Finance Committee on April 17th, 2020

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

We heard it, Marty. It's on the record.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Well, I want to make sure everybody on the committee heard it loud and clear.

I do want to ask you another question—

[Mary Robinson]

Can I add something? I just want to point out that, as you say, you're a city kid and I'm a country kid, and I think what a lot of people don't understand about agriculture is that it's a lot like the stock market, in that when you go to buy or sell something on the stock market, you have what the market tells you and you can't shift that. When all of those grain farmers, all of the canola farmers, the beef guys, and everybody across the board goes to market with their product, they're told what they're going to be paid. They have no way to change that. When we see all of these additional taxes and costs with COVID and the carbon tax added on, it just takes away from families.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

It goes right to the bottom line.

[Mary Robinson]

Yes.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

I have one more quick question, if I may, just to switch topics, and it's one that I really hope you can answer.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

It has to be a quick one, Marty.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

On the CEBA, we've had a lot of reports that credit unions aren't geared up, in many cases, to deliver it. I'm just wondering if you've been hearing from any of your 200,000 members who have been trying to get access to the $40,000 interest-free loan with the $10,000 forgivable piece, and whether they've been having trouble accessing it through their local credit unions.

[Mary Robinson]

I haven't heard specifically on credit unions, but Scott may have.

We have heard for sure that in Quebec in particular—and Martin spoke to this—because of their corporate structure within those farms, they're unable to tap into that money. They don't have the employment figure, that box 14. They don't have a number in there that gets them to qualify for it.

Scott, do you have anything on the CEBA and whether people can access it through their credit union?

[Scott Ross]

I haven't heard that specifically, but I can speak to the importance of sole proprietorships, joint partnerships and use of dividends as ways of compensating farm owners and operators. They all seem to preclude a lot of agricultural operations from being able to access the CEBA.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Those are my questions, Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you all there.

I would say, though, that on the FCC— it's come up before—I just checked the figures.

Mary, I think you indicated that only 30% of farmers deal with the FCC. There's roughly $1.8 billion in deferred loans through FCC as of a couple of days ago.

We'll turn to Mr. Fraser. Then we'll go to one question from Mr. Ste-Marie and one from Mr. Julian.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Excellent. Thank you so much to all of our guests for being here with us.

I'll start with the CFA and Ms. Robinson. Thank you for your testimony today. I'm so sorry that you have to be so closely situated to our chair in your ordinary life. He can be a grumpy guy every once in a while.

I want to start on the issue of the [Technical difficulty—Editor] during the outset of your remarks.

Sorry, what was that?

[Mary Robinson]

Sorry. You cut out there. I thought it was my Internet going.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

Oh, my apologies. I'll try to speak slowly so it gets captured.

I want to start on the issue around access to labour to keep farms producing so we can ensure an adequate food supply during this unprecedented time. I'm curious about your perspectives on the measures taken to date for seasonal agricultural workers or migrant workers from abroad, and whether those measures have been helpful and how they could be improved.

Second, what measures do you think would be most effective to actually get Canadians who do not typically work in food production to do so, when they might be looking for work this summer? I believe one of my colleagues on the line—I forget who—mentioned the Canada summer jobs program. There's a part of me that thinks it could be a bit of a romantic summer, in some ways, if Canadians en masse started going back to the land to work the farms.

Practically speaking, in a commercial operation that's going to achieve the kind of volume we need to protect our food security, what could we practically do to enhance the agricultural sector's access to labour, both foreign and Canadian?

[Mary Robinson]

Thank you so much for this question, Mr. Fraser.

You will have received from the clerk our emergency preparedness document. I think on page 3 of that document we outline some measures that we suggest be taken in regard to the recruitment of agri-food workers to address this labour shortage.

In terms of the work we've seen done on the temporary foreign worker side, it's fantastic that we get access to those people. We're still going through some of the rigmarole to get Guatemala to send people to us. That causes a lot of concern, particularly in Quebec, because they see a lot of workers from Guatemala. The $1,500 will certainly be used up as we try to finance the isolation requirements for those foreign workers.

Beyond that, we do need to see access to PPE. That's vital so that we can all keep healthy on the farm and keep doing what we need to do. We need to have the sense that those workers are essential. It would really be fantastic if we could have.... We've heard stories of xenophobia, of comments like “Go home” and “Why are you taking jobs from Canadians?” That's just so far from the truth. These people are heroes. We should be celebrating them and thanking them for coming here and for having confidence in us to keep them safe.

Specifically in regard to attracting displaced Canadian workers, you've heard of the “working while on claim” set-up. We have proposed that there be 0% clawback on working while on claim. Government is going to pay people to be on EI or have CERB. If they could have those payments as well as the wage they would earn on-farm or at an agriculture processing facility, then that, we think, would go in the category of hero pay, because ultimately we do need to incentivize people to have the confidence to go and work on farms.

We would also like to see rapid testing available. We think that this would go a long way to ensuring that people on farms are kept safe. When the first tests become available, maybe if the first 20,000 are made available to our health care system, the next 20,000 could be made available to our agri-food system. What's happening in High River, for example, with Cargill, is catastrophic. We're going to get into animals being culled. I don't want to mince words here. There's an animal welfare issue, and it's highly expensive. We just can't turn the tap on and off in animal production.

These are some of the things we're seeing. You'll find more details in our document when you have a look at it.

[Sean Fraser, Liberal, Central Nova, NS]

I expect I have time for one more quick question. The chair is nodding, so that's good.

Ms. Robinson, in the limited time that we have, I'd like to go back to what one of our earlier guests mentioned with regard to different consumer habits. For example, people aren't eating out at restaurants and are trying to stock up on groceries. I'm curious to know whether we have the domestic production capacity to actually be providing the increased sources for these staple foods that people are purchasing at the grocery store. Is there a strategic risk at all that we won't have the ability to produce what Canadians are buying, now that we're seeing a different kind of eating or purchasing habit demonstrating itself?

[Mary Robinson]

I don't think we have a shortage of capacity to do that. I talked to Todd Lewis the other day, and he assured me that on his farm alone, he has enough flour to feed P.E.I. for at least two years.

Wayne, we'll be in cinnamon rolls for another two years anyhow.

Certainly this shift in consumer patterns has had a huge impact. There's the time lag as the producers and the food chain respond to that. I was thinking about the question asked of Cleanfarms and how plastic is helping. We know that our mushroom growers have dumped hundreds of thousands of mushrooms. Some of that is because their packing facilities aren't set up to pack for retail. Nobody right now wants to be pawing through a bulk mushroom bin to pick out their mushrooms. They're going to get around that. I don't know if you saw the piece about Mike Medeiros in the National Post, which was excellent. It talked about his 20% reduction in production because he saw this drop in the food service business.

The system is responding to it, but I think the best thing we can do in the long run is ensure that producers have the confidence to grow the food. I think we'll be able to process it pretty well here as long as we have that chain working.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thanks to all of you for that.

We will try to get in four single questions if we can. We'll go first to Mr. Ste-Marie, then Mr. Julian, Mr. Poilievre and Mr. Fragiskatos.

Go ahead, Gabriel.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Matte, can you tell us about the urgency of ensuring that rural communities have access to the Internet and to the cellular network?

It was important before COVID‑19 and, given the current confinement measures, it is now a major public security issue. So I would like to hear your thoughts on it.

[Jean-Maurice Matte]

We see how important that access is today. We have been talking about it and wishing it to be implemented for such a long time that it is difficult to understand why our regions and municipalities are still not well connected to the Internet today, despite all the efforts of the two levels of government.

Allow me to give you an example. A company wants to come set up in my region. We have been working on this important economic stimulus project for a long time. It involves a $5-million investment and will enable the creation of 40 jobs. There is no significant issue in the social sphere, as the project has been accepted by the territory's entire population. This is a company that wants to come set up in an isolated area with no Internet access or even a cellular network. However, our region is located 15 minutes from the town of Amos, a big town with 12,000 people. It makes no sense for us not to be better connected to the Internet. The current crisis shows all the importance of our communities and regions being connected to the Internet.

I am not talking about only cities along major highways such as the TransCanadian and the 117. We have to serve all the rural regions. That will enable us to promote economic development projects and to be involved in agriculture in more remote areas. That must be part of the stimulus plan.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Wayne Easter]

Thank you, both.

Mr. Julian, please ask a single question so that we can get the two others in.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Matte and Madam Napier. It's simply about the issue of funding from the federal government to municipalities. We're hearing of the problems that cities both large and small are facing right across the country.

How important is it that an aid package come out immediately to support municipalities, regardless of their size, across the country?

[Lynn Napier]

It is critically important that funding go to communities. When you look at what levels of government are able to provide to communities, communities are first on the ground with water and sewer services, street cleaning, everything. In our own community, we have four people at our water treatment plant. If two of them get sick, that's half our workforce. We are looking at how to keep providing the services we need to keep going, the expenditures we have. This sounds maybe a little morbid, but the reality is that our ice has been left on at our curling club in case we need to use it as a morgue because we have one space at our morgue.

We have expenses we need to take care of. As I said earlier, we've already spent in excess of about $180,000 that we're not going to get back.

Looking at the long-term effects, we don't know how long this is going to last. We can't run our municipality in a deficit. Cities, villages, towns across the country are all facing these impacts. The funding programs that have come out for businesses and individuals have been great, but municipalities are being hit pretty hard as well.