Agriculture committee  I'd love to jump in on that suggestion, because we absolutely don't want to impair the human health side of this. It is a “one health” approach in agriculture. The safety of drivers is very important. We talk about delays at the beginning and end of trips. That time counts towards drive time, but it is not really drive time.

Agriculture committee  Yes. Although there were regulations that were required to be implemented by a certain date, I suspect there still are some making that transition. I would suspect it.

Agriculture committee  I have just a comment. We haven't submitted to the committee directly, but the national livestock groups have been working on this for over a year. We have a group that has met quite routinely and has communicated and met with both the agriculture and transport ministers' staff to discuss the issue.

Agriculture committee  Yes. Even the regulation will allow seven days to report any movement. Now, under the future regulation, it's 30 days, depending on which sector you're in and what type of event you're reporting, but even seven days in a foot-and-mouth disease outbreak is a lifetime of disease moved around, if you really look at the demographic patterns of livestock movement.

Agriculture committee  In our sector, we've always called that transition from provincial to federal inspection the kiss of death. The seasonality and the size of our sector means that federally inspected facilities, which carry a higher regulatory and cost burden to maintain them, have difficulty surviving.

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. The study we did on the comparative environmental impact assessment of our supply chain was partly to help inform the discussion around how moving to more regionalized, smaller-scale processing means we could move more meat than we do live animals. We can put more meat in a trailer than we can live animals.

Agriculture committee  As livestock sectors, there are not many of us. There are five or six. We all sit in the same room very frequently. When it comes to traceability, we all work and pull together about regulations and, to a certain extent, around technology. This is identifying animals for the purpose of traceability, because traceability is about identifying the animals, identifying the places and then identifying when the animals go to places and tracking that so that you can move backwards and understand who and what may be involved if there is a disease outbreak.

Agriculture committee  Yes. Livestock haulers don't have specific rest areas where they might pull over. If they've maxed out their hours of service, they use whatever facilities are available. Feed, water and rest are few and far between, and they are ill-equipped to accommodate truck drivers versus the livestock.

Agriculture committee  My argument is that the challenge with the ELDs' max service means we can't meet those regulatory requirements. If you're stopped on the side of the road because you've maxed out your hours, the animals are on the trailer. That adds to your total feed, water and rest interval time.

Agriculture committee  We would love to, because it's our favourite subject. As a national industry organization representing primary producers, as my counterparts know, it becomes our role to deliver traceability. “Deliver” means getting producers engaged and participating, but it also means helping ensure that the government's regulatory requirements are upheld and met.

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. Within that regulatory requirement, we're collecting regulated data on behalf of the government and sharing it with them. We have to bring everybody up to speed, and blockchain means that we don't have to transfer new data; it means that you can tap into the data, with permission, and see it.

Agriculture committee  It is, in fact, to an extent, a function of that capacity to process, and that really does dictate market prices. In the east, they will pay more for animals. That is where the processing facilities are, so there's an opportunity to do that. There's less transport involved and it's easier to get them to that marketplace.

Agriculture committee  I know Pierre, so I won't take it out on him later.

Agriculture committee  He does. Pierre owes me one now. I always like when the dairy guys are beholden. As I was saying, our latest innovation, the AgroLedger traceability system, takes these records from paper to digital and uses blockchain to manage that data. The advancement not only allows for real-time recording of transport events but ensures the integrity and permanence of that data.

Agriculture committee  Good morning. Thank you. It's an honour to present our insights to this distinguished committee today. My name is Corlena Patterson. I'm the executive director of the Canadian Sheep Federation, a position I've held for over a decade. I'm here to share the realities and challenges faced by our particular sector due to the implementation of ELDs in commercial livestock transportation.