Agriculture Committee on Feb. 17th, 2022

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

I can personally verify that for our local provincial abattoir. You have to book in early. It's an absolute must.

I will close with the CPMA. The Agri-Food Innovation Council has provided us with a brief and testimony recommending more research and innovation in fruit and vegetable cultivation, things like vertical farming and so on. I know I have only 30 seconds for you to answer, but do you want to add anything to that, Mr. Lemaire?

[Ron Lemaire]

It's an opportunity. We have to look at every opportunity available to us but we also have to look at our existing infrastructure and at reinforcing and ensuring that it's able to meet market demand. It's an opportunity, but we have to look at what we have in our hand, a bird in the hand as opposed to in the bush in some ways.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you so much.

I'll end there, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

We're going to go to Monsieur Lehoux.

Mr. Lehoux, you have five minutes.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here.

My question is primarily for Ms. Lefebvre.

Ms. Lefebvre, you mentioned a number of situations where you have very complex problems, including the cost of fertilizer or transportation.

I'll address the labour issue. First of all, we heard Mr. Milette talk about an agreement and the fact that there is progress with Minister Bibeau. There are still discussions to be had with Mr. Fraser and Ms. Qualtrough. Has anyone thought about creating a joint committee to bring these three departments together?

There seems to be a particular difficulty in communicating to get the files moving more quickly. There's a problem, particularly with the issue of labour market impact assessments, or LMIAs, and the whole issue of poaching. We know that there have been changes. I understand that because producers in my region have asked me why this was brought forward because of COVID‑19. That didn't help vegetable producers. In fact, it hurt them.

How do you see the poaching situation?

What do you think about a joint committee bringing together the three departments? I'm a little tired of hearing that they're passing the buck between them. Couldn't they all sit down together and sort this out? How is that seen by the producers you represent, Ms. Lefebvre?

[Catherine Lefebvre]

We would like nothing better than to have a joint committee of those three departments. We've done the same thing on our side. We've created a committee that brings together the Union des producteurs agricoles, or UPA, the Quebec Produce Growers Association, or QPGA, and the Fondation des entreprises en recrutement de main‑d'oeuvre agricole étranger, or FERME, in order to unite our voices to be able to debate the real issues affecting foreign workers. So we are united, and I have to tell you that we would like nothing better than to have the three departments listening to us at the same time.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Are you seeing any progress?

I ask because our committee would like to make recommendations along these lines. Indeed, this isn't the first time we've heard of such a situation, such a relationship and coordination problem between departments.

Faced with this lack of coordination, we have to wonder who should take the lead. What is your growers association doing in this sense?

[Catherine Lefebvre]

I would ask Mr. Léger Bourgoin to complete my answer.

[Patrice Léger Bourgoin]

Mr. Lehoux, I would say that when we were in a crisis situation in November, there was a tripartite committee. We participated in it, and it worked very well.

It would be a matter of making this committee [Technical difficulty—Editor] permanent so that everyone can coordinate.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Does it seem like there's a desire to put forward such a sustainable committee that would facilitate coordination?

I think it's a must if we want things to happen faster for our foreign workers when it comes to immigration.

[Patrice Léger Bourgoin]

[Technical difficulty—Editor] only when there is an emergency situation. So it would indeed have to become permanent.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

I think it was Ms. Lefebvre who raised the issue of the qualification of businesses to obtain longer‑term permits.

In fact, some producers have impeccable records and use the same workers every year.

Ms. Lefebvre, how are things progressing within your association in relation to this issue?

Does the department seem to want to go ahead and introduce these longer‑term permits for producers who are known to welcome and treat their workers well?

[Catherine Lefebvre]

We would like [Technical difficulty—Editor], but we aren't hearing [Technical difficulty—Editor] of promises or anything so far.

This is our solution. It's a solution [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

I imagine that you would be very pleased to see in the committee's report a specific recommendation in this regard and that you would like to have very quick answers so that this solution can be put in place.

This would solve and alleviate the situation you're currently facing, which is linked to the requirement to reapply every year.

Would you be in favour of better coordination between departments and for us to recognize this?

[Catherine Lefebvre]

Yes, absolutely.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

I'll come back to poaching. Everything seems to have worked out well for you in some respects. From what I understand, there seems to be some concern about spring 2022.

In my riding, I've seen producers lose workers to manufacturers—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

I'm sorry for interrupting, Mr. Lehoux, but your time is up.

We'll now hear from Mrs. Valdez for five minutes.

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

Good afternoon, colleagues, Chair, and thank you to all the witnesses who are here to share their perspective on the matters at hand.

I too have questions related to resilience. This question is for the Quebec Produce Growers Association.

As you know, farming operations need to embrace innovation so they can remain competitive. Can you describe what innovations have been leveraged during these times to assist with supply chain?

[Catherine Lefebvre]

We have a vegetable innovation fund that is taking shape. This fund will be used only for research to produce field vegetables.

We are currently limited in what we can offer our members, but this project will change everything.

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

Thank you for answering that.

Are there any other witnesses who want to answer that question?

If not, I'll move on to my next question.

This is open to all witnesses. I'm curious to hear what type of business risk management tools your organizations, or members within your organization, have adopted to become more resilient?

[Katie Ward]

I would be happy to respond.

I know that when the committee did a study at the beginning of the pandemic on AgriStability, we were quite enthusiastic about the possibility of removing the reference margin and making the program much more valuable to farmers.

We've seen over the past year, with the absolute upheaval with weather affecting production, from northern Ontario, everywhere west, that AgriStability and AgriRecovery have been absolutely key for farmers to be able to just maintain a toehold, frankly. Without them, I think that the situation on our farms and our ranches would be orders of magnitude worse. We need to do everything we can to maintain access to those programs for farmers, and to improve access.

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

Thank you, Ms. Ward.

Does anyone else want to comment on the BRM tools?

[Ron Lemaire]

Perhaps I could go back to your question on innovation quickly, if that would be all right.

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

Yes, that's fine. Thank you.

[Ron Lemaire]

I just want to note that one of the comments we have seen throughout our industry is the strain on the market and part of the challenge is lack of investment on innovation because of the challenges around the pandemic.

That is part of the issue we're dealing with. It is not a lack of interest, but everyone within the supply chain from growers right through to retail are looking at that complexity of labour, which we heard through testimony, the complexity of all the attributes that are causing challenges in getting product to the consumer.

The innovation side is secondary in some ways. It's just a matter of, especially for our fruit and vegetable world where you sell it or smell it, wanting to get the product off the farm and into the truck, if they have a truck, across the border—at this point we aren't in full production, but if it's greenhouses, it's likewise—and then into a warehouse. In some cases it's the warehouse not having enough labour to get the product into the store and then not having enough labour in the store to get it on the shelves to the consumer. All those pieces come into play.

Guy didn't have an opportunity to talk to the increase in cost. I will just note that from our sector, operations like Guy's have seen a 16% minimum increase in cost, so the 5% food inflation number we heard in January, we can expect the numbers from the fresh fruit and vegetable perspective to be much higher coming down the pike.