Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Good morning, everyone. I appreciate the invitation to appear on behalf of the Canadian Meat Council.
My name is Lauren Martin. I am the senior director of government relations and policy. We are pleased to provide comments regarding the strike at the port of Vancouver.
CMC represents Canada's federally licensed meat packers, meat processors and suppliers of equipment and goods to the meat industry. Our members process over 90% of Canada's pork and beef. Our members feed Canadians and the world with some of the highest-quality protein in the world. The Canadian red meat industry represents over $32 billion to the Canadian economy and supports 288,000 jobs across Canada.
As members of this committee well know, Canada's economy relies heavily on trade. With respect to red meat, Canada exports almost 70% of its pork and 50% of its beef to over 90 countries in the world, with lucrative trade relationships in Asian countries such as China and Japan, which are accessed via the western ports.
In 2022, Canadian processors exported $9.5 billion in red meat products, which include pork, beef, lamb and others. We could not efficiently or cost-effectively get these goods to market without reliable transportation infrastructure: ground, air and sea. Approximately 25% of Canada's total traded goods flows through the ports in western Canada. They are Canada's largest gateway, handling over 800 million dollars' worth of cargo, which includes red meat products, every single day.
Our members spend considerable resources creating and maintaining relationships with customers worldwide. When companies cannot fulfill orders reliably, this jeopardizes those relationships. As a result of our reliance on trade and the important markets accessed via the western ports, the impact of this dispute was far more profound than that of most other labour disruptions, though we did see an almost equally worrisome situation developing in the St. Lawrence Seaway this fall.
To position Canada as a competitive trading partner in the global economy, businesses must be able to get goods to and from market efficiently and reliably, as I've mentioned. Red meat cannot sit for days—let alone weeks—without spoiling. Given the nature of our goods, our supply chain is built to ship goods to market efficiently. We do not have the storage capacity to stockpile weeks of unshipped goods.
When our members are faced with an event that exceeds our storage capacity or even comes close to exceeding that storage capacity, they are forced to shut down production. Animals cannot move off the farm, which in turn has implications for farm families and their bottom lines, not to mention the implications for animal welfare. Events like this are felt in businesses and individuals along the supply chain, and gearing back up is not as simple as the flip of a switch.
I have now illustrated the challenging decisions that businesses must make when facing uncertainty. It is unfortunate that the strike happened when it did, with industries still struggling with the postpandemic fragility of supply chains, labour shortages, and inflation. It goes without saying that putting perishable products such as red meat at risk is also not in the public's best interests. These types of lengthy market disruptions add costs to businesses that put food on families' tables, impacting food affordability.
Canadians expected our elected officials to ensure that this labour dispute was resolved quickly. Instead, it dragged on for 35 days. The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade estimated that $10.7 billion in trade was impacted during the 35 days of strike action this past July. While we respect the workers' right to strike, those interests must be balanced against the public interest.
In the future, the federal government must be willing to intervene much sooner than it did this past summer and use all the tools it has at its disposal to bring parties to the table. Additionally, it should consider solutions such as maintenance of service provisions, which have been granted for grain, for all perishable products, such as red meat. We strongly recommend such measures, which will protect red meat's critical paths to market, our nation's trading reputation and food affordability for all Canadians.
That concludes my comments. Thank you very much.