Agriculture Committee on Nov. 28th, 2022

[Doug Band]

Go ahead, Tom.

[Tom Rosser]

I was going to say, Mr. Chair, that other than the shipment of ice cream, we've seen no supply-managed products imported from the Ukraine. In terms of overall trends in imported supply-managed goods, I don't know offhand, but I certainly would be happy to compile and share with the committee the latest available data.

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

That's excellent. Thank you. If you could table that information with us, that would be great.

Ms. Donohue, you were mentioning in your remarks that the last inspection of critical infrastructure in Ukraine that took place was in 2019. You also mentioned that because of the pandemic, things were lagging, and now we have a war in Ukraine. I'm just wondering, is the audit from three years ago still valid for a country at war?

What assurances can you give Canadians that what's actually happening in the processing plants—specifically if we look at chicken, when we have our own domestic supply of chicken readily available here—and in the inspections there is still accurate? Have you had somebody on the ground in Ukraine in recent months to make sure that what they're saying is true? Can you give Canadians assurance of that today to say that the safety of their food is not in jeopardy right now?

[Kathleen Donohue]

The CFIA met with Ukrainian officials on October 18, just last month, to seek assurances regarding food safety as well as the animal health controls in Ukraine presently. Ukrainian officials assured the agency that food safety and animal health standards and controls are at the same level as they were at the time of the audit that was conducted in 2019, and that Ukraine inspects and certifies exports as per the certificate conditions.

This was also reaffirmed in writing by Ukrainian officials to the agency following that meeting.

Thank you.

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

So the answer to the question is, no, you haven't actually put somebody on the ground in Ukraine to look for themselves on behalf of Canadians. You are taking the word of people there right now. Do I understand that correctly?

[Kathleen Donohue]

We have not conducted a second audit.

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

Thank you very much.

In Canada right now, we're worried about avian influenza happening and the potential threat from imported chicken from Ukraine, whether fresh or frozen. We know there's a big potential of bringing avian flu into Canada through meat brought in from Ukraine, and it can be transported in frozen food. Frozen food can be kept in refrigerators and freezers here in Canada for a year. I'm just wondering if that was a consideration at all when allowing chicken to be included in this order.

[Kathleen Donohue]

In 2019 the CFIA conducted its on-site evaluation and audit of Ukraine's poultry system, leading to Canada's recognizing Ukraine as being free of highly pathogenic avian influenza. As part of that poultry meat evaluation, the CFIA requested to receive formal notification of avian influenza disease outbreaks in Ukraine.

Canada did receive notifications of outbreaks of AI directly from the Ukrainian competent authority in 2020, as well as in 2021. The last notification of an AI outbreak in poultry was received back in February of 2021. A notification regarding wild birds was received back in March of 2021. Since then, there have been no further communications by Ukraine regarding any additional AI outbreaks.

I would add that, in addition, Ukraine is also a member of the World Organisation for Animal Health, also known as WOAH, and is obligated, therefore, to notify this international organization of any outbreaks of AI, as well as its trading partners. No AI outbreaks have been reported by Ukraine to this organization, nor to any other trading partners, such as the EU, for example—

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

Thank you very much. I'm sorry to interrupt. I have only a minute and a half here.

For CBSA, we know our resources at the border are stretched pretty thin already for testing products coming into Canada from the U.S., whether it's chicken or milk. How do we know that the product coming from Ukraine is what it says it is? Also, have there been tests developed that will ensure that the chicken coming into Canada is in fact what's listed on the import certificates?

[Doug Band]

If I may ask, is the question in relation to the remission order or generally speaking?

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

It's in relation to the order, but also generally speaking, because we already know that at the border generally we have issues and we don't have enough resources, so how much further are our resources going to be stretched? Can we have assurances that the products coming in are actually what they say they are on the certificate?

[Doug Band]

Thanks for the clarification. I appreciate it.

When we are doing risking of goods—in this case we're referring to chicken—we do that jointly with the lead department, in this case the CFIA, from an animal and human health standpoint. Up front there's the assurance, as you mentioned, that all of the appropriate certifications and documentation to confirm eligibility and admissibility have been met, including for origin.

If there are identified risk changes in the risk environment from CFIA, then we would identify shipments that would pose high risk or higher risk for intervention at the border.

I think from the standpoint of where we are today, we're in a good place in terms of resource availability. As you've heard, the environment has not altered significantly from a CFIA human and animal health standpoint, so where we are is where we've been and that is sufficient.

We have focused principally up until now in the marine area of shipments coming into Canada, and those monitoring efforts continue and will expand to other areas as the risk environment adapts.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Band. I appreciate that. We're out of time there.

Now I'll turn to Mr. Turnbull for six minutes, please.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Great.

Thanks to our witnesses for being here today.

I think this whole study seems to revolve on a bit of a hypothetical.

I think to date, Mr. Rosser, if I were to ask you has our supply-managed sector really been impacted by the Ukrainian goods remission order, would it be fair to say that it's been minimal to negligible? Would you agree with that?

[Tom Rosser]

Mr. Chair, I would agree completely. To date, we've seen a couple thousand kilos of ice cream arrive, but no volumes that would be material to the size of any of the supply-managed markets.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you. That's helpful

Looking ahead, we're looking at the next roughly seven months until June 9, 2023, I take it from our earlier panel.

What impact do you anticipate this remission order will have on our supply-managed sector between now and then?

Mr. Rosser, that's to you.

[Tom Rosser]

We certainly have looked at this. I should preface my answer by saying the nature of the situation is such that it's really hard to put a precise estimate on what's going to happen.

What I would say, though, is that we have looked at trends of imports from Ukraine into the European Union and other jurisdictions that have relaxed their input measures. Just given the logistical difficulties, given the shortness of time and given that Canada has no history of importing poultry products from Ukraine, we think it unlikely that the volumes of imports we're likely to see over the next several months will be material to the market.

That said, we will continue to monitor the situation closely and talk with stakeholders.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Rosser.

I was going to ask you that. How much dairy, poultry and eggs does Canada normally import from Ukraine in a year?

[Tom Rosser]

Until the aforementioned shipment of ice cream, we'd imported no dairy products in the past five years and to my knowledge have no history of importing poultry or egg products from Ukraine.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you.

With this remission order, you've already answered for the past five months or so, but we'll have to see the seven months that follow. In terms of the $5.5 billion of cash farm receipts in egg and poultry, which is what that industry represents, what do you think the loss of market share might be?

I know that's hard to answer, but are we talking a half a per cent, are we talking about less than that? Is it 10%? What do we think?

[Tom Rosser]

Again, it's hard to be definitive and precise.

My view from what I've seen, as I said from trends in other countries and so on, is that it seems improbable to me that we would be talking about anywhere close to 1% of the annual size of the market.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

So potentially it would be a fraction of one per cent.

You mentioned the logistical challenges. I imagine that if Ukraine could export chicken products to Europe, it would be a lot easier to preserve the cold chain that's necessary, would it not? Would it not be a lot more expensive to actually export chicken all the way to Canada versus Europe, which I understand probably has somewhat similar measures in place?

[Tom Rosser]

The European markets would certainly be quite a bit closer and, one would think, quite a bit cheaper to access from Ukraine. I would only add, Mr. Chair, that my understanding is that the rule of thumb is that it takes about four to six weeks for a container to ship from Ukraine to arrive at a Canadian port.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I just assume, being a business person, that you'd probably go to where you could get the highest value for that chicken and not spend on the longest possible supply chain. Anyway, that's just my assumption.

I'm going to go to Ms. Donahue and ask about avian flu.

How stringent are the CFIA's policies and processes for ensuring that imported products from Ukraine do not contain avian flu? You gave us some detail already, but can you give us more detail?

[Kathleen Donohue]

I'm going to pass that to my colleague Dr. Kanwal Kochhar.