Agriculture Committee on March 21st, 2022

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

We are committed to providing the details during the first year. It might be when the budget is announced, or in the fall economic and fiscal update. That remains to be seen.

Nonetheless, I think producers and processors can rest assured. In the case of dairy producers, they received their third payment very recently, in January and February. They already know the amount of the fourth payment, and it is agreed that the compensation payments in connection with the Canada—United States—Mexico Agreement will follow. So that guarantees them predictability.

For poultry and egg producers and for processors, funds are already available for the first two agreements, under investment programs. So they can already count on predictability. As well, that gives us more time to hold discussions and clarify the terms relating to the compensation payments resulting from the Canada—United States—Mexico Agreement.

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

Thank you for the answer.

I am pleased to hear you talk about processors. Does that mean that they are included in this compensation process, even though they are not expressly mentioned?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Yes, absolutely.

All of the programs relating to the agreements signed with Europe and the Asia-Pacific zone cover producers and processors. The same will be true for compensation payments relating to CUSMA.

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

So there are formal commitments. Thank you for that.

I would like to talk about the question of labour. In the budget, there is reference to the Youth Employment and Skills Strategy.

Have funds been planned for this? Have the steps been determined that are needed in order to quickly adopt emergency measures relating to the Temporary Foreign Worker Program, measures that have been proposed by people in the food processing industry?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Yes, the question of labour is critical for the agricultural sector and for the food processing industry, clearly.

Proposals have been made, and I have had productive discussions with Ms. Qualtrough and Mr. Fraser.

I can assure you that there has been progress in this regard. I am persuaded that we will be improving our programs, both the programs for processors and that apply to processing plants and the ones for our agricultural producers.

In particular, I am thinking of a mechanism that would recognize trusted employers.

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

Right.

You know we are very open to your proposals and we want things to move forward quickly. I don't need to tell you that.

I would now like to talk about the assistance measures you have announced concerning processors of supply-managed products.

Do those assistance measures apply to the research and development sector? Is the objective to fill the new gaps or limitations we have observed in CUSMA in particular?

Can you give me any information on that?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Those are actually investment programs. They are grants to help processors modernize their facilities or digitize them, for example. That will enable them to be more competitive in the circumstances. It is one way of providing a partial answer to the labour shortage.

So they are investment programs intended to improve their productivity.

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

Might there be something similar in the food processing industry? In the course of our work, the committee has noticed significant under-investment in agri-food processing plants in Canada.

Can we hope that money will be provided to meet the needs in this area?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

First, what we were talking about just now really was about producers of supply-managed products. Second, when it comes to investment programs for processing more broadly, that would actually fall under the Canadian Agricultural Partnership [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. Perron, and thank you, Minister.

Mr. MacGregor, you have the floor for six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Welcome back, Minister. I think the last time we had you before our committee was in June of last year, so it's good to have you here.

I wanted to follow up on the line of questioning from my colleague, Mr. Barlow, regarding P.E.I. potato farmers. I met with them earlier this month and, suffice it to say, they are quite unhappy with the current situation. I'm sure you very much understand that.

On the question that he was about to ask you regarding retaliation against the Americans, if you look at the state of Idaho in particular, they're having problems with nematodes. We asked this line of questioning of your government before, when it came to China's blocking imports of Canadian canola seed. There seems to be this aversion in your government to taking that next step, following through and letting our foreign competitors know that we mean business.

Have you ever entertained the thought of bringing sanctions against American agricultural imports, to let them know that this is a two-way street and that we need to have a relationship that's based on mutual respect?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Absolutely. I've been working on this file, as my whole team has, for months. We really care, and we're doing everything we can to reopen the border.

We have to live with potato wart on the island. I still believe that we have a very strong scientific case that what is in the Canadian ministerial order is the responsible thing to do, and the Americans should be reassured by these procedures.

I can see progress at the technical table. I have direct communication with Secretary Vilsack. Yes, all options could be on the table at a certain point.

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

They could be, but are they? Have you ever considered following through? I'm talking about retaliatory measures against—

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Yes. We are looking at all options: retaliation, the WTO and CUSMA. We're looking at these options.

This is a timing issue right now; producers need to make decisions for this season.

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

Yes. They're going to be planting in May.

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Exactly. I know that, but if we turn off the discussion at the technical table to enter into a trade challenge, we will have no hope for this season, because it will take longer.

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

You might have representatives from the State of Idaho starting to voice concerns to the executive branch of the American government. That's what you might have happen.

The other thing I really want to know about is how we are going to learn lessons from this whole debacle. How are we going to ensure that when we have another outbreak, there are good measures in place to contain it? How do we ensure that the people in the places where seed potatoes are going understand that this is not a province-wide problem, that it's contained and that they should be assured of the containment? I don't want us in another couple of years to see an entire provincial industry affected because of a few test fields.

How are we learning lessons from this, Minister?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

We are proceeding with 35,000 soil analyses right now. We have to do a deeper analysis of the situation to be able to map in the right way where the disease is. Following this, we will know more, and we will probably have to strengthen the management side to avoid what you are describing right now.

If I may take two seconds to complete my previous response, we are looking at the situation with Idaho, and we are looking at the situation with the other Canadian provinces that supply potatoes. I can assure you that we are looking at the pros and cons of different options, including different trade challenges and retaliation measures. We're looking at it with Minister Ng, but I'm still confident that the technical table is the place to get a timely decision.

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

Those farmers are watching this live right now, I bet, and they need to have a strong signal about how we're going to resolve this pretty soon.

I want to change tack in my last minute and a half. In his mandate letter, the Prime Minister asked you to work with integrating climate risk management, which flows to our business risk management programs.

I know that in the next policy framework, this is going to be a key thing, but I want to know—because I've asked this question before—if your department has made any calculations as to what the future costs of climate disasters are going to be. You were in British Columbia recently, standing side by side with Minister Popham. That was a huge package, but how much more future tax revenue are we prepared to spend to help farmers out on this?

Is there some kind of cost accounting of the strain climate disasters are going to put on the business risk management programs in the next year, the year after that and the next decade?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Yes, we are working on this, particularly for B.C.

The Prime Minister has put in place a committee with a certain number of federal and provincial ministers working together. At this table, we are going into the details of investigating what the future could look like and what the impact could be. Meanwhile, I am having discussions with my provincial and territorial colleagues on how we can improve the business risk management to be in a better position to face the new types of risk associated with climate change, but also how we can maybe use it to incentivize producers to be more resilient.

We're trying to work on different fronts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you very much to both of you.

We'll move now to Mr. Epp for five minutes.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's good to see you in person, Minister.

Do you believe that P.E.I. is infested with potato wart, and do you believe that growers will plant this spring?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Yes, I believe they will plant this year.

I don't expect the opening of the U.S. market for seed potato for this year. I think they all know that already. For table-stock potatoes, I am still confident that we will be able to find a path forward to send our safe, good table-stock potatoes to the U.S.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

On March 8, one of the largest retailers in Canada sent an email to one of the processors in my riding, saying that in the event a CP labour dispute causes service interruptions, it is their expectation that freight will continue to be delivered on time to service their stores and customers. They also said there would be no exemptions for fining due to late purchase orders as a result of any rail issues.

Well in advance of a potential lockout or strike, there were already threatening letters to our suppliers from our retailers, with no acknowledgement for additional costs.

Can you tell this group when you expect a grocery code of conduct to be in place?

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

We will receive, by the end of the month, concrete recommendations from the committee. This is what we expect.

As you know, following the last FPT meeting, Minister Lamontagne and I are co-chairing the committee.... We provide administrative support to the industry to work together, and we expect them to come to a joint proposed voluntary code of conduct. We expect to have a concrete recommendation by the end of the month.