Agriculture Committee on Nov. 9th, 2023

[Dr. Raymond Reynen]

First—and most vets will agree—we would love to see a lot more plants all over the country. Pierre mentioned previously that we've lost a lot of plants over the years. That creates.... Especially with the haul to their end destination, that's a big concern.

Yes, we want them. They're valuable and we need them, but that's a slow fix for this problem.

Yes, please. That's another topic. Let's go down that path. Let's encourage more slaughter plants regionally, but I'm sure it takes a few years to approve and build slaughter plants.

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

Clearly that is not attainable in the short term, but we can give the government direction anyway.

As far as veterinary capacity in Canada is concerned, do you have any recommendations for the committee with respect to the inspections? I would ask you to be brief because my time is running out.

[Dr. Raymond Reynen]

I'd like some clarity on that question. Are you asking how we get more veterinarians doing inspections?

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

What I mean is that even if there are more plants, often it is the inspections and resources, such as people in your profession that may be lacking.

Do you have any advice or directive for the government that might help resolve this problem?

[Dr. Raymond Reynen]

There are two things. One is that we need to generate more veterinarians. The vet colleges—four out of the five—are going to increase their enrolment this year or next year, so we will have more people.

The other thing is that I think there are times when veterinarians and other trained professionals could work in tandem and not harm anything in the food chain and still get the work done.

Yes, we need veterinarians to make the final declaration on food quality, but there are other people who can help in that situation. The colleges are doing their job. We're going to have a lot more veterinarians in three or four or five years, but I also think there are ways to have other trained professionals help to make sure that—

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Thank you, Doctor. I didn't mean to cut you off. We were way past the time there. I think we got the gist of it.

Now we have Ms. Mathyssen for two and a half minutes, please.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

I was going to expand on that. Mr. Reynen, when you say “other trained professionals”, can you be more specific?

[Dr. Raymond Reynen]

The one I would probably go to really quickly is the RVT. They're the registered veterinary technicians. They already have a science background, but there are other ones you could use. There are other science education backgrounds that could be used, but the RVT, the registered veterinary technician, would be the one I would refer to immediately.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Okay.

Obviously we are all very concerned about animal welfare, and that's primary, but of course these regulations have also been put in place to protect the drivers and to protect people along that very busy 401, which I travel along too. If you're talking about all these emergency issues that come up, such as accidents, certainly you increase the potential for those accidents if you have a very tired driver.

Maybe CFA can comment—or anybody, really, who wants to jump in—on what could be required from the federal government as part of these transportation considerations to protect those drivers, even when asking for those exemptions, because a lot falls upon them.

Are there any additional recommendations to protect those drivers from employers or what have you to ensure that we find that flexibility while we're still looking at a greater overall public good and employee good?

[Pierre Lampron]

That is a very good question.

A few years ago, the United States implemented that type of on-duty driver exemption on review of the situation. It is very important for the drivers and for society. In the wake of that exemption, there was no significant increase in the number of accidents among livestock haulers in the United States.

I think we need to view these drivers differently because they have to pay more attention when they transport a load of living animals. They have living beings on board their vehicle and they are well aware of that. They have to be on heightened alert, in a way. We could certainly do something similar to what the United States did because they have not observed an increase in the number of accidents.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Absolutely.

[Corlena Patterson]

I'd love to jump in on that suggestion, because we absolutely don't want to impair the human health side of this. It is a “one health” approach in agriculture. The safety of drivers is very important.

We talk about delays at the beginning and end of trips. That time counts towards drive time, but it is not really drive time. Often, the drive time is the fatiguing part of the voyage for the driver. I grew up in an auction barn setting, so I've been in multiple-deck pot-belly trucks far too often.

The difference and challenge with ELDs versus paper-based is that when it was paper-based, when your truck was loaded, you marked and moved. The ELDs kick in at five miles an hour. The truck, in an auction barnyard or on a feedlot, may make multiple stops at multiple pens, and each of those stops kicks off their time. It starts their time and counts towards it. However, that whole loading event could be hours long.

We're teaching our truck drivers and handlers to respectfully load animals into those trailers. If you've seen them, you know they have to go up a ramp, down a ramp, up the ramp on the back side and back up this way. You can't do that quickly and ensure that animals are safe while they're getting on and off those trailers. You're slowly and cautiously loading animals and moving them from one loading ramp to the next to fill up your truck. For sheep, it's 400 animals on a trailer, and they may not all come from the same place. Now all of that time spent getting loaded is part of your drive time, whereas it wasn't with paper. Your drive time was this: “I'm loaded and heading out of the driveway.” That was the drive time.

I think that's where the difference comes in—it's where that ELD kicks off. We're not changing, I don't think, the total suggested drive time for trucks. Maybe we are. I could be mistaken there. I should have researched that better. However, the point is that there is a delay now, which gets captured. That's how long they've driven, and that's where we start to spark an issue.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Thanks, Ms. Patterson.

Thanks, Ms. Mathyssen.

Those were great questions, and great comments from our witnesses.

Thank you very much to the witnesses. We appreciate your being with us here today.

We will now suspend the meeting for a few minutes as we get the second panel on.

Thank you very much again, and we'll see you all very soon.

The meeting is suspended and witnesses are free to go.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

I call the meeting back to order.

I welcome our second panel of witnesses here today for our study on electronic logging device requirements and animal livestock transportation.

I'd like to welcome, from the Alberta Beekeepers Commission, Ron Greidanus, who is the Canadian Honey Council delegate and director.

Welcome, Ron. It's good to see you again.

From Thunder Bay, Ontario, from the the Barn Feed & Livestock Company, we have Andrew Livingston, president.

Andrew, welcome to our committee today. We're pleased to have you.

We will be inviting our two witnesses to give five minutes of opening remarks. Afterwards we will have a couple rounds of questions from our committee members.

Now we'll start with Mr. Greidanus for five minutes.

[Ron Greidanus, Canadian Honey Council Delegate and Director, Alberta Beekeepers Commission]

I want to thank the committee for taking the time to study this issue regarding electronic logs and for including the Alberta Beekeepers Commission. We bring a unique problem to the ELD requirements.

As many of you may know, I am a beekeeper here in Stettler, Alberta. I pollinate hybrid canola seed and I produce a tremendous amount of honey. We run about 3,600 hives.

Previously, my colleagues have covered many important points in previous presentations. My objective is to bring out the unique aspects of hauling honey bees and how hauling honey bees has similar challenges and concerns under the current regulations but is also quite different in terms of risk to public safety, which is not currently contemplated in the enforcement of regulations and the use of ELDs.

First, we will reiterate that the requests and recommendations put forth today are in regard to interprovincial movement of bees only. Movement of bees within a province is governed under the provincial acts.

Honeybees, like all livestock, are subject to the Health of Animals Act. While it may be strange to contemplate animal welfare in terms of honeybees, transit from one location to another is very stressful for the bees. Our primary concerns are the health and viability of the honey bees, the safety of the drivers and vehicles and the safety of the public. Perhaps it's important to articulate the distinction that when trucks hauling bees are stopped, the bees become a risk to the public in that general area, particularly if they're stopped in the middle of the day and it's hot.

In general, honeybees are moved for the following reasons: We move hives to fill fields for contract pollination. We move bees when we're receiving packages from overseas from the port of entry to the beekeeper's place of residence. We move bees back to where the farm is located after wintering in warmer climates.

During transport, we take the welfare of our bees and public safety very seriously. We recognize that regulations are important; however, in these cases regulations can have a negative impact on livestock and public safety.

To expand on that, when we're moving bees, we plan where we're going to get fuel, when we're going to get fuel, when we're going to stop and take a leak, and where we're going to stop and have a rest.

The Alberta Beekeepers Commission recommends amending the regulations to bring them into alignment with the regulations in the United States, which allow a radius of 150 air miles from origin or destination in unforeseen circumstances. Recognizing that this would take some time in the short term, we, along with the other sectors presenting at this committee, recommend the creation of a guidance document to be provided to the drivers and enforcement officers to provide greater clarity so that doing the right thing when the plan falls apart is not injudiciously punished. We're not asking for an exemption, but for flexibility and discretion when it comes to enforcement of hours.

Beekeepers need to load their trucks in the evening or in the early morning, when all the foragers that are in the hive are back in the hive. You don't want to load up a pile of hives and leave 90% of your bees out flying around so that when they come back, they're like, “What happened to our house?”

Most moving of bees happens at night, but on long hauls the trucks need.... In Canada, we have very short nights and very long days, so on long hauls you need to run your truck during daylight hours. This brings a unique danger to the travelling public. These trips are carefully planned and orchestrated with contingencies, as nothing ever goes according to plan, right down to where and when to refuel and what speed to drive and where you are going to go to the washroom if you have to do that.

Due to economies of scale, many beekeepers are using larger and larger equipment to move hives, packaged bees, and honey across this country. The need to move bees stems from a dependence on apis mellifera for food security and to make the industry more resilient in the face of winter losses.

More often than not, honey bees are hauled by the producer on self-owned equipment. Because we have to do the long hauls and we need to have the bees in a timely fashion, a lot of commercial carriers don't want to carry bees, so it's the beekeepers themselves who are doing the moving.

The Alberta Beekeepers Commission recommends changing section 2(1)(a) of the regulation, where it says “Application”, to reflect the current realities in agriculture. While most agriculture producers are now transporting with tractor-trailer units, a significant number of producers in the Prairies have expanded to the point that they operate across jurisdictional boundaries. Section 2(1)(a), which restricts it to two-axle and three-axle trucks, is too narrow a definition. Most commercial producers are driving equipment that is way bigger than that.

Our sectors and drivers want assurance that a threat to bee health viability and public safety is deemed an emergency situation. In the regulations, there is no definition for “emergency”. The definition of “adverse conditions” that expanded beyond traffic accidents or weather also includes situations such as delays by road closures, accidents, smoke, or whatever the case might be—weather and other unforeseen circumstances. At this point, no definition exists of what constitutes an emergency. Unforeseen circumstances that occur on the road may, in the mind of a producer, be an emergency, but not to an enforcement officer. That's a problem.

Moving bees during daylight hours and warm temperatures is doable. Stopping to refuel for even two minutes or to go to the washroom is not. Stopping represents a real and present danger to everyone else on the road. Bees want to fly when the sun is shining. Stopping for even a few minutes when the sun is shining presents a clear and very real danger to the travelling public.

The changes requested by the Alberta Beekeepers Commission would have a positive impact for beekeepers across Canada, such as Manitoba beekeepers moving their beehives to B.C. for wintering and Ontario beekeepers moving hives into the Maritimes for blueberry pollination.

I have a couple of personal anecdotes of unforeseen events that really messed with moving bees. If there's time, I would like to be able to read them into the record.

Thanks very much for your time.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Thank you, Mr. Greidanus.

I'm sure, during the questions, you'll have an opportunity to talk about some of the personal experiences you've had. I appreciate your testimony.

Now we'll move to Mr. Livingston.

You have five minutes for your opening comments.

[Andrew Livingston, President, The Barn Feed & Livestock Co. Inc.]

Thank you for having me here.

I'm Andy Livingston. My wife and I run the feed and water station in Thunder Bay called The Barn. We look after all the livestock going east and west. We're right in the centre of the country. We move about 240,000 to 250,000 animals through our place every year. It's a unique type of business. In layman's terms, it's a bed and breakfast for livestock.

The animals are brought in on semis, unloaded and put in pens where they have adequate feed and water and a place to lie down and rest. At the same time, the truckers house in their trucks, but we have a facility here that is similar to a truck stop. We have a kitchen, a washroom, showers, laundry and a common place for everybody to relax.

The average time here is about eight to nine hours, but since the ELDs have come in, we're seeing more and more drivers having to sit out a 36-hour rest period. When that happens, things get very complicated around here, because that pen is taken up for three to four shifts and nobody wants to pay the extra bills.

In my estimation, ELD and livestock should not go in the same sentence. These are live animals, and it's a long way from Clyde, Alberta, to Quebec City. When they have to get within an hour of here and stop for eight hours so that they can drive an hour to get here in order to stop for another eight hours, they're wasting a whole lot of time, and the driver's not making any money. He's out in no man's land. Everybody forgets about him.

It's not good for the animals to be sitting on the side of the road, only moving for an hour and then getting off the truck. If they're moving, get them to stop and get them off the truck so they can relax and take their time.

What we're seeing here is a lot more of an increase in mortality and injured animals by the time they get here. That's caused by the time frame they're under. They have to drive at a fairly steady pace and they can't afford to stop for 15 minutes to check their cattle because now, if they do that, they're not going to make their destination.

You should stop with a load of cattle. You should stop every three or four hours and take a quick peek at what's going on in the trailer behind you. Get any downers up, and rearrange where everybody's standing on the trailer if you have to. Those things all take time, and those 15 minutes here and 15 minutes there just take away from your total driving time.

In northern Ontario, you have 2,000 kilometres of two-lane highway. It's probably the worst highway in the world. It's just a disaster, with the freight haulers and the livestock haulers all trying to share the same road. With the ELDs, everybody is at 105 kilometres an hour because we have to make time—we have to make time. Time is the only thing that anybody considers. Throw a bit of a fender-bender in there or some weather, for example, and the road is closed. It's nothing for it to be closed for 18 hours at a time.

Our place here gets backed up with road closures. We have the capability to handle 22 straight loads of cattle, and we've had 38 loads in here at any given time because of road closures. Why are there road closures? It's because the ELDs are forcing people to drive erratically.

I drove a truck for a while and I know what it's all about, so I'm not a big fan of a machine telling me when to sleep and when to go to work. You do your own thing at your own pace and you make it work.

When COVID was here, we were one of the few organizations where these livestock trucks had a place to get something to eat and have a shower, whether they were empty going west or loaded going east. We did whatever we had to do to ensure all the drivers were taken care of and the livestock was looked after at the same time.

On the two-lane highway from West Hawk to North Bay, there are very few safe places, or even any places, just to pull in to rest. With all the local restaurants going out of business, they block off all the entrances, so there is no more truck parking. You're seeing more trucks parking on the side of the road or in what we call up here the snowplow turnarounds. You can put two or three trucks in. You maybe only have enough room for that and one guy's ass-end is still sticking out on the highway and somebody else comes along and hits him.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

Thanks, Mr. Livingston. That's your five minutes. You'll have lots of opportunity to add additional information in the question round.

We'll now move on to our questions. The first round will be Mr. Steinley for six minutes, please.

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

Thank you both very much for being here and talking about your real-life experiences, Andy and Ron.

Andy, I'd like you to finish your thought. One unintended consequence of the ELDs is not having that clarity around some of the unforeseen circumstances. We know truck drivers plan out their routes very thoroughly. It's not all a hodgepodge. They have everything quite planned out.

Could you finish your thought on the safety aspect of people parked on the side of the road up in your area by Thunder Bay and the unintended consequences of having those trucks parked on the side of the road? You talked about the potential for accidents and the safety hazards. Could you just go into a bit more detail when it comes to the safety hazards of parking on the side of the road when you're backed up at the barn?

[Andrew Livingston]

The safety hazards are tremendous. There is no place to park, and this road is not straight. It's up and down with hills and curves. If you have a truck parked at the bottom of a hill at the end of a two-lane passing and a guy comes over the top of the hill, all he sees are tail lights. The next thing you know, he runs right into it.

It's not safe for the animals for it to be standing on the edge of a road because the shoulders are so soft. Those animals wiggle and move when the trucks are parked. We've seen trucks lay over on the soft shoulder because of animal movement and because the guy's out of hours and had to stop.

The other thing is when you do find a place to park and you have a load of 110 freshly weaned calves in the back of that trailer that are all looking for a drink of milk, they are bellowing. Anybody else who's in the same area chases you out because you're disrupting the sleep of the freight drivers who are there.

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

Thank you very much. Those are good examples of the unintended consequences.

You said earlier that there are circumstances when a driver can be an hour from the barn and has to pull over, wait for eight hours on the side of the road and then drive an hour to have the livestock unloaded at the barn. That's a lot of extra stress. If you're able to finish that last hour off, you can get to the barn, have the livestock unloaded, let them have a rest, be fed and watered and get back on the road.

When it comes to animal safety, would that be a much better situation for those animals?

Walk us through how it would help to give those drivers, when there are unforeseen circumstances, a bit more leeway so they're not worried about getting a ticket and having their licence dinged if they do get stopped by the highway patrol.

Having the opportunity to just finish off that last hour or hour and a half and get those animals into comfort is what we're working toward here, with guiding principles that would ensure better outcomes for both the drivers and the animals.

[Andrew Livingston]

That's very true. When that driver drives an hour, he's already slept eight hours. If he drives an hour and then has to sit here for eight hours and then reload and go, he's burned nine hours of his clock because his clock was running.

Now, on a 16-hour window, he only has nine hours left to drive. He's actually going to be driving tired because he's been sitting around here doing nothing for eight hours when he could have been driving, if he hadn't had to sleep eight hours prior to that.

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

Perhaps the best thing we could say is that we just need a little more common sense when it comes to the approach in what we're doing with transporting livestock.

One of our panellists said earlier that transporting livestock is a lot different from transporting diapers or clothes. There are always going to be things that happen that you just can't plan for. One thing we've had a couple of people comment on is that there just need to be more logistics planning and more care taken in making a plan when you're transporting animals. I worked in an auction market for a while. Sometimes it just takes a little longer to load a trailer of some animals than it does others.

With your experience—you more than most—you run 230,000 to 250,000 head. Can you walk us through the times in a day when things just don't go as planned? Those are the unforeseen circumstances we're trying to take into account when it comes to making sure our drivers are making the right decisions.

[Andrew Livingston]

Nothing ever goes the way it's supposed to. The guy who said that it should all go this way is full of shit, because you can't do anything right when you're working with cows. Especially with cows, they've got a mind of their own and they're bigger than I am. They're going to do whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do it.

We take all the pride in the world in animal safety, plus human safety, but I've seen us load a load of cattle in 15 minutes and I've seen it take two hours to load a load of cattle. At that time, the driver has already moved his truck, and his clock is already ticking away. It's just a no-win situation for anybody.

When you go ahead.... You're moved around the yard and you didn't start doing anything until you pulled away from the chute. Then you draw your line and say, “Okay, I'm done doing this—it's time to start driving.” That's when the driving time starts.

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

Thank you very much, Andy. Thank you for all the work you do. We appreciate your being here today.