Agriculture Committee on Feb. 15th, 2024

[Jeffrey Walsh]

Yes, that's correct.

The CRA treats it as residential even though we can't rent it out to the guys. It's treated differently from the way it would be treated if it was a cold storage building, a barn or any other infrastructure for the farm. It's just treated differently, and when I was building it, a lot of growers in our area were building them too, and we all assumed that there would be an HST rebate on it like any other commercial expense.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

You mentioned access to farm input tools. I'll say pesticides and pest management products. I certainly concur. I know many around this table would too, but just quickly on research, part of what has made the Nova Scotia apple industry so competitive is the Honeycrisp apple, which I know has been a high-value product for our province and indeed across the country. Research is important.

The government is putting a lot of money into research, including for GHG emission reduction, but how important is it that it's not just about environmental research but about trade competitiveness as well?

Be quick, given the time.

[Jeffrey Walsh]

On pest protection, the PMC needs to go out and find the data to give to the PMRA. If we lose some of these chemistries, we are going to be in a huge mess. We won't have to worry about putting apples in bags, because there will be no apples to put in the bags. It's very important that PMC and PMRA be funded accordingly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being with us today.

Ms. Lefebvre, I'm going to continue on the same subject as I discussed with Mr. Drouin. You spoke to us on the very interesting topic of reform. That's the purpose of this study; it's the alarm that you sounded early last summer. However, we still haven't had a response from the federal government, and we obviously want one.

When you talked about the "agri-disaster" program, you clearly explained that AgriRecovery doesn't cover the remaining 70%. How do you think it would be possible to introduce that program in short order?

Do you have a written recommendation that you could send to the committee?

[Catherine Lefebvre]

I'm going to put the question to Ms. Lessard, from the association's agronomy sector. I'm sure we have documents we could provide you with. We've had many meetings with representatives of Financière agricole du Québec. We definitely have information that we can send you.

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

You have to understand that it's urgent.

Have any members of your association talked about getting out of production this year?

[Catherine Lefebvre]

They've done more than talk about it. Some got out of production in the fall. We were involved in the reporting on La semaine verte, which was broadcast last Sunday. Two farmers have left the sector, and another is thinking about it. A lot of farmers are reducing the acreage of their fruit and vegetable production.

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

What are the farmers who reduced the size of their fruit and vegetable production doing now? Are they leaving their fields fallow? Are they doing something else?

[Catherine Lefebvre]

They're leasing their fields to other field crop producers or cultivating them themselves. It depends on their equipment.

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

If we keep telling producers to invest millions of dollars in their fields in early summer but then that they're on their own in July if they run into trouble, they'll go and do something else; they'll opt for less complex crops.

Is that a correct interpretation of your remarks?

[Catherine Lefebvre]

Yes, you accurately interpreted them.

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

This is a major problem.

We're talking about food security and quality products that are subject to a lot of environmental requirements and standards concerning the use of pesticides and herbicides and so on.

What can you tell us about what we import with regard to the reciprocity of standards?

[Patrice Léger Bourgoin]

One thing is clear, and that's that we're seeing a new and unfortunate trend toward private standards on which governments have no say. We've cited numerous examples during meetings before the committee.

As you know, listed companies increasingly have ESG standards. Most of the major grocery chains doing business with Canada have them. I encourage you, over coffee on a Sunday morning, to peruse the 50-or-so-page reports of each of the major chains.

The question you have to ask yourself after reviewing those documents is this: If they're applying everything that's described in those documents, how is it that carrots from China are being consumed in Canada in October and November, when the refrigerators of Ontario and Quebec producers are full?

As the saying goes, you've got to walk the walk.

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

Do you have any concerns?

Do we have any information about the pesticides and herbicides being used to grow those carrots?

[Patrice Léger Bourgoin]

Take the United States as an example. The U.S. prohibits Chinese carrots from entering the country unless it's having a shortage. It's afraid that diseases will spread across the U.S. We discussed this a little earlier today.

Why aren't diseases a food safety issue for Canada? As far as I know, no diseases pass through customs.

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

I discussed this issue with Mr. Lemaire earlier.

If products from outside Canada don't meet Canadian standards, shouldn't we impose tariffs on them or at least prohibit their entry? What do you think about that?

[Catherine Lefebvre]

First, you'd have to conduct more inspections. That's basically it. A very small number of inspections are conducted in customs.

Second, in Canada, we really rely on societal and environmental standards that don't have any scientific basis, for example. That's really a disadvantage relative to importer countries.

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

If we impose standards, there would have to be more support. This goes back to what we said earlier about Europe, where there are more payments.

I'd like to ask you some questions about product certification. Recently there was a whole saga about linuron. The product had changed slightly and was approved in the United States. Canada took a long time to approve the product, as a result of which producers weren't able to produce and we imported carrots containing that same product.

What's the solution to this problem? Would harmonizing our regulations with those of the United States be conceivable if we don't want to lower our quality standards?

[Catherine Lefebvre]

It's not just the United States. I'm thinking about what's happening with beets and the pesticide Nortron, as well as the problems we had with PMRA.

The beets on the Canadian market come from Mexico. Mexico has no problem using the herbicide Betamix, the former product, or the new pesticide Nortron. Since Mexico doesn't regulate pesticides to the same degree we do, the competition between us is gradually increasing, and we have fewer and fewer options for producing at reasonable cost.

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

So we need resources in order to certify products more promptly.

Is that correct?

[Catherine Lefebvre]

Yes, that's correct.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you very much, Mr. Perron and Ms. Lefebvre.

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would like to thank all the witnesses for being here and for helping guide our committee through this study.

Ms. Pfenning, I would like to start with you and the National Farmers Union.

It is a fact that extreme weather events driven by climate change are going to come with more frequency and more severity in our future. We know that farmers are on the front lines of that. I have spent six years on this committee and I have often heard farmers say that they are on the front lines of climate change.

There are some particularly worrisome trends coming our way. I know there is a lot of concern on the Prairies for this upcoming summer because of low snowpacks and precipitation levels.

I have always had my work on this committee guided by the theme of establishing resiliency. I know farmers are very wary of an “Ottawa knows best” approach, but there are farmers who are showing us the way. I think it's the job of this committee and indeed of all parliamentarians to find those farmers who are leading the way, put them up on a pedestal and help them spread the knowledge.

I was very taken by your mention of a Canadian farm resilience agency. Would you mind expanding a little on that? How do you think this committee should tailor its recommendation to that effect?

[Jennifer Pfenning]

Thank you very much for the question.

I want to say thank you again for taking the time to study this issue.

A Canadian farm resilience agency would be a comprehensive way of supporting farmers' resilience.

I appreciate that you recognize that farmers are very independent. We don't want handouts and we don't want to be dependent on Ottawa to give us what we need; however, we need programs, systems and regulations that support our ability to do what we do best, which is grow food.

When we're talking about the knowledge and research that's required to adapt to the changing climate and increased impacts from wilder weather, it needs to come from a space that is not attached to a sales pitch. Right now, most of the information that we have access to for new research, new products or new ways of doing things comes from an agribusiness source that attaches a sales pitch to the information.

One key piece of the CFRA would be offering information and making it accessible to farmers across the country. It would be developed on farms by farmers and by publicly funded researchers. It would be an agronomy base that would be in the best interests of the country and serve Canadians, not a business that is making a profit off of it.