Health Committee on Feb. 3rd, 2015

[Gord Kurbis]

On the first question, PMRA has shown real leadership in trying to lead the discussion with other international regulators to say that when we are creating international tolerances based on the same data packages, let's please have tolerances that look like they were created in the same galaxy, both in terms of timing and in terms of the levels established. Even the PMAC committee of PMRA has noted that funding levels at PMRA to support those kinds of activities are not adequate. That's a real thing that we would recommend needs to be corrected.

On the second question, could you help me...?

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

It was cost recovery. Could you elaborate on what you were saying there?

[Gord Kurbis]

There are now increased fees from industry to support registration applications at PMRA. One of our recommendations would be that instead of going into the general treasury those fees be funded back into PMRA to help with their resource constraints.

[Murray Rankin, NDP, Victoria, BC]

I'd like to now, if I may, ask a question of Ms. Dyer of the Canadian Canola Growers Association.

You indicated that new, less expensive products help with competitiveness in your industry, which I well understand. There's been some question about whether the generic companies are competing equally well with what are called the innovator companies in this field.

Do you have any comments on whether generics are making their way to your industry in a timely way to assist you with that competitiveness you spoke of?

[Jan Dyer]

Sure.

The canola growers are one of the organizations that do manage what's called the GROU process, the grower own use process, and we're actively involved in setting up the system now for how we manage data protection and other things like that for the generic registration.

What we've said all along in the consultations—and PMRA has done a good job of consulting with both the CropLife companies and the generic companies in the last year or so to improve how that process works—is that what we really need is both innovation and research. We really depend on that. We want to make sure that there is a balance there. We also need to ensure that generic companies have access to the information they need to produce generic products.

Right now, we feel that the system works pretty well. We do know that our growers do have access to generic products for growing canola. We haven't had a big upswell of growers saying that they do not have access. They seem to be satisfied with the level of access that they have right now. Of course, we are always careful to ensure that this balance continues. PMRA has made some improvements this year and is improving the process, as I understand it, for how that works, especially on the data protection side. Our growers are pretty satisfied with the system right now and the balance in the system. I would say that the PMRA has done a good job.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

Next up is Mr. Lunney.

Go ahead, sir.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to our witnesses today in this review process of the PMRA. My first question would be for the canola growers, Ms. Jan Dyer.

One of the products that you rely heavily on is glyphosate, which is used heavily in canola production, the Roundup Ready seed. The question I have related to this is that glyphosate is a herbicide, right? Our target here is of course the weeds. I want to ask you, given your years of experience, since it's been introduced are there weeds developing resistance to glyphosate that require use of other herbicides and pesticides—I guess it's more herbicides we're dealing with—in addition to the Roundup Ready seed?

[Jan Dyer]

In terms of the tolerance levels I might defer to the CropLife chemistry guy beside me.

In general that's one of the things we rely on, seed developers and pesticide companies, to develop new technologies that are more effective and so that when we do run into problems of any herbicide tolerance we do have new formulations that address it. But it's a more technical question and maybe Pierre has a better answer than that.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Petelle.

[Pierre Petelle]

Yes, thanks.

Our members are always obviously concerned about resistance development because that means the products are no longer effective, and therefore, are no longer of any use to the farmer. We always try to make sure that through crop rotation and chemistry rotation you're not always selecting for that resistant weed or resistant insect to take over that field. There have been some issues, frankly mostly in the southern U.S., where some weeds have really developed strong resistance to many herbicides including glyphosate and they're having a real challenge there.

We have noted through Agriculture Canada a handful of herbicide-resistant weeds in Canada in limited pockets. Our industry is very engaged in that process with Agriculture Canada and other experts to make sure that those don't become widespread issues like we've seen in some parts.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Also, then, when we're dealing with canola there are other pests, and there has been an issue with your use of neonicotinoids. The issue has already been raised with committee, and I'm sure it will be again before we've done our review.

Mr. Petelle, in a CropLife Canada 2013 release, I think it was you who stated that bee health in western Canada was strong despite the fact that there are approximately 20 million acres in canola production.

I want to make note of PMRA's annual report for 2013 and 2014. It addressed the issue of neonicotinoids as well as Ontario, Quebec, and Manitoba reports about bee deaths. Of course, people are concerned about those, but in fact, the issue was related to dust. The product is applied to the seed. We have quite a range of agricultural zones in Canada, and precipitation and the moisture in the soil is an issue, so therefore it's a management issue with regard to how much dust is created. I understand, according to this, that CropLife participated in a review and gathered people together to discuss this; and PMRA announced its intent to implement additional protective measures in a notice of intent in September 2013. The additional measures included the use of dust-reducing seed flow lubricants, safer planting practices, and new pesticide and seed packaging labels with enhanced warning statements.

I wonder if you would comment on the management issues, because there were some unintended consequences here and they're relative to local management practices. Can you comment on where we are in that process and your participation?

[Pierre Petelle]

Absolutely.

As you stated correctly, the issues that we saw in isolated pockets seemed to be related primarily to corn—which is generally a dustier crop than is, for example, canola—and to some of that seed coating actually coming off of the corn. With certain planting equipment that uses air and vacuums, that exhaust is blown out with some of that seed coating on it.

The industry, as you noted, worked with the regulators and worked with the seed industry and with growers to tackle that issue head-on. Even though it was isolated in very small pockets, we instigated widespread measures. Farmers were adding a lubricant, which was like a talc powder, to help the corn seeds flow through those big pneumatic drills, which was abrading some of the products off. The industry came up with a new product that's more of a wax-based powder and that significantly reduces the amount of dust coming off the pneumatic seeding equipment.

We can't attribute all of the diminishment of incidence to those measures, but we did see a 70% reduction in the number of incidents being reported at the time of planting, and certainly those measures contributed to that.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Okay.

First, did I understand you correctly that there are already indications, or is it too early to say whether the new measures are reducing the concerns about bee mortality?

[Pierre Petelle]

We feel that the measures in place have gone a long way to addressing any issues.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

Great. We're glad to see progress on that front.

Are you also saying then that it was more related to corn and was not an issue with canola planting, and could you explain why it doesn't apply to canola?

[Jan Dyer]

We haven't really seen any problems in canola. The seeding methods are totally different. The canola's seeded at a depth with a vacuum seeder that goes right into the ground: there's never any dust.

Canola seeds are extremely small, maybe double the size of a poppy seed, and we seed about 10 canola seeds per square foot, so the seeding rate is very low. We don't seed at the same time that bees are foraging in the spring. The Canola Council of Canada and the canola industry have done quite a bit of extension work in terms of working with beekeepers to make sure that beehives are located in areas not being seeded, such as on abandoned farmsteads and places like that. We've put in place a number of agronomic practices to make sure that's not the case.

For example, about 43% of Canadian honey production comes from Alberta, and 80% of that production is grown on canola. It's a very nutritious source of protein and nutrients for bees, so we've seen nothing but increases in bees, colonies, and honey production in the prairie provinces where canola is grown. We've had exponential increases in honey production.

[James Lunney, Conservative, Nanaimo—Alberni, BC]

That's very good news. The other question then that's related to this is international harmonization, which ties in.

But you may have a chance to remark on that as we move forward. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ben Lobb]

Very good.

Ms. Fry, you're up now.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I wanted to focus a little bit on the health and environmental aspects of the issue. As you know, the Pest Control Products Act establishes as its primary principle the prevention of unacceptable risk to people and to the environment. I just wanted to ask if you think that currently this act is meeting that objective well. If not, why not?

Anybody can answer. I'm not fingering anybody.

[Pierre Petelle]

I can start.

Absolutely. When you look at the safety of the food that's produced in Canada, when you read about issues related to food, it's usually about microbial contamination, some sort of bacteria or virus. When have we heard about a pesticide contamination issue in food? The fact of the matter is that pesticides are being used properly by farmers, they're growing food in a safe manner, and it's not a risk issue for consumers.

On the environmental side, if you look at the profile of products registered today versus even 20 years ago, products are much less persistent. They're much more specific to the target that they're trying to attack. They don't have the profile that some of the older chemistries did. Just like any other industry, we've advanced and we've moved forward in terms of the safety and innovation of those products, so we expect that to continue.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

It looked like you wanted to say something, Mr. Loessin.

[Corey Loessin]

I could also just comment that there's been incredible changes in equipment technology, along with some of the developments in the newer pesticide products that we deal with. The new equipment that we deal with is much more precise, much safer for the operator, the applier of the products. I think that's another change that's happened over the last 20-plus years that really has improved the safety of application and the accuracy of application. In fact, the newest crop sprayers adjust the rate as you go around a corner, so that when the inner boom is going slower, it puts less on than the outer boom, which is going at a higher rate of speed. The application technology has improved immensely.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I just wanted to ask a second question. I was going to ask about the bees but Mr. Lunney did that for me, so that's fine. I know there's a huge concern about bees. You're hearing it from beekeepers across the country stating that the population of bees is going down, the production of honey is going down, and so on. So I heard some of those answers, and I won't go there.

Do you believe that humans are protected from the kinds of regulations that exist within the countries we're importing from? You talked about exporting. I'm talking about importing. You look at countries like Mexico, some of the Latin American countries, China, and so on, that are sending food into Canada. Do you think that we apply the same rigorous controls that we do here to foods that are coming into this country? In other words, is our imported food meeting a lower standard than Canadian food, or are they required to meet a lower standard?

[Pierre Petelle]

We talked about the maximum residue levels that are established, so those apply to imported as well as domestically produced foods. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency tests thousands of products every year, both imported and domestically produced. In general, when you look at the results year after year, close to 98% of foods are well below the established MRLs, and in fact, 80% to 90% of them have no detectable residues whatsoever. I think, on average, we're getting very good protection even from imported foods.

[Hedy Fry, Liberal, Vancouver Centre, BC]

I'm asking this because I live in Vancouver and the Fraser Valley is just down the road, and of course everyone is complaining. Farmers are saying that the criteria that they have to meet is much higher than the criteria for, say, blueberries and strawberries coming up from Chile, and coming up from other parts of South America. Therefore, they feel that they're being unfairly....