Agriculture Committee on June 16th, 2026

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

The Canadian Meat Council is also quoted as saying, “the strategy does not include a plan to address ongoing labour shortages in the agri-food sector.” You also mentioned labour shortages in your testimony. Are you satisfied with the announcements?

[Kristina Farrell]

No. There was not a reference to labour as it relates to domestic processing capacity.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

I'll switch to CropLife.

The last time the PMRA got a dollop of money, we ended up with the transformation initiative and a citizens' science council, which, while spending a lot of money, gummed up the works and slowed things down.

Can you comment on the levels of confidence that the focus, which is welcome, will actually produce results?

[Gregory Kolz]

We were quite pleasantly surprised to see fairly ambitious commitments in the food security strategy. One was eliminating the CFIA and PRD approval backlogs by the end of 2026. The other was reducing the average time for future approvals at both CFIA and PRD by at least one-third.

To your point, similar announcements have been made in the past. It's about holding them to account. I think the government has shown a certain openness and perhaps ambition. Frankly, what we need to see is a culture shift at the departmental level. The hope is that by working collaboratively, we can advance this. We see this as an opportunity, frankly. Again, Canada can be the world's food security partner. Being more productive here means that food security and stability can also be achieved abroad.

It's ambitious. We were pleased with the commitments that were made, but we've heard similar commitments in the past. Now is the time to put those commitments into action.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

I'm from Missouri: show me.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

Next we'll go to MP Dandurand for two and a half minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.

I'd like to turn to Food and Beverage Canada, as well as the Food Processing Council of Quebec, mainly regarding the announced investments in agri-food processing. Yes, there is a commitment. It now needs to be implemented.

I think that this commitment has two aspects. One involves large food hubs, along the lines of what's being done in Toronto, and the other involves smaller and more local projects. If money is invested at the local level to support processing, refrigeration and so on, what would you consider to be the essentials?

We're going to roll out programs, so what is required to ensure that these new facilities contribute to food security and serve our agricultural producers?

[Kristina Farrell]

In terms of the food hub announcement, we haven't yet looked at it from the perspective of how it will impact food and beverage manufacturing in this country. In terms of program delivery, though, I think for our member companies, these programs are often too limited in scope. They're underfunded or they have strict eligibility criteria that leave out medium to large companies in particular.

For us, again, it's the details of these programs. Our companies have expressed the need for these funds to go out quickly. It takes a lot of time and investment from a company, small or large, in the country to respond to some of these programs. The speed at which they can support companies is very important.

[Dimitri Fraeys]

If I may, I'd like to add a comment.

The programs have to target SMEs, given that 80% of the businesses that feed Canada are small and medium-sized businesses. We're talking about businesses with fewer than 100 employees.

As Ms. Farrell said, the analysis timeline is super important, because when a company wants to set up a project, it doesn't have two years to do so. It often has only a few months. That means it's important to speed up the processing, and the programs also have to be tailored to small and medium-sized businesses, that is, businesses that don't always have the resources in terms of human knowledge. As a result, it's important to provide support so that projects can be implemented as efficiently as possible and so that businesses can speed up the launch and implementation of these new technologies. It's very important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Lemire for a minute and a half.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Bergeron and Mr. Kolz, last week, under Bill C‑30, the Canadian government allowed the reintroduction of pesticides that had previously been banned. What was CropLife Canada's role in working with the minister to make it possible to reintroduce those pesticides?

[Émilie Bergeron]

On that point, I want to be very clear that CropLife has not been advocating for or asking about these emergency powers. As we understand it, those emergency powers, which will be used in extremely rare cases, are for the benefit of provinces and growers.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

In the current context as well, because the timelines are often six to eight years, if I'm not mistaken, one of your requests is to be able to speed up the approval of new innovation technologies, particularly with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and so on.

Will those timelines be further accelerated in the next few years, or do you feel that the timelines are still too long for innovations to be used in agriculture?

[Émilie Bergeron]

I would say that the strategy before us today really provides the political impetus to move toward approvals that will be, at the very least, what the Pest Management Regulatory Agency or the Canadian Food Inspection Agency should also be doing.

It's important to approve products in a timely manner. Predictability is extremely important for my members' investment decisions, for example. It's important to ensure that producers have access, as quickly as possible, to new technologies that enable them to be more productive and competitive, so they can support food security in Canada and elsewhere.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much

That concludes this portion of the meeting. We will now suspend for about five minutes to switch to in camera.

Thank you to all of our witnesses for joining us here today.

[Proceedings continue in camera]