Agriculture Committee on June 2nd, 2026

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

I'd like to call this meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 38 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format, pursuant to the Standing Orders. Members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application.

Before we continue, I'd like to ask all in-person participants to consult the guidelines written on the cards on the table. These measures are in place to help prevent audio feedback incidents and to protect the health and safety of all participants, including our interpreters. You'll also notice a QR code on the card, which links to a short awareness video.

I'd like to make a few comments for the benefit of witnesses and members.

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Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Thursday, September 18, 2025, the committee is resuming its study on business risk management programs in Canada's agricultural sector.

As witnesses today, we have, from the Canadian Alliance for Net-Zero Agri-food, Ashley Honsberger; from the Canadian Animal Health Institute, Dr. Filejski; and from Équiterre, Adeline Cohen Boulakia. Appearing alongside them is Jean Caron.

We also have substitutes today. For Mr. Barlow, we have Mr. Bexte; for Mr. Lemire, we have Ms. Gill; and for Mr. Epp, we have MP Cathy Wagantall.

Thank you for joining us at the committee.

Each of our witnesses will have up to five minutes. We'll start with the Canadian Animal Health Institute for five minutes.

Thank you for being here.

[Catherine Filejski, President and Chief Executive Officer, Canadian Animal Health Institute]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Mr. Chair and committee members, and thank you for the invitation to appear today.

As you heard, my name is Catherine Filejski. I'm a licensed veterinarian and the president and CEO of the Canadian Animal Health Institute, known colloquially as CAHI.

As the head of CAHI, I represent the developers, manufacturers and distributors of the vital veterinary medicines that safeguard Canada's livestock and poultry sectors. We are a national association, serving as the trusted science-based voice of the Canadian animal health industry since our founding in 1968. Our full-member companies are responsible for sales of approximately 95% of Canada's animal health market.

As this committee reviews the future of business risk management programs ahead of the next FPT agreement negotiations, our core message is simple: an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

Animal agriculture is characterized by unique and highly volatile realities of animal disease outbreaks and biosecurity threats. When a pathogen enters a barn or a pasture, the financial devastation is often immediate, compounding and catastrophic.

Historically, our BRM suites, like AgriStability and AgriRecovery, have been essential lifelines. However, the agricultural policy community widely recognizes that relying solely on BRM programs creates a reactive framework that compensates for losses only after financial ruin has already occurred.

BRM programs can and in fact must be substantially improved by strategically complementing them with proactive animal health and biosecurity initiatives. We must modernize our definition of risk management to include the regulatory tools that allow us to prevent disease outbreaks from triggering these multi-million-dollar tax payouts in the first place.

To modernize business risk management programs effectively, we need to align our regulatory policies with our agricultural resilience goals. Rapid access to innovative veterinary medicines is a fundamental pillar of national biosecurity. If our producers do not have the necessary tools to protect their herds, no stabilization fund will be able to compensate for lost market opportunities.

Right now, Canadian producers face a critical vulnerability: a lack of access to veterinary medicines due to Canada-specific regulatory hurdles. Because Canada represents only about 2.5% of the global animal health market, international innovators frequently choose not to navigate our costly, lengthy and unique bureaucratic pathways.

Consider the ongoing issues with histomoniasis, commonly known as blackhead disease, in Canadian turkeys. This disease is often fatal to turkey flocks, causing immense animal suffering and severe financial strain for producers. Currently, there is no licensed treatment available in Canada. An effective and licensed treatment does currently exist in Italy. However, because of current Canadian regulatory requirements, it is not economically feasible to register this product in Canada, and Canadian turkey farmers currently have no viable, efficient way to access this medicine to save their flocks. They are left exposed, and when a flock is lost, our BRM programs are forced to bear the cost.

To fix this, the next FPT agreement must incorporate clear policy outcomes that are focused on regulatory reform and policy coherence. We urge the government to improve BRM resilience by investing in our regulatory infrastructure in two concrete ways.

First, create abbreviated regulatory pathways that allow for simultaneous review or, better yet, recognition of approvals from trusted international jurisdictions like the European Union or the U.S.

Second, reduce Canada-specific data requirements that don't significantly enhance the safety of veterinary medicines but do delay market access to them. By removing these unnecessary barriers, we can equip Canadian farmers with global standard tools to prevent and control outbreaks before they become disastrous and trigger BRM payouts. Proactive animal health is the ultimate form of risk mitigation.

Thank you. I welcome your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

Next, we'll go to the Canadian Alliance for Net Zero Agri-food. Welcome.

[Ashley Honsberger, Interim Executive Director, Canadian Alliance for Net-Zero Agri-food]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you all for inviting me to participate in this study.

My name is Ashley Honsberger. I'm the interim executive director for CANZA.

CANZA is a national alliance that brings together producers, commodity associations, food companies, financial institutions, tech experts and researchers to advance practical, scalable solutions that help manage risk, strengthen resilience and support long-term competitiveness.

We appreciate the committee's recognition that Canada's BRM programs must continue to evolve to meet the realities facing producers today. Canadian producers are managing increasing volatility, particularly from extreme weather events, and many current BRM programs were designed primarily to respond to episodic and catastrophic risk. Increasingly, however, producers are also managing longer-term, more systemic challenges associated with climate volatility, soil health and water management. There's growing pressure to strengthen resilience while remaining competitive.

From a Canadian perspective, BRM modernization represents an opportunity to better support proactive risk reduction and long-term resilience across the sector. Supporting producers with tools and approaches that build adaptive capacity can help reduce exposure to future risks while also encouraging long-term competitiveness.

As governments also prepare for future FPT negotiations, we believe that there's an important opportunity to modernize BRM programming in ways that better strengthen resilience, innovation and producer adoption.

Today I would like to highlight three key considerations for the committee.

First, BRM programs should better recognize and support practices that improve long-term farm-level resilience. Healthy soil is not only an environmental asset; it's a strategic Canadian asset tied directly to agricultural productivity, economic resilience, healthy environments, food production capacity and, ultimately, long-term competitiveness.

Canada benefits from some of the most productive farmland in the world. Protecting and strengthening our natural asset base is increasingly important in a global environment shaped by climate volatility and supply chain disruption. Many producers have already started adopting practices that lead to climate adaptive outcomes; however, transition periods to new practices can create uncertainty and financial risk for producers, particularly when margins are already tight. Programs that help producers adopt resilience practices can enable practical producer-led innovation while strengthening long-term viability.

Second, modernization efforts should ensure that BRM programs continue evolving alongside the realities that producers face today. As climate volatility increases, producers are experiencing more frequent and complex disruptions, while governments face growing pressures within these programs designed to respond to those risks. In that context, there's an important opportunity to explore approaches that not only respond after losses occur but also build resilience and reduce risk before events happen.

As approaches to agricultural risk assessment continue to evolve, there's an opportunity for BRM programs to adapt how risk is assessed and managed. This could include approaches that better recognize proactive risk reduction over time while maintaining producer trust and confidence in how information is used, protected and shared. These discussions are also becoming increasingly relevant within broader financial and investment conversations. Initiatives such as Canada's Nature Advantage and work under way on nature-related financial disclosures are helping shape how resilience, natural assets and long-term risk are assessed. Canada can increase ag productivity and resilience by supporting approaches that improve competitiveness, reduce adoption barriers and translate on-farm resilience into economic value.

Third and finally, coordinating actors from across the system is essential to strengthening the effectiveness of risk management across the sector. Improving how risk is measured, managed and reduced over time will require coordination across industry, financial institutions, supply chains and more, and each plays a role in advancing practical solutions that help producers manage risk and build resilience. A key consideration is ensuring that approaches reflect regional differences in production systems and risk exposure. Effective risk management also depends on solutions tailored to local realities.

In this context, improving consistency and clarity on how outcomes are understood can help strengthen the overall effectiveness of risk management. Producers are looking for practical tools that improve competitiveness, strengthen resilience and support long-term viability. Canada can support that goal through modernized risk management and approaches that are collaborative and flexible and reflect on-the-ground farm realities.

Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear today. I do look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

Next we'll go to Équiterre, online.

Welcome. You have five minutes.

[Adeline Cohen Boulakia, Agronomist and Project Manager, sustainable agriculture, Équiterre]

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, on behalf of Équiterre, thank you for giving us this opportunity to speak.

My name is Adeline Cohen. I'm an agronomist and project manager in sustainable agriculture at Équiterre. I'm accompanied by Jean Caron, professor and researcher at Université Laval, holder of the chair in conservation and restoration of organic soils, and author of several articles cited in our brief on risk management.

With the beginning of discussions on the next strategic framework for agriculture, we welcome the major progress made in integrating agro-environmental practices into risk management programs. However, we are here today to present you with a strengthened vision, because our society will soon no longer have the means to financially cover losses in a purely reactive manner.

[Jean Caron, Professor and Agronomist, Université Laval, As an individual]

I'll continue by testifying, as a researcher, on the points raised in the report.

To ensure our food and economic sovereignty, it's essential that we integrate soil health into the very foundation of our agricultural management, as healthy soil is our first and best defence against climate shocks.

We're currently facing both an environmental and an economic crisis. The degradation of agricultural soils incurs a colossal cost, already estimated at $3 billion per year in Canada. In Quebec in particular, 90% of agricultural soils in the main large-scale farming regions are considered to be in poor condition. Heavy machinery has caused deep, often irreversible compaction, and we've lost 40% of our grasslands to row crops since 2006, which has eliminated our best natural decompaction tools.

The economic consequences are direct and measurable. Soil compaction now causes a 1% decrease annually in corn crop yields in Quebec. In the next decade, the profitability of many businesses could be seriously compromised. At the same time, the increase in climate hazards is putting unprecedented pressure on public funds. If this trend continues, this explosion in costs will threaten the financial viability of programs and will inevitably cause the rates charged to producers to skyrocket.

[Adeline Cohen Boulakia]

This brings us to the heart of the matter, which is how to adapt our current programs. Although essential, risk management programs were designed for another era. The safety net paradoxically encourages producers to maintain climate-vulnerable farming practices, such as monoculture. Conversely, producers who practise crop diversification, an agronomic practice that's recognized for reducing input use and stabilizing yields, are not rewarded.

On the other hand, research shows promising results on adapting programs to encourage good practices. In Saskatchewan, they have a program that covers up to 30% of farmland that uses diversification practices, thereby encouraging experimentation with new approaches, such as intercropping. In Quebec, there's a pilot project that reduces the insurance premium by 5% for winter soil cover of 75%. These are just two examples. The complete list is available in our 40‑page report.

Here are our four main recommendations for the next strategic framework. First, we recommend integrating soil health into actuarial risk assessment. We recommend looking at introducing advanced soil diagnostics to the list of eco-conditionality measures and modernizing digital data collection by provincial agencies.

Second, we recommend protecting and funding innovation. It's known that innovation involves a certain degree of risk. Farms experimenting with new soil conservation practices should have access to specialized insurance that protects them from losses. Furthermore, an enormous amount of support is needed for agricultural research.

Third, we recommend financially rewarding proactive risk reduction with premium discounts or enhanced coverage for good practices.

Fourth, we recommend supporting short channels and combatting food waste. Crop insurance must stop conditioning farmers to expect compensation for totally abandoning a damaged field, so that imperfect products can be harvested for food banks. Reference prices must also stop penalizing producers who choose to sell using short distribution channels.

In conclusion, changing our risk management programs is not solely an environmental concern. It has become an essential condition to ensure the economic survival of our farms.

We thank you for your attention. We will be pleased to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much. We appreciate all of the witnesses today.

First, we'll go to the Conservatives for six minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Gourde.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Caron, you spoke about the problem of soil compaction. I think it's really real because I see it on my own land.

Farmers now use equipment that is very heavy for spreading manure. We're talking here about manure tanks of 7,000 to 8,000 gallons, or around 30,000 litres. It has a huge effect on soil compaction.

Do you have any comments on how producers could better equip themselves?

[Jean Caron]

In fact, the main machines responsible are the harvesting equipment, such as oversized combines and, especially, the grain trailers that move around all over the fields. That's problematic. There are also, as you mentioned, the manure tanks.

Recent studies conducted by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada have shown that mobile manure spreading booms are technological pieces of equipment that significantly reduce the axle load.

The problem is that equipment that is too heavy will compact the soil to a depth of about one metre. However, very few people measure soil health to this depth. As a result, the problem is difficult to pinpoint. It manifests as a loss of soil drainage capacity and a loss of surface aeration, which, in our opinion, is the cause of the productivity losses we've started to observe.

This phenomenon has been observed not only in Quebec. It's also been observed throughout the “corn belt” region of the U.S.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

You also talked about soil degradation. Over the medium and long term, monocultures deplete soil of its organic matter.

Are there any methods to remedy this?

[Jean Caron]

Clearly, all external inputs of organic matter are desirable. The problem is with the overall appraisal. If we only do monocultures that take away the organic matter, inevitably, year after year, it decreases steadily. The latest Black report still indicated actual losses of organic matter in the soils, which harms their long-term productivity.

Let's talk about solutions. One would be to increase the proportion of rotations that return organic matter to the soil, such as green manures or forage rotations. We've lost nearly 40% over the past few years. This loss particularly harms the chances we have of maintaining soil health for future generations.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Mr. Caron, I believe that forage plants are a medium and long-term solution to increase organic matter.

However, there was a research centre in Saint-Augustin-de-Desmaures that was conducting advanced research to find new plant varieties and help farmers.

What effect did the budget cuts and the loss of the Saint-Augustin centre have on the region?

[Jean Caron]

Well, there has been strong opposition to the recent closures of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research centres. In our opinion, this is a very bad decision. We have reported this to several members of Parliament from different regions.

The problem is that we need experts to help us. A loss of soil health accompanied by a 1% loss in its productivity represents a loss of about 10% of the business's net profit each year when it's raising a monoculture. That means that, within 10 years, most businesses will be operating at a loss. This means one thing: We have to move quickly.

When a research centre is closed and people are relocated, many do not follow. The result is that you lose staff with 25 or 30 years of experience. Experience is not something that you can restore immediately by hiring young people. Merely replacing staff following the relocation will have particularly harmful consequences on Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada's ability to generate the research results needed to address soil degradation.

It's particularly the forage crops research group and the soil health group that are affected by the closure of the Sainte-Foy agricultural research centre. These research groups are essentially relocated and will inevitably lose the interest they had in regional research. Now, as a previous speaker said, the solutions in the Canadian agriculture sector are often regional. This means that it's important to still have this ability to respond regionally to agricultural producers' needs.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

If we don't take action, what will happen in 10 years if soil degradation continues at this rate?

[Jean Caron]

Essentially, you will have to compensate producers more and more. They'll be in a financial situation that will be very difficult to get out of. It'll become more difficult to help them because they won't have the margins they need to reintroduce corrective crops, for example.

One thing must be understood. When soil is degraded, it does not regain its health in one year. It takes five to ten years. That means that if farmers are in trouble, it'll take 10 years before they can see real benefits. That means the financial impact for a business is huge.

[Jacques Gourde, Conservative, Lévis—Lotbinière, QC]

Are there currently any programs to address the situation or is it just left up to government to make an ad hoc decision?

[Jean Caron]

I think help is necessary.

According to an economic study, in Quebec, corn grain production, for example, is 10.5 tonnes per hectare. Farmers are essentially making zero profit.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

I'm going to have to intervene. I apologize for interrupting you, but we're going to have to move to the next MP. Thank you very much.

Next, we'll go to MP MacDonald, for six minutes.

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses.

Dr. Filejski, in my former life I was a dairy farmer for 40 years, so I've worked extensively with products. I was pleased that you said in your opening comments, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” I think that's a good approach. I think we've come a long way as producers in preventing illnesses and using biosecurity to protect the economic viability of our operations and prevent disease.

I met with veterinarian clinics in my riding. They expressed a lot of frustration with the availability of certain pharmaceutical products. You did in your opening statement as well. I'll just give you an example, so that people can see what the problem is. They talked about what I'm going to call DES. It's a medication used to treat urinary incontinence in spayed dogs and cats. There is an alternative medicine in Canada, but it's very expensive and has to be used more periodically. In this particular situation, the cost has been a considerable financial burden on pet owners.

I wrote a letter to Health Canada and the Minister of Health, outlining the situation and the problems with the availability of certain drugs.

Is Canada going far enough? Have we made the right move? I know we're now starting to streamline approvals through trusted foreign agencies or bodies. Can you elaborate on that for me, please?

[Catherine Filejski]

Thank you for the opportunity to comment on that.

The current reliance order, which we expect to be published in part II of the Canada Gazette this summer, is a good first step. Is it the end of the road for improving that, and a silver bullet? Absolutely not.

The reality of the Canadian market is that we are small. Every additional regulatory cost or burden that contributes to that makes it difficult.

When you're talking about relatively specialized pharmaceuticals, like something you use to treat urinary incontinence in female spayed dogs, you're talking about a fairly minor use in the overall market; therefore, the cost of registration for that kind of product.... It's not just that, because there's also the cost of labelling specifically for the Canadian market. There are also all the logistical costs of actually bringing something in that we're not necessarily manufacturing here.

I think the reliance order is a good first step, because we don't then have to reinvent the wheel of what other trusted jurisdictions have done on that. However, we also need to look at all the other Canadian-specific requirements around labelling and product management. Currently, we still require paper product monographs with every drug. Other jurisdictions have moved to a QR code-based thing, where you basically scan the QR code and don't have to print out a paper version of the monograph in French, but you have the option of going to a French version of it. It reduces packaging, the costs and some of the issues that make it difficult to bring products here.

The other side of that is that once a product is here, there are also ongoing costs related to maintaining it on the market here. There are drug establishment licence costs for every piece of the manufacturing chain that goes into producing that specific drug.

A regulatory package came into force in 2019 that increased the requirements for veterinary active pharmaceutical ingredients. That has led directly and largely to the loss of products that are important to dairy farmers, for example. You've lost your injectable vitamins. You've lost a lot of your supplements that have been around for decades. That's partially because producers are having a hard time finding manufacturing sites that will meet new Canadian manufacturing requirements for components of those injectable vitamins and supplements, and it becomes unsustainable in the long term to keep them on the Canadian market.

Therefore, I also think we need to look at the cost of maintaining products here, and all of the cumulative regulatory burdens that create a problem with respect to the availability of veterinary medicines across the board.

[Kent MacDonald, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

Obviously we're linked with the U.S. on a lot of pharmaceutical products used by large-animal practices in Canada. Is there a valid reason that these products are so hard to get approved for Canada, other than...?

[Catherine Filejski]

It's a bit of a perfect storm. Our regulatory fees are high relative to our market size. Particularly for food-producing animals, the fees are much higher, because we're requiring a lot more clinical data, a lot more Canadian-specific studies.

To your point, a lot of these animals are moving back and forth across the border in the production cycle. To say that we have requirements just for Canadian cattle or Canadian dairy overlooks the fact that the animals—including American ones—move back and forth across the border, so it becomes difficult to justify why we have a lot of very Canadian-specific requirements, particularly when we're dealing with products that are licensed and used extensively in the United States.

If you look at the American compendium of what American veterinarians and producers have available to them in terms of the choice of products, their product selection is far beyond what we have available in Canada. Over the last five to seven years, we've seen a loss of products rather than an increase. The reliance order is a good step to start remedying that, but I think there needs to be a comprehensive approach, looking at all the factors that contribute to that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

Next, we'll go to MP Gill for six minutes.