The House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food met on May 5, 2026, to continue its study on business risk management (BRM) programs in Canada's agriculture sector. Witnesses included Tyler Fulton and Ryder Lee from the Canadian Cattle Association, René Roy and Stephen Heckbert from the Canadian Pork Council, Pierre Petelle from CropLife Canada, Richard Carey from the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Agriculture, Karen Ross and Geneviève Grossenbacher from Farmers for Climate Solutions, and Lysa Porth from Agi3 Ltd. and the University of Guelph.
Tyler Fulton of the Canadian Cattle Association said the beef herd is beginning to rebuild but remains fragile, and he called for cost-shared premiums for livestock price insurance to make it a permanent program, a higher AgriStability payment cap of $15 million with no cap during catastrophic events like foreign animal disease outbreaks, and an enhanced trigger of 85% of the reference margin. He warned that new market access for Mercosur countries would undermine domestic growth and signal risk to young producers, and he noted that 30% of beef for domestic consumption is already imported.
René Roy of the Canadian Pork Council described agriculture as a matter of national security and called for permanent solutions to recognize finished hogs as collateral in the advance payments program, a permanent increase of the interest-free portion to $350,000, and permanent funding for African swine fever preparedness. He said that better predictability in BRM programs would encourage investment and that Canada is at a competitive disadvantage compared to the United States, where producers are choosing to invest.
Pierre Petelle of CropLife Canada argued that BRM programs must be complemented by a modern, predictable regulatory environment that attracts innovation, and he called for measurable outcomes, policy coherence, and accountability in the next federal-provincial-territorial agreement. He supported the concept of trusted jurisdictions, as proposed in Bill C-273, to speed access to crop protection tools and seed genetics, and he said Canada should champion science-based decision-making internationally.
Ryder Lee of the Canadian Cattle Association added that Mercosur countries have a history of slow disease reporting, which poses an animal health risk to Canada and could worry the United States, Canada’s largest beef customer. He agreed that regulatory modernization for animal health products would meaningfully improve economic viability.
Stephen Heckbert of the Canadian Pork Council said that pork producers need price insurance as a new tool and that veterinary product access would lead to enormous cost savings. He also said that Mercosur countries have lower animal health and biosecurity standards and that Canada should insist those standards be met before allowing market access.
Richard Carey of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Agriculture said BRM programs are essential but often inaccessible for small, diversified farms in his province, with low participation in AgriInsurance due to high premiums and a small risk pool. He recommended increased government investment in the insurance fund for smaller jurisdictions, maintaining the current AgriStability compensation rate, reintroducing the 1.5% matching contribution rate for AgriInvest, expanding livestock insurance beyond predation, covering the honeybee industry, and improving the timeliness of AgriRecovery.
Karen Ross of Farmers for Climate Solutions argued that BRM programs must better balance reactive response with proactive investment in resilience, and she warned that current programs sometimes discourage practices like intercropping and wetland conservation. She recommended making BRM more performance-based so that farmers who reduce risk get lower costs or stronger coverage, ensuring programs do not work against resilience-building practices, ramping up research and innovation support, improving data for modern risk modelling, and creating a dedicated fund to de-risk and scale new innovations.
Lysa Porth of Agi3 Ltd. and the University of Guelph said Canada’s BRM structure is outdated and needs a layered public-private framework where public dollars focus on catastrophic risk and private products cover higher, more individualized layers. She proposed a cost-neutral national pilot in the next policy framework that would shift subsidy toward the base layer, allowing private sector innovation in underwriting, pricing, and technology, and she noted that Canadian-built geospatial AI technology already exists and is ready to scale.
The committee agreed to set aside 15 minutes on Thursday to give drafting instructions to analysts for a letter outlining the committee’s overall vision and recommendations for the next partnership.
AI-generated summary — may contain errors; verify against the official evidence.