Agriculture Committee on Feb. 10th, 2022

[Tom Rosser]

I would say, Mr. Chair, on that issue we certainly are in dialogue with stakeholders. There is an interdepartmental dialogue around the issue although clearly it is not one where our department is the lead.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Can you tell me when those conversations started, please?

[Tom Rosser]

Mr. Chair, I'm afraid I can't. I know the government had made the announcement about its intentions, I believe, in early December. I was not party to all the discussions taking place interdepartmentally and would hesitate to try to put a date or timeline on when discussions around that may have begun.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Okay, is there a chance that you could come back to the committee with some of that information because agriculture will be very much affected if there are interprovincial trade mandates on trucking, just so that we could be aware of where this would be an issue for the supply chain and for our producers getting their livestock or commodities to market as well?

[Tom Rosser]

Maybe I'll provide something in writing to the committee, Mr. Chair. I'd just note that we are in very active dialogue with players in the value chain about mandates for federally regulated employers.

I have seen a lot of people, some of whom have expressed concern around the timing of these things. I haven't seen any of the agri-food groups actually. Most of them are supportive of the mandates themselves. Most of the views that I have seen and heard from stakeholders relate to the timing of when such a mandate would be implemented.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you very much for bringing that back to us when you do have the time.

Another issue they brought up was the federal inspection required at meat-processing facilities. We are aware that on June 2020 the Canadian Food Inspection Agency allowed temporarily, by ministerial exemption, meat not from federal plants to move interprovincially upon the application of a province that proves it has a meat shortage.

Are you aware that ministerial exemption had happened?

[Tom Rosser]

Yes, Mr. Chair. I think I referenced earlier the regulatory flexibilities granted by the CFIA as part of their COVID response, and I believe that was one of them.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you very much.

Could you tell me if there were any issues around the safety of the meat coming in that wasn't federally inspected but was maybe provincially inspected? Were there any issues around food quality and food safety?

[Tom Rosser]

I can't specifically comment, other than to say that I am not aware of any food safety-related issues in relation to the implementation of that flexibility.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you very much.

That's good news, obviously, so do you believe that in the future there could be some conversations around maybe granting a provincially inspected facility the same latitude of moving interprovincially as a federally inspected facility? Do you think that's a conversation to be had between provinces and Ag Canada?

[Tom Rosser]

Mr. Chair, I would just acknowledge that this is an idea that certainly has been discussed for some time. My recollection is that this committee, in its report on food processing last year, made a recommendation along these lines.

Again, it's a regulatory issue that's led by the CFIA, but it's certainly a subject of discussion as to what we might be able to do in this space. We certainly have heard—from this committee and elsewhere—from people urging us to have a look at what might be done here.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

I really appreciate that. I do.

I have a plug here. I have a friend from Caronport who has snow beef. It's some of the best new beef you can get. It's a cross between Wagyu and Holstein. He can't trade it between provinces. He can't get it to Medicine Hat or across the border. I think that's something where we could get together as legislators and make that possible.

Hopefully, you can come back with some of those conversations that might be ongoing and maybe help out producers, so that we can have good quality Saskatchewan beef across the country through some of those conversations you're having.

Thank you very much.

Mr. Chair, I think that's my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

You're making me feel like it's time for supper, Mr. Steinley, with all that talk of good beef, but we're going to move on to Ms. Taylor Roy.

It's over to you for five minutes, Ms. Taylor Roy.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I want to start by thanking you, Justine and Tom, for being here today and for all the work you've done in agriculture and agri-food through this pandemic in supporting the farmers and working with the industry associations to provide the relief that has been given to our farmers and our food-processing industry.

My questions are really much broader in terms of how the food supply chain resilience can be enhanced.

We've heard about the challenges with interprovincial trade and also with some of the global effects of the pandemic on supply chains. I'm wondering about two things.

One is locally sourced products. You've talked about the medium term and long term. I was wondering whether there were any plans to try to increase small local farming and the ability of those farmers to get their foods to market in and around the areas of need.

[Tom Rosser]

Mr. Chair, I thank the member for a really thoughtful question. I'll offer a couple of very quick thoughts and then perhaps turn to Justine.

Yes, absolutely, I think I referenced our dialogue with the U.S. on supply chains, and certainly one way to make the supply chains more resilient is to shorten them. There may be some opportunities to do that.

I would note as well—and Justine may be able to speak to this—that when we look at supply chain resilience, where vulnerability tends to be greatest at the community level is in smaller and more remote communities, so those situations, too, might present the greatest opportunity to strengthen resilience by shortening supply chains and increasing local supply. As a department, we are involved in some pilot-level projects in communities like Gjoa Haven and others to try to help individual communities toward that end.

Justine, do you have something to add to that?

[Justine Akman]

Not a lot, but I'd like to note that there is a program called the “local food infrastructure fund”. The idea there is that it can be almost anything to support local food infrastructure. Even refrigeration, in some communities, can be an extremely meaningful investment.

As an organization, we ourselves are monitoring trends in the food supply chain, including how food is moving around very differently now in light of the pandemic and the advent of electronic commerce, and how that presents opportunities to shorten food supply chains and make them more resilient. I would say that these are comments that retailers like Walmart make to us fairly often. They've also talked to us extensively about the desire to partner with government and with others to really support local food supply chains and to invest in local food production. That is in very active discussion within our own department right now in terms of how to make supply chains as robust as possible going into the future.

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

Thank you for your thoughts and the work you're doing on this. I would, of course, second what has been said about barriers to interprovincial trade and that having more “made in Canada” products being able to go across borders would be great.

On that point and the good Saskatchewan protein, I'd also add, as a vegetarian, plant protein is a great product. We've had that supercluster in Saskatchewan. A lot of work has been done there. As I mentioned in the House the other day, one of my favourite products is the Three Farmers chickpeas.

We have a new food guide. We have been putting the emphasis on products that are more environmentally sustainable and that can be probably not as subject to a lot of the difficulties in the supply chain, such as perishable foods, and I would add, animal welfare concerns.

Is anything being done in Agriculture and Agri-Food to promote the new food guide we have? Well, it's not quite that new anymore. Is anything being done to promote that food guide to try to encourage people to have more plant-based foods and to incorporate that when we're talking about our supply chains and just our overall resilience?

[Tom Rosser]

Mr. Chair, I understand the food guide is part of the healthy eating strategy that Health Canada leads on.

We certainly have regular and ongoing dialogue with Health Canada about ensuring that they can fulfill their mandate. Ours tends to focus more on the economic aspects of the agri-food chain, although recognizing we are also involved in food security and things. There is interdepartmental dialogue on these things.

I would note as well that, yes, we are—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Mr. Rosser, I apologize. We're at time.

I wish I could give more time, but I have to keep us on track here.

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

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would now like to turn to Ms. Akman.

Given your position on the Retail and Consumer Task Team, can you tell me about the work being done on the ethics code? Some people have told me they were concerned to see how quickly things were moving in that area. What is the status of that file? Is there a short and specific time frame to implement something?

It should be pointed out that, in the supply chain, it is important to respect contracts and to remove undue pressure on small suppliers.

[Justine Akman]

Thank you for the question.

That file has taken up a lot of our time over the past year, and even beyond that. You probably already know that ministers have received a report from a group of industry members who are working together to prepare a proposal to be submitted to the government. This issue also comes under provincial jurisdiction. So we are still waiting for provincial proposals.

We expect to receive a report in March. We will have to take some time to reflect on it and discuss it further.

We are monitoring the process very closely. The discussions are going well.

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

That is reassuring.

I have another question for you.

Mr. Rosser and you talked about the need to shorten the supply chain and to process more products locally.

Are you planning to provide additional support, especially for slaughterhouses, so there would be more small slaughterhouses close by? My Conservative colleague mentioned the beef industry earlier, but I know that the pork and poultry industries have the same need.

[Tom Rosser]

That is one of the ideas we are discussing to enhance the resiliency of our supply chains. We are in discussions with our counterparts in the United States and in the provinces. We don't have any specific programs yet to achieve that objective, but this is something we are considering as we go over what the pandemic has taught us.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. Rosser.

Thank you very much, Mr. Perron.

Mr. MacGregor, go ahead.

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

Thank you so much, Chair.

We've covered supply chain issues for what seems like a good two years now. Our agriculture committee was one of the few that was operating in the early days of the pandemic. Of course, we produced a pretty substantive report on processing capacity in the previous Parliament.

Mr. Rosser, we did hear a lot of witness testimony about how centralized our slaughter capacity was, especially in meat-processing plants such as big multinational companies like Cargill. We talked a lot at this committee about programs like the local food infrastructure fund, and certainly many a witness has asked that the federal government step in more to provide the necessary capital so that we can have a more decentralized approach.

I'm stepping into the committee midstream here, so you may have answered this question before, but perhaps you could humour me and give me an update on what efforts AAFC is making for a decentralized approach to our slaughter capacity, just to make sure that we can withstand these types of disruptions in the future.