Agriculture Committee on Nov. 30th, 2022

[Yves Ruel]

Well, I cannot speak to the rationale and the reasons for the U.S. to decide to wait until after the war, but I suspect that, similar to some of the concerns we mentioned, what we see, what we witness, in what's occurring in Ukraine seems to be a very tough situation, as we've also heard from the other witness, with all of the missiles targeting civilian infrastructure.

We can expect that there are some disruptions in the country, unfortunately, so I suspect that those are some of the reasons that led the U.S. to decide to wait until after the war to decide to allow imports of chicken products from Ukraine.

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

I think what you were talking about earlier, though, was on the food safety aspect. There is a food safety aspect. As you just mentioned, there is a war happening, so how can we be sure that the food coming over is safe?

I think Mr. Klompmaker alluded to this earlier. If consumers don't know what they're getting, we risk losing consumer confidence in a product that Canadian farmers—chicken farmers especially—have worked really hard to get to a point where consumers have absolute confidence in our food safety system here in Canada. That's partially because of supply management and the stringent standards we have in Canada.

Do you care to comment on that at all?

[Yves Ruel]

I think there are many angles to consider, but if we look at the electricity and the water supply you need to operate chicken farms and chicken-processing plants, for example, it must be a tough struggle for the industry in Ukraine to operate. Do they have access to all of the sanitation and to the chemicals that they need to sanitize the processing plants? There are many details that we don't suspect, sitting here in a committee room, that take place in a processing plant and that must be very tough to get going on a daily basis in that country.

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

We know right now that other countries are paying very close attention to this, because we have many trading partners around the world and supply management is something that is unique to Canada. That being said, how will opening up this import of chicken from Ukraine affect potential future negotiations or how is that going to affect our trading partners now?

For example, we have CUSMA coming up for a review at some point. It's a joint review. Do you think that with this government opening up chicken from Ukraine into a supply-managed commodity with this remission order it will affect trading with other countries going forward and how we conduct those negotiations?

[Yves Ruel]

Again, it's tough to speculate on the reaction from other countries, but Ukraine already has access to Canada under the WTO TRQ. The only reason why there were no imports so far is that CFIA had never permitted products from Ukraine. They have access to our WTO concessions that were made in WTO agreements.

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

We talked a little bit earlier about avian influenza and the impact you said it would have specifically on farmers. I am wondering if there is a dollar figure. Can you tell us what the industry is worth? How could it impact the industry if we were to potentially have avian influenza here brought in from some imports of chicken?

I asked officials earlier in the week if they had done an economic assessment of what it would cost our chicken industry, and I didn't get an answer from them. I am wondering if you have some sort of answer, even a ballpark figure, of what it would cost our farmers and the industry.

[Yves Ruel]

First, there are some cases of avian influenza in Canada currently. As Mr. Klompmaker mentioned, it is tough for farmers to deal with that.

The concern very much is that it's kind of strange that there have been no cases reported since January from Ukraine. It points more to a challenge in the surveillance and reporting system. I think that's what's important. Why are there no cases reported? Is it because there are no cases or because they don't have the resources to do the surveillance and monitoring?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

We're going to have to leave it at that.

Thank you, Mr. Ruel, and thank you, Ms. Rood.

Deputy Minister Kachka, I see you online. We have technical requirements for having a headset. My clerk wanted to make sure you know, if you can hear me, that our technical team is trying to reach you so that you are able to testify. If you see a call, it's from them, to try to help make sure you have the technical requirements to participate. We see you online and thank you for being here, but we need to make sure you have a proper headset.

Mr. Turnbull, you have up to five minutes, and we'll go from there.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Chair, to be clear, I am not able at this time to ask Deputy Minister Kachka any questions. Is that right?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Unfortunately, you are not, but if he is able to get a proper headset—assuming this committee is open to it—we could allow him on the second panel.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Okay, thank you. I hope that doesn't take away from my time.

On February 24, 2022, we all know that Russia invaded Ukraine. It was the only day in my life when I woke up and considered that at some time I might actually go to fight in a war.

I want to express my sincere solidarity with the people of Ukraine on the incredibly heroic effort they have put into defending their sovereignty in every aspect. They're really an inspiration to all of us. That's heartfelt straight from me. Thank you.

I want to ask, Mr. Zakydalsky, what other countries you know of that have signed a blanket remission order, or a similar measure, in support of Ukraine. Could you give us a few examples?

[Orest Zakydalsky]

There is the European Union and the United Kingdom, and there may be more. Again, I am not an expert on this issue—

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you.

[Orest Zakydalsky]

—but certainly the European Union and the U.K.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

They were similar in terms of Canada's response in quickly reacting to the situation in Ukraine to show that solidarity. Is that right?

[Orest Zakydalsky]

I believe so, yes.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you.

To our other panellists who are here in person, I noticed that Mr. Drouin's line of questioning was quite interesting. Our supply-managed sector is doing a delicate balancing act in production planning and processing. There is quite a bit to balance in terms of fluctuations in the market that I am sure are quite natural to experience.

You have historical data, as you said, but there are adjustments that you're making fairly regularly. Is that right, Mr. Klompmaker?

[Tim Klompmaker]

We look at production volumes on an eight-week basis, so every eight weeks we set that production volume.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Okay, great.

What we heard from the assistant deputy minister earlier in the week, I think, was that they anticipated that the impact on our poultry sector would likely be less than 1% of the market share, if at all. It sounded pretty minimal to me.

I know you're better able to answer this, so I want to pose it to you. Is an adjustment of less than 1% something you can accommodate in terms of that delicate balancing act? It sounds like you're used to dealing with fluctuations in the market. If less than 1% were the overall impact of this measure, would you be able to accommodate that? I know you expressed your sentiments in solidarity with Ukraine—and we all recognize that we need to do whatever we can to support them—so can you accommodate that?

[Yves Ruel]

I don't know how you came up with this estimate, because one thing that's clear with the remission order is that it implies unlimited volume. What the remission order does is completely remove any limit on imports coming from Ukraine.

We know, as was mentioned earlier, that at least two importers have put pressure on to bring in imports. Apparently, they are large importers. What volume they have in mind no one knows.

But to go back to what we mentioned, the concern is very much with the food safety. Is the infrastructure still in place to perform all the verifications—

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you.

I don't mean to interrupt, but I'm going to ask you a question about that, so maybe I can just follow up on that. You mentioned that there have been cases of AI in Canada. Is that correct? Cases have also been verified in Europe. Is that correct? However, no cases have been reported in Ukraine. Is that correct, Mr. Ruel?

[Yves Ruel]

Yes.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Okay.

Based on the testimony we heard earlier in the week, I'm trying to piece together all the bits of information, so bear with me for a second. CFIA told us that they got assurances from Ukraine that they are going to do food safety assessments on the first 10 shipments from each supplier and then move to a risk-based assessment process whereby they will identify based on risk and then test more.

I know food safety is something that Canada prides itself on. It prides itself on having an extremely strong system to prevent this and we still have cases—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Mr. Turnbull, I apologize. I wanted to give you a little bit of time. Maybe I have to be a bit stricter with my colleagues and give you a bit more heads-up. Unfortunately, we will have to leave it there.

Mr. Savard-Trembley, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Gentlemen, I definitely don't want you to think your claim's incompatible with solidarity for Ukraine. I want to clarify that right off the bat. It's entirely legitimate for you to inform us of your complaints.

It's also good to know that other countries have made similar orders, although we should bear in mind that they aren't countries that have supply management systems comparable to ours. So that limits any comparison. However, when I hear that, I say to myself that, if there is an exemption, all Ukrainian chicken will be shipped there, not here. However, there are various markets.

What products will be shipped here? Our market is probably different from the European market.