Agriculture Committee on Feb. 10th, 2022

[Tom Rosser]

I want to thank the member for his question.

Yes, we know that the labour shortage is a matter of priority for the agri-food sector. We have received proposals. In November, federal, provincial and territorial ministers of agriculture held a conference in Guelph. Since then, we have met a number of times with industry representatives to discuss their proposals and try to mitigate the labour shortage. We are working on finding solutions.

As I said before, the cap on using temporary foreign workers in a Quebec facility went from 10% to 20%. So we are making progress. We are seriously considering the proposals we receive, including those your committee made last year.

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

You are talking about the percentage of temporary foreign workers, which has increased to 20%. We are pleased, as we have been calling for that for a long time. However, we found that it took a long time for the new cap to be applied. The announcement was made in August, but the increase came into effect in January.

Could the government not go a bit further and increase the percentage even more? Industry is proposing 30%, as its labour shortage has gone up to 25% or 30% in facilities.

Is the department considering that kind of an increase within a time frame shorter than six months or a year?

[Tom Rosser]

We understand the urgency of the problem. That said, this is nothing new. There has been a labour shortage for years. However, we know that the issue is more serious now. It has been even worse over the past few weeks, as the Omicron variant has led to a high absenteeism rate.

Fortunately, the issue seems to be resolving, but the labour shortage remains pretty severe. We are looking at short and long–term solutions. We are discussing this with other departments involved and with stakeholders.

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

In emergency situations, fairly simple solutions are proposed, including the possibility of submitting a single labour market impact assessment per site. From an outside perspective, the solution seems fairly simple to implement. It could be adopted quickly. It would also help reduce administrative costs and shorten time frames.

Is that among the solutions being considered? Have you discussed it?

[Tom Rosser]

Absolutely.

Our colleagues from Employment and Social Development Canada and from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada are responsible for considering proposals to reduce the administrative burden involved in the worker admission process. We are discussing with them proposals and ways we could lighten the burden for this program.

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

Thank you for your answer.

I am putting a bit of pressure on you. We are counting on you to implement measures quickly because industry really needs that.

Before we began the study, committee members identified a second important factor—fluctuating input costs. The workforce is directly related to that because cost increases are often due to longer time frames, which, in turn, are due to labour shortages. This is happening in the food processing industry, but also in trucking and agriculture. It is actually happening across the board.

Various measures could help—for example, measures to facilitate access to permanent residence for people working in the sector who want to bring their family to Canada.

I would like to hear your thoughts on that.

[Tom Rosser]

I thank the member for his question.

Input costs have indeed increased. In many cases, there is global pressure on the price of oilseeds and wheat, among others. Truck transportation costs have also increased significantly. We have seen—

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

I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I would like to put one last question to you before my time runs out.

Wouldn't it be time for the department to create a program to encourage massive investments in agri-food processing, which has been suffering from chronic underinvestment? This could take the form of a tax credit or another mechanism that would encourage investments in this sector. We would not necessarily be talking about injecting actual money in the sector, although the federal government could also make investments.

Have you held discussions on that? What is the status of that file?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

You have 15 seconds to answer.

[Tom Rosser]

The federal government already has programs to encourage investments in this sector, and there are also cost–shared programs. We are engaged in discussions with the provinces on the new strategic framework to determine what more we could do.

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

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you very much, Mr. Perron and Mr. Rosser.

Mr. Johns, welcome to our committee. The floor is now yours for six minutes.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for your important testimony today.

I've got a few questions. Obviously, we're in a crisis right now in our country. Is the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food aware of how much value in agriculture-related products cross the border at Coutts, Alberta and Windsor, Ontario, that are currently being occupied?

[Tom Rosser]

I may turn to Justine. Mr. Chair, as I don't have a precise daily value for the amount at the border crossings. We are well aware of the importance of Coutts to the cattle industry. The Windsor crossing is important to a whole number of products, including the greenhouse sector and the pork sector. It's a gateway for importing fertilizers and other crop inputs. We're monitoring the situation very carefully.

I'll also note that Emerson is a very important port of entry used by the hog sectors in both Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Maybe you can just address this. If these supply chains remain blocked in the days and weeks ahead, what kinds of consequences are we going to see for Canada's agriculture and agri-food producers?

[Tom Rosser]

Again, perhaps I'll turn to Justine, but I'll just say that one of the reasons the supply chain has worked so effectively throughout COVID is because we were able to keep fluidity in products moving across the Canada-U.S. border. If that were jeopardized for a significant period of time, it would risk causing a whole variety of disruptions, particularly when you're talking about the transport of live animals. We're in winter, and the animal welfare risks associated with that are significant. It's also a time of year when we're heavily dependent on imports of fresh fruits and vegetables, particularly from the United States and Mexico.

Certainly, as I said, if there were enduring disruptions in cross-border travel, it would pose some risks to the supply chain, but perhaps Justine will add to that.

[Justine Akman]

Just to agree with what Tom has said, it is a just-in-time system. Throughout the pandemic, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has been engaged with its stakeholders very proactively. Early on, there were weekly calls; now they've sort of tapered off. Now there's a group called the Food Industry Network, and Kathleen Sullivan from Food and Beverage Canada is very involved in that. You'll be hearing from them shortly.

We are doing our best as an organization to stay on top of what's happening, including current events and daily challenges. I wouldn't want to put any numbers behind it. We are hearing about orders being cancelled. We have been speaking to retailers about challenges for stores, and if they might foresee challenges in getting food to the consumer level, but also to the agricultural sector.

We're going at it sector by sector. We've got boots on the ground across the country to carefully monitor the situation.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

There's feed for livestock that goes back and forth across the border. Is there a risk to livestock?

[Tom Rosser]

With the poor harvest in western Canada, the feedstocks are low. We are more dependent than usual on imports from the United States this year than would normally be the case, so disruptions to flows across the border are a concern in that regard.

I understand, too, that significant volumes of soy meal, and so on, enter Canada via the Windsor-Detroit border crossing, so absolutely, flows of animal feed are an important aspect of maintaining fluidity in border transport.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thanks.

This is the last question around this and then I need to move on to something else, but in the current suite of offerings through business risk management programs, is there any way you can help these producers who have been negatively affected by the occupation?

[Tom Rosser]

Mr. Chair, it's an interesting question. Off the top of my head I'm not sure I have an answer. It's certainly not an idea I had suggested previously. Through our AgriRecovery initiatives, there was substantial assistance provided to those facing extraordinary feed costs, for example, as a result of the drought and so on.

Certainly anything that would trigger a substantial drop in incomes would enter into the calculus that is made related to AgriStability. Those are perhaps some of the ways that the BRM suite of programs could help to support those who face severe adversity as a result of the border interruptions.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

With COVID we saw just the impact on local food security. Certainly one thing that was pre-existing before COVID was local producers were having a really difficult time getting their product to grocery stores because there were GAP certification requirements. This could have helped solve a lot of our domestic needs in our grocery stores when we did have some real problems with supply chains.

Are you looking at GAP and revising GAP so it's more accessible for local producers?

[Tom Rosser]

Mr. Chair, I am certainly aware of the problems smaller producers faced with the closure of the restaurant sector and so on. I don't have a specific answer for him related to his question on GAP.

I don't know whether Justine feels comfortable taking that. If not, we can certainly get back to the committee in writing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

We're going to have to do that because we're at time.

Thank you, Mr. Johns.

We're going to move next to Mr. Steinley for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the presenters here today.

I'm going to start with a statement that the Canadian Federation of Agriculture presented in May 2016 to the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce on issues pertaining to barriers to internal trade. During this presentation CFA identified the two largest obstacles to interprovincial or domestic trade as differing provincial transportation regulations and inconsistencies between provincial and federal inspections required at meat-processing facilities.

The question is for Mr. Rosser.

On interprovincial trucking mandates, has Agriculture and Agri-Food been consulted on the government's plans to implement interprovincial trucking mandates or upcoming mandates being implemented? Have you been consulted about that?