Agriculture Committee on Nov. 3rd, 2025

[Jasmin Guénette]

I think if you asked our agri-business members about this issue specifically, they'd tell you that they really want to see more of their products on the shelves so that they can sell them. There's no doubt about that.

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

Mr. Chair, I didn't start my clock, so you can let me know when my time is up.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

You have 45 seconds left.

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

Okay.

In that case, I'll quickly ask my question for Mr. Fraser.

You were saying that we're good at research, but we're bad at commercialization. Mr. Charlebois told us something similar, and I'm sure the representatives of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business could add to that.

Could you send us a written recommendation that indicates what we need to change to get better at commercialization? What do we need to do so that our businesses and innovators don't just sell their inventions or innovations, but develop them here, to enrich our economy?

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

We'll do one final round.

We'll go four minutes, four minutes and two minutes, and then we're done.

Mr. Barlow, you have the floor.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

I have a question for Ms. Phillips along the line of Mr. Perron's. Can you submit your response, Ms. Phillips?

You were talking about fraudulent honey being imported to Canada and the PMRA's and the CFIA's decision on bromide but also the decision to extend the ban on importing bee population replacements. The CFIA, the PMRA and the Liberal government have said they are going to make sure there is a food security and economic lens on the decisions that these two agencies are making.

Can you tell the committee whether or not you feel that a food security or an economic lens was placed on the decisions to extend the ban and the delays on approving hive protection products?

Now, to the CFIB, I like the fact that you talked about the red tape and the frustration amongst your members. I have a number of businesses in my riding—I know all of us do—whose number one irritant is the CFIA and the burden it's putting on their businesses.

One example is The Dutch Store, which I like to shop at. They have had to hire a full-time person just to deal with the CFIA paperwork, and, in fact, they are thinking of closing their business. They have $2 million in revenue; it's not huge, but it's a good business. The CFIA is banning them from importing a lot of products because they're in the wrong-sized jar. We're talking pickles and sauerkraut from renowned international businesses. To me, the wrong size of jar has nothing to do with food security.

Are you getting feedback from members who are no longer in business as a result of not being able to manage the paperwork that's coming from the CFIA? Do you keep those kinds of records?

Secondary to that, do you know the impact on GDP or Canadian economics in terms of losing some of these small businesses?

[Juliette Nicolaÿ]

I'll respond to the first question.

We have not heard about businesses closing down because of CFIA regulations, but we have heard of businesses having to stop commercializing some products because of CFIA regulations. Notably, when the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations were implemented, many small businesses didn't have the capacity to comply with some of the regulations and couldn't import some products.

I can share with you specific examples later on.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

If you could table that with the committee, that would be helpful.

Previously, the Conservative government had a redress officer at the CFIA so that when these things did happen, the business owner could go to that redress officer and file a challenge to a decision by the CFIA. The Liberal government removed that position in 2022 or 2023.

I know my colleagues like to talk about the agile regulations table, but that's been in place for five years and no changes have been happening. I don't understand the appreciation of that when 40% of the complaints that went to the redress officer were found to have reason to be followed up on.

Do you feel that reinstating the redress officer would bring accountability back to the CFIA? Business owners would have a clear door to go through to file these complaints or challenge these decisions from the CFIA to ensure that they have a fair hearing and can stay in business and make products available to Canadians.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

You have 30 seconds.

[Jasmin Guénette]

Businesses should have the opportunity to ask for more information from the agency about decisions they are making. Whether or not the office that you described existed, it's very important that businesses can challenge the decisions.

This is one aspect we are recommending to ensure that businesses can better understand decisions and challenge them if needed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

You have the floor for four minutes, MP Connors.

[Paul Connors, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you.

Mr. Fraser, I know you can't respond, but you identified four categories: regulatory reform, additional training, de-risking private investment and aligning research with industry needs. I'd like to have a bit more information. I hope that you do present, and some other people have asked you for a written response. How could the CFIA or the PMRA de-risk investment improvements that we could do there? Is there something in that that could de-risk private investment? I'd be interested to hear that from you.

To the CFIB, you're doing great work, and you've always done great work in collecting a lot of great data from your members. I've been a member through prior businesses, and your surveys always do great work, and it's very broad across the country.

I'm wondering, seeing that you're doing agricultural data collection, if there is a gap between the data that you collect and getting to a level, besides meetings such as this, where the information can be used to make changes or make improvements. Do you think there's a gap with this in that process?

[Jasmin Guénette]

I'm not sure I fully understand the—

[Paul Connors, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

You collect the data, and then you have the data with your organization, but in order to make changes that the CFIA and the PMRA...that data has to get out to other people. You produce reports and everything like that.

Do you think your data is getting to the right people?

[Jasmin Guénette]

We hope so. We communicate our work to members of Parliament and civil servants. We are always available to meet those impacted by our work.

As a matter of fact, we have met the CFIA in the past, and we have a meeting with them soon to share the content of our report. We are always happy and available to share the data and to work on introducing policy changes that will benefit small businesses in Canada.

[Paul Connors, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Okay, that's great.

We've heard agile tables mentioned. Some people have recommended some different things about an ag council or something. Do you see that as something that we should be looking at?

[Jasmin Guénette]

There's already a lot of structure that businesses have to deal with. There are many regulatory bodies already overseeing SMEs in Canada. I'm not sure that an additional body is needed.

What we recommend in the report and the work that Juliette did is to improve the work that the CFIA is doing and reduce the regulatory burden on SMEs that the CFIA is imposing on all members.

[Paul Connors, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

If you haven't already submitted the report, I hope you submit the report as well.

[Jasmin Guénette]

Absolutely, yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you.

The final two minutes go to Mr. Perron.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Guénette, we'll continue along the same lines.

In your opening remarks, you and your colleague said that there should be a two-for-one rule: Every time a regulation is added, two others should be removed. Do you think that's possible? That would mean there would be a lot fewer regulations, so that might be interesting, but I'd like you to explain that to me more. Logically, from what I understand of your proposal, you'd like us to check which existing regulations are repetitive and could be removed when adding a regulation.

Have I understand your proposal correctly?

[Jasmin Guénette]

I can start answering your question, and Ms. Nicolaÿ can add to what I have to say.

First, I have to say that the regulations in Canada are very opaque. If we were to ask anyone to tell us how many regulations there are in Canada, no one would be able to answer. The first thing, then, would be to have more transparency.

Second, we think that reducing regulations would be very beneficial for the Canadian economy and SMEs. We can look to British Columbia, for example, which has a similar rule in place. That means the regulations have to be reduced, and for that to happen, two regulations should be removed every time a new regulation is introduced.

The first step would be to find out how many regulations we have in Canada. Once we have more information, it will be easy to determine which regulations could be removed.

[Juliette Nicolaÿ]

One way to get greater transparency on the number of existing regulations would be, for example, to expand the scope of the administrative burden baseline to include policies and legislation. At the moment, it includes only the regulations and associated forms. We'd like it to go further and for the baseline to also include policies and legislation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you to our witnesses today. Thank you for your patience, Ms. Phillips and Mr. Fraser. We appreciate you joining us and your commitment to agriculture.

Go ahead, Mr. Barlow

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

I have just one quick thing before we adjourn. As all of us have said, we're trying to get some good recommendations out of this study. Ms. Chatel and I have talked about an ombudsman or a redress officer—whatever the title would be. We have asked for a previous redress officer, Merril Bawden, to appear before committee. The CFIA has refused to allow her to appear. She no longer has that role, but she's still in the CFIA.

If we want to get the facts and see what would work, what doesn't, what did work and what didn't, I think it would behoove the CFIA to allow her to appear.

I think we have a couple of options here. I could just ask my Liberal colleagues if they would approach the minister and see if she would kind of give them a push or a green light to allow her to appear. Or we could send a letter from this committee asking the CFIA to allow Ms. Bawden to appear and just give her experience on what it was to be a redress officer, what worked in that role and what didn't.

We're not trying to find any dirt here. We just want to know if the ombudsman role and a redress officer is something we should consider. I think it does not help this study for the CFIA to not allow her to appear. Those are two options, but I'm open to other ideas.