The House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food met to study business risk management (BRM) programs in Canada's agricultural sector. Witnesses included Mathieu Frigon and Chathurika Dayananda from the Dairy Processors Association of Canada, Stephen Duff from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness, Élise Gosselin from Novalait, Scott Yule from the Canadian Bison Association, Brayden Schmidt from the Canadian Cattle Youth Council, Corlena Patterson from the Canadian Sheep Federation, and Ryder Lee from the Canadian Cattle Association.
Mathieu Frigon and Chathurika Dayananda emphasized that dairy processors face risks from international trade uncertainty, energy costs, and changing consumer demand, and they called for regulatory reform to reduce red tape, particularly harmonizing extended producer responsibility for plastics across provinces and simplifying the federal plastics registry. They also urged updating 100-year-old dairy standards to align with international norms and treating research as a core pillar of risk prevention requiring stable, long-term funding.
Stephen Duff noted that Ontario produces over 200 commodities, but only a few have access to a full suite of public and private risk tools, leaving many fruit, vegetable, and specialty producers underserved. He recommended improving data collection through harmonized farm income reporting to enable better program design, and argued that research and knowledge transfer are essential for proactive risk management, though he could not comment on provincial funding for federal research station closures.
Élise Gosselin argued that innovation is a key risk management tool and should be explicitly integrated into BRM programs, not treated as an optional activity. She highlighted the success of the living laboratories initiative but warned that its expected follow-up will not occur, affecting 20 farms and 40 researchers, and called for stable, long-term federal investment in applied research partnerships and research infrastructure.
Scott Yule explained that the bison industry is small, heavily dependent on U.S. exports, and faces challenges with AgriStability due to its treatment of pasture and winter grazing, leading to low program uptake. He recommended improving AgriStability's timeliness and predictability, and noted that livestock price insurance is unavailable for bison because of limited pricing data, though bison and beef prices are highly correlated.
Brayden Schmidt stressed that strong BRM programs are critical for young producers, and recommended introducing government cost-shared premiums for livestock price insurance and making it a permanent program. He also called for raising the AgriStability payment cap to $15 million, eliminating the cap during catastrophic events like foreign animal disease outbreaks, and enhancing the trigger to 85% of the reference margin, while warning that granting broad beef access to Mercosur would undermine confidence in the sector.
Corlena Patterson argued that BRM must not only protect existing farms but also enable renewal, and proposed creating a dedicated next-generation and domestic production capacity fund financed by sunsetting universal AgriInvest matching. She recommended modernizing AgriStability with tiered coverage, provisional reference margins for new entrants, and an enterprise continuity rider, and expanding AgriInsurance to cover sheep, goats, and bison for risks like pasture failure and predation.
Ryder Lee warned that granting Mercosur beef access would displace domestic supply and undermine signals to rebuild the cattle herd, and noted that Canada's largest export customer is uncomfortable with South American beef due to food safety concerns. He supported making livestock price insurance a permanent national program available in all provinces.
The committee briefly discussed scheduling the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to appear on the main estimates, with members agreeing to arrange a date before the end of May or in June.
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