Agriculture Committee on June 5th, 2023

[John de Bruyn]

It's a great question.

I think the first comment would be that biosecurity is not an on-and-off thing. It's a standard that just keeps increasing. The way I operate my farm today is way different from when I started. We always make improvements to biosecurity, and there is a lot of room for research in that area. There are new technologies being developed in other areas, in other fields of study, that I think our industry could maybe latch on to and improve our biosecurity.

It's a state of mind. If you're a farmer, biosecurity is a bit of a state of mind. There are these invisible lines in my barn that I just don't cross without changing my boots and coveralls.

It's all of those things.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Do you want to add anything, Ms. Terpstra?

[Tara Terpstra]

I think you need to remember that we're all family farms, so our children also follow biosecurity. They're trained even at a young age on where they're to go and not to go. Yes, it's to be flexible, because my operation is very different from even my next-door neighbour's or John's.

Thank you.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Back on May 16, 2019, Mr. MacGregor had an exchange with you, Mr. Roy, from the Canadian Pork Council, regarding the spread of wild boar across Canada over the past 30 years.

Mr. Roy, you were saying that African swine fever in pork livestock versus the wild boar population isn't that different and that there is definitely a threat to livestock when wild boar populations come prowling out of the forest.

Can you talk about what risks these animals pose to farmed pork? Also, have you noticed an influx in wild populations posing a threat to your farmed pork over the past four years, since that exchange with Mr. MacGregor? You talked about the relationships with the government, with Natural Resources Canada and Parks Canada. Can you elaborate on that?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Unfortunately, you have about 20 seconds. Mr. Johns will have another crack at it.

[René Roy]

There is a threat, because the wild pig population can become a pool of the disease if the disease enters into the wild pig population. If we don't take care of it, the wild pig population will grow.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. Johns.

Thank you, Mr. Roy.

We'll go to Mr. Steinley.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'll do some rapid-fire questions.

This is for Animal Health Canada: How would the Ontario swine research barn support animal biodiversity preparedness? What would be some of the outcomes you would expect to see from the swine research barn?

[Colleen McElwain]

For biosecurity, on what they could do and what has happened in some other research projects, too, is things like swabbing of materials that come in and out of the barn. They can put tracers and map where, say, a potential pathogen might have moved through a barn. That might be one way that a research barn or facility could be used to help do research on biosecurity.

Some of the research has been done not necessarily in Ontario but in Quebec. They were on farm and actually assessed poultry industry practices with the farms to understand what they thought they were doing and how it was actually working. They used video cameras and came back to the producers and talked to them about what worked and didn't work and where they failed, because it also helps with best practice adoption and awareness building to build those knowledge transfer tools based on the research. It's about taking the research and putting it into common everyday practice to support—

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

That's perfect. I have only a few minutes, and I have another couple of questions.

I'm going to piggyback off Mr. Johns here and talk about wild boar.

In Saskatchewan, wild boar is a fairly substantive issue. In fact, I was reading that in a 90-kilometre circle around the city of Melfort, there are more wild boar than in all the rest of Canada.

My question would be for someone from the Pork Council. Do you have an idea of how much interbreeding is going on between domestic hogs and wild boar? Is that going to be a new invasive species?

[René Roy]

Yes, we've heard that there is some inbreeding. We are not experts on wild pigs and we don't have the details of the locations of all these sounders. We know we have to eradicate an invasive species before it gets worse and gets out of control.

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

Have you had conversations with the minister in regard to some of the wild boar issues? I know that the Government of Saskatchewan, to help with this problem, has now put an extra $200,000 into the 2022 budget. The problem is only getting bigger in my home province. Have you had conversations with the minister and actually relayed how serious a problem this is in specific areas in the country?

[René Roy]

The provinces are also involved in the effort for eradication, so it's done at both levels.

We have made requests to find solutions. However, there is also a lot of collaboration that has to happen because of this interprovincial...and also between the two jurisdictions.

Yes, there is work that is done mainly at the provincial level, but collaboration has happened at the country level.

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

To Animal Health Canada, have we had more conversations with the minister about a vaccine bank, and where are those conversations at? Is there any provincial co-operation on a vaccine bank coming to fruition in the near future?

[Colleen McElwain]

To clarify, are you talking about foot-and-mouth disease or African swine fever?

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

I mean foot-and-mouth disease.

[Colleen McElwain]

At this stage, the development of a vaccine bank is being led by CFIA.

Animal Health Canada's role will be on the implementation. Basically, once we have that bank, how do we get it to the animals, should we need it? What's the process? What's the decision-making, and how does that work? It would be a multi-stakeholder, very resource-heavy activity to do.

When it comes to that FPT or federal-provincial-territorial conversation, my understanding is that this is sitting with the regulatory assistant deputy ministers. Unfortunately, I'm not a part of those conversations.

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

Did they give you any timelines? You said that you're going to help with the rollout if the vaccine bank comes to fruition. Have they given you any timelines on when that might be a possibility?

[Colleen McElwain]

They have not specifically. I know it is a high priority for them and they are actively working on it now.

Actually, my next step is to meet with CFIA in the very near term. I have a meeting scheduled with our chief veterinary officer to get a sense of those timelines and where Animal Health Canada can take the work it's already doing on the implementation to make sure that it remains complementary on both sides.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you very much to you both.

We'll now go to Mr. Louis for up to five minutes.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I want to thank all of the witnesses for being here and displaying the importance of the sector to our economy, including the importance to my riding of Kitchener—Conestoga. I mentioned before that it is home to Conestoga Meats, one of the largest pork producers in Ontario.

We heard in opening statements and from other witnesses, and I believe we can all agree, that producers, feed manufacturers, researchers, processors and governments at all levels all need to work together to ensure the safety of pork products and at the same time promote positive animal welfare outcomes.

I could start by directing my questions to the Canadian Pork Council.

Mr. Roy and Madame Cameron, you touched on the Canadian pork excellence platform, which has three components. You mentioned the traceability as a component.

There's also PigSafe, the food safety and biosecurity component of Canadian pork excellence, and PigCare, the animal care component.

I wonder if you could expand on those two as well, and anything you want to add about traceability.

[Audrey Cameron]

The Canadian pork excellence platform, as you said, includes the traceability, PigTrace; PigSafe and food safety; and animal care, which is the PigCare program. Those programs include biosecurity.

I would like to mention an additional program that we've been working on, the Canadian swine biosecurity best practices, which is a standard for biosecurity. Multiple tools have to be developed, as well, as part of this program.

I could also add compartmentalization to this. Compartmentalization is an additional tool. This is a little more complex. We have zoning, which is led by CFIA, and then industry needs compartmentalization as well.

I can come back to traceability, which would be with biosecurity. They are our two most important tools for ASF under the Canadian pork excellence platform.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

That would be great. Thank you.

In the interest of thoroughness, if it's possible, you could table a report or share that with the committee so that we can use it for our report. That would be very helpful.

I want to touch base also, while we're talking about it, on technology, which is good for the welfare of animals. It will ensure our food safety and increase our competitiveness in world markets.

In my region, there is a company called P&P Optica. It says it is an “automated solution for [food] safety and quality inspection” at the same time. They're working to find “low-density contaminants” and they can “measure [meat] quality at the same time...without compromising detection.”

What kind of technology and improvements can we adopt, how is that data shared, and what can we do to share those best practices?

[René Roy]

We have a special list. I would propose that Mr. Bertinotti provide some examples of technologies that we have available, or maybe Mr. Fréchette wants to say a couple of words, because he's a specialist in this.

[Yvan Fréchette]

Thank you.

For us to be able to export 70% of our pork, the quality of which is recognized, we have to complete documents in which we state that the animals are free of contaminants. Since we live in the digital era, we would like those paper documents to be replaced by mobile applications on our cell phones and tablets, for example. These documents have to follow the animals from farm to farm or from farm to slaughterhouse. They are paper documents, which can cause confusion when someone is sick or a transporter cancels at the last minute, for example.

Since we live in the digital era, we should design applications somewhat like what Ms. Cameron said about traceability in Canada. We have a team that could work on this in cooperation with outside consultants to design mobile applications. That would prevent errors and enable us to sign documents electronically, somewhat as we do at home when we receive a package via Purolator.