Agriculture Committee on June 2nd, 2026

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank all the witnesses for being with us today, as well as Mr. Caron and Ms. Cohen, who are participating in the meeting via video conference.

Obviously, everything we're talking about right now interests us. I will have some questions to ask about soil, but I'll come back to that a little later.

Ms. Cohen, the report you presented discusses the creation of a pilot insurance project that would cover losses related to experimenting with different agro-environmental practices. You didn't have the chance to talk about it earlier.

Of course, for farmers, changing practices involves costs and risks.

In your opinion, what effects could this pilot project have on agro-environmental practices?

[Adeline Cohen Boulakia]

Thank you for the question.

In fact, these practices exist in Europe and Prince Edward Island. The main consequence is related to the fact that agricultural producers, in general, are risk-averse. However, changing practices requires making investments and accumulating knowledge that can take a few years. Therefore, covering losses associated with experimentation really serves as an incentive. Programs of this type already exist in certain jurisdictions, where they have met with some success.

I recently attended a presentation on a similar program that is being introduced in France's wine industry. It looked quite promising, and the producers have continued to experiment thanks to this insurance.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

That means there's already experience with projects. You're talking about a pilot project, but it already exists in some provinces. That means that it would be about creating programs in Canada so that everyone can participate. They should also be diverse.

There's already evidence showing that it's beneficial for farmers.

Is that right?

[Adeline Cohen Boulakia]

Yes. I can send you some presentations if you need them.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Thank you very much.

I'll continue by addressing a topic that interests Ms. Cohen and Ms. Honsberger. It's related to export markets.

This issue has been addressed in various speeches. For example, my colleague Sébastien Lemire, who is the agriculture spokesperson, has already spoken about it. Here on the Côte‑Nord, we know all about long distribution channels. We naturally want our population to have access to quality local products. Of course, it involves risks.

Ms. Cohen, what can we do to feed our people before we look at exports?

What can we, the members of Parliament, do for the farmers?

[Adeline Cohen Boulakia]

Mr. Carney said in Davos that a country that cannot feed itself, supply its own energy or defend itself has few options. We definitely agree. Agriculture really is a strategic sector. However, it's largely export-oriented. We believe there is a real opportunity to invest in local value chains. Some examples of local infrastructure have been lost over the years. It would be interesting to reinvest in those chains.

At Équiterre, we work extensively on local sourcing for institutions. We work with universities and hospitals, among others, to have them source local products. There's a lot of work to be done. There are a lot of barriers to buying local.

Regarding risk management programs in particular, the reference prices used to calculate the compensation to producers are based on the wholesale price. However, the wholesale price is much lower than the short channel price, which does not take into account all the intermediaries in the value chain. As a result, products have a higher value on short channel markets. We believe that reference prices should reflect the exact value of short channel sales. It's one of our recommendations.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Côte-Nord—Kawawachikamach—Nitassinan, QC]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Honsberger, what do you think?

[Ashley Honsberger]

From a CANZA perspective, we do very much see strong alignment between the agriculture sector and national defence. If we're feeding ourselves, then we absorb shocks much better as the global volatility continues.

The space that CANZA's working in is convening strong partners who work at the grassroots from a technological perspective, all the way up to business risk management programs, which are an essential tool to helping farmers mitigate volatility.

At the end of the day, I very much agree with our friends at Équiterre in terms of everything starting with the soil. If the soil is reinforced and invested in, it's going to continue to give, grow and increase domestic production.

The investments that we're looking to make through some of the programming and some of the data collection make it easier to tell that story, to say that farmers are building resilience on farm, that they're mitigating their own risks in an upstream manner.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you. I'm sorry, but you've run out of time. I'm sorry to cut you off.

We'll go to the Conservatives now, for five minutes.

Mr. Bexte, please.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Welcome, witnesses and colleagues.

I appreciate this discussion. It's fascinating. It's fascinating how many different threads there are and how interconnected a lot of the work is that we have here today as a committee and in society in general.

I want to ask some questions about CAHI's reliance model deal with Health Canada, the justification of that model and why certain features of it are better than others. Could you discuss a little bit why the reliance model is better than a provisional approval from a trusted jurisdiction?

[Catherine Filejski]

There are different options. It really depends on which one makes the most sense from both a financial regulatory fees perspective and.... There are business cases to be made for both.

The reliance model allows for a licensing in Canada that remains permanent. That product then enters the market and has the potential to stay on the market, as long as the maintenance fees and all the requirements that follow from that, the post-market part of it.... It's probably a more permanent solution for us, in terms of keeping the product here.

In the way that the reliance model is structured as it currently stands right now, and we have the incorporation by reference list, there are still some restrictions and carve-outs. Currently the proposal is that for livestock medications, reliance will apply only to antimicrobial medications—your antibiotics, your antivirals, your antiparasitics, internal antiparasitics—that are licensed in the United States. It will still exclude anything that's licensed in the European Union, the United Kingdom, Australia or New Zealand.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

That's a great segue. I was wondering if you could comment, then, on how we would select trusted partners or other trusted jurisdictions, and what criteria we would use to put other countries or organizations, like the EU, on the list.

[Catherine Filejski]

The basis of the selection of the five jurisdictions right now is simply regulators that Health Canada, Agriculture Canada and the CFIA work with closely on a routine basis. They all sit at the VICH table, which is the international collaboration harmonization initiative. They meet regularly. They are very aware of what each other's approval processes look like, and they're comfortable that the safeguards that are in place in those other jurisdictions will not put Canadian food safety and Canadian animal health at risk.

There are, however, examples where, if we're talking about aquaculture drugs, which we have a dire necessity for in this country, the primary countries that have a decent list of aquaculture drugs would be Chile and Norway. Neither one of those currently falls into anything like that.

The argument to be made for Norway is that their regulatory system is closely aligned with that of the European Union. They're not part of the EU, but they have a very similar structure. I think what we've been trying to advocate is looking at expanding that list of trusted jurisdictions on the basis of similarity of levels of control and requirements, particularly for countries like Norway that are very closely aligned already with another jurisdiction that we do consider to be trusted.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

As you may know, I have a private member's bill in the queue, Bill C-273, the farm act, to try to establish a trusted jurisdiction regime for feed, seeds, pesticides, fertilizers and veterinary products. It's much built on the reliance model that you have.

I wonder if you believe it's necessary to formalize these sorts of programs in legislation, as opposed to just negotiating temporary solutions with Health Canada or Ag Canada.

[Catherine Filejski]

I think it's really important to enshrine them in legislation. Temporary solutions are just that: They are temporary. If we're doing things on the basis of policy, we know from experience that the way in which policy guidelines are interpreted changes from reviewer to reviewer in terms of who is looking at a file and how much experience they have with a given field.

Reliance is going to be enshrined in regulation and legislation, and I think that's fantastic. We need to expand that to the full suite of animal health products.

[David Bexte, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

I appreciate your forecasting that it will be enshrined in legislation, in anticipation of our passing this bill.

The European Union suspended imports of some Brazilian animal products. We're talking about the Mercosur trade deal, which includes a lot of meat imports into Canada. Could you talk about the risk related to that, how that relates to business risk management and mitigation, and how we select countries to partner with?

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

I'm sorry to interrupt, but that is time. I'm sorry about that.

Next, we'll go to MP Harrison for five minutes.

[Emma Harrison, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you.

To Équiterre and the Canadian Alliance for Net-Zero Agri-food, are the current BRM programs sufficiently encouraging investments in soil health and water management and for farmers and producers who are wanting to transition the model of farming that they do into a more regenerative one or a new path forward?

[Ashley Honsberger]

That's a great question.

I can't really comment on the nuances of the specific programs, but I can comment on what I see across the landscape, which is private and public partnerships emerging quite strongly across the countryside. We have corporate entities that are looking to invest in their supply chains. We have provincial governments, through the last FPT agreements, investing. The combination of all of that is creating an opportunity that's ripe for investment at the farm level in these practices.

One of the issues that we see is fragmentation. The one-stop shop concept for a farmer doesn't quite exist yet. Something we're very curious to see emerge out of the BRM modernization, as well as the next FPT, is whether there will be more of an alignment around farmers going in, and reducing friction in the spaces where they're looking for different funding and investment.

[Adeline Cohen Boulakia]

For our part, we have conducted a study of various risk management programs. Indeed, the measures currently in place are minimal. For example, when it comes to ecoconditionality measures, the focus is on complying with laws and regulations. I'm thinking of avoiding farming along shorelines, or adhering strictly to phosphorus standards. That's the bare minimum required to comply with these laws and regulations.

Additionally, a new ecoconditionality measure was added to the AgriInvest program this year or last year. We're still waiting to see the results of all this. There are certainly other things to do.

What's interesting about risk management programs is that the vast majority of farmers subscribe to this insurance. As a result, it's a truly exceptional way to take action on soil health and encourage the implementation of good practices.

We're not necessarily in favour of coercive measures. I think there are a lot of things we can do with incentives. For example, insurance premiums could be reduced or risk coverage could be improved when farmers diversify crops or things like that. You can actually achieve a lot this way.

Mr. Caron, do you have anything to add?

[Jean Caron]

I want to add something regarding the question asked by Mr. Gourde earlier. Obviously, any incentive that promotes the reduction of equipment size and crop rotations will be beneficial. When you look at the measures in place, it's a bit like a doctor having to work without blood tests.

For example, soil analysis is not thorough enough, and there's very little discussion about it. The decision to conduct these analyses is instead left to agronomists. However, very few of them are aware of the problems that are developing deep down in the soil.

In the end, as was said earlier, the loss of regional expertise is problematic. Research teams and provincial and federal resources must be maintained. This is a particularly concerning issue that would require more resources.

[Emma Harrison, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

I'm going to share my time with my colleague, Ms. Dandurand.

[Marianne Dandurand, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to ask another question of the representative from Équiterre.

In your comments, you suggested adding soil analyses to the risk management programs.

How can we do that?

If soil analyses were incorporated into risk management programs, what would that look like?

[Jean Caron]

Usually, basic analyses of the pH level and the amount of certain nutrients are done in order to formulate agronomic recommendations. That's the standard. What is not done is an in-depth diagnosis of what is happening with the soil's drainage capacity and surface aeration.

The Canadian government has made significant efforts to reduce denitrification and combat greenhouse gases. However, when soil becomes compacted, it loses its ability to breathe, nitrogenous fertilizer escapes into the air and is eliminated in the form of nitrous oxide, or N₂O. Analyses that measure surface aeration and deep drainage capacity would then clearly be appropriate so that we can examine soil degradation more accurately.

Ms. Cohen Boulakia, would you like to add to my answer?

[Adeline Cohen Boulakia]

The way we could incorporate that into the program to manage—