Government Operations Committee on March 24th, 2026

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Good afternoon. We are in session.

Welcome to meeting number 32 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

We originally intended to have two different CER meetings. Unfortunately, the library folks were not able to attend today. We've moved them back to April. We have just the one extended round with our witnesses from various ag committees.

We have the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission, the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association and Western Crop Innovations. All are appearing virtually.

I understand that all of you have five-minute opening statements. Because we have a lot to get to, I ask that you watch your clock and keep it to five minutes in order to stop me from having to cut you off.

We will have bells probably around five. We have one budget to approve before we rise for that.

Mr. Steinley, the floor is yours. Go ahead, please, sir.

[Darren Steinley, Vice-President, Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee, for the opportunity to appear before you today.

My name is Darren Steinley, and I serve as the vice-president of the Saskatchewan Association of Rural Municipalities, or SARM.

Before I begin, I need to declare that I'm first cousin to MP Warren Steinley. However, I'm here solely as a representative of SARM.

It is a privilege to share SARM's perspective on the importance of the agriculture research farms at Indian Head and Scott to Canadian agriculture, rural municipalities and the producers who rely on that industry every day.

SARM represents 296 rural municipalities in Saskatchewan. Our members are on the front lines of agricultural production. When we talk about research and innovation, we are not speaking in theoretical terms. We are talking about the tools producers need to seed their crops, manage risk and keep their operations viable from one season to the next. In that context, the Indian Head and Scott research farms are critical assets not only for the agriculture industry as a whole but also for the individual farms and ranches across western Canada that depend on practical, proven solutions.

The Indian Head and Scott stations have a long, distinguished history as centres of prairie agriculture innovation. The research conducted at these farms has advanced soil conservation, improved water management and contributed to better crop rotations and agronomic practices that are now standard in most operations. These outcomes are not abstract or academic. They are tangible changes that have improved yields, built soil organic matter, enhanced carbon sequestration and supported the long-term health of the land in ways that directly affect farm productivity and resilience.

From SARM's perspective, one of the greatest strengths of the Saskatchewan agriculture research farms is their applied field-scale focus. Producers need information that is tested under real-world conditions on soils in climate zones that mirror their own. This approach ensures that varieties and practices are robust across multiple environments, which is a key reason they've been so successful throughout the Prairies.

The importance of facilities like those at Indian Head and Scott is only growing as producers are asked to navigate an increasingly complex operating environment. Farmers are being asked to produce more with tighter margins, while also demonstrating stewardship of the soil, water and biodiversity. Robust, locally relevant research is essential to meeting these expectations.

There are also broader economic implications that extend well beyond the farm gate. A strong agriculture sector underpins the fiscal health of rural municipalities, which rely heavily on the agriculture tax base to maintain infrastructure, deliver services and support community life. When producers are more productive and resilient, they are better able to invest in their operations, employees and local economies. The research and innovation supported by the Indian Head and Scott research farms contribute directly to stability and growth across rural Saskatchewan and western Canada.

When research infrastructure like that at the Indian Head and Scott research farms is weakened or lost, the impacts are far-reaching. It's not just a matter of losing buildings or plots. It means losing accumulated expertise, long-term research projects, datasets and the relationships with producers that have been built over many years. Those assets cannot be quickly or easily replaced. Once they are gone, it takes decades to rebuild the capacity. In the meantime, producers and rural communities are left without support. They need to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing sector.

A study on wheat varietal research and development found that for every dollar that producers' commissions and the Western Grains Research Foundation invested in wheat breeding, they received over $30 back in benefits. When public money is invested alongside producer dollars, the return on investment increases even further, with billions in benefits flowing from wheat production alone. Saskatchewan research farms are also advancing other cereals, pulses and oilseeds.

SARM would encourage the committee, and the government more broadly, to view these research farms not as a cost but as a strategic asset that delivers returns in the form of productivity, resilience and innovation across the agriculture sector. Investing in research now truly harvests results for decades to come. We are demanding an immediate pause on the devastating funding decision in order to give all levels of government, producer groups and farmers time to discover and implement an equitable solution.

In closing, thank you again for inviting SARM to participate in your deliberations. Rural municipalities and the producers they serve are deeply invested in the continued success of the Indian Head and Scott agriculture research farms.

We appreciate the committee's attention to this issue, and we stand ready to work with you, with government and with partners in the research community to ensure these important facilities continue to serve Saskatchewan's agriculture sector for generations to come.

I'd be pleased to answer any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Steinley.

Ms. Velestuk, please go ahead for five minutes.

[Jocelyn Velestuk, Board Chair, Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission]

Hello, everyone, and thank you for the opportunity to join this discussion.

My name is Jocelyn Velestuk, and I'm a farmer from Broadview, Saskatchewan, and the chair of the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission.

Sask Wheat is a farmer-led organization representing over 24,000 cereal producers in the province. Sask Wheat invests farmer check-off dollars into research, market development and advocacy initiatives to grow the profitability and sustainability of cereals production for Saskatchewan farmers.

I would like to start by highlighting that Sask Wheat is a major funder of research both provincially and nationally. Through the Canadian Wheat Research Coalition, or CWRC, a collaboration of Sask Wheat, the Manitoba Crop Alliance and Alberta Grains, farmers fund core breeding agreements with AAFC and prairie universities, providing over $9.5 million per year. The CWRC has contributed over $70.5 million to wheat breeding since 2020.

Farmers are an integral funding partner for public wheat breeding in Canada, with our contributions representing almost half of the estimated total public varietal research and development costs. The cereals industry in Canada is an $11-billion industry, making it a major driver of the Canadian economy. Last year alone, Saskatchewan farmers sold over 14 million tonnes of wheat and durum. That's over half of the wheat grown in the prairie provinces.

Canadian wheat is renowned internationally for its high quality and functionality. I've heard directly from our customers during the Cereals Canada new crop mission to Southeast Asia that Canada western red spring wheat is the best wheat in the world. However, Canadian agriculture's global reputation for quality and the competitiveness of our agricultural commodities depend on a robust research network. It all starts with the seed and growing the best varieties that help set us up for success on our farms and in the industry.

AAFC is a key partner for Sask Wheat and Saskatchewan farmers. We greatly value this partnership and recognize the tremendous value that has been generated for the industry through AAFC varieties, as well as agronomic research.

Sask Wheat is incredibly concerned about AAFC's ability to meet its current commitments in the core breeding and research activities following these cuts. While the minister and other officials have noted that there has been no reduction in breeding capacity as no breeding scientist positions have been cut, this ignores the fact that the cuts will impact the integrated suite of agronomists, pathologists and support staff who enable breeding programs to function. While individual breeders may be retained or relocated, the enabling capacity that makes breeding programs work effectively is being dismantled.

What truly drives yield improvement is genetics, environment and management systems and the synergies between breeding, agronomy and pathology working together at strategic sites across diverse ecosystems. The closing of Lacombe, Indian Head, Scott, and Portage la Prairie severely reduces the environmental diversity and testing capacity that validates whether genetic improvements actually deliver value to farmers.

While the government has stated that changes and cuts will not impact sustainable CAP programming, we have been informed that the cuts will directly impact many of the wheat cluster activities, with some being cancelled completely. Overall, this loss of knowledge and testing capacity across diverse agro-ecological zones leaves the wheat-breeding system at risk of significant technology gaps in the ability to continue providing elite varieties to farmers. Government needs to work with funding agency partners to address these capacity shortfalls and limit the potential significant negative impact on producers and the agriculture sector.

Sask Wheat and other funding partners with AAFC were not consulted prior to the cuts being announced. A thorough review of the research and plant breeding space with stakeholders should have been conducted prior to the cuts being announced, to prioritize investment areas and develop other solutions to maintain research capacity.

Farmers are now scrambling to save what we can and find a path forward to decrease the risk of research gaps. AAFC needs to work with its research partners, like Sask Wheat, to develop a long-term strategy for AAFC research and public breeding programs to keep the pipeline full of new innovations and prevent technology gaps from occurring.

Thank you for the opportunity to appear as a witness. I would be happy to answer any questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks very much.

Mr. Fransoo, are you taking the five minutes or is Mr. Pawlik?

[Daryl Fransoo, Board Chair, Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association]

Mr. Chair, I'll be sharing my time with Mr. Pawlik, if that's all right.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Okay. Keep in mind it's five minutes only.

Please go ahead.

[Daryl Fransoo]

My name is Daryl Fransoo. I'm the chair of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association. I'm a farmer, and I represent producers across western Canada who are working every day to power the Canadian agriculture economy.

Our members are focused on staying competitive globally. That depends on these three things: reliable access to markets, timely access to innovation and technology, and institutions that work effectively on our behalf. At Wheat Growers, we focus on improving regulatory efficiency, strengthening trade infrastructure and ensuring our public institutions are delivering results for farmers.

We understand the need for fiscal restraint—farmers manage costs every day—but we are deeply concerned about how recent decisions, particularly the cuts to AAFC, were implemented, and what that means for the future of Canadian agriculture.

I will now turn it over to our executive director, Darcy Pawlik.

[Darcy Pawlik, Executive Director, Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association]

Thank you, Daryl.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

Having deep experience in taking research to commercialization through distributing angel funding at Ag-West Bio and through running North America's largest cereal seed company, AgPro Seeds, a business unit of Syngenta, and a start-up where I commercialized AI-based crop insurance products across multiple continents, I’ll focus on one central point: Fiscal discipline is necessary, but how cuts are made matters just as much as the cuts themselves.

In the case of Agriculture Canada's closure of eight research sites and 665 positions, there is no evidence of a clear strategy without meaningful consultation and without a clear plan for what comes next. That's our primary concern, because Canada is already losing ground. Ag productivity has fallen, from highs of nearly 3% down to under 1%, and going lower. Public agriculture R and D spending has declined by roughly 20% since 2013, and now another 15% is anticipated to be taken off, while our competitors do the opposite.

We heard directly from affected sites that there was no opportunity to provide input, no transition planning and no clear prioritization of programs before decisions were made. At the same time, we are seeing experienced plant breeders leaving the system entirely, which is an ominous sign for what's to come.

This is happening in a broader environment, where execution is already falling short for the ag industry. Regulatory and application timelines remain slow and unpredictable, significant investments to improve processes have not translated into meaningful outcomes, and modernization efforts, which have taken over five years, have been met with limited results.

Canada does not have a knowledge problem; we have an execution problem. We're cutting innovation capacity while increasing the cost of doing business for farmers. That's not a path to competitiveness. To be clear, although many love progress but hate change, we’re not one of those groups. We advocate relentlessly for positive reform whenever given the chance, but today we're here to ask for a more disciplined and strategic approach.

We would offer three recommendations. First, pause and review the Agriculture Canada cuts to ensure remaining capacity aligns with clear national priorities. Second, define a national strategy for agricultural innovation focused on productivity, competitiveness and value creation. Third, improve execution across key institutions by embedding accountability for timelines, outcomes and competitiveness into their mandates.

Canada has the foundation to be a global leader in agriculture, but leadership will not come from cutting without a plan; it will come from aligning our strengths and executing with discipline.

Thank you very much for your time and consideration. We look forward to your questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks very much.

We'll finish up with Ms. Oatway, please.

The floor is yours.

[Lori Oatway, Research Scientist, Western Crop Innovations]

Thank you, Chair.

Good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this committee.

My name is Lori Oatway. My experience as both a seed grower and a research scientist gives me a broad perspective on the importance of research and our research network in Canada. As a seed grower and a producer in central Alberta, agriculture research supports and shapes our businesses through the development of better crop varieties, more resilient production systems and long-term farm profitability.

As a research scientist with Western Crop Innovations in Lacombe, Alberta, I work on developing new cereal crop varieties adapted to western Canadian conditions, collaborating with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, producer groups and private industry partners. I also proudly serve as a board member with the Canadian Seed Growers' Association and as a member of the CFIA's advisory committee on plant breeders' rights, further connecting my work as a scientist and a producer.

Ag Canada has been tasked with achieving savings of 15% over three years, with planned workforce reductions expected to impact about 665 positions. The identified savings include the closure of multiple research stations across Canada, which is deeply concerning to our community, our industry, our producer networks and our research collaborators.

The Lacombe Research and Development Centre alone represents 100 jobs. This centre is approximately the fourth-largest employer in Lacombe and the highest-impact employer due to the professional nature of positions there. This centre has anchored families and has supported our community for 119 years.

Ag Canada stations in Lacombe, Scott and Indian Head produce critical agronomic and pathology information for the crop variety registration system in western Canada. Because of their unique soil types, climate conditions and established trial protocols, these locations are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to replace. It puts pressure on our variety registration system in Canada, which is mandatory for getting new varieties into farmers' fields.

Public research facilities undertake long-term, precompetitive work that does not yield immediate commercial returns, but provides foundational knowledge essential for the entire sector. Private industry and universities cannot currently fill this gap.

Ag Canada research centres function as a backbone for the integrated national network. The Lacombe facility maintains collaborative relationships with Lakeland College, Olds College and the University of Alberta, and it provides critical infrastructure used by Western Crop Innovations and multiple academic institutions. When centres are removed, we lose not just scientists, but also research connectivity, institutional memory, data connectivity and collaborative trust. Research teams that have taken decades to build will be dissolved.

Breeding a new crop variety typically requires eight to 12 years from initial cross to commercial release. Decisions made today about research capacity will not manifest as impacts on farmers' fields until the 2030s or early 2040s.

The varieties farmers will plant in 2035 are currently being developed. When programs are terminated, we create a void in the innovation pipeline that will only become apparent when farmers face new disease pressures or climate challenges and discover that the research necessary to respond to them was discontinued a decade earlier.

The effects of reduced research capacity will not appear immediately in trade statistics or farm income data. Instead, they will emerge gradually as competitors develop superior varieties, as Canadian farmers lack access to genetics adapted to emerging conditions, as quality benchmarks erode and as the pipeline of innovation slows. By the time these impacts become undeniable, the capacity needed to address them will have been dismantled.

Agricultural production operates on annual cycles, with planning horizons extending three to five years for major operational changes. When expenditure reviews result in rapid closures with minimal advance notice, the agriculture sector lacks time to prepare alternative arrangements.

If industry partners, academic institutions and provincial governments had been provided with advance notice, meaningful transition options could have been explored. These options include the transfer of ongoing trials to alternative sites, negotiated partnerships for maintaining infrastructure under new governance, planned relocation of genetic resources, coordination with provincial and industry funding sources, and recruitment and training of personnel to assume the transferred work.

Instead, the truncated timeline forces reactive rather than strategic responses, increasing the likelihood that valuable research programs will simply be lost due to logistical constraints. The ideal outcome of the committee reviews would be a reversal of the decision to close the Ag Canada research stations.

Going forward, I would respectfully recommend that the committee consider using different assessment criteria, timelines and transition requirements for programs with long-term development cycles, particularly in research; require comprehensive assessment accounting for replacement costs, opportunity costs and long-term economic impacts; establish formal safeguards [Technical difficulty—Editor] of irreplaceable research resources; and mandate collaborative transition planning involving affected stakeholder communities, with transparent processes and milestones [Technical difficulty—Editor].

[Technical difficulty—Editor] infrastructure will shape Canadian agriculture—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Ms. Oatway, I'm afraid we're well past our five minutes.

We're going to our question period now. We'll start with Mr. Barlow.

Welcome to OGGO, Mr. Barlow. You have six minutes.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's an honour to be here.

Thank you very much to the witnesses as well.

Ms. Oatway, I'm going to start with you and your comment that what you would like to see this committee do is reassess the criteria that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada used in the closure of these facilities. I guess my argument is that there were no criteria at all.

My first question for you is, are you, as a research scientist, surprised with the loss of more than 600 science and research jobs in AAFC and surprised that the government's own chief science adviser was not consulted on this decision whatsoever?

[Lori Oatway]

We were very surprised. We understand fiscal responsibility. We live with that all the time. However, a lot of the [Technical difficulty—Editor] is not only the research being done, but our ability to register new varieties in Canada. Losing key positions like a pathologist, an agronomist and a weed scientist, or even losing the breeding seed increases that were located at Indian Head [Technical difficulty—Editor] to the fields. We needed a much longer time to accommodate those changes and to come up with alternatives.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you very much.

Now I'll go to Mr. Pawlik and Mr. Fransoo.

Mr. Pawlik, you were talking about the importance of setting priorities in decision-making with the closure of these research centres. I want to read off some numbers to you and get your opinion on whether this is the right priority.

Over the last five years, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has spent more than $16 million on management consulting, $22 million on beans for empowerment for women in the Democratic Republic of Congo, $20 million on building equitable climate-resilient African bean and insect sectors, $16.3 million on leveraging equality for gender-just poultry, $10 million on gender-responsive and climate-smart products for the cocoa industry, $8.2 million on gender-just low-carbon rice and $3 million on scaling up climate information for women farmers in Nicaragua. They lost $8.5 million on a bankrupt cricket farm and $8 million on converting a barn to a storage unit at Rideau Hall.

These are just a few of the many different programs that funds went to and that could have kept these research centres operating for more than a decade.

In your opinion, Mr. Fransoo or Mr. Pawlik, do you feel that these are the right priorities for a government that should be focusing on food security and food affordability?

[Darcy Pawlik]

I guess we'll have to arm-wrestle for the answer, but that's a pretty easy no. We're faced with more challenges than ever before.

You didn't mention anything about trade disruptions. We're undergoing a pretty tough battle on CUSMA with our American friends. In all of these things, we need to enable our farmers to maintain productivity. On that number I gave you, going underneath 1%, we're not keeping up, and the rest of our competitors globally are surpassing us and have already surpassed us. RBC recently provided a number, which is that we need to increase our spending by 36%, and we're going down by 15%. That's a gap of 50% just to catch up.

For the vast majority of everything you mentioned, we need to be cycling it back into our research infrastructure.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Just to put a number to Mr. Pawlik's comment about going from 2% productivity growth in agriculture down to 1%, it's a loss of more than $30 billion in cash receipts in the pockets of farmers. This is a very real number when you see the loss in production of Canadian farmers.

I'm hoping that Ms. Oatway's video is not freezing anymore. I want to ask a question regarding the loss of varietal registration.

When 80% of the wheat and barley varieties grown in Canada come directly from AAFC research, what are the consequences of losing AAFC as a partner in the co-op research and the registration studies? Would the ability to register new varieties be impacted if CFIA and PMRA didn't see AAFC as a partner in that research? Is there an impact, or are there consequences to that?

[Lori Oatway]

Absolutely, and we're seeing some of those right now. We're getting ready to put the crop in the ground, and we are coming up with spots across [Technical difficulty—Editor] co-op registration, which means that varieties that we develop here in Lacombe don't have the opportunity to have production data in Saskatchewan, Manitoba or even Ontario.

Right now, we're looking at how we can fill these holes. Can we make sure that it's [Technical difficulty—Editor] stable across all of western Canada? We're being hit with some options to grow those varieties with increased costs now, whereas before, we always had [Technical difficulty—Editor], so coming up with not only a spot to grow the variety but also the money to put it in the ground has been an issue for us and one we need to solve very quickly.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

I have one last, really quick question. I have about 15 seconds.

Ms. Oatway, do universities or the provinces have the resources to take on this lost research themselves without AAFC's support?

[Lori Oatway]

At this point, no, I don't feel they do. The expertise needed for this research is very specific, not necessarily in universities. [Technical difficulty—Editor] we need more funding and projects. A lot of this research is very location-specific. You can't move it across the country or even within the province without different results.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks very much.

Ms. Rochefort, go ahead, please.

[Pauline Rochefort, Liberal, Nipissing—Timiskaming, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Those were all very informative testimonies.

My first question is for Ms. Velestuk.

I would like to better understand in simple terms the lay of the land when it comes to research in Saskatchewan. I understand that Saskatoon is the major research centre. Would that be correct?

[Jocelyn Velestuk]

There are a few different research stations across Saskatchewan. You can imagine that there are a lot of arable acres in Saskatchewan, so there are a lot of different agro-ecological zones where we have research stations. All of the research stations, I would say, are important in that.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. The interpreters are unable to—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry. Wait one moment.

Could you start again, Ms. Gaudreau?