International Trade Committee on Oct. 20th, 2016

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

Thank you.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Ms. Lapointe.

We're going to move to Mr. Ritz.

You have five minutes.

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

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for your presentations today. It was very interesting stuff.

I have a couple of quick points to begin with.

Jim, on soybean, we all know there's a tremendous market in Japan, especially in the non-GM for foodstuffs, but there's a growing market for animal feed derivatives, once the oil is done. There's that great secondary marketplace as well. Have you done an appraisal as to the potential you have in countries like Vietnam and Malaysia that are major components now in the TPP?

The Australians are close, but we have quality.

[Jim Everson]

I don't have an economic analysis. We haven't done a full economic analysis that way, but you mentioned the countries that really matter. In the TPP, Vietnam and Malaysia both have tariffs that will be eliminated through the TPP. For our companies and our exporters and our farmers on the food-grade side, those are countries of real interest. They're growing. The middle class there is growing. People are eating more meat, and soybeans are used to feed those animals, so those are critically important markets, as is Japan.

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

Thank you.

Ruth, it's good to see you again.

With regard to the aquaculture industry, you definitely do the saltwater aquaculture. Do you do freshwater as well? Do you represent both? I know in the Prairies there's a tremendous opportunity now that the freshwater fish marketing board has been moved aside by everyone. There are all kinds of ideas springing up, and the potential is unlimited. When you look at export, are you starting to take that into consideration as well?

[Ruth Salmon]

Absolutely.

When we talk about doubling the size of our industry in 10 years, that's really basic. We could easily do that. You can do that with what we're doing now mostly in terms of saltwater production on both coasts. We do farm in every province. There are some freshwater trout and other things happening. The potential is just amazing. We could easily do more than double that if a number of factors were put in place.

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

It's the fastest protein that you can bring to market, and repeat that over and over. It's not seasonal by any stretch.

I think the big plus too with the aquaculture side is keeping the processing plants viable year-round. The problem with the labour force is that you're either going 110% or you're dead stopped. This levels all of that out and starts to bring strength to those coastal communities and some of the prairie communities too.

[Ruth Salmon]

Absolutely, and then when you have such high demand, it's a win-win for Canada.

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

The great thing about these markets in the TPP is that they eat a lot of the parts of the fish that we don't. There's all that secondary and third-place stuff.

[Ruth Salmon]

The demand there for our products is huge. We see it at Boston and European seafood shows. They love the high quality of our product,. When I say it has huge potential for Canada, it really has.

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

That's good.

To the Canada Post folks, your bread and butter is in parcels now. Letter mail has gone off the face of the earth with email and everything else. We all know that. I look at my mailbox and all I get are junk flyers and the odd notices for parcels coming in. Parcels are the future. When we start looking at global access, when Purolator is a big portion of what Canada Post does now, do you not see potential in growing that side of Canada Post?

[Peter Denley]

Letter mail has declined but I wouldn't characterize it as falling off the face of the earth. It still represents the lion's share of the revenue generator for Canada Post. Parcels are now starting to supplement that. Purolator is an arm's-length company from Canada Post. It's a subsidiary but separate so I can't really comment on that. You can't go into a Canada Post outlet, for instance, and buy a Purolator product.

What we're looking at with the Canada Post review is changing what a post office should be. It should be a community hub. It should be a place where people can do a variety of things. If you've been to a post office in Italy or Japan, you'll understand that. They're doing things much differently, and that's where we want to go. We want to say we're changing with the times.

I can't really comment on Purolator. They're doing express delivery, and we're doing it too, but with the integrated service model where we're carrying that with letter mail, etc., that's what's working and keeping us in the game.

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

I sat on the finance committee when I was first here years ago, and I could never understand why Canada Post, as you say, wasn't the community hub. We were putting computers into libraries and other areas. Why weren't they in the Canada Post building? You guys couldn't even have a fax machine. You had to mail a letter to the post office 10 miles down the road. You couldn't just pick up the phone and call them or fax them. It was ridiculous. It was an outdated model that needed to change.

[Peter Denley]

Can I keep going?

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

Yes, sure.

[Peter Denley]

Canada Post retail outlets were the very first place that the community, people in Canada, got access to computer facilities. All sorts of our corporate outlets had computer access where people came and used computers. We started, and then they took them out. We were the first place to have it.

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

When was that? I never saw them in any of the ones I was dealing with.

[Peter Denley]

There was plenty of access.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Randy Hoback]

Sorry, you've gone well past your time, Mr. Ritz.

We'll move to Ms. Ludwig. You have five minutes.

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

Thank you all for your excellent presentations. Ruth, I have to go to you first.

As you know, I represent the riding of New Brunswick Southwest. We are deeply entrenched in aquaculture. Could you explain to me the benefits or the disadvantages if aquaculture were removed from the Fisheries Act and shifted to a farming act?

[Ruth Salmon]

As a clarification, we would always need to comply with certain aspects of the Fisheries Act, so it's not a question of removal from some of those important habitat protection areas.

The issue with the Fisheries Act is it doesn't define us. It was obviously developed long before aquaculture came on the scene, so as a result, the farming practices that our members undertake are often in conflict with many of the things in the Fisheries Act. We've been advocating for a national aquaculture act that is a modern piece of legislation that reflects a modern industry, which ours is. It certainly takes into account those important sections 35 and 36 of the Fisheries Act that are critical, but it goes beyond that and defines us, and it identifies roles and responsibilities, who does what. There's nowhere right now that you can go to find how aquaculture is managed in Canada. To us it's the best of both worlds, taking what is critical in the Fisheries Act and also giving us a vision, defining us, and being really clear about how we're managed.

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

Thank you for that.

Recently I was on a cage site—you can imagine which company that was—and I was out there with the Minister of Fisheries. What was very evident was that nobody was working on this particular farm. The company had expressed to us the need for additional workers. At this point, because there's such a shortage of labour for feeding, for example, on the sites, they're importing huge barges for automated feeding. We're at impressive numbers and if Canada were to go forward and ratify the agreement, we definitely could be at impressive numbers. How could we reach that point in production with the challenges we face right now with the shortage of workers?

[Ruth Salmon]

That's an excellent question and it has to be discussed in the mix because there will be challenges. Even with technology improvements, having access to enough workers is a critical issue we're dealing with. I know that's another discussion, but it is absolutely critical. The temporary foreign worker program is one issue where we need access to additional workers on a full-time basis. We're not seasonal. We're 365 days a year. Having access to employment, even with technology improvements, is a critical issue that we're aware of, and we need to bring that into the mix when we're talking about future growth in Canada.

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

Certainly, in our riding we definitely appreciate the significance of the aquaculture industry. It's a billion-dollar industry, and we appreciate the innovations that have been done. In the early days, when Andrew and I arrived in St. Andrews in the late 1980s, it was a rudimentary industry. Since then, with the value-added features and the increase in technology, we've seen a tremendous growth in the middle class and in subdivisions in our area where there were never subdivisions before.

[Ruth Salmon]

It's very exciting, I agree.