Agriculture Committee on May 17th, 2023

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

Is the amount you just gave us only for the on‑farm climate action component?

[Stefanie Beck]

It's for climate change in general.

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

I was talking about that specific program.

[Stefanie Beck]

As there are many and differing needs, we seek to develop programs that, while not covering all possibilities, will at least address the needs of various producers and regions of Canada.

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

Very well, thank you very much.

Can you tell me about temporary foreign workers, or are you going to tell me that your department is not responsible for this file? We've long been promised an in‑depth reform of the temporary foreign worker program. Producers are having great difficulty hiring temporary foreign workers.

Can you tell me when the government will make an announcement on the trusted employer program? The intentions seem good and noble, but people have been waiting a long time for this program to be implemented.

[Stefanie Beck]

Unfortunately, no date has been finalized. You are right when you say that the department is not responsible for this file. We are, however, developing our own strategy for agricultural workers. Of course, this includes people from abroad, who are needed all over the country, not just in Quebec.

We have also consulted various producers, farmers and processors, among others, on this topic. Interesting points arose from these discussions. For example, we asked them whether temporary foreign workers should have a specific visa to work at a particular plant or company. Some said yes, while others said no.

Once the person has arrived in Canada, he or she might work in a specific sector for six months, which equates to one season. But what could they do for the rest of the year? I'd say there's a diversity of opinion on that.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Thank you very much, Mr. Perron.

Thanks, Ms. Beck.

Now we go to Ms. Collins for six minutes, please.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I want to thank all the witnesses and our officials for being here.

My first questions are for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Back in February, my colleague Alistair MacGregor presented a petition with more than 36,000 signatures to the House, calling for a ban on exporting live horses for slaughter. There was a huge outpouring of support from Canadians across the country. It was in the top 20 for the highest number of signatures ever for any petition to the House of Commons.

The government responded on March 29. Presumably, officials from CFIA had some involvement in the drafting of that response.

The last paragraph states:

To conclude this answer, the Government would like to thank petitioners for this opportunity to reiterate that the Government takes the issue of animal welfare seriously. We remain engaged in working diligently to implement the mandate letter commitment to ban the live export of horses for slaughter.

I'm curious as to whether the department officials can share with the committee what the holdup is with implementing this section of the Prime Minister's mandate letter to the minister.

[Sylvie Lapointe]

We are taking very seriously the mandate commitment that is in Minister Bibeau's letter. We are continuing to analyze and look at ways forward. We will be getting back to members as soon as we can on this one.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

Do we have any sense of a timeline?

[Sylvie Lapointe]

I don't think I would be able to commit to a timeline, but I can certainly say that while we are looking into how we can implement that mandate commitment, the CFIA continues to hold very high animal welfare standards and to inspect all the shipments using measures that are in place that are based on very strong science international standards.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

On that note, also in February, four days after my colleague presented this petition, Animal Justice sent a letter to the minister, signed by eight other organizations, bringing it to her attention that a shipment of live horses had been transported out of Winnipeg on December 12, 2022. The letter talked about how the duration of travel had been far beyond the 28-hour limit for live animal transport. At least three horses had collapsed and died during transport. They also noted that CFIA had been alerted to this and responded, acknowledging that the 28-hour limit was not met.

If you are committed to animal welfare and you continue to state that you're reminding the parties involved about their responsibilities, why is it that this practice continues to happen? Why is it that the CFIA allows this to happen?

[Philippe Morel]

On this one, if my recollection is appropriate.... When horses are boarded onto a plane, we ensure that we have the travel trajectory and that the time of arrival is less than 28 hours, or else they have to stop and be fed, watered and rested. Sometimes it happens that there are weather issues or plane issues. If I recall correctly, this plane had to land in Alaska for a couple of hours for refuelling and some repairs. After that, it left for Japan.

It was an exceptional situation, but we make sure that before they leave they have the right plan to—

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I'm going to interrupt for a moment, just to clarify.

Before leaving from Winnipeg, they were delayed by 16.5 hours. There was no way the 28-hour limit would be met by the time they flew out. Those involved proceeded with the shipment anyway. Then there were further delays in Seattle, resulting in an even longer journey.

This kind of arduous trip means that we lose animals, and it is extremely taxing on the other horses who do survive. How many times is this going to happen before CFIA steps in and takes measures to ground flights arranged by companies that are profiting off this practice?

[Philippe Morel]

I don't have with me the specifics of that flight, but I can assure you that we always have inspectors on site to ensure that the flight plans can be respected. If there are delays at the airport, it means that the horses should not be boarded on the plane. They have to be provided with feed and water and a place to rest before they are boarded for the trip to their destination, which has to take less than 28 hours.

[Laurel Collins, NDP, Victoria, BC]

That clearly didn't happen in this case.

Thousands of horses have been shipped since the minister received the mandate letter committing to a ban of these exports. I'm curious; other than this small number of companies that are profiting from the export of live horses, who else stands to benefit in this? Who are you consulting with? Who are the other stakeholders involved in ensuring that we rapidly ban the export of live horses?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Thanks, Ms. Collins. Your time is up.

I'm not sure if it would be Mr. Morel or Ms. Beck, but maybe you could give a quick answer, if you can, just so that Ms. Collins gets her response.

[Stefanie Beck]

Clearly, it's a very distressing circumstance that you're raising there. My colleagues at CFIA are obviously doing their best to inspect and make sure that horses are in good shape before they get on any kind of aircraft for travel abroad.

It is not a large industry, as you have already mentioned, so in terms of consultations, we've been reaching out all across the country to find out where the producers are and where the people who source the horses are. It's not, of course, just the transportation companies; it's where the horses come from initially. That is under way right now.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Thank you, Ms. Beck.

We have time for the final round.

I will go to the Conservatives for five minutes, please.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to go back, just for a second, and revisit the conversation around COOL. The U.S. Department of State has proposed new regulatory rules that are “voluntary-ish”. I'm wondering where we are with that discussion. I know that the WTO ruled in favour of us in the last COOL dispute that we had. Where are we on making sure we're on top of this and our producers aren't going to get hit with extra costs?

[Stefanie Beck]

We followed very closely—as, clearly, you did—and the moment the news came out of the United States, we were studying carefully what exactly the proposition was. We were looking right away to see what kind of impact that might have, on Canadian producers in particular.

I would note that our colleagues to the south, in Mexico, have similar concerns. In every case, we have raised these directly with our American counterparts. At the moment, we're actually working on the official formal response in consultation with all of the stakeholders. It will be a united response, if I can frame it that way.

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

Thank you very much.

I'm going to go back to the CFIA for a second.

Just to reiterate, I'm a 4-H kid. I grew up on a dairy and beef farm. Going to livestock shows was a huge part of my growing up and really learning more and more about agriculture. These volunteers who put on these shows.... Please review these traceability regs that you're putting forward, because it's going to shut down a lot of these shows.

The problem I see right now with part of what's going on in agriculture is that there is a disconnect between rural and urban Canadians. So many Canadians in Toronto, Regina and all urban centres really, for the first time, get to see animals and learn about animals at these smaller shows, and big shows such as the Toronto winter fair. It's something that's a really big part of our agriculture heritage.

To put these onerous new regulations on volunteers and these shows is going to be very taxing on them. You need to listen to their feedback. I think we can take a step back and review what's going on.

That's the final pitch from me.

Perhaps you could make a couple of comments on that, please, Ms. Lapointe.

[Sylvie Lapointe]

We are definitely very aware of the concerns that the fairs are raising, and we are actively working with them to find solutions.

I just want to say that traceability is incredibly important to prevent foreign animal diseases from coming in. Fairs are places where animals congregate and then return back to their farms, for example.

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

Thank you very much.

If you could table documents that show how much disease has been spread from fairs, that would be great.

This also has to do with producers who don't show. There are lots of producers who think that these renewed traceability regs are going to be onerous, as well.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Beck, we've heard all sorts of figures about chicken from Ukraine, and the committee would like to have them confirmed.

At present, we're told that over 700,000 kilograms of chicken from Ukraine have entered Canada.

Is that true? How much chicken comes from Ukraine?