International Trade Committee on May 12th, 2016

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Good afternoon.

For the benefit of the people in the room, I am the member for Rivière-des-Mille-Îles. My riding is north of Laval and has some fine businesses, particularly in agriculture. The General Motors plant used to be in my riding, but it was demolished.

We are now studying the TPP, which was signed in February. For the benefit of the people in the room, let me clarify that we are holding consultations on this agreement, which we must ratify within two years. The committee is travelling across Canada to gather input from all Canadians in all regions, whether from agriculture or other sectors. I am saying this to you, because sometimes people think the TPP is already set in stone. No, we are actually at the stage of consultations across Canada.

Thank you for being here with us today. I very much appreciate it. The work you do in greenhouses is very interesting. I used to be a grocer and I used to sell produce. I am pleased to meet you.

In terms of your products, earlier you said that the issue of traceability was becoming an advantage. When you export your products, is the reciprocity of Canadian standards an advantage, or are there some disadvantages because of pesticides and other reasons?

[George Gilvesy]

One of the things we've particularly noticed in our travels in the pan-Pacific is the height at which Canadian products, including our own produce, are put on the global scale. There is a great deal of trustworthiness assigned to Canadian goods, and a lot of that goes to food safety and traceability factors.

I had the opportunity last year to join a trade mission with Minister Leal and Minister Chan from the Province of Ontario. We travelled all over China. It was very apparent there that they have problems with the quality of their food from a traceability and food safety perspective, and so you can understand, once you see it, why Canada is at the level we are in the international forum. Canada is at the highest level it can be, and we need to be able to take advantage of these opportunities.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

I am happy to learn that one-third of international trade is being done here, in your region. Let me say that some products in my riding are exported by road over the bridge from Windsor.

In terms of exporting the products, you said that everything was fine at customs, as long as there were no delays. I understand that the products you sell do not have indefinite shelf life. They are not like other consumer products that may have different shelf lives.

I would like your comments on that. Do your products pass through customs smoothly?

[George Gilvesy]

Things go fairly well here. Most of the products go through the Ambassador Bridge here in Windsor, and for the most part, things go very well. There have been some expedited processes that have been put in place. Problems occur, though, when there is, let's call it, a bump in the road and they force the vans to unload for different inspections. That creates a problem for perishables, but there are processes for our members to be able to contact the government in those cases, and they tend to rectify the processes in short order.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you. This is what I have heard in my riding: fresh produce is being held back at the border, preventing its delivery and putting it at risk.

Mr. Naidu, thank you for being here with us.

You talked about SMEs and the fact that this was a big concern. Do you believe that SMEs are ready to face the global competition? Would the government have ways to help them take full advantage of the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement?

[Rakesh Naidu]

I think the SMEs that we have here are very competitive. Right now they are supplying not just the OEMs here but those in the U.S., so it's the global OEMs.

What can we do to support them? We need to keep the industry here. The industry that will be here will be the OEMs, meaning the Fords, the Chryslers, the Hondas, and the GMs. That's the only way to keep the SMEs because they are part of the supply chain. If the OEMs are weakened because of the treaty and the disparity in the tariff phase-out period, it will impact the whole supply chain in five years from tier 1 to tier 2 companies, and the small and medium-sized ones, which are usually the tier 3s and the tier 4s.

If you want to strengthen them, you have to keep the industry here and that is by giving strength to our OEMs. If the OEMs stay here, the SMEs will be strong.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

We have in the room the MPP from Windsor West.

Lisa, are you there? Welcome, and thank you for coming to learn how the Parliament works up in Ottawa. I hope it's as streamlined as Queen's Park.

We're going to move on to our second round.

Ms. Ludwig, for five minutes. Go ahead.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Good afternoon. I'm very pleased to hear your presentations.

I'm also pleased, Mr. Martin, to suggest that our government is committed to sustainable solutions regarding diafiltered milk. We have an agricultural committee that is going to be reviewing that and working together with farmers in developing a solution, which we'll hopefully have by at the end of June. If you would like to be involved in that, I can certainly pass your information along.

Mr. Gilvesy, you mentioned, very impressively, how every 10 minutes a truck is filled and moving across the international bridge. Looking at the potential for an increase in market share, how is it working in terms of trucking infrastructure? We've heard from other witnesses across the country that there is a shortage of skilled truckers?

[George Gilvesy]

Trucking is becoming a problem for our sector. One of the things here is that our members have control of a lot of their internal logistics as well, so they've got many of their own trucks. But with drivers, there is going to be a problem. Getting the adequate human resources to be able to fill those trucks is a problem.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Okay. Thank you.

Regarding the agricultural sector as a whole, we have certainly heard across the country, and know demographically, that we have an aging population. Is there a plan in or strategy in place in terms of succession planning for future farming in southern Ontario as your farmers are aging or the farms are changing the succession plan for that?

[Gary Martin]

I think we're representing a couple of farmers here who have taken over. I'd like to think that despite my grey hair, I'm still a young farmer.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

Yes, you are.

[Gary Martin]

Being under 50 I think would be an abnormally young farmer. I know that Kevin is younger than I am, so I'm hoping that it shows. I know a lot of the neighbours have taken over from their fathers, who've either passed on or decided to retire.

[Kevin Forbes]

I believe that within Ontario there are some different programs. There is some government funding available for grants for succession planning to help farms go through that. I do believe that in the next number of years you're going to see a number of farms transfer to a younger generation. If you look at the demographics, there are a number of baby boomers who will be retiring in the next number of years. Whether those farms are passed on to their kids or sold, only time will tell, but I can say that if there's profitability in farming and agriculture, there will be a next generation there to take over.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

How much cooperation or involvement do you have with the universities and colleges for agricultural research, such as the agricultural program at the University of Guelph? Do you see the enrolment numbers increasing? Also, are the programs as innovative in terms of curriculum as they should be?

[George Gilvesy]

I think I heard two questions there.

[Karen Ludwig, Liberal, New Brunswick Southwest, NB]

It could be three.

[George Gilvesy]

I think I heard two questions there. One was pertaining to the people attending and then the second was how do we use them for research.

We utilize a lot of the institutions for research purposes. We have a lot of programming going on with University of Guelph; with Ridgetown College, a subsidiary of the University of Guelph; and Vineland Research Centre. We we tend to put our research dollars where we think the best programming and best researchers are available, depending on the need.

As far as the education part is concerned, we do have a shortfall in that area and we've been trying to work closely with the local colleges. Principally in the Essex region, we've got St. Clair College and Ridgetown, and we've been attempting to work with them on specific programming for greenhouse people—not necessarily those who pick the crops, but we need middle management and growers, the whole value chain within the human supply for producing crops.

It is a challenge and as our sector is growing so quickly, we've got a high level of demand there.

[The Chair, Liberal, Mark Eyking]

Thank you. Your time has pretty well run out.

We're going to move over to the Conservatives and we have Mr. Ritz for five minutes.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentations today.

There is good news on the agricultural front. You guys are right. As there is profitability, the young tend to come back to the farm. We're seeing about an 8% gain in the last year. I think those are the last numbers I saw, and that's fantastic. So good on you.

One of the things that is critical for agriculture, of course, is innovation—money going into research and things like that. I've always seen in my own farm operation that there's nothing that drives my own efficiencies and own innovation as being able to market into a new marketplace, and being able to ascertain that.

The other big thing is labour mobility. We were talking about it with truck drivers and so on, but George, when it comes to you, it's pickers and those types of people. Some of them are unskilled but some of them are skilled. Are you seeing programs that will allow that to happen? I know there's a tremendous amount of discussion under the TPP on labour mobility, but I see that as a good thing because it outlines exactly who can come here and what they can come for.

Do you see avenues there that will help you maintain the labour standards and quantity that you're going to need, moving into the future?

[George Gilvesy]

We're continuing to need a good source of labour, right from, as I said, the people picking the crops all the way through the value chain. We are challenged with that right now and we need the ultimate flexibility and the programming that government can offer on the human resource side of things.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

A lot of work has been done on PACA and there's still some more to be finished. We welcome the opportunity to work with the government to finalize that.

There are a couple of problems. One, there's a misconception out there that PACA covers no pay and slow pay. It doesn't. It covers strictly bankruptcy, and I know over the last 20 years, only about $7 million has been used for bankruptcy. Those are the last numbers that I remember seeing as a minister. But the problem that we ran into—it's Industry Canada, but we were leading the charge at it—was that most of the regulations on bankruptcy are provincial, not federal. So you have to have that working relationship at the provincial level. We were never able to grasp that, so hopefully in the next round, with both provincial and federal Liberal governments being in place, they'll be able to push that stone up that hill. I look forward to that happening.

George, you were just talking your operations after having come back from Hong Kong and Shanghai. Neither one of them is in the TPP, but certainly diversifying your market out of the American marketplace alone is a good thing. I would think, like in any investment portfolio, the more customers you have the better off you are.

[George Gilvesy]

Yes, we've been pursuing those strategies because we have a total dependency on the North American marketplace right now, and we need to protect ourselves and diversify those markets.

As far as the PACA thing goes, though, Mr. Ritz, you relate it to federal-provincial relations, and there are issues there, but it takes the leadership of the federal government to drive this thing home, and we can find solutions. Professor Cummings has drafted a draft regulation that can work, initially from a federal perspective, to put that in place. We look forward to that being implemented very very shortly.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Yes, it's only the American market that offered it to Canada. They didn't offer it to anybody else, and then they took it away when we started pushing them hard on COOL. It was one of their knee-jerk reactions. We're look forward to fixing that too.

On the economic development side, you made a point of saying 28% of the business in your area is auto. Do you happen to know the percentage that's agriculture?