Agriculture Committee on Feb. 15th, 2024

[William Spurr]

As Stefan said before, nitrogen is the big one. Fertilizer is huge. It's gone up by, he said, 128%. I didn't have the numbers. I just knew right off the get-go that it was over 100%. For fertilizer for us, pesticides for us and labour for us, the costs keep on rising. If we need to make more affordable food, then we need to get the costs down.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I know that our chair sponsored Bill C-359 to address “provisional registration and approval” to ensure timely access to things like feed, seed and product. I certainly endorsed it as a co-signer with him. It is frustrating as a parliamentarian to see how slowly the bureaucratic process works sometimes. It's frustrating when you see things being utilized in the United States or Europe and we can't access them here for what could be two years.

Are there any examples that you could provide to us of those impediments?

[William Spurr]

Any time that we've had to deal with stuff like AgriStability, it's always a long time coming. It's usually two years for what we save when it comes through.

I don't know of any examples right off the top of my head, but it does need to come faster. Two years away is way too long. We're dealing with a lot right now, and to not have financial help in a timely manner is really not helpful.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I know there have been discussions on input tax credit, and concerns were raised by farming communities for necessary temporary foreign workers for labour, and we all know that labour is an issue in the farming community. How is the present input tax credit an obstacle to you at the present time, or what's the cost to you?

[William Spurr]

I'm not that familiar with it.

[Heath MacDonald, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

All right.

Some of these guests are yours, Mr. Chair, so if you want to take my last minute and a half, please do so.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

It's only a minute, but I will take it, given Mr. Spurr's here. I'd better not usurp my own colleagues as the chair.

Will, can you talk a little bit about food in school? I know that you talk about the ups and downs and the weather impacts that farmers are facing in the Annapolis Valley in particular. I know a lot of the conversation locally is about whether we can start to incorporate the idea in the institutional mind, thinking about schools and hospitals. I know this is a federal committee, but how important would it be to provide some stability to your growers if they had contracts with provincial agencies and they knew there was a consistent supply that they could continue to provide in the days ahead?

[William Spurr]

I think it's very important.

Our breakfast program has had a huge uptake. I have two kids in elementary school, and a lot of times I have fresh fruit to give them, and they'll eat that, and then they'll go to school and eat some more. There are a lot of kids out there who wouldn't have fresh fruit available to them, and it has a lot to do with cost.

I'm fortunate that I can grab a bag of apples and not care if they only eat half the apple, but a lot of people can't do that. When they can go to school and get fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, it's definitely really beneficial.

There are other industries too. I know that when wild blueberries.... There are a couple of other people who had a lot of inventory and were trying to get it into the hospitals. I think they eventually got in, but it took a very long time. If we could streamline that and have contracts, I think it would be very beneficial for both parties.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Yes, certainly this committee can maybe look at where the federal government's been involved in helping to support provinces.

Thank you, Mr. Spurr.

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.

Mr. Larrass, you discussed the asymmetrical regulatory framework. We're talking about the reciprocity of standards, and you cited a lot of good examples, such as grapes from Peru, blueberries from Chile and so on. So that's a problem.

How can we solve that problem? Do you have a specific recommendation you could make to the committee?

[Stefan Larrass]

Thank you, Mr. Perron.

Just to set the expectation clear, I don't think we're looking at changing or lowering the standards. That's not the message I want to convey.

There is no simple answer, but I'll offer that the European model is that they view their agricultural system as having a social contract with their government, and for every layer of additional expectations that is imposed on their domestic farming sector, there is a green portion of the funding, the green pillar of farm support funding, that the European government makes available to its farmers. The total amount of farm support from their income support that's responsive to production losses and income revenue losses, added to the green support, is more than twice what we have in Canada.

I'm not saying that we necessarily need to model that one, but I think it is an existing model in which the expectations on the farmers are accompanied by corresponding compensation, and it reflects a spirit of co-operation between government and the farming sector.

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

Thank you very much. That's a good answer.

I liked your introduction where you said this isn't about lowering quality or requirements. It's about fairness and adequate support.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in Europe if a product arrives from another country and doesn't meet the standards set for local producers, it can't enter the country.

Is that correct?

[Stefan Larrass]

I don't want to pretend to be an expert. I would be worried about Ron telling me.... He just came from Europe, and he would tell me that I'm wrong. I happen to have anecdotal information that they have high standards, for example, on genetically engineered content, and I imagine they have pretty rigorous standards on other aspects of what goes into their domestic food consumption system, but I don't want to speculate. I do believe, sir, in general, that the spirit is true.

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

I think we should reject a product that doesn't meet the standards we set for people here. That's the message I wanted to send.

Mr. Spurr, you discussed rising costs and climate change, two challenges to which you're very much exposed and for which you have no support. Current insurance programs don't cover those risks.

Would you please tell us more about that? Would you have any recommendations to make to the committee to solve the problem? How can we make adjustments accordingly?

In recent years, things have not gone well, for different reasons in each year. Consequently, we can't anticipate the circumstances of the next year. The objective of the committee's study stems from the challenge that climate change represents. We want to know how we can determine the actual nature of those risks. Perhaps more collective agricultural risk-sharing would help us produce a food supply based on local products and not depend on outside sources for our food.

What are your observations on the subject?

[William Spurr]

For us, AgriStability just doesn't work. The next time something can change in AgriStability will be in 2028. That's just too far away. We need a program in place until 2028, until we can get stuff figured out. We need something in place right now.

I think 13% of horticulture farmers in Nova Scotia are insured by the province. That's a very low number. Part of the reason is that the premiums are just too high. We need a program in place that works for Nova Scotia. We need help with the premiums. That's where I would say the greatest need is. We need the premiums. That just needs to be for a year or two until we can figure out the right system for us.

We had a terrible year last year. If we have another terrible year this year. It's not going to be good, so BRM is really important right now.

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

Thank you for your answer.

I agree with you when you say something has to be done right now. The Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership is very rigid and won't be amended until 2028. We'll have to wait and see the shape it takes, but producers have been demanding that for months.

I'm less familiar with the situation in Nova Scotia but I'm pretty sure it's similar to that of Quebec. Nothing has happened at the federal level, even with regard to the emergency loans granted through the Canada emergency business account, the CEBA. People requested that the deadline for repayment of their federal loans be extended to allow them some respite. They asked that they at least be granted that if the government did nothing else. The response was a flat refusal by the government.

In Quebec, the Quebec government granted access to no-interest emergency loans to assist producers. However, as the federal government required that the emergency loans it had granted be repaid, many producers used the money from the provincial government to repay their federal loans. They were caught up in a vicious circle and ultimately wound up with no assistance at all.

What clear message would you like to send, or what recommendation would you like to make to the government today?

[William Spurr]

I think it needs to be up to the province. You have to allocate the money, and then the province needs to work together to figure out what works best for them.

I know about just Nova Scotia. For Nova Scotia, what I can recommend is that we need something done right now. We can't wait any longer. The new uptake is going to be coming out in two months. It's not a lot of time, and we just need help with premiums. The premiums are too high.

We have a lot at stake. When we have one bad year, it's not the end of the world; when we have two bad years, a lot can happen. We need to have some insurances in place.

All I can really say is that we really need help with the premiums, just for a transition year or a couple of transition years until we can really figure out what works best for Nova Scotia.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Okay, we're going to keep it to that. Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. MacGregor.

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

Thank you very much, Chair.

I'd like to thank all witnesses for being here to guide our committee through this study.

Mr. Larrass, I'd like to start with you. I noted that in your opening comments, you referred to that 110% increase in the cost of diesel. I've been looking at the publicly available information on price fluctuations in diesel, and I assume you've seen that massive increase, probably since 2018 or 2019. Is that about correct?

[Stefan Larrass]

Yes, that's correct. The figures I'm quoting are compiled by the Ridgetown Campus of the University of Guelph. That's based on real data gathering of prices experienced by farmers.

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

What has that 110% increase done for your members? I'm assuming they're just taking that on the nose from all the transport costs.

[Stefan Larrass]

Absolutely. The extra costs essentially are absorbed by farmers.

Farmers obviously always try to pass on costs wherever they can. If you absorb every additional cost, obviously every additional cost would become a red figure in your books. Let's say that 75% are able to be passed on. You'll always have the competition factor from external factors as well as from imports, and so on. It's very rare that 100% of costs are passed on, so you will experience a net loss as a result of that diesel price increase.

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

Our committee is in receipt of publicly available data that shows that during the same time that you saw a 110% increase in your diesel costs, oil and gas companies saw their profits increase by over 1,000%. It's obvious that this kind of corporate greed is filtering through and really hurting our farmers.

In talking about inputs, I think this committee is hearing you quite clearly on the struggles that farmers are going through with the cost of inputs. We can talk about diesel and we can talk also about fertilizer.

In a previous study we had Keith Currie, the president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture appear here. He's a very familiar face at this committee and a great all round advocate for the industry. He made mention of the fact that it was very necessary for the federal government to step up to the plate and start talking about a critical input strategy.

We don't have any specifics on that, but do you have any opening thoughts on what you think such a strategy could include? Do you think that's a recommendation you'd like to see this committee pursue as part of its report?

[Stefan Larrass]

Absolutely. I don't want to venture too far into the details, but for our sector, inputs include not just things like fertilizer and diesel, but also crop protection products. I would say a holistic approach that includes everything that's needed to successfully grow fruits and vegetables in this country would include the items you've listed, and it would also include things like crop protection products, because it's so critical to our industry to have those inputs as well.

Yes, I believe there would be value to that, absolutely.