Public Accounts Committee on March 1st, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ms. Yip, you have 20 seconds remaining.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

Very quickly, in your opening remarks, you talked about the need to keep the supply chain strong by addressing pressure points. What are those pressure points on the supply chain?

[Chris Forbes]

That was everything: labour, transportation inputs, access to PPE and other things. It was the whole gamut from producer right to the delivery of food.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you, Mr. Forbes.

Ms. Sinclair-Desgagné, you have the floor for two and half minutes.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I would now like to look at the issue through the lens of sustainable development. We know that all these food‑related issues have an enormous impact on the environment, with respect to production, processing, transportation, logistics, distribution and waste management.

The report by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada states the following:

Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the regional development agencies considered the alignment of the Canadian Seafood Stabilization Fund with some sustainable development commitments. However, we found that they developed no performance indicators to measure the program’s contribution to those commitments.

My question is simple and is directed to the representatives of Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the regional development agencies.

Do you plan to establish a performance indicator to measure the program's contribution to sustainable development commitments?

[Timothy Sargent]

Mr. Chair, I can answer this question.

It is indeed our intention to set targets.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

What type of indicator will you establish?

[Timothy Sargent]

We will adopt an indicator for sustainable development and one for gender‑based analysis plus.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Okay.

What international standard will you follow for sustainable development?

[Timothy Sargent]

I will ask the assistant deputy minister, Niall O'Dea, to answer that question.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you.

[Niall O'Dea, Senior Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Thank you for the question.

We are working in close collaboration with our counterparts at Employment and Social Development Canada to ensure that we are following the United Nations guidelines. These guidelines set the standards that our indicators will meet.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Okay. Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Desjarlais, you have two and a half minutes.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'll be quick. I'm good at speaking quickly.

I want to return to the main findings a bit. There is the fact that the OAG found that the federal government's “emergency preparedness and response planning did not consider a crisis affecting the entire food system and the food security of [all] Canadians”.

Their recommendation was this:

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada should work with its federal, provincial, and territorial partners, as well as its stakeholders, to complete a national emergency preparedness and response plan for a crisis affecting Canada's entire food system, taking into consideration the food security of Canadians.

I'm glad to see that the department has accepted this and is hard at work in planning for it. I do commend the members here for doing that work.

We, of course, do not know what the next crisis will be. We do know that we are currently in one. The climate crisis has huge implications for food security in our country.

I would like to ask the deputy minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada whether they are factoring climate change into their planning in this crisis. How does it affect our entire food system?

[Chris Forbes]

The answer is yes. We do and will continue to think about how climate change will affect food production. Again, the recent floods in B.C. are an example of the kind of extreme events one expects to see more of. There is a very real effect on food production there in the Abbotsford region on the Sumas Prairie. I think this is the kind of event we do need to prepare for. Indeed, all the disruptions that occurred in B.C. in December were evidence of that.

We are looking at ways to improve the climate resilience of our food production system in a range of programming, both in terms of our emergency preparedness and more generally in our research agenda and in our work with provinces and territories on programming.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

What does that mean in tangible steps for the plan? How can the government prevent or support producers when there is a flood?

[Chris Forbes]

In terms of better emergency preparedness, I think it is clarity around, first of all, preparedness in advance. It's how the food system is set up. It can be everything from the crops we grow and where we grow them to being better prepared by ensuring that we're building in buffer strips and other practices near waterways. It can be in terms of the coordination and collaboration that is existing and ready with federal and provincial authorities.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

You'll have one more round, Mr. Desjarlais, so I'll cut you off right there.

MP Lawrence, you have five minutes, please.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Thank you.

I just want to spend a little bit of time with Mr. Hayes discussing some of the findings.

When I see the charts on exhibit 12.6 and 12.7, I am struck by some of their findings, such as the “overall estimate for the number of jobs supported was unreliable”. There were “instances of double counting, which means that this overall estimate was overstated”. The findings also state that “The department required no supporting documentation from recipients to verify the data”. Another finding was that “The department also required no supporting documentation” and “the information to be reported in the same way against the indicated department could not include whether the outcome was achieved”.

These are some of the excerpts from your report. To that end, can the deputy Auditor General tell us how many jobs were preserved or created because of the money spent on the emergency support for the agriculture and agriculture-producing sector?

[Andrew Hayes]

We cannot provide that information. As we state in the report, the estimates for the number of jobs supported was unreliable. It would be out with our information to be able to project that.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

On that same vein, can the deputy Auditor General tell us how many tonnes or what percentage of the food production was either increased or maintained because of these programs?

[Andrew Hayes]

I don't think we can answer that question either. I think we did mention in a number of places that supporting documentation wasn't required of recipients. That quantitative information might have been lacking in certain areas.

[Philip Lawrence, Conservative, Northumberland—Peterborough South, ON]

Can the deputy Auditor General inform this committee as to how much money was spent on these programs?

[Andrew Hayes]

For that, I will go to Ms. Leach or Mr. Reinhart, because they will have some information on that.