Evidence of meeting #52 for Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was costs.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
Yes. I'm from a rural area and any big centre is either east or west. It's a drive of a good two and a half or three hours for us. I guess that would segue into my next question about transportation costs.
Does the association have an idea of what fuel costs contribute to the final cost of fresh produce on the shelf?
President, Canadian Produce Marketing Association
It depends on the sector. We have some of the data that we shared with the government. We're happy to share with the committee. That breaks down the—
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
Yes, if you could table that with the committee, that would be wonderful.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
There's even a big difference from just, say, southern Ontario or even B.C. You have a lot more access to fresh produce, as opposed to some of us who are in the middle of nowhere.
We have a lot of access to yellow canola fields and wheat fields, but this needs to be processed and shipped, etc.
President, Canadian Produce Marketing Association
Geography is our challenge. I have to give credit to the government for their food strategy in looking at food terminals and food hubs. This is a viable model moving forward, and it's looking at how we create the hub, so that if you are in rural Canada and you have a hub available to you, it improves efficiencies, provides better access and enables a cross-section of fresh and processed food, and improved manufacturing, potentially, to be brought together to enable access to food—not only Canadian, but from around the world—to go to the communities—
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
For the agricultural sector, I know that in Saskatchewan they've been pushing irrigation, for example, for agricultural producers. They can do wonderful things, but they need access to that irrigation to grow that food and then also keep it closer to home, per se, so that shipping is less affected.
President, Canadian Produce Marketing Association
It's not only shipping, but also the production in the field. The tractor is moving and you need to put diesel in it. Not everyone has electric, right? We aren't there yet.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
For sure, and I don't know how possible that is. Your yard site can be one place, but you could still be a trek away. We have to take into account your seeding, your spraying, your harvest and then getting that from the field to the bin.
President, Canadian Produce Marketing Association
Your points have just talked to why food costs what it costs.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
Yes, for sure. Thank you.
Ms. Gowriluk, I'd like to ask you the same question. I'm interested. Is the fuel price the biggest contributing factor? What about ingredients, labour, packaging and even regulatory compliance? How does that affect the price of food?
Vice President, Government Relations, Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada
Yes, yes and yes.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
Is there a hierarchy with that? If fuel is the most...what comes next?
Vice President, Government Relations, Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada
I can't speak to in what order, but what I can say is that, from a manufacturing perspective, we're at the end of the line. We're the last stop before that product hits the grocery store shelf. All of the costs that Mr. Lemaire spoke about with respect to the impact we're seeing on a farm—the input costs around fertilizer, pesticide, fuel—that's at the farm gate. Then you look at the commodity prices. Commodity prices have increased significantly: 6%, I think, depending on the commodity, over the course of the last year. It's set to increase yet again. The costs continue.
Now we're moving off the farmer's field and we're coming into processing facilities and the costs of transportation, freight, shipping and fuel, and also the cost of labour. All of those costs have increased. When you couple with that the lack of competitive regulations that Canada has currently, the regulatory burden and the cost of that, it's a cumulative effect.
Conservative
Rosemarie Falk Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster—Meadow Lake, SK
Is it passed on to the consumer?
Vice President, Government Relations, Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada
Absolutely. We'll absorb as much as we possibly can, but right now, the costs are getting increasingly high and becoming increasingly challenging to manage.
All of those costs you cited, coupled with regulatory burden and the cost compliance associated with that, and tax policies in Canada being less competitive than they are in other jurisdictions, are making it increasingly expensive to do business in Canada. All of that is contributing to the overall cost of the product that you see on the grocery store shelf.
Conservative
Liberal
Liberal
Gurbux Saini Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for the great work you do for all of us. It's sad that living in Canada, one of the greatest countries, we are talking about affordability and how our children are suffering.
In the last few months, our government has introduced many programs to help Canadians. The groceries and essentials program gives about $1,800 to $1,900 to families. We also have the schoolchildren program, which helps 400,000 people, and the Canada disability benefit.
If those programs were eliminated, what effect would it have on society and on our children? My friends on the other side do not support any of these programs.
I would like to hear Dr. Engler-Stringer on this.
Dr. Rachel Engler-Stringer
If we eliminated the national school food program, we would go back to the situation that we were in really not very long ago, when a lot more kids going to school were trying to figure out how not to be hungry so that they could learn.
Years ago, when I first started studying this, a former school principal, who was the superintendent, told me about one of the things they noticed. It was the reason they developed and started to put money into these programs. They were tiny programs offering really, really basic food. They were targeted, so that came with stigma. They were not very good programs, but they were programs nonetheless. They noticed that they would have kids who would come to school in the morning. They would be there and then they'd be hungry. They would go home looking for something to eat. They wouldn't show up at school in the afternoon. We had kids who were only getting a few hours of school a day.
If we want children to be in the classroom, to be ready to learn and to be behaving well, we have good evidence from many places in the world showing that when kids get a meal at school, behaviour gets better. Fewer kids are going to the principal's office, getting kicked out and those sorts of things.
The situation we're in now is that we finally are in a place like that of our peer countries. Other countries have been doing this since the end of the Second World War. We're finally developing a system so that all kids can receive a meal at school. It's not only kids who are on the low-income end of the spectrum; it's all kids. All kids in this country are actually not eating very well during the school day. Statistics Canada data show us that kids, even affluent kids, are not eating very well during the school day.
We have the beginnings of it. Let's develop a system further that allows all kids to receive quality, nutritious food, drawing on Canadian vegetables and fruit and other Canadian products so that they can learn. I gave the example of Sweden. They've been able to show quite impressive changes over time through having these programs in existence.
Liberal
Gurbux Saini Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
I'm a first-time member of Parliament. When I was going door to door, one of the things I heard was that shrinkflation was a very big factor. Stats Canada shows that between 2022 and 2024, 29.6% of the inflation was caused by it.
I have a private member's bill in front of the House today. Could I hear from Mr. Lemaire and Ms. Lewis on what effect it would have? Currently, Quebec has that legislation, as does Australia, New Zealand and the European Union. It seems to be helping. I would like to hear your viewpoints on that.
President, Canadian Produce Marketing Association
We are a firm believer as an organization that we have to allow markets to be open and competitive. That also means we need to provide consumers with the right pack size to meet the market they are living in. It's a complex question as you start looking at whether our pack size is too big to begin with. What is the appropriate pack size we need to provide to the Canadian public so that we reduce food waste, we continue to drive an economic engine and the manufacturers and producers are able to produce, pack and sell an appropriate volume domestically to grow a market and become a food superpower?
The devil will be in the details on how the private member's bill moves forward and how the regulatory backstop that's in place is implemented. It's maybe early to say if it's going to be effective. Yes, it's in other jurisdictions, but we are a big country. A range of other factors do come into play. We need to look at them closely to ensure that all the pieces fit to drive food prices to an affordable level.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Bobby Morrissey
Thank you, Mr. Saini. That was five minutes.
Those were good questions.
Ms. Larouche, you may go ahead. You have two and a half minutes.
Bloc
Andréanne Larouche Bloc Shefford, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Again, I'd like to thank the four witnesses we have with us today for their participation in this important study.
Food is indeed a basic necessity, so what do we do to help families spend less of their budget on food and ensure that fewer people go hungry? How do we give students optimal learning conditions at school? That's what I want to know.
In this last round, I'm going to turn to you, Ms. Gowriluk.
Towards the end of your opening remarks, you talked about avoiding unnecessary duplication. I want to give you an opportunity to talk more about the risks and duplication you were referring to.
Vice President, Government Relations, Food, Health & Consumer Products of Canada
I believe that was from the approach to the regulatory burden in this country. I think we've seen some positive signals so far with respect to duplication, in particular both in the proposed legislative framework that was introduced in the Senate with Bill S-7 and, I think more importantly, with respect to the cabinet directive that was issued on October 21, which spoke specifically to that.
This is going to make the sector more competitive and more attractive to foreign investment, and lead to greater job creation and efficiencies in this system to the extent that we can ensure that the regulations in this country make Canada more, not less, competitive. It will allow Canadian businesses to be more, not less, profitable, and ensure that we leverage other jurisdictions, other like-minded countries and trusted partners, to harmonize and align for regulatory alignment between countries.
I think it will be increasingly important, as well, to create greater efficiency, and that's outlined in that directive, which, if executed properly, I think will be very promising for our sector.