International Trade Committee on May 7th, 2009

[Serge Cardin, Bloc, Sherbrooke, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Pellerin. We have excellent translators. I am convinced that the Conservatives received your message.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you. I'm sure they got all the messages across, as usual.

No more questions over here, or from the Liberals?

Well, Mr. Julian, I think you deserve, after getting pulverized over here, one more response. Make it short, if you will.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My mother invented the expression, “Haste makes waste”. I think the softwood lumber agreement is one example of why we shouldn't rush through on Peru, after hearing only one witness on Peru.

[An hon. member]

Did your mother make up that expression?

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Yes, she did.

I have a couple of very quick questions.

First, has the federation done any study on the impact in rural regions in Peru? We saw what happened in Mexico after NAFTA, with the meltdown in rural regions. Has any study been done on what the agricultural implications are for rural Peru?

Quebec has a traceability system. This system may help increase the exports of products such as pork and beef on international markets. Has your federation adopted a position with respect to this issue? Should Quebec's traceability system be extended to cover all of Canada?

[Laurent Pellerin]

The Canadian Federation of Agriculture has not done any work to assess the impact on the rural situation in Peru. Moreover, in another life, I had an opportunity to meet and work with Peru's Minister of Agriculture, on several occasions. In Quebec, producers have some expertise in the area of farm credit, particularly with respect to crop insurance. The Peruvian Minister of Agriculture wanted to set up a crop insurance program and he came to see what we were doing in Quebec. We had some work contracts and exchanges with Peru in order to develop a crop insurance program to better protect Peruvian producers.

I know at least one thing when it comes to supporting Peruvian peasants and developing agriculture, and that is, you have to ensure, when they grow crops, that you share the risk with all of the citizens. That is something that we need to work on.

With respect to traceability, I had an opportunity to participate, with the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, in a mission to Mexico. Every group was asked to explain how its traceability system worked. We realized that Mexico had the same French system that Quebec has. So even though Mexico may be far away, we are close to it in terms of the problems experienced.

There is a very big difference between the traceability system in Canada and that in Quebec. Essentially, the Canadian system is more or less an identification system. It is not really able to trace a product from birth to consumption, whereas Quebec's system, once it has been up and running for a while, will be a traceability system that will begin with birth and follow all of the stages right up until consumption.

Implementing such tools is a tremendous challenge. You need a great deal of cooperation and investment from the producers. You also need public investment because these things are extremely expensive.

[Peter Julian, NDP, Burnaby—New Westminster, BC]

Do you have a position on this issue?

[Laurent Pellerin]

The Canadian Federation of Agriculture would like to see a good identification system in Canada. Which system will be selected? I think that the producers should make this choice together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Good. Thank you.

I think maybe we'll have time for a couple of real quick ones.

Monsieur Guimond, and then I'll ask Mr. Keddy to wrap it up.

[Claude Guimond, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Mr. Pellerin, just last week, we were in Washington. During all of our meetings, agriculture was a subject that was discussed at great length. We even had a meeting with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. You surely know that this department is quite different from Agriculture Canada and from MAPAQ.

As a farmer, I realized that the American elected officials, certain American intellectuals and representatives from the U.S. Department of Agriculture were not very familiar with us, did not really know much about farmers from Quebec and Canada. Nevertheless, to my great surprise, they displayed a great deal of open-mindedness and expressed a desire to get to know us better.

Mr. Julien spoke about traceability. In the United States, there's talk about mandatory country of origin labelling, referred to as the COOL. I must say that we did achieve some progress with respect to traceability. I could see that they were really paying attention to this issue.

You referred at great length to the United States, our big partner. You are the president. Does your organization have a strategy to go to the United States in order to meet with people, the elected officials, and talk to them about agriculture in Quebec and Canada? Do you have any strategy regarding this aspect?

[Laurent Pellerin]

We do not have a strategy calling on us to go to the United States in order to explain the Canadian system or what we are doing in Canada, but we do have one that informs American producers of what we are doing here.

For the past few years, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture has been in constant contact with the NFU and the Farm Bureau, the two main producer associations in the United States. Among our members, the Canadian Pork Council has had regular exchanges with the U.S. National Pork Producers Council. Similarly, there have been regular exchanges between American and Canadian producer groups regarding beef, potatoes and horticulture.

I believe that the producers know each other well and they are very familiar with the strategies used on both sides of the border. Canadian dairy producers have often held discussions and have often been invited to the United States, as guest speakers, to explain the Canadian milk supply management system. The United States has its own system, but it is different from ours. Right now, they are implementing their system by slaughtering cows. There is a surplus of milk and so the government is slaughtering cows. Several hundred thousand cows have been slaughtered to reduce production. The volume is controlled. At any rate, all companies are doing the same thing. The people in the automobile sector are trying to adjust their production. The same thing was done with aluminum a few years ago. In the Canadian west, potash mines reduced the amounts they were selling on the market. Indeed, they stopped producing in order to prevent a fall in prices.

Next October, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture will be hosting the AN/EU meeting, which is held alternately in America and Europe. When this meeting is held in America, it alternates between Canada, Mexico and the United States. Next October, the meeting will take place in Niagara Falls, Ontario, and this event will bring together all of the producers from the developed world.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Guimond.

Thank you, Mr. Pellerin.

Mr. Keddy, a short wrap-up.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

First of all, I didn't get an opportunity last time to thank both our presenters for being here today. It was an encouraging and worthwhile discussion.

Like Mr. Guimond, I was a farmer before politics, but I wouldn't want to have to go back and tell my farmers I'm not supporting trade in other countries, Peru or Colombia or any of these deals, because Canada is a trading nation, and we have to export our product. We simply can't sell it all here in Canada.

The minister announced today he will take the Americans to the WTO over the country of origin labelling. We've worked through the diplomatic channels. We've worked minister to minister, both in trade and in agriculture, and the U.S. continue, as they always have; they're tough trading partners. They've always been tough trading partners, but I would expect we will win this and I expect there will be a pretty timely decision. The Americans are clearly in contravention of NAFTA and the WTO on the country of origin labelling. I just wonder if you have a comment on that.

[Laurent Pellerin]

The CFA position on that is to ask the minister to go ahead with that panel. Canada has a reputation of being the good guy all the time. I don't like the idea of becoming the bad guy, but I think from time to time we have to—

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Every once in a while.

[Laurent Pellerin]

—say okay, that's enough. We'll use that case, if it's the right one. There's no problem with that.

I think beef and pork farmers and other farmers that will be impacted by COOL really agree with that. They are following this very closely. I have a conference call tomorrow afternoon with the Mexican and Canadian cattlemen and pork producers, those on either side of the U.S. The Mexican farmers are really in the same place that we are on that subject. We shared that in March in a common meeting we had.

I think it's about time we brought people back to their real lives, especially in pork with what we are in now. I'm still a hog and beef farmer. These are bad times.

We have to do something to improve the situation. I'm very nervous about what will happen in both livestock commodities, pork and beef, in this country. If we do nothing, I will not be surprised if they decline a lot.

We have to do something very quickly in both cases. We never recovered from BSE in beef. We are in a worse situation now than we were six or seven years ago, in 2003. We export more livestock to the U.S. without killing, processing, and value-adding here in Canada. In pork, it's worse.

We have to do something. We have to build a plan to work on those very bad periods. If not, we will lose farmers; we will lose a large part of the industry; we will lose competitiveness on the world scene, and we will become a very small player.

We must never forget that in pork we are a small country, but overall we are probably the second- or third-largest traders. We are the country most dependent on export, because we export 50% or 60% of our production. No other country has that great a share of their overall production in exports.

We are very sensitive to any movement, such as what we have experienced in the last couple of days with countries closing their borders. We have to watch that very closely.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

Thank you, Mr. Keddy. That was a good question.

Mr. Pellerin, thank you again.

Mr. Godfrey, you were excellent today. We've kept you a little longer than usual, but it's been very helpful, and we very much appreciate your attendance.

[Laurent Pellerin]

Thank you very much for your time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Lee Richardson]

With that, we're going to take a couple of minutes here while we bid our witnesses adieu. Then we'll come back in camera in about three minutes.

[Proceedings continue in camera]