International Trade Committee on May 17th, 2012

[Sam Boutziouvis]

It affords the opportunity for entrepreneurial, creative people in farms of all sizes, from the smallest family farm on up, to be able to take advantage of lower barriers to trade and investment, insofar as they are capable, and to plug into supply chains within the country, to the large corporations or to cooperatives, to be able to export their goods and services to the country where the barriers have fallen.

And by the way, the same goes for Japan. Japan is currently negotiating with Australia. It's in the seventh year of negotiations, or something like that. We think we know each other so well that we can negotiate this deal very quickly. We have a great understanding of each other, and small, medium, and large enterprises will benefit.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Farmers are among the better entrepreneurs. They're great entrepreneurs because they often take food processing right...and take all the risks based on many things they can't control, for example, the weather.

But Mr. Slomp, in one of your comments, you said that we should be making sure that we meet domestic needs. You know that Canada is an exporter; we grow much more than we use.

Here, I think something very disturbing was mentioned the other day because not only does it affect our domestic market but it also affects our exports. This really affects small farmers, and I've been involved with this. If you have an animal that has been injured, for example...often, you have the guys come to you and say they've lost a $1,000 or $2,000 animal, which broke its leg. Now that animal gets thrown away. So our minister said that's wrong; we're now going to have an inspection so that animal can be used. It has to be inspected by a veterinarian, and that animal can then be sold because there's nothing wrong with it other than its broken leg.

But an incredible statement was made in the House the other day by the member from Welland. He said we were going to put unsafe meat on the shelves, roadkill or dead stock, and unsafe food in our system, and yet you're here talking about a food secure Canada.

I get really concerned. Do you have advice to help resolve those types of comments?

[Paul Slomp]

I'm not familiar with the statement you're making, so I can't comment on it.

We have seen Canada's agricultural sector respond to this increased call for export and we have quadrupled our production in Canada to meet those export needs. Our main concern is that if our farmers are doing so well at meeting those export needs, where's the bottom line when we look at net farm incomes? Why have those not changed?

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I'd suggest to you that right now if you look around agriculture's running on eight cylinders. I'm wondering what part of agriculture is not in good shape.

[Paul Slomp]

If you look at commodity prices right now, they look great. But you can't just look at a spot commodity price, because that's not an indication of how the agricultural sector is doing.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I think—

[Paul Slomp]

I say this because in the long term there are going to be booms and busts. I mentioned the price of canola seed. Yes, commodity prices are doing quite well now, but canola seed companies are making sure that they're picking up on that increase in market prices.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

So when commodity prices are good—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

I'm sorry, I'm going to have to stop you there. Our time is gone and I want to leave two minutes for the last.

We're into the second round and we'll leave two minutes for Mr. Davies and two minutes for Mr. Holder. I know it's tight, but that's the best I can do.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question is for Mr. Slomp and Ms. Bronson. The current federal budget before Parliament right now has cut food inspection funding and the government is removing some 300 FTEs from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Japan is known to have very high food safety standards. Do you think that these domestic cuts by the Canadian government domestically might affect our reputation or the trade negotiations with Japan?

[Paul Slomp]

I don't have the data on this, but there's no doubt in my mind that the cuts to food inspection will alter the quality of food Canada will be able to export.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Just quickly, Ms. Bronson, the UN rapporteur on food was here the other day. Do you have any comments to share with the committee about that?

[Diana Bronson]

I think what his report did was to highlight issues that are of vital importance to Canadians across the country, the problem of hunger that we have in this country and a problem with healthy and safe food. He actually highlighted some problems with international trade and echoed some of the comments we made this morning in terms of our increased trade not resulting in better incomes for farmers.

I would still hope there'd be some window of opportunity within the Government of Canada to take his recommendations more seriously than to call them completely ridiculous. This is the United Nations. We are a signatory to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. That is what he came to do here. Canada has had a longstanding open invitation to any UN human rights investigators, and this is a break with this tradition that I think we need to rethink very seriously.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Holder, the floor is yours.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

First, I'd like to thank our guests for coming, and I'll make a couple of comments because I just have to challenge something that was said.

It's interesting that since 2006 the Conservative government has provided funding for 733 net new inspectors and 170 meat inspectors. So I want to challenge the assertion from members opposite that this is not the case.

It would actually help all of our arguments if.... And I say this respectfully to our friends from Food Secure Canada, that you give the impression somehow that the profit motive—

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

It had better be one. Go ahead, what is it?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Those numbers can be disputed. They're not absolute—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

No, that's not a point of order.

Go ahead.

I heard all kinds of garbage from all sides, so that's all right.

[Ed Holder, Conservative, London West, ON]

I just say it softly that it might help your position if you don't give the impression that the profit motive is a bad thing when you're making your argument. I think you raise some interesting points, but I think that would be more helpful, because you certainly have given me the impression that while you've based it on our export-driven strategies, you don't like the profit motive. If I'm wrong, then you might in future opportunities lay that down. I just think it would provide a bit more of a balanced commentary. That's just a comment for you.

Mr. Davies commented that multilateral agreements are better.

Mr. Boutziouvis, you've commented that's true, but multilateral agreements, frankly, in my opinion are as dead as Elvis. What you've really got is a situation where you've got bilateral agreements, because that's where the world is already, or is going in that direction. If multilateral agreements were in that...there would be opportunities.

Mr. Boutziouvis, you've agreed with that. My question to you is, should Canada then carry on with bilateral negotiations since there doesn't seem to be a focus on multilateral agreements, because Doha is not as vibrant as people may think?

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Okay, I'll allow a very tight question and answer.

[Sam Boutziouvis]

Yes, go ahead with regionals and then we should also think about the future: labour mobility agreements, future investment agreements, and special services agreements related to some of the other modes. The future could possibly be in such arrangements that are functional, as opposed to geographic agreements—but absolutely, yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

Thank you very much, Sam, Paul, and Diana.

[Diana Bronson]

Can we just respond to the—

[The Chair, Conservative, Rob Merrifield]

No, I'm sorry. The time has gone, and we want to thank you for this segment of your testimony. Perhaps as we continue this study, we'll invite you back again for expanded opportunities, but at this time, thank you very much.

We'll suspend now to bring up our next set of panellists who are by video conference from B.C. and Manitoba.