Agriculture Committee on Nov. 30th, 2023

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I see.

Now, we've had droughts in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Over many years, we've had floods and fires in B.C. We've had a hurricane out east. We're dealing with too much rain in Quebec right now for the produce sector.

Are public servants...? I'm assuming the team is getting really good at doing this—unfortunately.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

We're at the time, Mr. Drouin.

However, Deputy Minister, I guess you can probably answer that relatively quickly.

[Stefanie Beck]

I'm going to say that yes, we are.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

We have two and half minutes for Monsieur Perron.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

For the benefit of committee members, I'd like to point out that I'm aware of the fact that AgriRecovery is a last-ditch program that is not designed for rapid action. That's why I said we had to go off the beaten path and introduce a specific program, as Quebec has done. Earlier, I was disappointed to hear that it was not currently being considered. However, the minister also told me earlier that he was still requesting more funds. Let's cross our fingers and hope that he's headed in the same direction as we are.

Ms. Beck, you said that no one was satisfied with the AgriRecovery program and that a working group would be looking into it. One of the requests from farm producers was about the insurance program, which was definitely not working properly. When more than half of the producers don't use a program, it means that it's inadequate. I'm very much aware of how a working group operates; it has to be renewed every five years, for one thing. That being the case, it should be established immediately.

Who's going to be on this working group? Will it be dealing strictly with issues pertaining to AgriRecovery or with all risk management programs linked to climate change?

[Stefanie Beck]

The working group will deal with all the programs, but the emphasis will definitely be on AgriRecovery. All the provinces and territories will be involved.

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

That's terrific.

I would imagine that everyone in that sector would also be involved, including the agricultural producers and federations.

Has the group already begun its work? Have you established a timetable?

[Stefanie Beck]

This small group was established when the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership began. We just assigned its terms of reference this week and have asked it, over the next few months, to provide us with some analyses and recommendations on what to do next.

I don' t know to what extent we are going to be able to make changes within the existing Canadian agricultural partnership framework, but we will look into what is possible. The group will certainly be consulting the appropriate people.

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

Thank you very much.

As for the discussions that were held earlier on plastics, we all agree on their elimination. The key, however, is to come up with possible substitutes.

You said earlier that there had been some spending on this. I'd like to hear about any further details.

[Stefanie Beck]

That area does not necessarily fall under our department. However, I note that Canadian companies are working on some innovation projects and that they are busy doing research on a number of products. For the time being, the research has been very small scale.

We fully expect that, with our colleagues and the various government programs, we will be able to broaden their field of research. However, that takes time, and time is a problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you very much, Mr. Perron.

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

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Deputy Minister, the Canada Grain Act review is a perennial question from me.

When former minister Marie-Claude Bibeau was before the committee in May, I asked her about this, and she did say that she was hoping to have an update or table the results of the review before Christmas. Tomorrow is December 1. If there's going to be any legislative review, that is, of course, of very real interest to the legislators of the House of Commons.

It's been a number of months. Can you provide us with an update of where we are and what the department's hoping to do? It's been a long time that we've been waiting for a substantive update on this file.

[Stefanie Beck]

In fact, I believe it's been years. That's my understanding.

As a department, we're doing everything we can to make sure that the minister is ready to table whenever circumstances permit. Lots of consultations have been done. There's been lots of reflection on what recommendations we should be putting in a new act.

I'm with the minister, the former minister. We live in hope.

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

Okay, thank you for that.

I've had the pleasure of touring the Summerland research centre twice now. It's fantastic to see the dedication of AAFC employees, and I know that in budget 2023 there was some funding to restore the aging research facilities, which are in urgent need of repair.

Can you quickly, in the 45 seconds that I have, give an overview of the general state of research centres? What are you expecting in terms of cost? Is there any danger in terms of laboratory safety and so on? I know they deal with a lot of very harmful pathogens and so on.

[Stefanie Beck]

I really want our ADM corporate to answer, because she came all this way, and this is what she is good at.

[Marie-Claude Guérard, Assistant Deputy Minister, Corporate Management Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Thank you very much.

We were really pleased in budget 2023 to get the $116 million to support the recapitalization of our infrastructure across the country.

Why don't we talk about the gap? There's still a remaining gap to maintain. We have over 2,000 buildings across the country, and I would say that we're still looking and working with a central agency first, to table our long-term capital plan for AAFC and to make sure that we are maintaining our infrastructure to do what we're good at, which is science.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you.

We'll go to the Tories for four minutes, please.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thanks, Chair.

We each have one question here, so we'll try to be quick.

This year's departmental plan shows a downward trend, certainly failing Canadian agriculture when it comes to resolving trade issues, and certainly when we see what's happening with beef and pork in Canada and the United Kingdom, for example, and India.

Can you table with the committee the metrics used to arrive at this year's 80% success rate? Is that possible? Just give a yes or no to maybe try to move quickly.

[Stefanie Beck]

We can table the report.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you.

Can you also table with the committee a list of tariff and non-tariff trade barriers Canada is facing with other countries, specifically on agriculture goods?

[Stefanie Beck]

That would take much longer, but we could come up with something.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you.

I'll pass it on to Mr. Lehoux.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for the representatives of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and it's related to the whole issue of foot-and-mouth disease vaccines for animals.

We know that there is a foot-and-mouth disease vaccine bank, and it currently stands at 250,000 doses. According to a number of assessments carried out by the agency, 2.5 million doses would be needed. That means that we have barely 10% of the required number of doses. An increase in this number was announced in the last budget, eight months ago. Where do we currently stand on this?

No tender calls have been launched to begin work on developing these vaccines.

Perhaps Dr. Kochhar, the agency's president, could answer my question.

[Dr. Harpreet S. Kochhar]

Thank you for your question.

I'll begin by saying that there has been a lot of progress on the foot-and-mouth disease vaccine bank. We have actually gone forward and requested information on who is capable of actually providing those vaccines to Canada in the quantity that we need. That is in progress at this point.

We have a $57.5-million investment. We have a plan in place by which we will identify who can supply us, and we'll establish that bank.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

I'm going to give the floor to Ms. Rood.