Agriculture Committee on Sept. 25th, 2025

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

Could you send us some details on this?

I don't know if you were there at the beginning of the meeting, but I asked the PMRA representatives a question about this. They replied that they were turning to products that had already been approved because they did not have time to study other products. It is as if the same product could be applied everywhere. In my opinion, this is an interesting case that could enlighten the members of the committee.

I would now like to talk about delays. You mentioned a period of up to 10 years. I discussed this with the PMRA earlier, and they tried to give us an answer. Between you and me, a 10-year delay seems unreasonable. Does this happen often? How do you explain it? What does the PMRA need to change to prevent this from happening again?

[Catherine Lessard]

My response will be similar to that of the PMRA representatives. It is true that studies must be conducted by the Pest Management Centre. This often takes two or three years, which lengthens the process. It necessarily adds several years to the process of adding a product to the label. It's not complicated: Even if it's just a matter of adding a single crop, it can take four to five years if all goes well, which is certainly too long. Added to this is the re-evaluation process, as mentioned, which takes place after 15 years. When a plant protection product is being re-evaluated, no new additions can be made to the label. This leads to extraordinary delays, which can indeed exceed a decade. It is therefore a combination of several factors that causes these unacceptable delays.

In the case of emergency registrations, which are used to respond to very specific and urgent problems, we are faced with delays of three months in the best-case scenario, and more than six months in the worst-case scenario. Delays of three to six months to respond to emergency situations are unacceptable. As a result, we often receive the results after the emergency has passed.

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

In your statement, you mentioned drones, a topic that interests me greatly. Producers have contacted me, and not just official associations, and they can't believe they can't use drones when they can spray the same product with a plane or helicopter.

How long has the PMRA been working on this issue, and how do you explain the delay? What could be changed?

[Catherine Lessard]

Mr. Bissonnette, the representative from ARLA, mentioned that studies to collect data had been under way for two years. That said, there had been discussions about drones before that; drones already existed. In my opinion, it has therefore been more than two years.

It should be noted that, although we are talking about an imminent decision, there are still several steps to be taken before farmers in the field can use drones. Once a decision has been made that using a drone is no more dangerous than conventional methods, each of the companies that produce pesticides will have to add drone use to their labels, which will cause additional delays.

In practical terms, we do not expect authorization for pesticide application by drone to be granted within the next two or three years. So we are not talking about something that will happen quickly. In the meantime, to help producers, the PMRA could say that in cases where it is already possible to apply pesticides by air, for example, it is necessarily possible to do so by drone. This would be a general approach rather than a specific approach where one pesticide is processed at a time, which leads to additional delays.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

We're going to the last round. We have roughly 12 minutes left. We'll do five, five and two and a half minutes.

We'll start with Mr. Bonk.

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

My questions will be directed more to Mr. Laycraft and the Canadian Cattlemen's Association.

I want to give a sincere “thank you” for the good work your organization does, along with your provincial member organizations, in promoting and representing the cattlemen in Canada.

You have highlighted that structural change needs to happen in the CFIA. Everyone in the cattle industry appreciates that we have to have regulation, because that is why we have one of the most sought-after products in the world.

What are some of the issues? What are some of the concerns or frustrations you're hearing from your members?

[Dennis Laycraft]

There are a number of them. Obviously, sometimes it's the time required in the service, even to get an import certificate approved when you're moving live animals. You need to be able to move them, and hours of service are an example.

We were mentioning your earlier emails. If you go back to our beef value chain meeting records, in 2007 we talked to the department about getting electronic certification in place. We were given a commitment, which we weren't happy with, that it would be in place by 2011. In 2011, we were told, “Well, no, we can't make that. We're going to do a whole system-wide upgrade, and we'll have it in 2016.” We actually had our first pilot project in 2019.

Waiting 12 years to get what is obviously something that would improve the integrity of the system and speed it up is not acceptable. We can look at other examples of that. Again, it comes back to what I said earlier, when you bring the right people to it, with the right expertise, with the right mandate. I was involved in a previous regulatory review, when it was Agriculture Canada at the time. We looked at case examples, and I think it's worth looking at in your review. Who is doing it best, and why are they doing it best?

Right now, I have to say, we gave one example: the Agricultural Marketing Service. They are doing some of the best work that we see, and they are getting things approved much more efficiently than we are here in Canada.

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Maybe I could ask you about SRMs a bit and the extreme source of frustration that has brought to the cattle industry. Maybe you can even talk about some of the financial impacts that's had on our industry.

[Dennis Laycraft]

It was a long process that we went through. It's probably a 400-page risk assessment if you want to look at it and lose eight or 12 hours you'll never get back. We've gone through that with CFIA and we acknowledge that we have to do it. We export to 59 countries, and we have to be able to demonstrate to them that we'll maintain our “negligible risk” status.

Unfortunately, that took a year longer than we expected, with all of the process and comments back and forth. We're at the stage now where we should be able to move forward with it. It clearly demonstrates that we can make the change without changing the risk at all. Now it's about reaching out to our key trading partners. We're also helping on that, but we're now moving into the regulatory process itself. That's where it's really going to get into the grind. We've done all the scientific work. We've been asking to get all the wording prepared. We were very confident it was going to demonstrate.... The U.S. have been doing this since 2010 with their same feed ban.

Let's get everything done so that we can take it through in one omnibus regulatory process and get it changed. There is no clear indication that we're going to be able to get it done that quickly, but again, it should be done that quickly.

[Steven Bonk, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you.

I don't have too much time left, but I'm going to ask you just quickly about an internal agreement in Canada with the Canadian internal free trade agreement, and we're also talking a lot now about interprovincial trade. Can you speak to the frustrations regarding CFIA and our provincial counterparts when it comes to slaughter plants and trying to move product internally within Canada?

[Dennis Laycraft]

It's always a little more complicated, and it's first discussed on the surface. The provinces aren't all equal in terms of the level of provincial inspection they're providing. There is a pilot that's going on between Alberta and Saskatchewan. There were some exemptions that were made during the pandemic.

We think that there's maybe a regionalization approach rather than a national approach, which could raise some international questions if we go down that road. I think there are potential pathways, but it does mean bringing those inspectors up to that same sort of equivalency if we're going to do that. We all agree that we have to protect our health and safety.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

I will now go to MP Harrison for five minutes.

[Emma Harrison, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

MP Bonk touched on some things that I was going to ask about, so I'd like to offer Mr. Laycraft an opportunity to further expand on the day-to-day red tape reduction that is needed and experienced by the Cattle Association in Canada.

You have a minute to expand on that. That would be great.

[Dennis Laycraft]

I'm sorry. I missed part of that question.

[Emma Harrison, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Could you expand further on the day-to-day red tape reduction that is wanted and needed by the Cattle Association in Canada?

[Dennis Laycraft]

Thank you.

There are examples driving this. This past year, cattle values have gone up considerably, but it took almost 10 months to get the compensation values increased to reflect what are current compensation requirements in our industry. If you happen to be a producer under quarantine and you have no idea whether you're getting compensated, it's tremendous stress. On something like that, having more streamlined ways of dealing with that.... Some of it you take out of regulation so that it's put into an order in council, or you do some other tool than building it into a carved-in-stone type of solution.

That has always been one of these things: Be careful what you put in regulation when you can use other tools to deliver. As one example, we've talked about approvals of products. I will put in a good word for the bureau of veterinary drugs. I think they've done some of the better work in being able to use international work. Look at that as an example, where there is actually some really positive work that's been done.

[Emma Harrison, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you for that.

I'm a small-scale cattle farmer in Ontario, and I know about some of the regulatory challenges for small-scale producers. Again, I'd like to give you the opportunity, Mr. Laycraft, to expand on the regulatory challenges for small-scale producers and large-scale cattle operations.

[Dennis Laycraft]

We did talk about it. SRMs, for instance.... Actually, when you get into small-scale processors, because of their size, it's had a disproportionate effect on small- and medium-sized processors and provincial plants, so that a number of them actually went out of business during this period of time. It actually substantially reduces those costs, so you have more of those available.

When you get into some of the regulatory approval, it's not just small cattle producers. We've worked, for instance, with the sheep industry. They're not large enough. Some of the pharmaceutical companies are saying, “Let's go to Canada and get approved there first.” That's where the harmonization and working with our significant trading partners would come in. If we were able to approve at the same time using the same information, you would get away from market size being the determinant when people actually apply to get products approved.

We're big enough as beef cattle producers; that's not as big a problem for us. For smaller parts of the agriculture sector, it is a problem.

[Emma Harrison, Liberal, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you for that.

I met with lots of farmers of various sizes in my riding this summer, and they spoke frequently about transportation and some of the regulations around transportation. Could you speak to that and what you'd like to see done there?

[Dennis Laycraft]

I don't know if it's about ELDs, or electronic logging devices, but in the U.S., for instance, if you're within so many miles of your destination, it's not.... You have two safety factors when you're transporting livestock. Obviously, there is driver safety, which we're all aware of, but you also have the health and well-being of the live animals. Sometimes there are delays. The best thing you can do is get those animals to their final destination.

Creating that same flexibility that exists in the U.S., for instance, would be really important. There are also new rules that are related to the condition of the animals. There is work being done to try to share between provinces how to fill out those forms and make it easier for small producers, but it does come back to, again, looking at creating that recognition when you're dealing with live animals. It's important. You can't sit them for six hours in the hot sun on a truck, waiting for someone.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you, Mr. Laycraft.

For the final two and a half minutes, we will go to Monsieur Perron.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Lessard, I would like you to talk again about emergency registration. What needs to be changed? How could we revise the process to ensure food safety without compromising safety and health, of course? If you have time, I would like you to talk to me about how we could improve the transparency and predictability of the PMRA.

You have about two minutes to respond.

[Catherine Lessard]

With regard to emergency registrations, the Association des producteurs maraîchers du Québec proposes a two-step process. There is the current emergency registration process, which is useful because it allows us to operate even when there are very long delays for normal registrations. In cases where a product that has not yet been registered is needed quickly, emergency registrations can be used. In fact, this is necessary.

For real emergencies that require very rapid action, we need an expedited emergency approval process. This process would allow a product to be used in a very specific geographical area for a period of 48 hours, for example. After that, this type of registration would no longer be valid. This type of registration would be used for a very specific period of time and geographical area, allowing for a rapid response when significant problems arise.

We are also asking for the regular emergency registration process to be improved. For example, one of the proposed changes would be to no longer have to go through the provincial environment ministries. This is one of the requests made by the PMRA. Currently, whenever there is an emergency registration request, a letter must be obtained from all the provincial environment departments concerned, which can take time. Usually, there is no problem: The departments always respond positively to our request because they rely on the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. In our opinion, this process adds no value and only lengthens the time frame. It would be useful to review the overall process. These are the most important elements we propose.

In terms of transparency, it is very difficult for us to know what is happening with minor-use registration applications. We do not know what stage of the process they are at, how far along they are, or how long they have been there. If we were able to track these applications and understand where they are in the process, it would help us better understand why the delays are sometimes so long. We are often told that it is for commercial reasons or because it takes time for the data to be transmitted from the manufacturer to the PMRA, for example. That is understandable, but, as far as possible, we could be told.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

I want to take this opportunity on behalf of the committee to thank all of our witnesses for joining us here today, and for your work to advance Canadian agriculture.

Is it the will of the committee to adjourn?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.