Evidence of meeting #143 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cards.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab and Professor, Dalhousie University, Agri-Food Analytics Lab
I absolutely agree.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Do you agree with addressing it with the most cost-effective mechanism that anyone has ever been able to come up with?
Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab and Professor, Dalhousie University, Agri-Food Analytics Lab
The most effective one to increase competitiveness, but I don't believe that's the carbon tax.
Liberal
Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab and Professor, Dalhousie University, Agri-Food Analytics Lab
I don't think it's the best way to do it.
Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab and Professor, Dalhousie University, Agri-Food Analytics Lab
My preference would be cap and trade.
Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab and Professor, Dalhousie University, Agri-Food Analytics Lab
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
We had that in Ontario, and unfortunately the Conservative government—
Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab and Professor, Dalhousie University, Agri-Food Analytics Lab
I know. We had it in Nova Scotia.
Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab and Professor, Dalhousie University, Agri-Food Analytics Lab
Markets are an incredible opportunity for the agri-food sector, and I do believe that by using credits, we can actually decarbonize the economy, which is essential to address climate change.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Thank you.
Chair, do I have a little more time? I know you've been lenient with time a bit.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
I also want to ask you about net revenue losses. My understanding is that the net revenue losses in the agri-food system due to climate change have been projected to be extremely high. Agri-Food Canada was projecting net revenue losses of 49.2% in 2023 for Quebec farmers. That's a significant amount. We're not talking about 1% or 2% here. We're talking about 49.2%, and 86.5% in 2024. The Canadian Climate Institute has projected that in the year 2025—essentially this year coming up—the losses for Canada's economy due to climate change would be $25 billion a year, and that number would triple or quadruple by mid-century.
I guess what I'm asking is this: Isn't the cost of the impacts of climate change on our economy and on our farmers and their crop yields so significant that we can't afford to not address climate change?
Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab and Professor, Dalhousie University, Agri-Food Analytics Lab
Mr. Turnbull, there's nothing you've said that I disagree with. I agree with your statement. Yes, climate change is our agri-food sector's greatest challenge, and we need to address it. It's just I don't think we agree on how to do that.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Perhaps that's true.
The last point I'm going to make here is this. In terms of global competitiveness, we know that the EU and the United States, depending on how the election turns out, will likely have in place carbon border adjustments. This impacts our trade with two of the biggest trading partners we have in the world, I would argue. How is Canada going to remain competitive if our agri-food system is going to be subject to high tariffs for not keeping up with the standard of greening our food system and the products that we produce?
Liberal
Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab and Professor, Dalhousie University, Agri-Food Analytics Lab
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To remain consistent with my testimony, I did say that decarbonizing the agri-food industry should remain a priority to remain competitive and to address the exact issue you just mentioned.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Before I go to Mr. Généreux, I have a quick question: Have you ever looked at the impact an increase in the money supply can have on the price of food?
I'm looking at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis data and the price of eggs in the U.S. You can see that it rose during the great financial crisis of 2008—and right after the pandemic, after we had increased the money supply by about 40% across the Western world, it rose a lot.
I'm trying to understand if that is just a correlation without causation, or is there a causation? Is this something you've ever looked into?
October 31st, 2024 / 9:55 a.m.
Senior Director, Agri-Food Analytics Lab and Professor, Dalhousie University, Agri-Food Analytics Lab
It's a good question. Money supplies will impact inflation; I think we all know that. With food inflation in particular, there is a lag, but it does eventually impact food prices indirectly.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Thank you.
Mr. Généreux, you have the floor.
I will be a bit more strict with speaking time because there are only 15 minutes left and other MPs also want to speak.
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
We know that you’re generous with others, but not with me. It doesn’t work, Mr. Chair. I’m the one who is Généreux.
Mr. Charlebois, after reading your article in La Presse this morning, I decided not to use a lot of propane next summer to cook steaks. The effect of the cost of food in the country is unbelievable. And yet, Canada is a significant beef producer. Based on what I understood from your article, decreased meat production means that demand is higher than supply. That is very interesting.
Ms. Lang, with the help of my friend ChatGPT, I went to look up some data relevant to you. In fact, it comes from you. I was surprised to see that if there are fewer bankruptcies, conversely, users work out many more proposals or agreements with credit card issuers or banks.
Is the increase in the number of these agreements a significant trend? Is there not a risk that people will go so far into debt that, in the end, they have to come to an agreement with their creditor, especially a bank, to only pay 10% or 20% of their debts? It could be an endless cycle.
Do you see a problem there, or has that been the norm over the last two years?
Superintendent, Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy
Thank you for your question.
I would say that an increase in consumer proposals is generally a good thing. It means that people are able to offer a bit more to their creditors. Active creditors can play a role in determining whether that amount is reasonable or not. We don't always have active creditors. I think your question is whether it will become a vicious cycle of repeat insolvencies. Over the years that we've tracked that, we have not seen a significant increase in repeat insolvencies, but it's definitely something that we should be keeping an eye on.