Industry Committee on April 29th, 2020

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

It hasn't been called the Canadian Tourism Commission since the Vancouver Olympics. It's called “Destination Canada”.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

There you go. Fair enough.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Yes, I hear your question.

We stopped doing any international campaigns at the beginning of the pandemic. One of the first things I did in February was to create FPT minister of tourism weekly calls. I've been talking with Lisa MacLeod every week, and we're all trying to coordinate.

Yes, we're thinking of national campaigns, but before talking about national campaigns, I would say that we'll be there to support local tourism—

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Yes, that's what I meant.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

—and then eventually the regional, national and international. Saskatchewan is reopening right now. Its provincial parks are reopening. We're not there in Ontario. We want to work with provinces to support them.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

So really quickly, the money can then be reallocated and not taken away. I wanted to focus on the local and regional, obviously.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

Yes.

Last year, when I was the Minister of Tourism, I refocused Destination Canada a bit more on national, not only international, efforts. A lot of tourism was mainly in the three big cities, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver, and I wanted to make sure there were more supports to regions because the tourism sector is so important in regional economies, and we need to be there to support them.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you, Madam Minister.

That completes our third round. We have about 12 minutes remaining. We can start a fourth round, if that's okay with folks. I don't know who would be next on the list. We have a five-minute round for the Conservatives.

[Marie-Claude Bibeau, Liberal, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Madam Chair, are you confirming to me that you are now continuing with the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency? We were supposed to leave the meeting at 7:30 p.m., but it went on a little longer. I am going to let you finish the meeting with our colleagues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you very much, Madam Minister. We are very grateful for your time.

[Mélanie Joly, Liberal, Ahuntsic-Cartierville, QC]

I am grateful to you too.

Ms. Romanado, thank you for the work you are doing.

I know it is late for some people and earlier for others. Thank you all for taking the time to attend this meeting. It's been a pleasure to see you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you so much.

Mr. Dreeshen, you have five minutes.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Thank you very much.

There are some great opportunities for Canada to grow our value-added food sector. This is going to require a new approach from CFIA. In particular the agency needs to ensure that regulations don't weigh down performance, productivity and growth. More than that, Canada's regulatory approach should work to stimulate some nimbleness and innovation and this should be acting as a catalyst for new value-added products.

Of course, when we look at what is happening right now as far as the concerns we have in the agriculture community, this is an important time for CFIA to commit to some changes in certain regulatory systems so we can find these efficiencies that are so important.

Will CFIA be using this time of great change to search for new approaches, to move forward with a new approach to regulations that will put innovation first while still safeguarding the health and safety of Canadians?

Is CFIA using this time to search for ways to ensure that firms in Canada's agri-food sector are not constantly being stymied by a “tons of feathers” regulatory approach whereby hundreds of regulations stop them in their tracks and make us less competitive on the world market?

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

Thank you for the issues you have identified around the regulations and CFIA. CFIA is not only taking the opportunity right now to look at regulations, but has been doing so over the last year or so, as we have looked at regulatory modernization.

If you go back to the regulatory modernization and some of the information out there, we have looked at regulatory review, the burdens, obstacles around regulations and how we will move forward. We have worked with industry, but we have also worked with provinces to look at how we reconcile some of the issues around regulations to ensure CFIA's mandate is being fulfilled.

So yes, we will be looking at regulatory modernization. We'll make sure that our regulations are nimble. In order to have nimble regs, we will need to speak to industry and work with them.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Believe me, I think industry is ready for that.

Speaking of some of the issues, will you still be submitting negligible risk status for BSE on time, regardless of COVID?

This is an extremely important issue, because it's the only way we can expand our processing.

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

Yes, the BSE submission is still a top priority, despite the COVID-19 crisis.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

We seem to be going a lot faster when we have the departmental people here.

We're seeing processing plant closures all over the country due to COVID-19, meaning that plants are unable to get animals processed. The Health of Animals Act allows for compensation for farmers in the event of a depopulation due to animal disease.

What steps is the CFIA taking to ensure that it could potentially allow for these circumstances as well? As we know, the current BRM programs won't be effective for poultry, beef and pork producers.

[Dr. Siddika Mithani]

The Health of Animals Act and regulations are really focused on disease only. What we are talking about in this certain circumstance is an issue where this is humane slaughter, so I would say that I'd like to defer to my colleague, Chris Forbes. Maybe he can shed some light on this.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer—Mountain View, AB]

Certainly, and I'm sure Chris can talk about the nimbleness that might be important here.

[Chris Forbes, Deputy Minister, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Thank you, Mr. Dreeshen, and thanks, Siddika.

We certainly are looking with provincial colleagues at how we might use programs like the AgriRecovery program, which is for extraordinary costs. Depopulation or extended feeding of animals could certainly be the kinds of costs that would be covered under a program like AgriRecovery. I think the minister talked a bit about that earlier.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sherry Romanado]

Thank you, Deputy Minister. That's all the time we have. We will now go to MP Longfield.

You have five minutes.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you. I'll be splitting my time with Ali Ehsassi.

I have a follow-up question on the theme I had started at the end of my last question, which was around the support for the producers. We know that we have to protect animal health on the producer side, and for the beef farmers in particular, but we also have to protect human health on the processor side.

I've spoken with Cargill in Guelph. We've talked about the situation in High River and the need for PPE for staff and all the different things the business itself is doing to ensure the health and safety of its employees, yet the employees are still nervous about coming into work and whether they will go home with an illness that they didn't leave home with.

Could you comment on how we're working with Health Canada to ensure the health of the people working in the processing plants?

[Chris Forbes]

We're in pretty regular contact first of all with the industry, and in particular in this case with the Meat Council and others, to talk about some of the challenges and to make sure that those are well understood, and the sector has been I think quite effective in terms of responding to keep employees safe. I think they've done really a fantastic job in the plants.

Also, we have engaged the Public Health Agency and Health Canada, and provincial public health officials have been quite involved with individual plants. I think the system, that kind of collaboration of bringing people together, has actually worked quite well.

The last thing I'll mention is that the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety and the Public Health Agency of Canada do have guidance out, which I think can be quite helpful for everyone.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Right. Thank you very much.

Mr. Ehsassi.