Agriculture Committee on Oct. 2nd, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Now we'll go to the Liberals for six minutes.

MP Chatel, you have the floor.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair

I’d like to thank all the witnesses for joining us today.

As mentioned earlier, I think that one of the common goals for this committee’s study is to compare what departments put forward in September and to seek your feedback and recommendations on these proposals. I’d like to thank everyone who has made recommendations.

Mr. Ross, my question was similar to the one my colleague asked. I think it has been answered. In practical terms, reference was made to amending the mandate; the preamble states that care should be taken to apply an economic lens. How can we be more ambitious?

You’re saying that that is not enough, but what do you mean by that? Where can we position that exactly? Can you expand a little more specifically on what you had in mind? That would help us in our study.

In recommendation 1, you call for amending the mandate of the Pest Management Regulatory Authority, or PMRA, to ensure they consider food security and economic impacts. That’s also exactly what is already in the preamble. You wish to amend the mandate. Do you have any specific suggestions that you can share with us? If you could send that to us in writing, that would be more than sufficient. I’ve got a number of questions, and I’ll try to get through them all.

In recommendation 2, you go into detail about leveraging reviews and best regulatory practices from other trusted agencies. We just heard officials tell us that they have made significant progress on joint reviews, starting with the European Union, the United Kingdom and New Zealand, followed by mutual recognition agreements.

Do you think that is a step in the right direction? Would you want to be more ambitious? Can you be more specific about what you would recommend in this context?

[Mac Ross]

To address the first part of that question around requiring the PMRA to consider food security and economic impacts in its regulatory decisions, we do feel that there's room to be more ambitious in that regard. As far as the means to accomplish this, I think that there are different ways to achieve this, and ultimately it's for the government to decide how to proceed.

From our perspective, achieving the outcome, which is requiring the PMRA to consider food security and economic impacts in all of its regulatory decisions, is more important than the means to arrive at that outcome. We think there's still work to do there in ensuring that, as we said earlier, we find the balance between regulating for risk and regulating for growth. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

To your second question around the work to leverage reviews and best regulatory practices from other trusted and risk-based jurisdictions, we think that there have been some positive steps in that direction. You referenced joint reviews. We feel that there can be more ambition to do more in that regard, as we really feel it would remove duplication.

The benefits are twofold there. It would be an efficiency driver for the agency that has constrained resources and capacity. Second, it would ensure that Canadian farmers have access to the same tools as farmers in competing jurisdictions. There have been times in the past when we've had a divergence of regulatory decisions on similar products. I think more definitely needs to be done in that regard.

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

Thank you, Mr. Ross.

Mr. Kolz, I’d also like to hear your comments on that.

I’d also like to hear what you have to say about the backlog. Last week, we had officials tell us that this was going to be resolved. What are your expectations? Is it a minimum standard? Specifically, are there tools that we can leverage to meet this service standard?

[Gregory Kolz]

Maybe we'll share our response here, but I will start off by saying that the recommendations that were put forward back in early September were underwhelming at best. To the point made earlier that they didn't consult with us during the process, most of what they're discussing currently are things that have been discussed for years. Their timeline for implementation is years down the road. Both of those things combined are concerning. There seems to be a lack of ambition but, in terms of the backlog, I'll let Émilie touch on that.

[Émilie Bergeron]

Indeed, the approval backlog is very problematic, especially for new registrations. Last week, the PMRA told your committee about its 72% performance, which has continued to decline over the past few years. At the same time, we’re seeing fewer and fewer active ingredients submitted for PMRA registration. This is somewhat contradictory: We want efficiency vis-à-vis the number of active ingredients. We have specific proposals on that to share with the PMRA. They are fairly technical in nature, but we’ll share them with the committee for information.

First, how can the PMRA boost its performance while adhering to regulatory and legal requirements and maintaining compliance with environmental and public health standards, which is very important? It can use more predictable and timely approaches. This is a priority for us.

I know that the PMRA also stressed that it was not the only organization facing these types of problems and gave the example of the United States, without providing any context. However, the United States and Canada have different workload contexts. The United States has roughly 58,000 to 60,000 pest control products whereas Canada has only 7,000. Our respective workloads are therefore very different.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

I have to ask you to stop there. I gave you an extra 15 seconds.

[Émilie Bergeron]

Okay. We can give you all that information.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you so much.

Next up for six minutes, from the Bloc Québécois, is Monsieur Perron.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here today.

Ms. Bergeron, I’ll give you time to finish your sentence.

[Émilie Bergeron]

Thank you very much.

I mentioned that the number of products is fairly different at 58,000 in the United States and less than 8,000 in Canada. The workload is dramatically different.

The United States has seen substantial changes in their regulatory system to comply with a court order, and this has involved significant resources. That is something that the PMRA has not done. However, what we have seen is that while the PMRA has focused on transformation, its efficiency has declined significantly since the transformation was introduced in 2021, so we know that this has had an impact.

That's why we were so disappointed to see its recommendations in the red tape reduction report because we did not see anything from them to enhance performance or improve the re-evaluation program.

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

Thank you for sharing the rest of your thoughts.

They are quite relevant. All of us support transparency and proper labelling, among other things. You’ve said that the United States made changes and increased efficiency, but that Canada does not have the capacity to do that. Did the United States increase resources? What did they do?

[Émilie Bergeron]

Right now the United States is holding discussions with manufacturers and industry to find ways to get performance back on track. There’s a lot of collaboration. They’re looking for innovative methods to enhance performance, including working with artificial intelligence tools. They’re also looking for more resources from industry—not financial resources but more collaboration. One thing that has really boosted performance review in the United States is that they have a risk assessment step before the decision stage and then move on to publication. We don’t have that in Canada.

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

You have touched on a sensitive issue when you say that there’s a need to share expertise within the industry, among other things. I get that. However, the government must ensure its scientific independence. What is the balance? We’ve had past discussions about that, and while we may not always agree on everything, we do get along well.

How can a balance be struck to ensure that the government doesn’t abdicate its responsibility to protect the public and maintain its scientific independence? We can’t ask a business to analyze products that will not be profitable for them and rely solely on these analyses for approval. Do you understand what I’m trying to say? Would you agree with me on that? What is the balance?

[Émilie Bergeron]

That’s not what we’re saying.

When it comes to re-evaluation, the PMRA routinely tries to obtain all available scientific information or to look into what agencies in other jurisdictions have done. The agency now has a program that allows it to do so in a more public way. I believe that is the problem.

I think the PMRA already has all the processes in place to support its independence and indeed, the agency is extremely independent. Sure, there are data from manufacturers, but there’s also a very high scientific standard that meets all international requirements.

The challenge for the PMRA may consist in explaining how it operates, which could ensure that many issues in the public eye are addressed. The PMRA has tried, but it could do a little more.

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

We’re on the same page there.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on emergency applications. Representatives of the Association des producteurs maraîchers du Québec appeared before the committee last week. They told us that applications can take up to 10 years. In your opening remarks, you spoke of 12 years, but this also included R and D, which is an asset. If it only takes the PMRA 12 years, this means that we’re practically inching closer to 25 years.

That doesn’t make sense. Is it just plain inefficiency or what is going on? How can emergency applications be processed without endangering people’s health and safety? These emergency applications are among the problems that have been identified. There may be specific scenarios where temporary use of a product is justified, but there are significant challenges. Reviews end up being done, but the problem will be resolved before approval is granted.

[Émilie Bergeron]

Emergency registrations are fairly complicated. The PMRA has just held consultations to improve the process. I know that the Association des producteurs maraîchers du Québec has submitted comments, and so have we. We hope that the PMRA would want to work with the sector to improve this process.

As you mentioned, one of the biggest problems is that by the time emergency registration is approved, the season has passed, and the damage is already done. We’re asking for the process to be more efficient. In fact, we’ve made recommendations along those lines and I can share them with the committee if you’re interested.

There have been discussions on this issue in recent years, but things have not improved significantly so far. That’s usually the case with the PMRA: There’s often a lot of talk but little meaningful action that has resulted in greater efficiency.

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

Is it a matter of resources, a lack of will or something else?

[Émilie Bergeron]

We’d say it’s a matter of culture.

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

That’s an interesting answer.

I think the idea of sharing expertise across multiple countries is great. For example, the United States could test impacts on soils, and we could test impacts on water and then we can share knowledge. Obviously, each government would retain sovereignty over the final decision.

What are your thoughts on that? I’m running out of time, so I’ll ask you to provide a quick answer.

[Émilie Bergeron]

That’s exactly what we’re asking for.

I think agencies around the world face resource-related challenges. I’m mostly talking about Australia, the United States and Canada, which operate in a similar manner. The need is there, and it would really help to make them more effective.

However, that is not really what the PMRA has in mind when it alludes to this. As Mac Ross was saying, we want it to be more ambitious.

[The Chair, Liberal, Michael Coteau]

Thank you very much.

We'll go to the Conservatives and Mr. Bragdon for five minutes.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to each of the committee members for being here. It's an honour to be on the committee and to be able to ask these questions. Thanks for representing the various commodity groups and, of course, the producers and farmers. These are obviously challenging times in the field.

I had an interesting meeting this morning with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. I was quite taken with some of the findings that have resulted from the survey work they're doing. I think they consulted with over 100,000 of their members.

They talked about some of the constraints and challenges they're finding amongst their independent business owners, many of whom, of course, are farmers and producers. They're obviously being impacted by the taxation policies that are in place and by some of the regulatory burdens they're facing. What's amazing is we're seeing a large increase in how much these are impacting them.

For example, there are tax and regulatory costs, insurance costs and wage costs. They're finding product input costs, which, of course, many farmers and producers can relate to across the country. There are also fuel costs, borrowing costs and energy costs overall. There are many contributing factors.

What we'd like to hear from each of you is whether you would agree that regulatory costs have been the primary financial burden for the industries that you represent. Has it been the regulatory as well as the taxation burdens? What are you hearing from your producers?

We'll start with you, Mr. Kolz, and we'll work our way across.

[Gregory Kolz]

Yes, it's undeniable that regulatory burden is having a hugely negative impact on the industry to the extent that we've been trying to work with the government to put forward ideas that are either low cost or no cost and things that can be done relatively quickly.

It speaks to what we said earlier about a lack of ambition, in some cases, where we can contemplate things for years and years, but until there is actual concrete action taken, those impacts will continue to be felt.

Since the transformation agenda, as Émilie alluded to in an earlier response, was implemented in 2021, the efficiency rate has declined steadily. We think that sunsetting the transformation agenda would be a very quick and relatively easy step towards reversing that trend.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you.

Ms. Bergeron, just before you begin your remarks, I do want to make sure of this. You mentioned the reports or suggestions regarding the PMRA that you folks have put together. Would you mind tabling that as well with the committee to make sure we have that information at hand?

Please proceed with answering the question.