Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 1st, 2023

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

I'm afraid we're going to have to go to the next question, Ms. Conlon. Thank you.

We will now go to MP McPherson. You have four minutes.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

Particularly, Mr. Hagerman, thank you for being here. It's nice to see you again. I'm very impressed, and always have been, with the work the Foodgrains Bank does and how it works in collaboration with the World Food Programme and others. In fact, I purchased the painting behind me in Ethiopia when I was visiting a Canada Foodgrains project there many years ago.

The question I want to ask you goes forward from what my colleague Mr. Bergeron was asking about. We know there was a World Food Programme analysis in September of this year that showed that every 1% cut in food assistance pushes about 400,000 people into emergency hunger.

We know that we have a feminist international assistance policy. Women are the ones who are most impacted when there is food scarcity, when there is food insecurity.

Can you talk a little bit more about what impact Canada's cut to the aid budget has had on global food security? We know that we should be at 0.7%. We've never reached that target in Canada, but the 15% cut in the last budget is very difficult.

Perhaps you could comment on that, Mr. Hagerman.

[Paul Hagerman]

Thank you.

You're correct that this cut has definitely had an impact. I'll give you one very concrete example.

My organization, the Canada Foodgrains Bank, does get support from the Canadian government to do humanitarian work, for which we're grateful.

We recently put a proposal in front of Global Affairs, asking for some extra money to do development work together with this humanitarian work. Basically, it was to complete the other half of that nexus, to help people get back on their feet again after the crisis. The folks we talked to at Global Affairs said, “This is a great idea. We'd love to be able to support it, but we're sorry; we have no money.”

We are hearing that from a number of other organizations like ours. They are coming to the government and saying, “We have these great solutions.” “We have these great proposals.” “We have trusted partners.” “We have a good track record.” “We know what we're doing.” They keep hearing, “Great idea. There's no money.” That's the impact.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

This committee heard, actually, from David Beasley, the former head of the World Food Programme, just last year that every dollar we spend now saves us $1,000. That's a thousand times more in the future with regard to the cost of conflict, the cost of human suffering. We know that.

We also know that in Canada, the cost of food is going up. You'll know that the argument we've heard is not one I support, but I'd like to give you an opportunity to provide some context for it. The argument is that we can't afford to support other people around the world because it's so costly for Canadians to buy food in Canada. What would you say to that, Mr. Hagerman?

[Paul Hagerman]

I'd like to remind the members that Canada is not isolated from the world. We depend on the world for trade. We're related to the world in terms of migration. We saw during COVID that we're all in one place when it comes to health issues. In terms of security issues, we've seen that very much in the last week. There are Canadians trapped in difficult situations.

We need the world. A world that's peaceful, a world that's stable and a world that's prosperous is good for us. I think it's possible for Canada—which I think we would all undoubtedly agree is a wealthy country—to support the needs at home and also to support the needs internationally.

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Yes, and I would point out too that if we don't support those needs internationally, then the cost will be paid. It will be paid in human suffering. It will be paid in conflict at a later date.

Thank you very much, Mr. Hagerman.

I will pass it back to the chair. I believe that's my time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

It is. Thank you ever so much, Ms. McPherson.

We will go to the second round. For the second round, each member gets three minutes.

Mr. Chong, the floor is yours.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My questions are for the Foodgrains Bank and the Grain Farmers of Ontario.

Research indicates that the world could only feed half of the world's population today without artificial nitrogen fertilizer produced from natural gas through the Haber-Bosch process. I'm wondering if you agree with that research.

[Deborah Conlon]

If you're asking me, I would say yes. Nitrogen fertilizer is essential to grow food. People need food; plants need food.

[Paul Hagerman]

Yes, I would agree with that.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you.

I have a second question.

Ontario farmers import about 700,000 tonnes of nitrogen fertilizer annually, as Mr. Epp has pointed out. Prior to the war in Ukraine, about 90% of that fertilizer came from Russia.

As you know, the government has put a 35% tariff on this fertilizer. My understanding is that Canada is the only G7 country imposing a tariff on Russian fertilizer. Is that correct?

[Deborah Conlon]

That's correct. The UN Secretary-General is asking all nations not to put tariffs on fertilizer.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

I'll go to my next and last question.

There are suggestions that sanctions on Russian individuals and entities have targeted essential food and agricultural exports to developing countries—in other words, that the result of these sanctions is that some essential food and agricultural exports to developing countries, to low-income countries, have been impacted.

Do you agree with those suggestions? If you do, to what extent have the sanctions reduced Russian food and agricultural exports, or Canadian food and agricultural exports, to developing countries?

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[Deborah Conlon]

I'll let you answer that question.

[Paul Hagerman]

That's beyond my expertise in terms of the sanctions of individuals, though my understanding is that much of the reduction in exports has had more to do with the questions around safety of moving goods across the Black Sea, which was addressed through the Black Sea grain initiative. I don't know to what extent sanctions on individuals have had an impact on that.

[Michael Chong, Conservative, Wellington—Halton Hills, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

We next go to Mr. Zuberi.

You have three minutes.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being here.

I'd also like to thank Mr. Bergeron for teaching me a new word in French, “autofilibuster”.

I would like to ask Mr. Hagerman a question, please.

You had really insightful comments at the beginning, when you started off by saying that food security is global security.

We know that the World Food Programme has stated that 345 million people are facing acute levels of food insecurity in 2023. That's double what was there before.

Can you elaborate a bit more on how food security—when people have food and are not prevented from having food for whatever reason—promotes global security?

[Paul Hagerman]

I think the obvious thing is that if people are hungry, they get angry and they riot in the streets. We did see that in 2009 and 2010.

Even beyond that, we often are dealing with what we call “hidden hunger”. It's a situation, usually with children, when they are getting sufficient calories and their bellies are full, but they're not getting full nutrition. Those are the kids who really struggle in school. They are not going to get a full education and they're not going to be able to work to their full capacity as adults.

Imagine 60% of a population in a country who are suffering this hidden hunger and not able to achieve their potential. That really holds a country back from what they can achieve, whether in business or in international relations or whatever it is. That's one example.

Another example I'll give is the Democratic Republic of Congo. I saw a report today that said there are about seven million people displaced in that country because of conflict, and a lot of that is lack of food, lack of land and conflict over resources. People are being killed and people are having to leave their land, and that is spilling over across borders as well.

Those are a couple of examples of what happens when people just can't access enough food.

[Sameer Zuberi, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

You gave some examples. In terms of outcomes, when people are starved for whatever reason, what types of negative outcomes actually are produced when that happens?

It's beyond the educational shortcomings and the lack of full attainment of the individual. I'm thinking more along the lines of people resorting to things that are unacceptable within society.

Do you want to touch upon that briefly?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Answer very briefly, please, in under 15 seconds.

[Paul Hagerman]

I mentioned when I was speaking earlier what we refer to as negative coping strategies: You pull kids out of school and girls are getting married at age 12 because you can get a bride price; you sell off your livestock, but that means it's more difficult to recover afterwards; you cut down all the trees to make charcoal, but then there are no trees.

Those are the kinds of things that happen when people are too hungry.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ali Ehsassi]

Thank you.

Now we go to Mr. Bergeron.

You have a minute and a half.

[Stéphane Bergeron, Bloc, Montarville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Conlon, I was a little surprised by your response that the $34.1 million announced by the federal government in its 2023 budget, which was to start being distributed in 2023‑24, was earmarked for environmental improvements. The objective was specifically “to help farmers most reliant on Russian fertilizer imports”.

This could be either of two things: They made promises with no intention of meeting the commitment, or those funds were actually intended for something else.

Mr. Dionne, I don't want to leave you in a lurch. I heard the description of what you've done in Ukraine. I imagine that this work was carried out by cooperatives. So I'd like to know if you formed cooperatives in Ukraine to carry out the projects you advanced.

[François Dionne]

Thank you for the question, Mr. Bergeron.

What we do is form cooperatives; it's what we do for a living. We believe it's the model best suited to fostering food security and resilience. We talked earlier about the impact of climate change. With the technical assistance available to us, it's definitely the model we're advocating.

So we form cooperatives, support them and professionalize them. We have the benefit of being able to call on Quebec's Réseau COOP. I'm talking about Agropur, Sollio and Beneva, among others, who support us, share their models with us and adapt to the local context, of course.