Agriculture Committee on Nov. 23rd, 2022

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

We are at time, Ms. Taylor Roy.

We'll move to Mr. Perron for questions or comments, and of course other members on either side may want to continue.

Mr. Perron, you have the floor.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming.

As I wouldn't want my riding to be one of the few not to be mentioned today, I would ask my colleagues not to underestimate the agri-food potential of Berthier—Maskinongé, the most beautiful riding in the world.

Mr. Black and Mr. Nater, congratulations on this initiative. I don't think local food is ever assigned the importance it deserves.

I understand the reason for the date change, but can you tell me why Bill C‑281 was rejected in the 42nd Parliament?

[Robert Black]

I can.

Bill C-281 did come to the Senate and was referred to the agriculture committee. There was an amendment that changed the date to August. It came back to the Senate and did not pass there before Parliament was prorogued.

That's the only reason.

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

Once more, something that was done properly the first time will have to be redone yet again.

I still have some questions for you.

I understand the intent of Food Day in Canada, which is to promote farm production and inform the general population about how food is produced, where it is produced, and the chain that gets food from the farm to the table. All of that is excellent.

So why was “National Food Day” changed to “Food Day in Canada”? It strikes me that “local food” would have been quite accurate too.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

That's a good question.

In English, the name of the day reflects how Ms. Stewart had baptized it when it was established in 2003 as Food Day Canada. In French, it's Journée canadienne de l'alimentation.

The intent is to promote local food. We are really talking about food found in our respective communities.

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

I understand. So the goal has not changed.

The day chosen is already called Food Day Canada. It's already a day designed to promote production in certain areas.

Do you think this new day will compete with the other or will it be complementary and contribute to the focus on local food?

I'd like to hear your comments on that.

[Robert Black]

From my perspective, as I noted in my notes, there are a number of provincial days, a number of special days. We have Local Food Week in Ontario, just ahead of Thanksgiving. Other provinces have other days.

I think it's complementary, and I think any day that we can celebrate food, Canadian cuisine and local food is an important one. This day is one day across Canada that we can stop and call a national day.

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

I understand the intent. I believe it's fairly obvious that I'm in favour of the initiative. But that doesn't prevent us from trying to improve things.

What needs to be done to make this day special? As you pointed out in your response, there are already all kinds of days devoted to all kinds of things. I don't know whether my parliamentary colleagues have experienced what I have as I tried to keep track of all this on social networks, but at a certain point, you let it go. There are so many days for so many things that they become less meaningful in the end.

If we want this day to have a positive and profitable impact on agriculture, then special events need to be organized. It needs to be promoted in a particular way.

Have you discussed this? Have you thought about adding something about that in your bill? Or is the general idea satisfactory to you and you feel that everything will fall into place automatically?

[Robert Black]

As I noted, there is a small group of friends of Anita Stewart who have carried on this day and who are driving this thing. I participate in some of their meetings, and I can share with you that the group has many things they have planned for the future.

As Mr. Nater noted, a number of sites across Canada were lit up in red and white, and that list is growing and has grown over the last five or six years, so they're working on that. Social media are significant on the days leading up to, and on the day of, Food Day Canada.

I anticipate greater things moving forward. I am excited to share with you that I think we've just begun. We, the small group, have just begun to make this a bigger thing across Canada on that Saturday in August.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

I would add that it's important to establish partnerships.

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

Thank you very much. That answers my questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. Perron, Mr. Nater and Mr. Black.

Mr. MacGregor now has the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Senator Black and Mr. Nater, thanks for being here.

I can remember being at this committee four years ago in June of 2018 when Mr. Stetski was before our committee. He was an NDP colleague of mine, and it's nice to see, Senator Black, that you're carrying it forward, and I think we have a real shot of getting this into law. Congratulations to you both.

It's not like we have to take a really deep dive into this bill; it's pretty straightforward.

I do want to ask one thing. Everyone who has spoken so far has talked about the agricultural bounty of their ridings. Cowichan—Malahat—Langford in the Hul'q'umi'num tongue means “warm land”, and I believe we are the only Mediterranean-style climate in all of Canada, so we are definitely right up there.

I am on the coast, and we associate a lot of our food bounty with the ocean. I know I have everyone around this table beat with the best salmon fishing. You cannot beat the west coast salmon fishing off Port Renfrew in my riding, and it's incredibly important to local first nations. The Cowichan tribes are the largest first nation in all of British Columbia. I have a very high indigenous population in my riding, and a lot of their culturally and historically important food sources are all associated with the bounty that the ocean provides.

Mr. Nater, you referenced culturally important food. Would both of you have some comments? I know we tend to focus a lot on agriculture, but we also have to realize that this country's natural bounty is also there for enjoyment by all.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Absolutely, Mr. MacGregor. Thank you again for your speech in favour of this bill at second reading. It's much appreciated.

Certainly, you're absolutely right. A lot of the unique richness of indigenous culture does relate to some of the unique foods and the culturally appropriate food that comes from different parts of the country, most notably, in your case, the ocean. Perth—Wellington is very poor salmon fishing. I'll make note of that.

Part of the joy of this bill is that we can celebrate all aspects of where food comes from, whether it's land, sea or any part of the country. You know the legacy of Anita Stewart and some of the work that she has done. It touched on some of the indigenous cultures and indigenous food preparation and sources of food that we've seen throughout the country. I think this is a special opportunity to look at that unique richness of culture. I'm sure some of us around the table may be somewhat jealous sometimes of your Mediterranean climate. I think that gives an opportunity to celebrate that as well.

[Robert Black]

I will just add that Anita Stewart's stories—and I have heard many of them—all talk about the localness of the food. I have seen pictures of her out on boats salmon fishing or in the north on a dogsled going somewhere. I will point out that her celebration of life, which was held on September 24 of this year, included a dinner afterwards that was a bounty of cross-Canada food served family style to 150 people. There was a bounty from the Pacific Ocean. I will share that two of her sons live on the west coast, so it was close to her.

I also want to point out that there is a website that we should have mentioned earlier. It's a place where all chefs from across Canada can participate. When they are doing that, they are also talking about local food, whether it's the bounty from the ocean, from the north or from central Canada. They share recipes of local food. They highlight local food from their area and regions. We can't forget about that.

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

Thank you both.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

Now I understand that Ms. Rood and Mr. Lehoux are going to share a short period of time for some comments.

[Lianne Rood, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Senator Black, for being here today.

Thank you, Mr. Nater, for being here today.

I also agree with you that it's important that we share Canadian culture.

I have to respectfully disagree with Mr. Nater as well. I'm sorry; Lambton—Kent—Middlesex has some amazing farmers. I don't quite get you with dairy and chicken, but we're close with the number of farms we have.

I want to say thank you for bringing this bill forward. I know Ms. Stewart's family is very supportive of it. They have been champions of this day as well. I look forward to seeing this bill pass and having a national day to celebrate Canadian food and the people who produce it.

Thank you.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank Mr. Nater and Senator Black for being here.

As a former agricultural producer, I find this bill, which establishes Food Day in Canada, to be excellent. I hope that it will be adopted soon and implemented in time for summer 2023.

Mr. Nater, you briefly mentioned the idea of establishing various partnerships. I think you wanted to go into more detail on this. It will indeed be important, in order to properly celebrate Food Day in Canada, to clearly determine what partnerships might be developed. Here in Quebec, there are already certain things underway. It's important to determine whether we can work in partnership with these various stakeholders to boost the impact that the day will have in Canada.

I believe it's important to underscore the importance of a bill like this at a time when we are conducting studies on food insecurity and looking into other related issues.

Mr. Nater, could you go into more detail about the partnerships you mentioned earlier?

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Lehoux.

It is in fact very important to have partnerships with industry, restaurants, people who produce food for us every day, farmers, producers and processors. These partnerships can provide us with information about the various aspects of food in every part of our country.

You mentioned food insecurity. And yet, our country is extremely well endowed in terms of agriculture.

It's unfortunate that we as Canadians, with such a rich country, still see food insecurity in our country.

Building these partnerships, building the ability to promote and focus on local food, building the skill set in different avenues and in different ways to ensure that we have that ability to feed the country with healthy, nutritious local food, are things that we as a country will be able to promote using this day.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

At the end of the line, the ultimate objective of this day is to make all Canadians aware of the importance of the food produced here, in Canada, wherever it may be. I don't want to start a rivalry between ridings, Mr. Nater, but you know that Beauce is an excellent farm production area.

Over the past 10, 15 or 20 years, people have become increasingly unable to understand where the products they eat are coming from. This day is therefore very appropriate and should be focused on that aspect of things.

Does Senator Black have anything to add?

[Robert Black]

Thank you very much.

I'll again share with you that I sit with the small group that is involved in this. Partnerships are a big piece of what they do. They bring their various networks together. They are partnered with provincial agriculture organizations across Canada and with industry. They already have that in place, but it's the smaller places, the local food.... I'm happy to share with them any suggestions you might have. Feel free to contact me.

Food security is an issue that the Stewart brothers are keen on. They felt that last year they would keep Food Day Canada moving forward. I can share with you without going into any detail that food security and food insecurity issues will be high on their list in the years to come.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you very much.

I am now giving the floor to Ms. Valdez.

[Rechie Valdez, Liberal, Mississauga—Streetsville, ON]

Thank you both for being here and for sharing the story of this bill.

I don't think anyone's brought it up yet. We recently reviewed “Canada's Food Price Report”. It confirmed that food safety is at the top of Canadians' minds right now.

I was wondering how you were planning to use this bill to advocate for food safety.

[Robert Black]

I think it's important. All aspects of food preparation are part of this bill, whether I prepare the food in my home or chefs prepare it in a restaurant.

Food safety and food security are big pieces of the work that this group of friends are thinking about as they move forward. Food safety has to be at the top of our list. As we come to know food and know where and how our food is prepared, I think it's important that it be top of mind, as well.