Agriculture Committee on Feb. 17th, 2022

[Robin Guy]

I think regulatory measures can create complexities.

Focusing on alignment within Canada and also with our trading partners in the United States would avoid unpredictable regulatory standards. The chamber is supportive of adding an economic and competitive mandate to any regulation. I'd say some interesting points are interprovincial trade barriers, which are a glaring example of inefficiency and cost regulations. While Canada has the Canadian Free Trade Agreement, many interprovincial barriers remain.

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

I don't have much time.

I'm the shadow minister for interprovincial trade barriers. Are there two that you have at top of mind?

Most people talk about trucking regulations as being one of the issues within interprovincial trade in our country. Have you heard from your membership what would be one of the easiest things that we could come together to talk about and get rid of to make it easier for trade to go between provinces? Is there a top one or two you'd have?

[Robin Guy]

There are 144 specific examples that we can get. Maybe we can connect and chat about what those are. Again, I would just say that focusing on the economic and competitive mandate to any new regulations would be key.

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

I'd like to connect later. Thank you very much for that.

Saskatchewan is the home of a lot of pulse crops. I'd be remiss if I didn't say hi to Mr. Northey and say thank you very much for your presentation. We are looking at even expanding our value-added in pulses in Saskatchewan for the next few years.

I'm wondering what you see as some of your members' biggest issues with expanding their businesses. What would be some of the regulatory burdens that you see that we could work together to eradicate to make sure our pulse producers are as successful as possible and have more access to markets going forward?

[Greg Northey]

Obviously, Saskatchewan is an incredibly important province for pulse production. Right now, from a supply chain standpoint, we hear from the processors—particularly exporters who ultimately drive the demand for these products because they're out seeking international markets—that their big question right now is why they would expand production, facilities or export programs when they can't get capacity to actually ship them to customers. It's impossible to retain customers and defend market positions globally if supply chains don't work. It's an age-old problem. Right now it's being exacerbated.

As far as the production side is concerned, ultimately processing plants, particularly around pulse proteins and these things that are going into food for—

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

Thank you very much. I'm sorry to cut you off.

I wanted to get into the fertilizer—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Mr. Steinley, I'm sorry. We're at five minutes. Thank you.

I wish we always had more time for these. It's great testimony. Thank you, Mr. Northey.

We're going to go to Ms. Taylor Roy now for five minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses for being here.

I want to start with the Chamber of Commerce.

You made some comments early on about regulatory burdens and also investment in transportation infrastructure. You mentioned that you wanted to look at measurable economic returns. Again, with regulatory burdens, you mentioned economic and competitive mandates.

Your third point was really more about climate and net-zero plans, etc. How do you bring together the need for climate action and climate events when you're just looking at economic returns in these first two areas and not really factoring in environmental concerns? It seems like it's rather broken out into separate silos, if you will.

[Robin Guy]

Yes. In terms of investing in transportation infrastructure specifically, I think it can still be something that is environmentally friendly. I think it's something that definitely needs to be looked at.

Again, it's about making sure that we actually have the capacity to move cargo. We've heard from different witnesses today about the struggles of that. I think it's important to support redundancy in critical infrastructure, such as the twinning of rail in high-congestion areas. It's about making sure that if there is a problem going to one area, there's an opportunity for us to look at other options.

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

Absolutely. I agree. But when you were talking about making the decision on where to put this infrastructure spending so as not to spread it too thin, you mentioned looking at measurable economic returns. Do you look as well at the environmental impacts or what the environmental consequences might be of some of these investments?

[Robin Guy]

I think it's definitely important, but it can't necessarily be the one and only thing we look at. I think it's also important that we do look at some of those others in a holistic approach.

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

Thank you very much.

I have a question for Mr. McLinton from the Retail Council of Canada.

You mentioned that retailers were highly resilient and that most of the shelves were still quite full despite the different impacts we've had to our supply chains, but labour was really one of the big issues. During the pandemic, the frontline workers in retail operations were given an increase in their hourly wage. Despite that, our large retailers still had record profits.

Do you think maintaining those higher wages for these essential workers might help solve the labour shortage you're experiencing in retail operations?

[Jason McLinton]

This has been a very challenging time for everyone across the supply chain, as we've heard from witnesses today. There have also been record costs associated with the grocery retail sector in Canada, if you think about having to adapt to all of the changing public health measures that have been put in place. They have also been facing, and continue to face, unprecedented price increases from producers and suppliers.

While I'm not in a position to comment about any individual member of the Retail Council and their individual business decisions, there are a lot of pressures facing members right now. They are not immune to the current challenges.

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

My last question is for the pulse industry. I happen to be a big fan of that as well, being a vegetarian and loving those products.

Mr. Northey, about the shipping, you mentioned that the regulatory burdens are really not your big issue right now and that some of the other countries have looked at these containerized supply chain issues and mapped a path forward. Given that you said there are basically three alliances that control most of the market, perhaps we could learn from the path that other countries have mapped. I'm wondering if you could share some of those findings and some of the specific things you think we can do to address this global problem.

[Greg Northey]

New Zealand is a great example. They would have had a system similar to Canada's, where they had an act that exempted shipping lines from their competition legislation. It's essentially an exemption, and then the alliances could work together to do certain things.

The focus right now for a country like New Zealand is that they've dropped that provision. Shipping lines are now under their normal competition act. That creates a whole different dynamic for those shipping lines. They have to function in a very different way in terms of how they provide service.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. Northey. I tried to let you finish your thought there, and I'm glad we got it on the record.

Thank you, Ms. Taylor Roy.

Mr. Perron, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Northey, earlier you were saying that there was a problem with the fact that container shipping was controlled by three large companies and that something really needed to be done about that.

Do you have a concrete recommendation for the committee on this? How could we help you?

[Greg Northey]

Global container shipping is controlled by three major alliances, which are combinations of companies, so there are about nine major companies that form three alliances, controlling 80% to 90% of the market. Facing the situation we have in Canada regarding our legislation and seeing how other countries are approaching it, our recommendation at this point would be to repeal the Shipping Conferences Exemption Act, which is the current legislation that's out of date and was meant to exempt shipping lines from the Competition Act. We would advocate that the shipping lines be placed under the Competition Act and the Competition Bureau, which would automatically create a different dynamic for them.

We would also say that the U.S. has taken a stance that is similar to how we would handle the railways in Canada. You look at the tremendous market power and you have a regulatory solution to that where you have an agency—our agency, particularly—able to investigate specific instances of service failure. It's a twin approach. You would look at building something like that into the Canada Transportation Act, which is much more focused on regulatory solutions to market power, and removing the exemptions to the Competition Act for shipping lines.

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

This sounds like an interesting avenue, so if you have any documentation on this, you can submit it to the committee. Thank you very much.

Mr. Guy, you talked about investment and innovation needing to be addressed very urgently in the industry. Could you suggest one or two concrete steps that the government could take to encourage innovation and investment in business?

[Robin Guy]

I'll turn it over to my colleague Jarred to answer that question.

[Jarred Cohen]

Thanks, Robin. I'll be very quick.

Thank you, Mr. Perron.

Innovation comes from digitizing the supply chains. Digitization is a big issue for many farmers and SMEs within the supply chain, so there could be significant innovation. We've seen farmers use rural broadband and universal broadband on—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. Cohen.

I'm sorry, Mr. Perron. Your time is up.

Mr. Boulerice, you have two and half minutes.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going back to the question I started to pose to Mr. McLinton during the previous round of questions.

Immigration can be an answer to some labour shortages. As New Democrats, we agree with that. That said, there have been significant delays at Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada for months under the Liberal government. In my riding, we hear horror stories about all kinds of applications, whether they are for work visas, temporary workers or permanent resident permits. The processing times can be as long as 12, 18 or even 24 months. As an industry, are you worried about these delays from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada?

[Jason McLinton]

Thank you, Mr. Boulerice, for your question.

I'm sorry. I'm hearing translation in the background.

Anything that would streamline that sort of process would be helpful, and we'd be pleased to participate in those discussions.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

My next question is for Mr. Robin Guy, from the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.

Mr. Guy, in Quebec, about 70% of our beef comes from interprovincial trade. In your experience, are there any regulatory barriers to interprovincial trade in beef? If so, what are they?