see whether or not we can actually process some of that waste into energy, biogas and things like that. Those are some of things we're seeing in Quebec, out east. We need to encourage those kinds of decisions, in my point of view.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Food waste is something you can measure. Is there a way to measure that reduction, other than just looking at the energy bills that are being reduced?
We have biomass plants in my riding. Can we stop it even at its source and be more efficient?
5:05 p.m.
Professor and Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
We can measure that, absolutely. It's been measured in the past. Our lab has participated in some of the projects in terms of food waste by companies. Food waste is always a bit of a taboo subject in the private sector, but at the same time if it's about rewards, recognition and savings, which is what we're talking about, I think there would be some motivation there, for sure.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Great. Thank you. I appreciate it.
I'll turn to Ms. Hucker. Thank you for being here.
You mentioned briefly the proposed network through the United States and Mexico. Can you expand on that? I didn't get a chance to hear enough about that rail plan.
5:05 p.m.
Assistant Vice-President, Sales and Marketing, Canadian Grain, Canadian Pacific Railway
Of course.
We're in the process of the final stages of acquiring the Kansas City Southern network in the United States. It's in front of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board for final approval, which we expect to happen in Q1 of next year.
That network will connect CP's network, which currently runs as far south as Kansas City. That's where we connect today. Their network runs down to the U.S. gulf coast, Texas and Louisiana. It also has a portion called the KCSM, which will be a part of what we're acquiring, that runs all the way down through Mexico as far south as Monterrey and Mexico City, but also has access to Lázaro Cárdenas, which is also a port off the west coast that has capacity for containerization and is a focus of our intermodal business.
There are a number of different new markets that will be opened up for Canadian producers predominately in Mexico, where there is strong demand for Canadian wheat or corn that's produced. In the discussions that I and my team are already having with our customers today about what the opportunities might look like subject to STB approval, they're excited about those opportunities, not only into Mexico but with new chicken feeder markets, for instance, down through Louisiana and otherwise, which the Kansas City Southern accesses today.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
Thank you.
I only have about a minute left, but I wanted to say that rail is crucial to transportation for Canadian fertilizer. About 75% of all fertilizer is moved by rail. Will it be possible to get more fertilizer sourced from Canada to our farmers as a solution that we could work on? What would it take to increase and deliver our domestic supply of fertilizer?
5:05 p.m.
Assistant Vice-President, Sales and Marketing, Canadian Grain, Canadian Pacific Railway
Unfortunately, my area of expertise is Canadian grain, but I will happily take away your question, talk to the team and bring back an answer for the committee.
5:05 p.m.
Liberal
Tim Louis Liberal Kitchener—Conestoga, ON
If that's something that you can submit to us.... We are working on parallel studies.
With 30 seconds left, I just want to thank the witnesses.
Thank you.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Vice-Chair Conservative John Barlow
Thank you very much, Mr. Louis.
We'll now move to Madame Larouche for six minutes, please.
5:05 p.m.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to the witnesses for being here today to discuss the important issue of world food insecurity. I'm just back from an Inter-Parliamentary Union conference in Kigali, Rwanda, where this was a hot topic. We spoke about the links between climate change, world conflict and food insecurity.
My first question is for Mr. Charlebois.
Given that one of your fields of expertise is food distribution, have you heard anything about the current status of the transportation sector as it relates to the agri-food supply chain?
5:10 p.m.
Professor and Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
Are you talking about Canada in particular or the worldwide situation?
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
I'm talking about Canada in particular. Have things improved or have they got worse?
5:10 p.m.
Professor and Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
The situation is pretty much the same.
We took part in the National Supply Chain Task Force, co-chaired by Mr. Jean Gattuso. We helped prepare his report, which he submitted a few weeks ago. I read it and was pleasantly surprised. It contains several recommendations worth considering.
For logistics, it's pretty much the status quo in Canada. We don't pay enough attention to it. A strategic logistics office should be established in Canada to ensure that all levels of government—federal, provincial and municipal—work together. Currently, there is no political or governmental coordination in Canada, and that's what we are seriously lacking.
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
We've heard a lot of talk in the news about the price of containers and its pressure on exporters. It has also had an impact on food prices.
Has the price of containers dropped or increased over the past few months?
5:10 p.m.
Professor and Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
That's a good question.
The price of containers has dropped a lot. I'll give you a concrete example. At the Port of Los Angeles, the biggest container port in North America, there were 109 ships waiting to unload their cargo in January. We are now in October, and this week there were only four left. There have been far fewer delays. The container situation has definitely improved, even though it's not yet perfect.
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
On another front, Mr. Charlebois, I'd like to talk about the federal government's high standards.
How can we continue to maintain our high standards in the international marketplace while still keeping our producers competitive? Is traceability part of the solution?
5:10 p.m.
Professor and Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab, Dalhousie University, As an Individual
We do particularly well on food safety. However, you're right to have raised the traceability issue, because that's what's been missing in Canada to demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that the quality of our food here is excellent. I've been working on traceability for 20 years, and we still have a lot of work to do. The main reason for this is that not all the links in the chain are working closely enough together. If we were to coordinate our efforts along the chain, we'd be able to sell our products internationally much more readily.
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Charlebois.
To conclude my speaking time, I'm going to ask Mr. Lee, of the Canadian Cattle Association, a question Mr. Charlebois was asked earlier, but which I'd like to ask Mr. Lee as well.
When people talk about world food insecurity, it clearly also means the supply and processing chain. Where I come from, in Shefford, there's a small slaughterhouse.
Because the major slaughterhouses are sometimes several hundred kilometres away from the farms where livestock is raised, do you think the federal government should encourage the building and operation of local slaughterhouses? Could it enhance food resilience?
5:10 p.m.
General Manager, Canadian Cattle Association
There's a lot that goes into where slaughterhouses are built. Some of that is where the animals are and if there is a supply there. I don't know if government can guess that better than the people who will put their money up into building them. We think that making sure that our regulatory systems.... Right now, some of our rules that are still hanging around since BSE make it pretty certain that new slaughter plant capacity isn't going to be built on this side of the U.S. border until we get our regulations aligned with the United States. That's the first step we need to address before we look at others like that.
5:10 p.m.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
That then would be an initial step to encourage production at small slaughterhouses. What could we do afterwards?