AGRI Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND AGRI-FOOD

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE L'AGRICULTURE ET DE L'AGROALIMENTAIRE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Tuesday, November 27, 2001

• 0936

[English]

The Chairman (Mr. Charles Hubbard (Miramichi, Lib.)): Good morning, everyone.

We are meeting, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), for a briefing session with AGCare, Agricultural Groups Concerned About Resources and the Environment, regarding issues of pesticides approval and increased competitiveness for Canadian farmers.

I'm not sure it will happen, but there is a rumour of a vote this morning, maybe around 10:30 or so. We would like to warn our witnesses, so that if the bells start ringing you'll know that we are called to the House.

We'd like to welcome Mr. Wilson, Mr. Gorzo, and Mr. Fischer. I'm not sure who the presenter is. Is there one, or is each of you taking a...?

Mr. Jeff Wilson (Director, Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association; AGCare (Agricultural Groups Concerned About Resources and the Environment)): We'll probably each take a shot at it.

The Chair: We'd like to limit your presentation to about 10 to 12 minutes, 15 minutes at the very most. Following that, we'll have rounds of questions from various members of the committee.

Welcome, Mr. Wilson. I take it you are the lead, or are you going to let Mr. Fischer...?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: We'll let Mr. Fischer lead off.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Jim Fischer (Chairman, AGCare (Agricultural Groups Concerned About Resources and the Environment)): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I'll introduce myself. I'm chair of AGCare, Agricultural Groups Concerned About Resources and the Environment. We're an umbrella organization, a coalition of 17 farm groups, field and horticulture crop sector. You have this in front of you, and I don't want to bore you in repeating it.

With me are Jeff Wilson, from the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, one of AGCare's member groups—he is the past chair of AGCare; John Gorzo, the incoming president of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association; Mary Garr, part-time staff with AGCare; and Geri Kamentz, from the Ottawa area, a fellow farmer, as are Jeff, John, and I. I'm in dairy and calves, and I think Geri is in cattle and calves and pigs.

We have limited time here and we want to highlight the issues on minor use, the Ontario perspective, the concerns we have in it. You see listed in front of you what our goals are, the concerns of Canadian farmers, particularly Ontario farmers, with this whole minor use registration, and we think we have some solutions to improve on that. We have some examples, particularly in that horticultural sector within AGCare and within the province, that we know we have some concerns with, and we'd like to relay them to you at this point in time.

At this point, I'd like to turn it over to Jeff and John to give you some examples.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Thank you very much, Jim.

We appreciate the ability to stand before the committee.

Yesterday there were two press conferences launched by the horticulture community, one by Canadian Horticultural Council, where they brought forth their document Crop Protection—A Better Future for Canada. This is being translated right now, as we speak. It should be ready in the next week. The English version is available now, and I think our goal and their goal is to get it to every member of each pertinent standing committee.

In that document, we have taken a fair bit of time....and I say “we” because it has been inclusive. All of us have had input into the development of that document. We stand here today saying things are worse for horticulture producers today than they were a year ago, and a year ago they were worse than a year before that. Things are getting worse in terms of the technology we can access to maintain a competitive stance as farmers.

We think things are worse in terms of defending the technology that we use to the Canadian public. The mandate of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency is to ensure and protect the health and safety of Canadians and the environment. We think that mission is not being met. We have rationale and reasons why we think it is not being met, and in this document we also offer a number of solutions to the problems that we have identified. By solutions we identify not big-ticket items, but in many cases it's a new way of doing business, just as, as farmers, we have had to adopt a new way of doing business on our farms in this millennium.

• 0940

So we stand before you, and John can talk about some specific examples. There is not a commodity out there being grown under the auspices of minor crops or minor use that cannot start to relay issues and products that they can't access.

The final comment I would like to make to you is that we've talked to this committee before about the effects of the Food Quality Protection Act in the United States. They have fully embraced that act now. They've had some legal challenges from environmental groups against it, and they have bought into the idea of moving towards an era of newer, safer, more benign to human health but more targeted pest-control products, to the point that they have had 900-plus registrations in the United States for minor crops last year versus our 24 registrations here in Canada.

That act has forced interagency cooperation that did not exist in the past. By that I mean the Food and Drug Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Environmental Protection Agency. They have an ombudsperson who oversees all activity and interagency cooperation. Her name is Pat Cimino. I call her the Tasmanian she-devil, simply because she is a force to be reckoned with. She is sanctioned by the Office of the Vice-President of the United States. They are serious about making their system work, to the point now that—and it's outlined in our document here—they have access to over 130 new active compounds, plus all the spinoffs to other crops and formulations that we can't even access here in Canada.

The example I'll give you on my own farm is raspberries. There are only two insecticides registered for control. Both of them were registered before I was born. I'm not exactly a young man, but I'm not that old either; I'm 48 years of age. But the bottom line is, I really question and I bring to this committee the issue that next year I will not be able to export any raspberries to the United States because both products that I have for legal use here in Canada are beyond as of next year. They are under public discussion right now. That's on their public record. They want to do away with both of them: azinophos methyl and malathion.

So I sit before you here pleading for some support to get both interagency cooperation and the finger pointing to stop. We did finally meet with Minister Rock last night, and he's assuring us his cooperation in finding real on-the-ground solutions to our problem.

On that note, John would like to talk about some specific examples from his neck of the woods, and maybe we can discuss how we see some solutions being implemented.

Mr. John Gorzo Jr. (First Vice-President, Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association): I also am glad that we can be here to make our presentation.

Specific to my area, we grow celery. A large percentage of celery is grown in our area. We're experiencing a problem with the emergence of a new pest, the pea leaf miner. The present controls that we have available are not working. We have one new emergency registration that we received in the summer, but another product that we would like to see, that is available in the States, is called Agrimek, or abamectin. This insecticide is registered in the U.S. to control this pest, and we can't have access to it. Jeff pointed out that 130 new actives were registered last year in the U.S., whereas we saw only nine new actives registered here in Canada.

An interesting statistic is that 75% of the celery that we consume in Canada comes from the States, so we are already seeing those products on three quarters of the celery we consume. So it doesn't make logical sense that we can't access the same product. In a lot of the cases, newer products that are being registered in the States are safer for the environment and safer for the users—in essence, for all the consumers.

Another example would be clomazone, a herbicide needed for use in the production of minor crops such as cucumbers, peppers, squash, and pumpkins. It's available in liquid form but has been changed to a micro-encapsulated form called Command ME. This newer and safer product already exists in the U.S., and they use bridging data to have it registered. In Canada, they are not accepting this bridging data. They're just treating it as a new active. Thus the manufacturer has not submitted an application to have this product registered in Canada.

• 0945

These sorts of examples are exactly the problem. Some of these are suggested in here—for example, the bridging data and that sort of thing—solutions that aren't expected to cost millions of dollars and would help remedy some of the discrepancies that we see today.

The Chair: Are you all finished with the presentation, then?

Mr. Jim Fischer: That's correct.

The Chair: David, are you going to begin?

Mr. David Anderson (Cypress Hills—Grasslands, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, gentlemen, for coming here this morning. I'm a producer too, so I share some of the frustrations that you have with the system.

It's good to hear that the health minister is...I don't know if you'd call him a quick learner, but last week Howard had asked a couple of questions about PMRA, and he actually assured us that the system was working very well. So it's good that in a week he has changed that position.

I would like to ask you, what do you think is the main obstacle that's holding back and slowing down the introduction of the pesticide registrations and a better system?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: From our perspective, it would be nice to pinpoint one thing and say that if we fix this one thing.... We think it's a cumulative effect that goes right back to when the agency was formed.

The agency was formed as a result of a federal review of the Pest Control Products Act, which is still actually the enabling legislation in place. Unfortunately, when the agency was formed, this town saw fit to download 25,000 people. The agency was very expedient from the previous way that pesticides were regulated, because they were regulated in about four other ministries. We suspect there were two goals at heart: to get the agency running, but also to hive the resources allocated to those personnel over onto the agency's budget and off.

The agency says they're underfunded. We don't know. The agency says they need new legislation to do everything and be all things to all people. We question that because, at best, we feel that the legislation will be enabling legislation. We've heard no hint of what regulations will be in place. We have no idea what executive orders will remain in place, which is currently how the agency conducts the lion's share of its business.

In our book we talk about a number of these. We call them “order by decree”, because that's how we as farmers view them. They have made a policy enactment without any consultation in a democratic process, because it seems to make their life a little easier. But when you look at the products going in, it's about 30% of the products going into the system in the United States; when you look at the output, it's not coming out.

So we see a number of areas. I'll give you one example. Crop groupings is how the U.S. has really cracked a tough nut to get some data on minor crops. By that I mean, if you generate data on something like a snow pea or a green bean, automatically that data is germane to any other crop where the consumption patterns are identical to a snow pea, or a green or yellow bean. They've really moved ahead by that type of approach.

On the books in Canada for the last two years, they have had the ability to do crop groupings. It has never been done in Canada to date. When we ask them why, there's no real answer that certainly satisfies us. We get a bombastic mumbo-jumbo in return and in response as to why they can't do things.

We hear a lot of things in terms of the manipulation of statistics. They're going to hit you back with there having been 3,200 registrations last year. The problem is, many of those were things like label amendments, label changes, which are really a quick review and a sign-off. But when they say 3,200 registrations, what does it mean for me on my farm? Not a darn thing.

Mr. David Anderson: We need a pesticide review, that's obvious, but are you concerned that's going to actually remove products without giving us the new products?

Apparently, in the States they don't take things out unless they have something to replace them, and from what I've seen, there's an attitude here where they're starting to pull products off the market but aren't doing the work to get anything back onto the market to replace those. Do you have any comments on that?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: That's exactly the case, and it makes us nervous. Remember, on some of the products I'm using on my farm, the red flags are up in my mind. I know there are better products out there. The new information age has allowed every farmer out there to know what his or her competitors are utilizing on their farms, and you see that some of the products are better.

We don't understand why, if data is generated now, say, in Michigan, environmental data, what's different between Michigan and Ontario? They say the Peace River district is unique. Fair enough, let's do some data for the Peace River district. Our analysis is that there is not a place in Canada that cannot be mirrored with some U.S. data, the way they generate their data primarily through their land grant university system and outlying research stations.

• 0950

My sense would be that toxicologists and environmental analysts probably went to the same learning institutions and were taught under the same professors. Why, because there's a line called the 49th parallel, is there a different approach to that data?

Mr. David Anderson: There are some lines running north and south that cause a different approach to that data as well. We need to get the registrations interprovincial, as well. With some chemicals, we're paying twice as much as they are down here for the same chemical.

I just have a question about the companies. We've had some situations where they won't do their data and put farmers in a situation where they need to apply for emergency use registration, then they try to get the approval that way. I'm just wondering if you have any comments about that. What's the best way of convincing the pesticide industry to apply for joint registration in both places and speed that up?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: One of the things we're proposing—and Minister Rock actually ventured it on his own behalf last night—is that we're looking at the premise of an office of minor use, which would be the traffic cop, in a way. How do you determine what data is required? Who does it? His suggestion was that maybe that should be jointly funded between Agriculture and Health.

We suggested making it a tripartite funding between the manufacturers and Agriculture and Health, simply because then they have a vested interest in making it work. The agency will tell us the problems with the manufacturers. The manufacturers will tell us that if they give us the absolute detail, there tends to be retribution to them in the system. We don't know. Is that real or imaginary? That's what they tell us.

The example that John talked about—and it's in our brief—is this issue of Clomazone. It was just a reformulation; the liquid formulation was somewhat volatile, so they went to this dry, granular formulation because it didn't volatilize as easily. It's just a better way to apply the same product.

In the U.S. they basically look.... A lot of times this bridging data is just about what was fundamentally changed other than the formulant. Nothing. It's the same product. They might have pulled some inerts out, some emulsifiers, whatever, but basically the product is the same. That's good enough there. Here it's viewed as a category B, and it basically has to go through as a completely new submission.

Mr. David Anderson: It just makes it impossible to do that.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Yes. So we see a combination of an office of minor use that does not allow the manufacturers to escape their responsibility. It does not allow either of the line agencies.

Remember, if the PMRA and Health Canada are the regulators, there needs to be a counter-promoter of good pest management. In our estimation, that has to be Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. Are they doing that job? To a degree, a bit of it. Are they doing a job commensurate with the regulatory role that PMRA and Health play? No.

Mr. David Anderson: Over the last 20 years, I think farmers have become a lot more responsible in their use of pesticides and attitudes toward them.

Do you have a program to inform the public about what you're doing and how that's working?

Mr. Jim Fischer: That's a main impetus for AGCare existing, as a communication vehicle from the farm community to the urban sector or to the consumers of the food products, whether we're dealing with modern technologies, such as pest control products, or biotechnologies in crops. I think we do that fairly efficiently, but one can always improve on it.

Mr. David Anderson: There's lots of work to do there.

Mr. Jim Fischer: Yes.

You should have maybe continued on a little, Jeff, about this office of minor use and where it is in the U.S.

The Chair: His eight minutes are up. We probably can come back to it.

Marcel.

[Translation]

Mr. Marcel Gagnon (Champlain, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I understand that, in coming here this morning, you were hoping to have the committee support your request for getting the agency to register some products that you need but which are not currently registered in Canada while they are in the United States. Did I understand you correctly?

[English]

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Yes.

[Translation]

That's it.

Mr. Marcel Gagnon: You are in the horticulture crop sector. You grow vegetable. Are the problems you are facing regarding those pesticides that you need the same all across the country? Do the Quebec horticulture producers experiment the same problems as you do?

• 0955

[English]

Mr. John Gorzo: Yes. We've been in touch with the Quebec horticulture producers. I was at the research centre joint meeting at Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu and we talked about different research priorities in that. During those discussions a lot of issues came up of how pesticides were not working, they weren't effective, and that they needed to have more. In a lot of cases the research that's done around them is also done to create data for new products to be able to register some of these new minor-use products. So it is experience in more than just Ontario.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: I should also mention that the brief has been developed by the Canadian Horticultural Council, which represents horticultural producers across Canada. Our chair of crop plant protection is actually Dean Thomson, an apple producer at Abbotsford, Quebec. Dean is actually in Copenhagen today at an OECD meeting on risk reduction for pest control products.

[Translation]

Mr. Marcel Gagnon: Why do you think it takes that long to register a pest control product in Canada, while the same product is already registered in the United States? In addition, does the fact of not using the same pesticides here increase your production costs or make you more vulnerable in that it hinders your capacity to sell your products, their price being higher than it would be if you could use the same pest control tools? Is it so?

[English]

Mr. Jeff Wilson: In some areas yes, in some areas no. The new technology isn't always cheaper; in fact in very few cases would the new technology be cheaper. What it gives us is a more defendable tool to the public about how we engage and practise good pest management on our farms, because many of the new products are biologically based as opposed to a straight chemical base, as in the past.

There's certainly a trend out there, especially for minor crops, that a company will wait to get a U.S. registration before they even start to look at a registration in Canada. The sharp companies probably have their homework done in terms of the business potential of a registration in Canada. The companies that aren't so sharp probably rely on best guesses. We're trying to link our staff people with all the companies to ensure that when they make a decision to go or not go with a product in Canada that they have good, articulate market information as to what the potential they can realize is.

But then you take that through to the conclusion of what if there is no potential for a company to realize profit by registering a compound or a new active in Canada? That's where the argument seems to end. The agency says to the companies it's not worth while; the companies say the agency won't bend. We think that instead of this being where the argument ends, that's where the dialogue has to start. If we're saying that in too many cases, how do we arrive at some solutions?

[Translation]

Mr. Marcel Gagnon: You seem to consider that the dialogue does not exist. You would like to have access to products which are available only in the United States because their consumption is too limited in our country. In such a case, there should be some exchange between the United States and Canada, but it is not the case now.

My colleague talked about training. I think that horticulture producers, just like the other producers who use pesticides, must currently follow training sessions each year to learn how to use those products in an environmentally-benign way. I wonder whether that is the result of pressures from the public, who is worrying more and more about the effects of those products on health. Would such pressures be responsible for the fact that those products that you need are not registered here? Do I make myself clear?

[English]

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Actually you are making yourself clear: it's the issue of where does public opinion fit into a registration. The environmental groups would look at the transparency for the sole purpose, quite frankly, of opposing a product. But that's what they feel their role tends to be, to identify the weaknesses of any compound and articulate that into the regulatory record or process.

• 1000

Remember, these products are designed to kill pests. We can't mince words about that. How do we mitigate the environmental impact, the human health impact? The agency does that in a hypothetical way in determining use patterns. But it can't end there. Every product requires some information or awareness information to the farmer who's going to use that product.

We see this office of the minor use, if it was collaborative between Agricultue Canada, Health Canada, PMRA, and the manufacturers themselves, as having the ability to identify what growers need to know, the nuance about any specific compound. If there's something that's handled completely differently from the norm, then applicators do need to know that information.

We see that office playing a key role in determining, especially in collaboration with the system across the border, what are some of the do's and don'ts, what are some of the requirements that we're going to need in terms of both information and where we get that information to address the defendability to the public.

[Translation]

Mr. Marcel Gagnon: You are talking appropriately about information. That might help you, but perhaps it's already the case. Do the consumers have enough information regarding the pesticides that you use? Maybe the consumers' concerns are groundless. Should the growers manage to better inform the consumers about those products, perhaps it would mitigate the pressures against the registration of some products.

[English]

Mr. Jeff Wilson: I think you could sum that up by asking if if consumers know enough about commercial food production. Clearly the answer is no. We could be debating pest management. Quite frankly, we could be debating labelling GMOs in the same vein. One of the things I can report to you, as some of the members from Ontario are aware of, is that on our own farm we conduct a lot of consumer research where we lay all the information out for consumers.

That's fine for me as an individual grower to do with the people in my local community. How do we get that information out about what is agriculture all about, and what is commercial food production all about, on a national basis? Maybe you folks can help us in that vein as well.

The Chair: Thanks, Marcel.

Jeff, before I go to the other side, you mentioned your farm. You talked about raspberry production. Could you just give our committee a little information on what you produce, like how many acres of this and how many of that?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: On my farm we crop about 240 acres of small fruit, strawberries and raspberries, and vegetables. Our goal is to basically ship product year-round, from both storage and fresh from the field. One of my claims to fame is if you order the coleslaw in any Swiss Chalet restaurant in Ontario, the cabbage was grown on my farm. That's one of the things we've attempted to do. But we grow potatoes, we grow a number of things. I'm a commercial farmer. When people ask me what I do, I respond, “I feed people”.

The Chair: You employ about how many people now in this operation?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: It depends on the time of the year. We have a full-time staff now of about five or six. That expands in strawberry season to upwards of 20 to 30. Certainly in the planting season we have a combination. We're involved in the offshore worker program, but also we tap quite a few folks who are in early retirement. They want something to do but they don't want a 40- or 50- or 60-hour week. We get a good workforce by innovation out there.

The Chair: Thank you, Jeff. We have people around the table involved in this industry too.

Paul, you had your hand up first.

Mr. Paul Steckle (Huron—Bruce, Lib.): Gentlemen, we've met on many occasions, and unfortunately the issue is really no different today from what it was when we met first perhaps five or six years ago, or maybe seven years ago now. When the amalgamation of these ministries into what is now PMRA was brought together, we anticipated that there would be a greater sharing of knowledge between science on both sides of the border, that there would be a harmonization of registrations. We seem to be no closer than what we were then.

I think if we can do something today, we must at least determine where the culprit is. Where is the problem? Perhaps you could walk us through the process. Does a farmer through PMRA request a registration of a product, the need for registration? Does he go to the manufacturer for that? Does the manufacturer come to PMRA, or is there unwillingness on the manufacturer's part because it's deemed to be a small market in Canada?

I think we need to determine today where the problem is. We go to these people and they say the manufacturer hasn't requested registration in Canada. I think we need to have that determined today so we can once and for all at least say that is no longer a problem, or that it is a problem and let's deal with it.

• 1005

Mr. Jeff Wilson: First of all, the PMRA will not tell you whether a manufacturer has or hasn't put a submission in. If it's gone in it becomes part of the confidential business side of things, so quite often we have to spend a fair bit of time with the manufacturers.

Instead of the present and the past, why don't I look ahead? A lot of it is outlined in the document. We're doing a lot of work collaboratively with what's called the IR-4 program in the U.S. By collaboratively, I mean between the Canadian Horticultural Council and the IR-4 program, which is how they register minor uses across the U.S. They tap all the land grant universities. They tap all the USDA research stations. They tap any information generator that can serve the needs under the protocols established by their regulatory system.

Many of the protocols are identical to here, but we've got a line going through it. So when we look ahead we see that if Cornell University, a very reputable institution, has done a toxins package through their life sciences department, that should be good. If the University of Illinois has done some environmental or soil dissipation studies on a particular product, and we can determine that the climate and the soil fit a number of the zones in Canada, why wouldn't we use that information?

We're still advocating a Canadian review. We're not abdicating our sovereign responsibilities. We're just saying why duplicate the generation of the same information? It keeps people busy, but at the end of the day if that's one of the barriers because of that cost.... A soil dissipation study for the same type of soil, wherever it's done, should be generic information. We see in our estimation too much wall-building around regulatory bodies where in fact there's less sharing rather than more sharing. At the end of the day, what's the goal? And if the goal is to choke the system, and that is their view of how you're accountable to the public, it doesn't meet our needs. So how do you find the common ground?

What we've suggested, and Minister Rock agreed last night, is we have to sit down and determine the whole promoter versus regulator role. That would involve Minister Vanclief, Minister Rock, stakeholders, possibly manufacturers, possibly environmental groups. How can an environmental group lambaste us as farmers for using pesticides when we know and they know there are better products out there? Why are they not onside on some of these issues? We posed that question as recently as yesterday, when they quite frankly were lambasting you folks in a press conference in the House. They don't have an answer for that.

Mr. Paul Steckle: I think there's a general feeling in society today that whether it's greening of our lawns or whether it's this whole pesticide control in urban areas.... There was a vote in a London council last evening—I don't know how that turned out, maybe you know, but it was going to be close—in terms of whether they were going to be banning pesticide use in the city of London. Apparently there's one city in eastern Ontario that has already put in place something like that.

There is this general feeling that anything we can do to make our environment better always goes back to where it's basically farmers who are impacted largely. Yet these same people will go and buy a product that was produced—whether it's celery, lettuce, or whatever it is, apples, for instance—in the United States, using a product that we cannot use here. This is a complete oxymoron. I don't understand how we can allow it even to cross our borders if it's deemed to be unfit for human consumption. If it's not deemed unfit, then why is the use of it not allowed here?

We want some directives. I think it's time that we started hitting hard and below the belt if we have to to get to the bottom of this and get this thing resolved. What do you do? If you lose the ability to use malathion and other products you mentioned, what are you going to use, and where are you going to market your product? Are you out of business?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: I agree, but I'd be the first one to say the product coming across quite frankly is probably safer with the products they're using. So it's not a case of when using technology that's not registered here.... I think it's actually advantageous from the human health side. Guthion and malathion, the two products I referred to in my raspberry example, I'd give up in a millisecond to get new-generation technology, because by any measure, it's more defendable except in a regulatory way.

Mr. Paul Steckle: I hope I didn't leave the impression that I don't believe it's safe. I believe it is safe for consumption, but if we can't use the product here then I'd like to know why we can't use it here.

The Chair: Thanks, Paul. You've made your point. I think we may come back to that, too.

I think Rose-Marie's next, but I have to go to Dick first.

• 1010

Mr. Dick Proctor (Palliser, NDP): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks very much, gentlemen, for coming.

I was just looking at your case studies and the references to quadris and spinosad. I hope I'm pronouncing the latter correctly. I had a mild involvement with quadris last year. You mention here that it's used in ginseng. It's also used in pulse crops, I believe, or maybe ginseng is a pulse crop. I don't know. Last June some pulse crop farmers in my area wanted to get a hold of quadris. They needed it at a particular point in the growing season. Working through the Minister of Agriculture and through him to the Minister of Health, they eventually did get an emergency application for it. What you're saying here is that it is available in the United States but in Canada it's only available on this kind of emergency basis. Can you just expand on that a little bit?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: I mentioned earlier the IR-4 program in the States. Our first example is brussel sprouts, and it's very appropriate there as well. In the United States that would be an automatic registration across the whole boracic acid family. In the case of quadris, they now have about 150 labels by taking that approach.

How it works down there is if you wanted quadris on pulse, you have to engage two researchers to at least do some work on it at a research station, either state or federal; a land grant university, or an accredited facility or process. By accredited they mean accredited under good laboratory practices so that the data is legitimate. If you can get two researchers to do that, they will put it on the A list under IR-4. They will then fund and they will coordinate getting all the residue testing done to meet the requirements of their system for registration in order to add it to maybe several dozen labels.

Up here, on the books they have the ability to follow a similar process. They have not done it to date. So if you want it on a pulse, it would be each pulse separately.

In our case we have a registration on potatoes, which I think is still temporary. We'd like to see it on numerous other crops. It's a family called strobilurin, a new-generation technology. We'll probably see mimics of quadris from other companies. It's a good example of the new generation, which by any definition is far more benign to human health and the environment than the old ones.

There's a family called EBDCs. They are at the height of controversy in the U.S. as potential carcinogens. If you grow grapes as part of the national U.S. grape cooperative, which are processed across the line in Jamestown, I think it is, you cannot use them on your grapes here in Canada that go to the U.S. They won't allow it. The same company that owns those grapes can't bring them into their own processing plant. That is how absurd it's getting.

So business has moved. Instead of a duplicate plant at half efficiency on both sides of the border, they have one plant. There are some question marks. In this case you have a nervous grape community in the Niagara Peninsula.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Thank you, Jeff.

On the spinosad, I see that this particular product has won a green chemistry award in the United States for apples, yet it's only here as a temporary product and has only been licensed once.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: There are 200 registrations in the U.S. The green award was given by President Clinton. It was a presidential award of environmental excellence.

It's not a chemical. It's a product that results from a fermentation process. So it's biological in the truest sense. But it's very effective for what it has been discovered to do. It's another example of new generation technology. Because it's biological, it's replacing those two OPs, organo-phosphates, I referred to.

When I spray with guthion, I'm going to have very detectable residues on that crop for three or four weeks. If I were to use spinosad, after about four days you're not going to detect anything on it. It's more expensive, but to me that's probably money well spent as a farmer, because I can defend it to the public, in that it's a better way of managing pests on my farm.

The Chair: Thank you, Dick.

Next is Rose-Marie.

Mrs. Rose-Marie Ur (Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, Lib.): Thank you for your presentation this morning.

I was just quickly thumbing through your briefing notes. We're hoping to have PMRA here again. I can tell you that I'll have your briefing notes with me, because they are well put together and they contain good information.

• 1015

Paul alluded to my question. When the PMRA has appeared before us in the past, they have said that quite often these companies or the chemical people aren't making application through the right channels and that's why there is a delay. This is their bottom line to any questions we ask. Do you feel that's the problem?

Trust me, they don't get a warm welcome, because we've been very frustrated, the government side as well, and they get into this long dialogue as to what they're doing or not doing.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: If the companies know the route to a registration, as you would know you had to go down this road to get to Ottawa, then how can they say they don't know what number the road is?

Mrs. Rose-Marie Ur: Actually, this is what we're saying. These people are in it to make money. They're in a business. Why would they not know the proper channels? After so many years, if you want to stay in business, surely to God you should know who to go to or through.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: That's one approach.

The other thought is that if a company with the best of intentions and with input from the grower community has determined there is absolutely no way that a nickel is going to be made by bringing a product to Canada, that's where the system isn't working. For example, most farms have a little rhubarb patch, but there are about three commercial rhubarb growers in the province and maybe six or seven in Canada. Who on earth is ever going to look after their needs? We know the answer: nobody.

What's their alternative? They're either not going to manage pests or if they manage pests, we're going to make criminals out of honest people.

But are we actually saying that a company should look at a product for seven growers in Canada with possibly a few hundred acres and put it through a system for whatever the right number is? It's probably $100,000 minimum. These are companies that have shareholders and that have to make a profit, just as hopefully we make a profit as farmers.

Our sense is that there's very little attention paid when the companies actually say they cannot justify coming to this. That's where PMRA says that's too bad, because that's where our role and responsibility end. We are pushing this office for minor use because we think it can play a role, and that's where some different dialogue has to begin.

Mrs. Rose-Marie Ur: I think that's a good position to put forward. As you said, the rhubarb grower with the smaller acreage can maybe come under a grouping element, and it can be seen as a positive and as dollars being well spent in putting pesticides to that use.

In your news release yesterday you said that trade is already harmonized, whereas the pesticides.... That's a good equation to put to PMRA. We're only half-baked here. If trade is harmonized and our farmers don't have access to these products.... You're preaching to the people who try to understand and who are trying to get over that hurdle.

You also mentioned an ombudsperson. I think that's an excellent idea. That is something I will push on your behalf. We need to have an independent body that understands what's going on, but we also need a person who knows the industry. With all due respect to lawyers and whatever, we need to have someone from the industry to be the head of that.

Yours was a good presentation.

That's it, Mr. Chair.

The Chair: Thanks, Rose-Marie.

Rick.

Mr. Rick Borotsik (Brandon—Souris, PC/DR): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I can honestly say that everyone around this table shares your frustration with PMRA. Whether it be the horticultural industry or grains and oilseeds, they have the same problems you have. I've dealt with minor registrations and emergency registrations and it's like beating your head against a wall. But please be assured that you're among friends here.

Raspberries is a fairly large crop in Canada. It's not as minor as the rhubarb patches you mentioned. We have some out west as well. You talk about two registrations for pesticide control on raspberries. Are there any other applications you know of, Jeff, that are going through the process now for registration on raspberries themselves?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Do you mean here in Canada?

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Yes.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Remember, once it goes into the system, it's confidential. Unless we happen to latch on to a company conversation saying they have a product in for raspberries, we don't know.

• 1020

Mr. Rick Borotsik: To your knowledge, you do not know whether there's anything in the mix right now for registration of raspberries.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: We don't know if anything is in the system. I open up my IR-4 book, or go onto their website, and I will see probably, right today, five or six products they're looking at for insect control on raspberries.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: The reason I asked that is because there have been some successes, particularly in the United States, working this way—and I think of canola—where joint applications have been filed. The reason for that was because Canada was perhaps further ahead than the Americans and they wanted the same tools. Can we reverse that?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Certainly.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Can we look at joint applications? Albeit it's a minor crop in Canada, could you work with the manufacturers and say raspberries is a pretty good crop here in Canada?

By the way, do you export?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: No, but if we can get our act together, with the dollar where it is, there should be some potential.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Not only that, there are good quality raspberries here, too.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Yes.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Let's go that way, too.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Yes.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Can you get to the manufacturers and ask them or convince them to do a joint registration?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: We can and we are, in the sense that many of you have, when you've met with us....

Craig Hunter couldn't attend today, but many of you know Craig. He's our point person on the technical side of the issue and he works on behalf of the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers' Association and the Canadian Horticultural Council. One of Craig's roles is to actually meet on a regular basis with the manufacturers to articulate our needs and the problems we're seeing out there. John mentioned the pea leaf miner. We're seeing a problem called a swede midge on my broccoli this year that we've never seen before. It turns out it's a new invasive pest to Canada. And his role is to mention that to the manufacturer and to ask if they have anything in their R and D shop that may give us some thoughts.

Where we do agree with the agency is that they are great promoters of the premise of joint review. On paper, it should work great. But then you ask the nasty little question, “What about results?” Unfortunately, on the farm that's something I can't ignore. I have to produce results on my farm. And the results, quite frankly, are abysmal.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I have two other questions.

You talk about your office of minor use. I find that intriguing. Perhaps it is a good solution for a serious issue right now.

You mentioned that this would be a joint operation between Health Canada and Agriculture Canada. I ask a simple question now. Do you think that PMRA should be back in Agriculture Canada? Do you think that the agriculture industry or the agriculture department should have much more of a role to play in the registration of pesticides than they do now?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: I think if we can fix the system, it really doesn't matter who PMRA reports through. We're not advocating that. We're saying—

Mr. Rick Borotsik: The office of minor use may well be able to do that—

Mr. Jeff Wilson: —it would be the traffic-copping, running interference, basically who needs what information, who can generate—

Mr. Rick Borotsik: It would be best that a policy be struck so that they can follow that policy.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Yes.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I agree with you that there's got to be good policy.

I wasn't going to bring it up, but you said “You'll make criminals out of good producers.” When a crop is in jeopardy and it's your livelihood, are you finding that some of the producers are using pesticides that are not registered in Canada at the present time?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: I can go on the Internet and in five minutes find solutions, somewhere, to probably any pest problem.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Do you ever get it in Canada? Has it been coming into Canada?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Remember, there's that as an issue. I don't see that as being as big an issue as where there is a product registered in Canada.

Mr. Proctor mentioned pulse crops and quadris.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: It's here.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Quadris has registrations in Canada. So a pulse grower who applies quadris is not applying a product illegal in Canada; he's applying a product illegal to that pulse crop.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Yes.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: No way would we advocate that producers hop on a plane or get in a car and illegally import something that's not even germane to the Canadian regulatory system. We see an issue out there with products that are fully registered in Canada.

In our brussel sprouts case, I grow four rows of brussel sprouts among 25 acres of cabbage. How the heck do I turn the sprayer off when I'm going over those four rows?

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Borotsik.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: By the way, I'm not really a big fan of brussel sprouts. I don't really care if you can control it or not.

The Chair: All right.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: But the cabbage, on the other hand, is really important to me. Okay?

Mr. Dick Proctor: If you ate more brussel sprouts you wouldn't be as sick this year.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: It's probably true.

Those things called holubtsi, they're cabbage-based, so you keep on producing that good cabbage.

The Chair: Mark Eyking.

Mr. Mark Eyking (Sydney—Victoria, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Jeff, when I listen to you, your operation is almost identical to mine. I grow the small fruits and the whole thing. I guess a year ago I was sitting as a farmer and now I'm a farmer and an MP.

• 1025

We talked about the GMO problems over the last couple of weeks in the debate. My feeling is that we have a North American food supply where I ship produce down to the States and it comes back, whatever. I think we have to go to a North American policy. We have to go that way because how can we not? If we're shipping stuff back and forth and what not, what is the big fear in us working in cooperation with the United States on all these registrations and so on? If we worked on certain crops that they didn't have to work on and we had a combined effort, is there a sovereignty problem here? Where would the roadblock be with that?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: What we're advocating is for the actual work to be collaborative but the review to be separate. I am separating out a review in terms of taking the data and viewing it from a Canadian perspective, for all the obvious sovereign issues. When I talk joint review, that would be good, because as it's going through the system, you've got those two sets of eyes viewing the data on an ongoing basis, whereas right now they'll have a book for the American reviewers and we'll have a book for the Canadian reviewers.

On some products and some companies, that's probably how it's going to have to be, but we're not advocating giving up any of our sovereign ability. All we're saying is information is just that. A fact is a fact. If that fact is generated at Cornell University.... We do a lot of collaborative research on cabbage with Cornell University and the grower community itself at a provincial level, and Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu as well. If that works at Cornell on cabbage, it is perfectly acceptable to me as an Ontario or Canadian cabbage grower. If that were soil residual data or soil dissipation data done at Cornell—same land base, same land type, same soil type, virtually identical climate to what we've got in Ontario—why should that soil dissipation work be viewed as somewhat suspect?

Mr. Mark Eyking: Jeff, I'm wondering where the roadblock would be to taking this system and revamping it. Would it be from consumers? Would it be from bureaucrats? To do a major overhaul, where would the problem be? It can't be financial, because it would be easier. Where would the roadblock be to taking the system we have now of reviewing pesticides and changing it altogether?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: If there's one single roadblock, we think it's where they've made these so-called executive orders, or orders by decree, because it made life easier for them as an agency. I don't fault them for that, but they've made some changes that are bogging the system down. And these aren't changes by regulation where you have input, or by an act where, in theory, we all have input. These are changes made by the boss, because it's going to make life a little easier for the boss and his folks, certainly not for us.

We see where maybe a review needs to be held of all of these things that have not been enacted through a democratic process. They've actually been enacted in an autocratic process. Some of them we know, and they're outlined in our brief here, are really bogging the system down.

So maybe that's a start. They would say they need the new legislation. We question that, quite frankly.

Mr. Mark Eyking: Is the coleslaw better at KFC or—

Mr. Jeff Wilson: It's better at Swiss Chalet.

Mr. Mark Eyking: I think Murray's chicken goes there, so it would be a good spot to eat out.

Mr. Murray Calder (Dufferin—Peel—Wellington—Grey, Lib.): It goes to both of them.

Mr. David Anderson: This is following a little bit on what Mark said, but I'm just wondering if you can expand on it. You've written down here that you'd like to see some work done under the crop group concept but to date the use of that idea has been refused by Canadian regulators in every instance. I'm just wondering, what are the reasons given for why they would reject that? That seems to fit in with freeing up the system and making it work. It's a good idea.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: I think it comes back to the response that while they have an order—I can't tell you the order number, but it's probably in the book here—it enabled them to do the crop groupings. When you ask them, quite often they say they have a team approach that's looking at a product. If you add something in, they have to bring more people into the team. The U.S. says that's a good way to do things because you get the base of knowledge expanded. Here, they say you've got to bring the team members up to speed. But if they're coming in with a specific part or a specific piece of the puzzle, why do they have to be up to speed on the whole puzzle itself?

• 1030

Basically, they're giving answers or fall back on the age-old reason that they don't have the resources, both human and financial. We're suggesting we don't think it's going to take millions of dollars more—which we understand they're going to come to you folks for—to do the job properly. We think a better way of doing business.... Remember, when that agency was enacted, it would have been...I can't tell you the exact date.

Mr. Paul Steckle: 1995.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: It was a different world then. I know my farm fundamentally changed in that interim. All of our farms have, so we've had to change with the times.

Is it unreasonable to expect a regulatory body to...not change their mandate, not change what they're all about, but change to the new way of doing business?

Mr. David Anderson: It's interesting that in this age the best way to access new information is to use what other people already have. You don't need a lot of extra people and money to do that if you're willing to...what you're saying is you go to the States and use the information they have. It doesn't make it any more complicated.

I would just like to encourage you to continue to work on this material, especially with the low-profit chemicals. Obviously, the companies aren't dedicated to spending a lot of money to get those approved, and we need to have them for a number of reasons, and in a number of areas. So keep working on that.

The Chair: Thanks, David.

This is a little bit off topic, but we have talked about where you're selling some of those good cabbages and all of that. In your executive summary you talk about the $4.2 billion you generate. Are there opportunities for growth in your sector of agriculture?

Secondly, in terms of your competition, whether it be with your cabbage or back home in New Brunswick it's often with our broccoli and cauliflower, who are your competitors out there? Are the Americans competing in your industry at prices that are causing you some grief in terms of your markets?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: I can respond only from what we see out the door of our farm, but I'll match my ability to work and compete with any U.S. farmer, bar none. For example, between plantings I ran down to a race in the United States for a day and a half, and I didn't even see land worked. We had probably a third of our crop in, and that's in a more northern climate. So I raise the question of why I'm out there hustling, and when I say “I” I mean “we” as Canadian farmers. Maybe that's inherent in us.

When I see my cabbage, I've gone from a thought ten years ago to the reality of being probably a significant producer of cabbage, in Ontario at least, to the point that maybe I'll see the potential to export. And if I can export, it will be a whole host of factors, but one of the key things will be my ability to get out there and hustle. That's what I call the new-generation farmer, at least in our sector out there. I'm sure Jim would match that in the dairy sector. The world has changed.

The Chair: John is going to give an answer there, too.

Mr. John Gorzo: In the interim I've had to move to more specialized crops because of the concentration in the retail sector. We've stayed relatively small. We do about 60 acres. I grow about 12 different crops. We do leeks, celery root, celery, bunch carrots, bunch parsley root, black radish, and red, purple, and yellow carrots. These are all specialty commodities and they don't need relatively large acreage at this time. But I see myself in the future shipping to the States, exporting these products, because we do have an advantage as far as the dollar goes, and we grow a quality product here. But if the FQPA does what it does and eliminates a lot of the products that I can use on these crops, I won't be able to ship them there, because the residues will be on them. They won't accept them. We won't have any alternatives, and I'll become uncompetitive.

The Chair: Thank you.

Larry, do you have some questions?

Mr. Larry McCormick (Hastings—Frontenac—Lennox and Addington, Lib.): Yes. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

And thank you for being here.

We have heard the story too many times. I do hope, with your meeting with Minister Rock last night, we'll see some progress being made. I would suggest you keep up your momentum.

I have a small question on a large situation. Probably 50% of all the vegetables on this continent are grown in one valley, in one state—a warm state in the southwest. Would a pesticide approved for use on a crop there do the same job here in Canada, where we have a different and sometimes much more severe climate, or would we need different guidelines because of mother nature?

• 1035

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Actually, that's what the U.S. system is designed to address. It's called IR-4 because they divvy up the United States into four regions: northeast, southeast, northwest, and southwest. There's some overlap, no question.

But that product you identified in California will be definitely formulated slightly differently for a northern climate. That's where we see the value of this zone approach to the environmental requirements and considerations. With the zone approach, Ontario would be zone 5, which will encompass, if my understanding is correct, a good chunk of New York State, a fair amount of Quebec, Michigan—basically where you have similar soil types, that Great Lakes microclimate, as it were. So it's not unreasonable to expect that a Canadian formulation or even a northern U.S. formulation will be slightly different from the southern one.

The active ingredient is identical, but what they'll do is put emulsifiers in to make it more user friendly in water or whatever carrier you're going to utilize.

Dick talked about what's going on in the west. In the old days it was thirty to forty gallons per acre, but now we're down to five to eight, with new technology. And that in itself has required a new approach to formulating product, because the equipment couldn't move the old product through.

Mr. Larry McCormick: Thank you.

GMOs have been in the headlines, and we're going to see that more and more in the future, with what we do here working with you. Do you want to share any views on where you are on the labelling of genetically modified products and who you're working with in that direction? I'll give you that opportunity, gentlemen.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Jim is involved with that from the AGCare side.

I can only comment that, as some of you know, we do a fair bit of research on our farm in collaboration with the University of Guelph. We grow Bt sweet corn and Bt potatoes, fully labelled. The consumer has all the information. The consumers' dollar vote supported the GMO potatoes and sweet corn over the conventional. That's consumer research done under Dr. Doug Powell, Department of Plant Agriculture.

Jim can speak beyond that.

Mr. Jim Fischer: Sure. As you know from the committee, on the voluntary labelling AGCare's approach has been the broad definition. We're still on the committee—you know this, I think, Larry. We're trying to decide what the definition should be, and that's where we're going with it. But that's our belief as to how it would be, and based on the best science, that's how we'd like to proceed with it.

I don't know how I can add more to it. We believe in the science, and AGCare is...not a promoter, but a supporter of the technology.

Mr. Larry McCormick: It certainly seems education will be part of the solution as we get there.

Mr. Chair, if I have a chance for one more thought, when I see products—not necessarily food—that say “packaged in Canada”, I don't see the country of origin. I go into a supermarket once in a while—and I like to go to smaller retail outlets when possible—and again, the labelling of products doesn't always show what country they're grown in, and this can go back and forth.

Perhaps in beef, we sometimes wonder whether we want things labelled by our neighbours—if they're going to be grown here and how long they're going to be fed there. But for your product area, do you have any views on the labelling? Because the supermarkets aren't always cooperating. They're an obstacle as far as getting your product on the shelf, your fair share.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: I guess I'll jump into this and respond that an informed consumer is the best consumer. But I think we also have to accept that on your average label on a head of produce or a typical consumer package, there are only so many square inches to convey what you want to convey.

There are ways, as a farming community, we can get our message through about our product. Most provincial agriculture departments have a promotional arm to try to identify what's unique about the produce. In our case it's Foodland Ontario. Is there something we can tell consumers—for example, if that Foodland Ontario label is affixed it means it was grown here, and all the rest of the things we think consumers want to hear?

Barring that, we've had very limited success in trying to tell the chain stores what they should do. There are federal regulations in place that we all know aren't enforced.

• 1040

Barring that, it would be nice when consumers buy a can of asparagus, thinking it used to be from Ontario but as of this year is now Chilean, that there is a national brand label on it. Can they find out? With a lot of due diligence and effort, they can. It's certainly not apparent.

You go back to the GMO issue. What is it people want to know? When you look at oils, alcohol, and sugar, how on earth are you going to use a scientific approach to determining the label is legitimate and just?

The Chair: Thanks, Larry.

Mr. Larry McCormick: Thank you very much.

The Chair: Dick.

Mr. Dick Proctor: John wanted to respond. I have a quick question, so let's stay on the topic.

Mr. John Gorzo: Thanks a lot, Dick.

I've been involved in the Canadian Horticultural Council for many years. Of course, as a council, we've looked at labelling.

Industries are having to work together. Packing houses are getting together, trying to be more efficient, and having fewer packers out there.

One of the fundamental things in our area is we have brokers, and you have retailers, who want to put out stuff under their own brands—for example, President's Choice. We have a circumstance where one guy sends a box to some other area. It has P.O. Box, Bradford, Ontario, on it. The minute it leaves the destination, or the minute it leaves where it has been packed and comes into Ontario, the product can automatically be mislabelled. It came from somewhere else, but it says P.O. Box, Bradford, Ontario. The consumer assumes he's eating an Ontario product. Meanwhile, the storekeeper who received the box doesn't even know where it came from.

I understand your concern, Larry, with Ontario farm food safety. Tracking and tracing are going to be eventually dealing with it. We are working in that direction.

Mr. Larry McCormick: Thank you.

The Chair: Dick.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Thanks, Mr. Chair. I have two quick questions.

I was noticing when AGCare was before the Standing Committee on Environment recently, your group indicated Ontario farmers have reduced their use of agricultural pesticides. What is the percentage?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: It's 40%.

Mr. Dick Proctor: It's 40%, and you're aiming for 50%. It was the goal for 2002 that Ontario established back in 1983.

It is a two-part question. Why has it been as successful as it appears to have been? What are you looking ahead to over the next 20 years? Should there be goals to reduce it again?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: There are several prongs to how we have achieved the goals to date. One of the main ones was an awareness of producers and applicators.

In Ontario we have a mandatory grower certification program. Our sense has always been, as I've talked to you about an informed consumer, that we need informed farmers and applicators out there.

The farm community bought into the premise that a proper application rate is going to save them money. Before we launched this, there wouldn't be a farmer who said he was putting it on at the right rate.

We did some analysis. We found herbicides were off by 20%. Insecticides and fungicides were off by more. The easiest way to get to the farm community, basically, was to tell them they were leaving money in the fields. The bottom line is, if you need an ounce to manage a pest, why put on an ounce and a half or an ounce and a bit?

It was then combined. They bought into things, such as triple-rinsing containers, that make logical environmental sense, but also make good economic sense to a farmer. New technology has come out, primarily in herbicides, in terms of weed management. Families are registered now. Instead of, as it was back in the older days, ounces or kilograms per acre, now it's milligrams per acre.

It was one way to reduce the amount of active ingredient. We feel it is the only legitimate way to measure it. We've been challenged by environmental groups. Does it mean you're using it on 40% of the acreage? No, of course not. We have to manage pests.

It wasn't any one thing, but a combination of a number of things—education, awareness, new technology, new sprayer technology, and application technology.

Many growers opted out. It is why you're seeing an incredible growth, at least in Ontario, of the custom applicator business. It's their job. They are professionals. It's professional in a competitive way.

• 1045

Many farmers, young and old, are saying why maintain a relatively expensive piece of equipment when, for $4 to $7 an acre, it can be applied by a professional and save time to manage things better overall on farm operations.

Mr. John Gorzo: There's one thing I was wondering if Jeff was going to cover, but he missed it.

We're here asking for new technologies and new products. One of the things we learned in our pesticide growers safety course was if you rotate, you'll minimize the resistance potential of pests to a product. If we only have two tools to use, and you have to use the two tools in rotation, once they become ineffective, you end up using more than you need. If you have five tools to do the same job and rotate them, you get every pest throughout the season the first or second time. None of them are starting to develop resistance and the products are effective. In essence, in the long run, you will use less product volume-wise. It will not have to go on as many times, if you use it in conjunction with IPM practices in monitoring the pests.

Mr. Dick Proctor: Thanks.

The Chair: Thanks, Dick.

Murray.

Mr. Murray Calder: Thanks very much, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to go back to the ombudsman aspect of it. Within government, we find a bit of empire building occurs on a regular basis among the bureaucrats. One of the things we put in place to take a look at this, if there was a stumbling block, was the Pest Management Advisory Council, PMAC. Its mandate was to meet twice a year at a minimum. How many times have they met within the last year, or within the last two years?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: I was a member of PMAC. The last meeting I attended was January 1999 or January 2000. They either haven't met or have met once since then. The reality is they're not meeting.

Minister Rock raised it as an issue last night. We've always lamented, in the process, there were four with an agricultural flavour and sixteen or seventeen with a mandate against pesticides. Quite frankly, they were pretty good odds, really, from our perspective.

Last night we proposed they use the committee in the way an advisory process should be used. In the case of minor use, why not let the committee set up a subcommittee that could bring in outside expertise or information, make a recommendation to PMAC, and let it go to the minister?

I don't think PMAC itself will ever be structured to fundamentally completely address issues around either pest management or pesticide use.

In the U.S. their system is called CARAT. It's an acronym. Quite frankly, I can't give the term, but we can get it for you. Their work is being done by subcommittees. They have main ones. Some are looking at formulae, disclosure, and pest management.

We made a suggestion to Minister Rock last night. Why not utilize PMAC for something useful, such as delving into the whole minor-use issue, and let them bring it in through a subcommittee approach?

Mr. Murray Calder: About ten years ago the EPA knew it had a problem. It went in and structurally changed itself to basically what it is today. I think it's something we as a committee should take a serious look at. They incorporated an ombudsperson. The individual has teeth. It's the other thing. If you have a problem, I know full well you had better have your documentation right. If you have done it, then this individual is able to push the process along.

How would you see an ombudsman position, if it was put together here in Canada? Who would this individual be responsible to? How would it work?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: We're suggesting, quite frankly, it's your domain. We have suggested it because we were advised to. It may be the Office of the Auditor General would be a proper home for an ombudsperson. We don't know, but you hit the nail on the head.

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In the United States, first of all they've got an aggressive EP administrator, Christine Todd Whitman. The ombudsperson is Pat Cimino, and she's a real go-getter. But she's a go-getter when she runs into a wall and holds the paper up to the office of the vice-president. That's the clout she uses to blow those roadblocks out of the way. She ran into a ton of resistance, and she admitted that. She and the line agencies in the U.S. admitted that at the outset. Now they're working together, and all of a sudden this is a good train to be on. Everyone's jumped aboard, and they're really starting to see progress to the point where they're ramping up almost by a factor of two every year now in their ability to get new registrations and new technology out into their minor crop system.

Why reinvent the wheel? Now, they basically forced collaboration between agencies as dictated under the Food Quality Protection Act. Under our parliamentary system here in Canada, that's where we need advice from you folks. How do we mirror the results of that U.S. example here in Canada? We're not arguing sovereignty. We're just saying that we're results people, we're farmers, and in terms of process there has to be a better way of doing things. In our document we've suggested a number of ways we think we can achieve all our goals—including those of the environmentalists, quite frankly—while doing business in the modern age.

Mr. Murray Calder: Just finally, there was an article I read a few weeks back, and I can just remember part of it. Within the registration system they were registering vinegar as a pesticide—I can't even remember what it was being used on—but vinegar, and they were having problems getting this registered. Where is this at now?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: It's not just vinegar. There are a number of everyday-occurring compounds such as garlic oil, as John just mentioned, and sugar. Sugar can actually be a relatively effective fungicide for strawberries, and in the organic sector they actually use that. Is it as effective as a good, properly designed fungicide? Probably not, but it does illustrate the problem. Quite frankly, I hope my options in the future are not going to be tied to vinegar, sugars, and garlic oil as the sole route to manage pests on my farm.

Mr. Murray Calder: Okay. Thank you.

The Chair: Are there other questions?

Mr. Rick Borotsik: I have a quick question, Mr. Chairman, because I know we have to go.

Maybe I'll just touch on your question as to how we should move along on this. I think that direction has to come from the top, as it did in the United States. You have to have that direction from the top and, I'm sure you'll agree with me, have it flow down to the bureaucracy in order to make those changes. That's where I see the necessary direction coming from, and that's what we'll push for.

Just very quickly, I'm intrigued by your answer to a question with respect to GM. You had mentioned that you, Jeff, have attempted to give the consumers the choice with respect to Bt corn. I've always said the consumer has to see the advantage in order for Bt or GM products to move forward. You said they've done that, and it's reflected in the consumers' dollars.

Can you just tell me very briefly how you got the consumer onside? What type of information was it, and how did you give that information to the consumers to make that very informed choice?

Mr. Jeff Wilson: What we did, basically, was to inform them what it takes to commercially grow sweet corn. I think we were all misinformed, including me and us as farmers, and we shared the complete lack of knowledge most people have of commercial food production now.

In our community, the Ontario Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, we're talking about maybe 6,000 commercial growers in a whole province—which even for a farm population is relatively few—but there's a lot of production. What we did was, we laid it out and we provided access at every stage of the game. They could go to the field to actually see the plot—they didn't go in and pull them out or trash them—because what we were trying to do was inform. They could see what it took in terms of planting the seed right from the very beginning to grow the genetically modified sweet corn—regular sweet corn—with all the products we have to use and with the vigilance and scouting necessary under integrated pest management to give that consumer quality.

The beauty of sweet corn as an example is what do people do in a grocery store? They peel the husk down to see if there's a little worm on the end. They have already bought into the premise that they're not going to buy the corn if there's pest damage there.

For those who would say there are complete alternative ways to achieve that, natural processes such as timing of planting, I say maybe. Don't expect me as a commercial grower to put my hat on that, because it could be a recipe for disaster. When they saw the pesticide regime required to give the quality they demand versus the science behind a Bt sweet corn, they said that on balance that makes sense.

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There were some who still said they don't like GM food. Fair enough. That was their choice. But in our case it was easy, because it's a whole food. It either was or it wasn't genetically modified.

What Jim's alluding to and Larry was talking about is what do you do where it's a small component—an oil perhaps used to make a loaf of bread or a cookie or something? Where do you draw the line on some of these things? But in our case....

Mr. Rick Borotsik: You actually opened your farm to it.

Mr. Jeff Wilson: Certainly. The whole idea is an informed consumer is a better consumer in our case. We proved that.

Mr. Rick Borotsik: Okay. I see. Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Rick.

We'd like to thank our witnesses for coming today. I sense a—I won't put a qualitative word to it—degree of frustration with what's happening there now. I would hope as a committee we'll be looking at some of these issues at the PMRA and trying to work with you to find some solutions to what seems to be a very complex problem.

With that, we'd like to adjourn our meeting. The bells are flashing for a vote in the House.

Jim, do you have any conclusions or a statement before we adjourn?

Mr. Jim Fischer: Yes, just a couple of things, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I would like to thank you for your time. As Paul alluded to, it has been ongoing for a number of years. We hope the examples given by Jeff and John in that sector—this applies to all farmers as a concern, but especially in the horticulture sector—have helped us better understand. We know you're onside. Again, we thank you for the opportunity of being with you here today.

The Chair: Thank you.

The meeting is adjourned.