Agriculture Committee on June 9th, 2026

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

Thank you.

Mr. Carney warned that “A country that cannot feed itself, fuel itself, or defend itself has few options” and said that Canadians can judge him by the price of food at the grocery store. I think he regrets saying those things, because at the moment, under his leadership, Canada is the only G20 country in a recession, and we lead the G7 in food inflation. For over a decade, these regressive Liberal policies and inflationary spending have driven investments, particularly in agriculture, out of Canada.

I'd like to start with Mr. McCann.

We talk about food resilience and food security in Canada. One of the main things we can do to increase production in Canada is have access to fertilizer and chemical products. Fertilizer prices have increased by 40% to 50%. I know they have on my farm. That's year over year. That's just taking the last year alone. Then we have the carbon tax and clean fuel standards.

Can you comment on how this is making Canada very uncompetitive in a globally priced market?

[Tyler McCann]

I think we take our inputs for granted in Canada. We need to be more serious about this. The national food security strategy, which is supposed to come soon, should commit clearly to a critical inputs strategy that looks at ensuring the supply is there and looks at regulatory changes to make it easy to produce more and at permitting changes to make it easier to produce more.

For too long, it has been easy to ensure that farmers have fertilizer, pesticides and other important products. We need to realize that the world has changed, and we need to take this far more seriously than we have in the past.

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

I'm in southeast Saskatchewan. We're right on the border with Montana and North Dakota. Let's take a crop like canola, for example. They can produce that crop 15% to 35% cheaper—according to estimates I've seen—than we can in Canada, just because of regulation.

Do you have any advice to give this committee on how we can make the Canadian agriculture sector more competitive?

[Tyler McCann]

Regulatory change comes up over and over again. This is something that this committee should not stop talking about. It should not stop holding the government to account. Officials in this government need to act. They need to make changes.

This is a man-made challenge we have in Canada. We can talk a lot about the impacts of climate change and volatility, but the impacts of the regulatory environment are imposed by government officials in Ottawa and in provincial capitals across the country. This is something we need to do more on to deliver more serious change.

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

In your opening remarks, you mentioned that one of your four pillars was innovation. Recently, we had an announcement from the Liberal government that they're going to close seven agriculture research centres across Canada that have been world-leading in some of the innovations they've brought forward, such as zero till, for example. Also, I believe that up to 60% or 80% of the seed varieties we use in western Canada are developed at these research centres, yet the centres are being closed.

Can you comment on that? You mentioned innovation. Do you think the closing of these stations will have a negative or positive impact on Canadian agriculture?

[Tyler McCann]

Certainly, cuts in innovation spending have an impact.

One of the problems is that we've seen cuts over the last decades, and when spending on agriculture innovation goes down, we only feel the impact many years later. The closure of research sites makes this very up front. We will see the impact of that very clearly and presently, and the impacts of long-term cuts will have long-term negative consequences.

We need to double down on innovation. Again, something we have taken for granted is that farmers will always have access to new varieties, and we'll always have new technology available. Over the last 10 or 20 years, we have not had the track record we had 20 or 40 years ago in giving farmers the tools they need. We need to do this more seriously. I would like to see the federal government and the provincial governments commit to a more meaningful and substantial ag innovation strategy when Minister MacDonald meets with his counterparts this summer.

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

When it comes to business risk management tools, what are you envisioning in your four pillars that you mentioned? BRM was on top.

[Tyler McCann]

That's right.

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

Go ahead.

[Tyler McCann]

We need to give farmers more choice and more tools. Effectively, we try to treat all farmers the same today. We like to think that one set of programs can give farmers all the tools they need, but we know that farms today are very different.

It's not about just one region or the other or one commodity or the other. Farms are in different business cycles, and they need different tools. We need to recognize that and find more ways to give farmers more innovative risk management tools that are better suited and more effective against the risks in this new and volatile world we're in.

We can't just say, “AgriStability and crop insurance are your two options.” We need to look at a different world. It doesn't mean that we take those tools away. If a farmer still wants to use crop insurance or a farmer wants to use AgriStability, we should probably let them, but we need to create a space where we're giving them better and more innovative tools to use instead.

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

From your vantage point, from the institute you represent, what would be your take on Alto and the confiscation of valuable farmland in Ontario and Quebec?

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

You have 20 seconds left.

[Tyler McCann]

It's unfortunate.

Canadians live in some of the best, most fertile farmland in this country. We've seen provincial governments go out of their way to take farmland out of production. There was opposition to that. There needs to be opposition to federal efforts to take farmland out of production too.

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

Hear, hear.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

Next we'll go to the Liberals for six minutes, with MP Chatel.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac—Kitigan Zibi, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I would like to welcome all the witnesses who are here today.

Mr. McCann, I'd like to first thank you for coming to Shawville, in my riding, to meet with producers, farmers and processors, as well as a number of people interested in the issue of food security, which was one of our themes.

What exactly have you heard from people on the ground when it comes to the issue of food security?

[Tyler McCann]

What I have heard is that they're facing a challenge.

On the one hand, producers want to produce more food. They want to be a part of the local economy and help ensure local food security. On the other hand, they're facing a challenge. They want to make sure they can get their food directly to consumers or markets, but the supply chains and local infrastructure are a problem for them. There needs to be an action plan on that.

What is too often missing in Canada is a plan that focuses on local markets, local value chains. Action is too often taken at the national level. Agriculture is effectively a two-tiered system in Canada: one tier is focused on domestic and international markets, and the other is focused on local markets. We should be doing more to support the local value chain to ensure that producers, such as those in Pontiac, can play a greater role in food security.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac—Kitigan Zibi, QC]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Graydon, you were talking earlier about productivity as an important factor in Canadian food security. We need to do more here in Canada to become not a distribution market but a processing market.

We have long defined the agri-food sector as a sector with high potential for growth. For example, we implemented a superdeduction to increase investments in technology and machinery. We also have the regional tariff response initiative, which enables investments in the agri-food sector and in greenhouses as well.

If you had one piece of advice for the government regarding this economic potential in food processing, what would it be?

[Michael Graydon]

The advice would be to continue the investments that have been made that stimulate capital investment. A lot of it is foreign capital investment. Multinationals that have access to capital have made some very significant contributions to the expansion of capacity here. In the last nine months, we're probably looking at in the neighbourhood of $2 billion in capital investment in major plants across the country. Some of the initiatives that you outlined have stimulated some of that confidence in the Canadian market. We need more of it. We also need mechanisms to stimulate capital investment in the small and medium-sized enterprises, which really do struggle to find access to capital.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac—Kitigan Zibi, QC]

Would you say that the FCC investment, the $7-billion fund, a large part of it being dedicated to investment in the agri-food sector, can be a way to access capital? If not, what else should the government do?

[Michael Graydon]

The program FCC has put together has certainly contributed. There's $7 billion or $8 billion accessible to the marketplace. The importance is in finding the ease to access and making sure that it's not so complex. Many of these small and medium-sized enterprises do not have the infrastructure to figure a lot of this stuff out, so you have to make it easier for them. If there's less complexity, I think accessibility to that money will get translated into investments.

While the agricultural community talks a lot about agri-food, this needs to become part of the dialogue across government in all aspects of it. We are, and have the potential to be, a powerhouse, but it has to be an all-of-government discussion. It cannot just be an agricultural discussion.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac—Kitigan Zibi, QC]

Thank you very much.

Ms. Proud, when it comes to one aspect of food security, we're obviously looking at the entire supply chain, including grocers. In Canada, the market has five major chains. In your experience—I'm talking not only about your experience enforcing the code of conduct, but also your experience working with stakeholders—do you think it would be worth exploring more competition?

As Mr. McCann just said, we just came back from a round table, and we're talking a lot about a local grocery ecosystem or places where producers can be connected with consumers.

Do you think that would be a good initiative?

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

I'm sorry. There's no more time. There are six seconds left.

[Sophie Chatel, Liberal, Pontiac—Kitigan Zibi, QC]

Ms. Proud, you can send us the information in writing.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

We'll go to the Bloc for six minutes.