Agriculture Committee on Feb. 27th, 2024

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

If you have tangible proposals for improving existing programs, including AgriStability, we want to know. As far as interim payments and bureaucracy are concerned, there is likely a way to make improvements. I understand wanting to control spending and give money to someone who truly needs it, but there is certainly a way to conduct a review after the fact. If you have any good ideas to share with us in writing, we are always open to that. In fact, if you want to elaborate on the topic, I am all ears.

Do you believe that we should immediately come up with a way to review the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, which, unfortunately, does not come into effect until 2028? I think the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food could call an emergency meeting.

Could we not be flexible and quickly create a temporary pilot project, a climate change “agri-adaptability” program that would allow society to share some of the risk?

[Stéphanie Forcier]

Exactly, 2028 is a long way off if AgriRecovery is the only initiative being used in exceptional circumstances. AgriRecovery is like a joker: we can only use it once, even if we need it more than once. We hope 2024 will not be like 2023, but weather events are gaining speed.

If there are more crises by 2028 — I say “if”, but unfortunately it is a matter of when — farmers will have nothing. We have to come back to risk sharing. As you know, business risk management programs are shared 40-60 between both levels of government. However, there needs to be better mutualisation of risk between the farmers and the government. It is the question of the chicken and the egg. As I said, in the strawberry and raspberry industry, two out of three farmers are not signed up for crop insurance. Those who are protected by this insurance are protected against hail, it is not comprehensive insurance. I am thinking of a farmer who was insured against hail, but had to spend and extra $120,000 for a multi-risk insurance. That is a lot of money, especially since we are not talking about a multi-million dollar business.

As you know, the province has set up an emergency fund. There is $50,000 in working capital, but the farmer is asked to sign up for crop insurance. He is going to get $50,000 only to turn around and buy crop insurance, which means he is no further ahead. That is why there needs to be a pilot project to create an “agri-adaptability” initiative or “agri-disaster”. At the very least there needs to something more than the AgriRecovery initiative.

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

Okay.

What will the consequences be next summer? Compared to the 2023 season, there has already been a lot of water. Can we expect mould on the plants or the soil? Should a fungicide be used?

[Stéphanie Forcier]

In our sector, we talk a lot about perennials, the strawberries and raspberries. There are also day neutral plants that are planted every year. Our fear is that the raspberry plants will be mouldy and rotting again in 2024, 2025 and 2026. For these producers there will be yield loss this summer.

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

Okay, thank you very much.

That means we need more than just the AgriRecovery initiative since it can be used only once. I hear you.

I would now like to talk about foreign workers, but you will have to answer my question in 10 seconds. As we know, 80% of the labourers are temporary foreign workers. Do you have any specific recommendations on that? You can send them to the committee in writing since we will be talking about that again in an upcoming meeting.

[Stéphanie Forcier]

The Seasonal Agricultural Worker Program is a federal program. Producers are entitled to $600 to cover the cost of the flight, but that amount has not been updated and it is no longer possible to get flights for $600. At the very least that amount needs to be updated to help the producers.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

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

Mr. MacGregor, you have six minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all of our witnesses.

Mr. Lee and Mr. Gilvesy, I'll start with you.

On the plastics issue, I am very sympathetic to what your industry is going through, but I want to offer a bit of a counterpoint to Ms. Rood's intervention.

Number one, we have seen in news reports recently that the plastics industry has blatantly lied about the economic viability of recycling their products. That comes from the fact that plastics are found in thousands of different forms, with different chemical compositions. They can't be mixed together, which adds to the struggle of recycling.

I also need to bring the perspective of a coastal community. We get a lot of our food from the ocean. In the ocean, of course, we have a problem with microplastics and bioaccumulation in the fish we eat. This will, of course, make its way into humans.

This is the conundrum we find ourselves in as policy-makers. We obviously want to recognize the struggles of your industry, but we also want to confront the fact that the plastics industry has lied to policy-makers. There's the problem of bioaccumulation in our oceans.

In terms of recommendations, do you have any ideas on how the federal government could tackle the plastics industry to make it easier for that recycling to happen, so your industry and consumers are not confronting this problem and we put ownership back where it should belong? Do you have any suggestions in that regard?

[Richard Lee]

Yes. Thank you.

With plastics, there are sustainable recycling programs across the country. The lack of investment going into those recycling programs is, I think, one of the root issues. There's already a mechanism to collect and sort these plastics. If you were to adapt the technology, utilizing cameras to separate them based on the types of polymers, all these plastics are recyclable.

The problem is that we've lost a lot of offshore accounts that were willing to take these plastics. However, you have existing programs that could address microplastics, along the coastal regions as well, if you have a suitable collection program. The investment needs to go back into those programs so they can sort, sustain and recycle all the plastics.

The plastics we use are all recyclable, as our chair already indicated.

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

From your perspective, for the horticulture industry, you'd be satisfied with seeing such a recommendation on this particular issue in our report.

[Richard Lee]

On investment into recycling, absolutely: the ability to sort based on densities and different polymer types. You're able to sort them even through a regrind process, which separates them based on different burn rates. When they're extruded out of an extrusion machine, you're able to burn off some of the contaminants or labels.

There are options out there, but we've gone to using virgin plastic all the time, as opposed to recycling and using the regrind mixes.

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

I want to get to another question. I heard your opening comments about Bill C-234, and speaking for the NDP, I'll say we're supportive of the bill that was passed at third reading in the House of Commons.

I understand the costs that you associated with that, but we also had witnesses who explained that over the same time, they saw diesel costs go up 110% and that it's a time when we have seen record corporate profits in the oil and gas sector. We've seen record profits in the fertilizer sector as well. I feel that both primary producers and consumers were being hurt during a time when there was a lot of instability, but I also think that there were a lot of companies operating in the middle that took advantage of that instability.

I heard an interesting remark from Keith Currie, the president of the CFA. He made mention of the need for a critical input strategy. I know that this might be the first time you're encountering that term, but if as a committee we were to develop some kind of a recommendation for a critical input strategy, do you have any opening thoughts on some of the key things we could be focusing on with respect to that?

[George Gilvesy]

I might react to that. Thanks for the question.

I'm not sure exactly what that would mean, but I would suggest that whatever it would mean, we should have some level of alignment between ourselves and the United States. We should not be dealing with this as Canada alone. We saw through the pandemic this whole thing about reshoring back to having a North American context and strengthening what we already have there with the CUSMA agreement.

The bones are there to be able to develop approaches on policy and on taxation, for that matter, and how we approach climate change so that we're at least unified and we're not disrupting the marketplace as far as the supply goes. That would go to the “in” part of input, and we'd also be harmonized or at least aligned on the investment side.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, maybe I'll grab the other 30 seconds and hand it back to you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Okay. That's great. We can do that. We have that flexibility.

We'll go to Mr. Epp, I believe, for five minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for all their testimony.

I'm going to start with the folks from my backyard: the greenhouse industry.

I'm going to start with a thank you. With the food price inflation we've experienced, your industry and members of your industry have been very generous in donating to local food banks with fresh produce, as well as donating to local food networks, so I'll start with a thank you. I hope that policies as we go forward don't increase the amount that's available to the food banks and that more can go into the stream.

I again want to begin with the carbon tax and with Bill C-234. In 2016, the greenhouse industry secured an 80% exemption from the carbon pricing. What was the logic behind that? Why did the government grant that exemption to the greenhouse industry?

[George Gilvesy]

I would suggest that it probably went along the lines of the fact that we're producing food.

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

I think you're exactly right.

Now, in your testimony, you outlined the costs and the risks of Bill C-234 if it does not pass. Those costs can go one of two ways: They can impact the bottom line of the producers or they can get passed along to the consumer, or it can be a combination thereof. Can you talk about the effects of both?

[George Gilvesy]

Can I respond by saying that there's a third?

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

By all means.

[George Gilvesy]

That's where that investment will move to a jurisdiction that will not have those policies.

In this case, the greenhouse sector, as you probably heard in my testimony, has exhibited a great deal of growth in the last 20 years. I can say that the United States of America is actively trying to secure continued greenhouse investment in their jurisdiction, and much of that investment in North America is controlled by Canadian interests.

The infancy of the sector and the strength come out of Canada, but as we've seen, there's been a great deal of expansion in the United States. There were a great number of attractive deals being offered to greenhouse investment to go south of the border. Policies like the carbon tax and the plastics regime can create disruption in where that investment flow will be.

To go to your first two options, if there are cost increases for our members, the markets remain somewhat stable and you don't have the transition of production capacity. Then, over time, those costs have to be absorbed, either by the consumer or by the producer.

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

Would it be fair to say that the difficulty in passing those costs along to the retailers here in Canada would also impact the potential of some of the industry moving south? I know that many of our local producers have production facilities in the U.S. and further south.

Would that also be a complicating factor, given the structure of our retail grocery industry?

[George Gilvesy]

Absolutely, yes.

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

In your opening comments, you also talked about going to a North American or perimeter strategy, regarding our crop technology products and re-evaluation. What's the status of the kinds of investments into that re-evaluation process?

My understanding of the minor use program is that many sectors that are considered minor use in our broad-acre crops are not securing investments in research or getting those products quickly through the regulatory process to address both the changing circumstances and the modern advancements in environmental technology.

[George Gilvesy]

While I'm not an expert in that area, I can make some cursory comments.

I do hear from our crop protection folks at the Ontario Fruit & Vegetable Growers' Association and the Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada that investment in the PMRA and PMC to deal with the upcoming pile of re-evaluations is just becoming overwhelming. We're falling behind on those investments.