Agriculture and Agri-Food

Opening remarks

Good afternoon. My name is Jorge Correa. I am vice-president of market access and technical affairs for the Canadian Meat Council. To build resilience and safeguard the sector's contribution to Canada's food system, economic growth, and rural employment, we recommend a number of finance priorities. The first is the meat processing resilience fund. Amend the AgriStability program to support federally regulated meat processors facing supply-driven negative margins, ensuring that processors have access to risk management programs comparable to those available to producers. Prioritize trade diversification and market access. Extend the AgriMarketing funding envelope to strengthen industry engagement abroad, including such initiatives as the first industry Canadian meat advocacy office in China, renewed support for the Indo-Pacific agri-food office and funding to help industry meet foreign regulatory requirements. Next is China tariffs compensation. Engage substantially with China to reopen the market to beef, remove tariffs on pork and provide compensation to offset the 25% retaliatory tariffs on Canadian pork, which represent $177 million in annual losses. Comparable compensation…

Opening remarks

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and honourable members. My name is Gregory Kolz, vice-president of government affairs at CropLife Canada. I'm joined today by my colleague Émilie Bergeron, vice-president of chemistry. Thank you for inviting us to appear today as part of your ongoing study of the government's regulatory reform initiative in the agriculture and agri-food sector. CropLife Canada is the national voice of the manufacturers, developers and distributors of pesticides and plant breeding innovations. Our members deliver critical solutions that support Canadian farmers as they grow food for Canadians and the world and drive economic growth for Canada. Our members are poised and ready to deliver much-needed innovations to help reignite productivity growth in the agriculture sector, but in order to so, they need the right regulatory environment. This past July, CropLife Canada was pleased to see the Government of Canada initiate its red tape review. The federal government's efforts to streamline services, cut duplication and reduce costs for Canadians and businesses come at a critical time for the agriculture industry and the plant science sector specifically. Canada's…

Opening remarks

While the recent red tape reduction report from Health Canada, Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, or PMRA, points to a desire to reduce the regulatory burden, recommendations pertaining to innovations in plant science are disappointing and would do little to remove red tape and drive economic growth. Simply put, the government must take bold and decisive action. Health and safety will always be of paramount concern, but we must collectively find a balance between regulating for risk and regulating for growth. The challenges are particularly acute for the PMRA. The number of new product submissions to the PMRA annually is half what it was 10 years ago, but approval timelines have almost doubled over the same period. This has done a serious disservice to Canada’s reputation as a global leader in regulatory affairs and put Canadian farmers at a disadvantage. Introducing new phytosanitary products to the market typically takes 12 years, spanning from initial R and D to regulatory approval. Each additional year of delay means lost opportunities for farmers and they may incur devastating losses linked to pest outbreaks that could have been…

Opening remarks

Thank you for the invitation to be here today. Food and Beverage Canada is the national industry association for Canada's domestic food and beverage manufacturers. Our members include all six of the provincial and regional food and beverage manufacturing associations, as well as companies big and small. As I said last week—and it bears repeating—food and beverage manufacturing is this country's largest manufacturing industry and largest manufacturing employer, but the key difference between us and others is that our industry's purpose is to feed Canadians. Every day, our members take Canadian farm products and turn them into the safe and nutritious food you see on your table. While our members are committed to high standards for food safety, the health of Canadians and environmental protection, they are increasingly challenged by regulatory complexity and duplication. Canada has a good process for consulting on new regulations, but no process for identifying and repealing duplicative, outdated or unnecessarily costly ones. This gap means that compliance requirements continue to grow, even when they provide little additional benefit. For small companies without large teams or…

Opening remarks

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, we appreciate the government’s regulatory reform initiatives under the Red Tape Reduction Act and the recent progress reports from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, or CFIA, and Health Canada. Health Canada’s move toward a more flexible risk-based approach is commendable. However, implementation must come with clear timelines, otherwise industry will continue to operate in uncertainty. The government’s reforms shouldn’t stop there. They must also address other regulatory inefficiencies and irritants that create friction and unnecessary costs for our industry. Reforms must repeal duplicative frameworks, such as the federal plastics registry and instead strengthen existing systems in collaboration with provinces and industry; improve consistency in inspection guidance and interpretation across CFIA regions; proceed with a phased compliance approach to front-of-pack labelling enforcement; and revisit “Product of Canada” labelling rules to make them practical and consumer friendly. More importantly, Canada should adopt a systematic process to review and repeal outdated regulations. We recommend a reverse burden of proof model, where…

Opening remarks

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee. FHCP members manufacture 80% of the goods you find in the centre aisles of grocery stores and pharmacies across Canada. Our sector employs more than 350,000 Canadians in nearly 10,000 facilities nationwide, making us the largest manufacturing sector employer in the country. We also transform close to 40% of Canada's agricultural output into value-added products that feed Canadians and supply global markets. Today, more than half of the products on Canadian grocery shelves come from outside the country, mostly from the United States. Rising costs, fragmented and outdated regulation, and a highly consolidated retail environment have pushed production elsewhere, resulting in higher costs for Canadians. What we need is a clearer, more competitive path for investment so that we can strengthen self-sufficiency at home and open new markets abroad. In the United States, manufacturing investment per worker is more than three times higher than in Canada, and our regulatory burden is a key reason for this gap. When I speak to FHCP members, I hear the same story: regulations are outdated, inflexible and out of step with our trading…

Opening remarks

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Paul Doyon. I am senior vice president general of Union des producteurs agricoles, or UPA. I am also a dairy and field crop producer in Saint-Joseph-des-Érables in the Chaudière-Appalaches region. My remarks will mostly focus on the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, or PMRA, and Health Canada. Their job is to ensure that registered pesticides, when used in compliance with the user instructions on the label, pose no risk to health and the environment and are effective in crop protection. UPA appreciates the fact the PMRA’s opinions are independent. We’d like to highlight the agency’s efforts for transparency over the past few years to strengthen its capacity to monitor environmental and human health risks linked to the use of pesticides. Last winter, Health Canada held public consultations on the regulations amending the pest control products fees and charges regulations, which propose to increase the annual charge payable by registrants. We think it would be prudent to have the large majority, if not all, of the post-market regulatory costs continue to be funded from public funds. This would lend the process credibility and help strengthen…

Opening remarks

By way of example, I’d like to add that the pest control products regulations allow for a three-year validity period for emergency registrations, but this is never applied in decisions. So if a longer period could be allowed, there would be no need to complete paperwork annually to submit a new application when there are no other solutions to control a specific pest. The same goes for applications to extend the validity period of a registration. We have to deal with a lot of paperwork. There must be some way to streamline the process to expedite applications.