Agriculture Committee on Nov. 28th, 2022

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Thank you, Ms. Donahue.

Now we'll go to Ms. Valdez for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you to the witnesses for joining.

Ms. Donahue, your opening reminded me of the time when I had to complete my food safety handler certificate and how important food safety is to Canadians.

You explain in your opening the process at a really high level to ensure that food or supply-managed products imported from Ukraine would comply with Canada's food safety guidelines, but can you clarify what the checks and balances would be for poultry that's imported to Canada from Ukraine, the pre-entry to Canada and then upon entry to Canada before it gets distributed?

[Dr. Kanwal Kochhar]

As Kathleen mentioned in her opening remarks, CFIA has audited the three establishments that will be approved to export to Canada. We have negotiated the official meat inspection certificate of Ukraine, and every shipment from Ukraine to Canada will need to be certified as per the certificate conditions, which include Public Health attestations as per the last animal health attestations. On arrival at the border, CFIA will conduct full inspections of those certificates.

I also want to highlight that, under the safe food for Canadians regulations, the importers must have a safe food for Canadians licence prior to import, and they need to have preventative control plans that include traceability. If there is any issue of food safety, CFIA can recall the product, and if at any time during the inspection at the border or after, there is an issue noted of non-compliance, CFIA does take action, which includes recalls, or it could mean returning the product or even suspension of the foreign establishments, dependent on the outcome of the inspection.

We have controls prior to import, at import as well as post-import.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Band, can you explain what CBSA's monitoring or tracking process is when receiving imports from Ukraine?

[Doug Band]

Mr. Chairman, we have the ability to monitor all of the imports that come to Canada at the individual firm level. Importers are required, as always, to provide true and accurate declarations with supporting information. Origin on all things coming from Ukraine as well as other countries is one of the core requirements. We have [Technical difficulty—Editor] clear understanding of what's coming into the country and has been released into commerce, and we provide that information to Finance Canada and others, including Statistics Canada for their reporting purposes.

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

Thank you.

How long are the records kept?

[Doug Band]

They would be under the Government of Canada broader rules around information management. We typically produce them on a monthly basis, but they would be subject to the rules of the retention of public records. Six years, I believe, is what it is.

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

Thank you.

In your opinion, are there any challenges with the process, or is there anything preventing more trade from Ukraine?

[Doug Band]

I would say that we're pretty comfortable with our ability to provide information, in this case to Finance Canada, and for sharing with other departments to assist them in the kind of analysis and understanding of what the current impacts look like in the marketplace.

It's fairly raw data, but, as you saw with the ice cream shipment—that's our data that was used to understand the current impact—it is sufficiently robust to understand what has come into Canada from Ukraine.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Rosser, can you explain what you've observed since putting in place this Ukrainian goods remission order, in terms of the benefits to Ukraine, given that the war is continuing?

[Tom Rosser]

When it comes to supply-managed goods, the imports to date have been pretty minimal. It does create additional opportunities and additional market access, which may be of some economic benefit to the country.

Like I said, to date, the imports, at least of supply-managed goods, have been very small in volume.

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

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Thanks, Mrs. Valdez.

Thanks to our witnesses. We are past the time, but I just have one quick question for Ms. Desrochers.

I want to pick up on what you said during your answer. You had mentioned that although our trade agreement with Ukraine does allow imports on supply management, there haven't been any to date. One reason was that there is a sanitary concern with Ukraine, so no certificate was provided previously.

Is that no longer a concern then? Has the sanitation issue been addressed, which would pave the road to now sign an export certificate for Ukrainian poultry?

Maybe you can say what that sanitary concern was previously and whether it been addressed.

[Marie-Noëlle Desrochers]

The absence of a sanitary certificate is not relevant to any specific concern. There is a process to make that happen. Our colleagues from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency can run through that process.

[Dr. Kanwal Kochhar]

Thank you, Marie-Noëlle.

I think Marie-Noëlle was indicating that there was no official meat inspection certificate negotiated with Ukraine.

Kathleen outlined the process in her opening remarks. We did go through several steps, including an audit of the establishment, negotiation of the import conditions and approval of the official meat inspection certificate, which gives us the assurance that Ukraine has the ability to issue a certificate, as per Canada's import requirements.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Thank you very much.

Thanks to my colleagues for great questions and to our witnesses for staying a little bit extra. I appreciate the clarifying information that you've provided with us this evening.

With that, I will look for a motion to adjourn.

We are adjourned.