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Results: 76 - 90 of 192
Glenn Fraser
View Glenn Fraser Profile
Glenn Fraser
2021-02-18 15:49
Thank you, Chair.
It is an honour to be invited today to discuss building back better with a more robust and competitive agri-food sector. Enhancing our domestic and global competitiveness with respect to food and beverage manufacturing capacity has never been more critical. A global race is on and Canada cannot afford to fall behind.
My name is Glenn Fraser and I'm the national leader of food and beverage processing at MNP. I am joined today by colleague, Kelleen Tait, national lead of livestock and poultry.
As a leading accounting, consulting and tax advisory firm headquartered in Canada, MNP is in the unique position to be the voice of over 20,000 agri-food clients, including 1,000 food and beverage manufacturing companies from coast to coast to coast. One thing is for sure, the post-COVID-19 business environment will look much different than it did pre-pandemic. More virtual activity is forecast as food and beverage manufacturers look to technological solutions to increase their efficiencies and effectiveness by adopting automation, mechanization, digitization, e-commerce and AI.
MNP believes Canadians will witness a significant increase in the applicability and investment in these areas within the industry supply chain. It's already happening as we speak. To enhance domestic and global competitiveness, we believe the federal government can help resolve ongoing issues and impediments to growth and profitability. We have three specific building back better recovery recommendations.
Our first recommendation is that the federal government take a leadership role in establishing new policies and programs to ensure the consistent availability of high-skilled labour. Labour supply is critical for an industry that is the backbone of Canada's food supply. In today's food and beverage manufacturing industry there is a labour shortage of 10%, which is expected to widen in the next five years. To address this the federal government needs to explore policy options that would invest in automation, training and career awareness.
Automation can bring in efficiencies and cost savings for businesses, and it also has the potential to help address labour shortages, which are particularly sensitive to disruption. Automation will equally create demand for skilled workers and draw more youth to well-paying jobs in their communities that they can be proud of.
To fully capitalize on this opportunity, the federal government will need to create programs and provide incentives geared toward training and skills development for the modern workforce. It is also critical to create specific policy geared toward developing awareness among youth of the variety of rewarding and skilled career and employment options within this industry.
Our second recommendation is for the government to foster innovation in the food and beverage manufacturing sector. The food and beverage manufacturing industry is currently experiencing decreased investment caused by declining margins, difficulties in accessing capital for investment, and ongoing barriers to accessing tax credits toward scientific research and experimental development.
Working in partnership with provincial governments and industry, the government should broaden existing funding programs while also developing industry-specific policy that can be used to promote innovation in food and beverage manufacturing. Innovation doesn't need to be leading edge or new technologies. Innovation can also be achieved by adopting proven strategies and technologies that may already exist inside or outside of Canada.
Programs such as Agriculture Canada's agri-innovate program and ISED's strategic innovation fund have the potential to be expanded to include incentives for food and beverage manufacturers to invest. We would like to emphasize the importance of innovation, automation, mechanization, digitization, e-commerce and AI in this sector. These funding programs need to be specifically tailored to the food and beverage manufacturing industry so there is a more streamlined and simplified method of accessing these funds.
Our third recommendation is for the FPT agriculture ministers to ensure there is a grocery code of conduct that establishes a fair, transparent and efficient relationship between grocery retailers and food and beverage manufacturers. In Canada, five major grocery retailers control 80% of the grocery market. This has caused an unbalanced relationship in the business landscape between retailers and the food and beverage manufacturers where arbitrary transaction costs, fees and penalties are levied, at times retroactively.
In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic has exposed additional challenges and costs at all levels of the supply chain.
Retailers have taken some of these financial costs associated with COVID-19 and passed them down to the manufacturers. This adds additional strain on already escalating costs for most if not all food and beverage manufacturers.
A grocery code of conduct would enable the food and beverage manufacturing industry and retailers to engage in a constructive and transparent manner that ultimately provides positive outcomes for all Canadians.
In conclusion, we want to thank this committee for its important work in building a more competitive food and beverage manufacturing industry. Automation, skilled labour, training and awareness, enhanced innovation programs and a grocery code of conduct would ensure this critical industry is equipped to grow and prosper at home, reach attainable export targets and compete abroad.
These recommendations are vital to our future food security and an affordable supply of quality food for all Canadians.
Thank you.
View Lyne Bessette Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you.
You mentioned automation earlier.
In your opinion, what are the main barriers to innovation and the adoption of new technologies?
Also, to what extent can private investment help boost innovation?
Ron Lemaire
View Ron Lemaire Profile
Ron Lemaire
2021-02-18 16:12
Private investment is a key function of driving innovation. It's also rethinking how we process, so some new, innovative tools that can change the actual production line, change the thinking around how we operate our line, again, from a fruit and vegetable perspective.
Also, it's looking at including the entire supply chain in the solution and not just looking at it within one segment of the market. Bringing in the growers, right through to the retail end, the buying end, and having that discussion as a group to find where those opportunities lay through the automation process is fundamental.
Samantha Anderton
View Samantha Anderton Profile
Samantha Anderton
2021-02-02 15:57
We believe Canada needs to have a top-down approach to support commercial airlines. This would mean that support would flow to original equipment manufacturers, OEMs, and down the full supply chain, including those companies focused on aircraft maintenance. But, make no mistake, this is only part of the solution.
We also need a bottom-up aerospace framework to foster innovation and collaboration at the SME level. This would spur novel, sustainable technologies in green tech and advanced manufacturing.
Supporting a dynamic, collaborative aerospace innovation ecosystem such as the one we are developing at DAIR would be valuable to all stakeholders. For example, DAIR was able to rapidly respond to support COVID-19 research by working on a project to study how to reduce passenger exposure to the virus. By leveraging our access to an extensive expertise pool, as well as our established relationships with industry and academia, we were able to accelerate funding applications and reduce wait times to initiate and advance this key research. That's the power of collaboration.
Collaboration also helps SMEs to grow by mobilizing their talent and expertise through facilitating knowledge transfer between smaller enterprises and the larger stakeholders such as tier ones and OEMs. SMEs have so much untapped knowledge in key disruptive technologies such as eVTOL, hybrid-electric propulsion and UAVs.
We can seize this chance to differentiate ourselves as Canadians if we focus our energy on these novel technologies now. We can also leverage the similarities the Canadian aerospace sector has with other industries, such as the automotive industry, when it comes to artificial intelligence, machine learning, the Internet of things, advanced manufacturing, and big data.
More incentives have to be created to encourage working together rather than in silos. This will benefit all of Canada. Strengthening investments in R and D now would not only offer long-term benefits, but it would also provide the ability to pivot out of the COVID pandemic to emerge a stronger, more resilient aerospace sector. This will have tangible results in all levels of our industry, from airlines to OEMs and SMEs across Canada.
View Lyne Bessette Profile
Lib. (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.
My questions will be directed to representatives of the Dairy Processors Association of Canada.
According to a recent report by the Agri-Food Innovation Council, there is a lack of research and innovation, which hinders the growth of the processing industry and its international competitiveness.
In your view, what measures are needed in the long term to encourage innovation and technological advances in the industry?
Mathieu Frigon
View Mathieu Frigon Profile
Mathieu Frigon
2021-02-02 16:59
I will respond first, and then I will let Mr. Barrett add his comments.
We are well aware of this report. However, the dairy industry was not consulted as part of this report.
In my opinion, the first step is the compensation program that we mentioned in our presentation. As we were saying, it’s not a matter of sending a cheque in the mail. We want a program that will allow the industry to position itself in the long term to encourage investments. I think that this first step is mandatory.
As we stated in our presentation, pressure from retailers, the impacts resulting from the access granted under international trade agreements, in addition to the constraints that will be imposed on us with respect to the export of dairy ingredients, make this program absolutely necessary. It is this type of program that will enhance investments and innovation in the dairy processing industry.
Michael Barrett
View Michael Barrett Profile
Michael Barrett
2021-02-02 17:00
I couldn't add any more than to say that innovation and investment go hand in hand and that there is a requirement to have both. Recognizing that we have a small population—I heard this said in the last panel as well—the ability to innovate and to seek markets elsewhere is a critical component of growth, and that modernization fund is a critical part of doing so, as Mathieu has outlined.
View Yves Perron Profile
BQ (QC)
If you were compensated as promised, it would help you to innovate and make technological improvements, which is what we are studying. Am I wrong in saying that? You're asking for tax credits and an innovation program, right?
Michael Barrett
View Michael Barrett Profile
Michael Barrett
2021-02-02 17:08
Yes, and to answer your question, the concept of the support of the compensation is so that we can reinvest and reinvent our industry to be able to face a new market reality. With restricted exports on products that have been an important growth element, being able to reinvent ourselves is an important criterion in being able to balance this industry out. You can't continue to be able to support producers without understanding that you need somewhere to process it.
Again, we don't oppose any producer compensation. I'm a co-op. We do not oppose that. However, we are looking for some equity, because the modernization of our industry has to be able to take place, and the reinvention of our industry has to take place because we have to be able to adjust to a new market and global reality of where we can compete and where we can't anymore, based upon the trade restrictions that are now imposed under the trade agreements.
Scott Doherty
View Scott Doherty Profile
Scott Doherty
2021-02-01 11:40
Thanks, Chair. It's Scott Doherty. I'm the executive assistant to the national president of Unifor.
As you know, Unifor is the largest private sector union in the country, with over 315,000 members. I'm responsible for the forestry sector for our union. I worked at Elk Falls pulp mill as a process engineer, the same as our other witness, in Campbell River for 16 years prior to starting on staff with the former CEP in 2008.
We have almost 22,000 members in the sector, with 250 units spread across 10 provinces. Unifor is well positioned to talk about every aspect of the forest sector. Members of this committee are well versed in the forestry sector, and I know that previous witnesses probably have shared information on the state of Canada's forestry sector and the contributions it makes nationally, regionally and to local economies in terms of the economic production, taxes and so forth.
It's Unifor's position that we will not create an effective COVID recovery plan without also addressing the challenges facing this sector prior to the pandemic, which are, as some have already said, low pulp prices, ever-growing fibre supply issues, obviously the ongoing softwood lumber dispute, volatile unpredictable global trade situations with China and the Trump administration, and obviously natural events such as pine beetle and forest fires.
All these factors have caused serious liquidity issues for many of our employers. Amidst all of these pre-existing challenges, the pandemic struck, worsening some of the problems and creating serious new ones. For example, pulp and paper producers across the country have made capacity adjustments in response to the impact of COVID-19. We've seen the number of layoffs across the country caused by temporary shutdowns or permanent shutdowns of pulp mills. For many of our members, the pandemic has deepened the sense of uncertainty and employment insecurity that they felt prior to 2020.
Unifor, however, is optimistic about the future of Canada's forest industry. We believe there are a number of concrete, pragmatic steps we can take to build a more sustainable, competitive and innovative sector as we plan for our recovery.
First, we believe we need urgent action to help producers weather the COVID storm. In the short term, we need support, and we support the call for producers' financial support and liquidity measures from the federal government, including loan guarantees and other measures. In the mid- and long term, we need to continue to work to build a comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable forest sector at the federal and provincial levels.
We support the call for a focus on new products and emerging markets, with an emphasis on sustainability and renewability for the industry. This must include incentives from government for investment and research. New developments in timber frame construction, along with biofuel development, are just a few areas of great opportunity as we continue to build the capacity to develop personal protective equipment, which is needed more than ever.
Finally, there is also hope that the Biden election will lead to less volatility with the U.S., our biggest trader. Simply put, the time has come for a fair and reasonable solution to the softwood lumber dispute. For years, people have referred to this industry as a sunset industry. Unifor will never agree to such a comment. It's a ridiculous assessment. The industry is a sunrise industry, with enormous opportunity for transformational change and growth. When governments, employers and labour work together, there is opportunity to invest in our future and build a more green, sustainable, inclusive and stable sector.
Thank you.
View Alistair MacGregor Profile
NDP (BC)
Do you think that there is a little bit more of that encouragement now from COVID-19, given the experiences that we've had over the last 10 months?
Jason Aitken
View Jason Aitken Profile
Jason Aitken
2021-01-28 16:10
Absolutely it's encouraged, but I also want to explain that in the beef industry, in particular, where it's so concentrated.... I gave you the PlayStation example where there are loss leaders in beef. You need that global reach because, whether it's crown-cut tongues or mountain chain tripe, if you can't sell the other parts of the animal at some kind of profitability factor, you're going to get killed by the two economies-of-scale packers.
The model won't work unless you have an anchor tenant that's providing the throughput and the basic economies to allow you to pursue the craft elements of the local authentic strategy.
Dennis Prouse
View Dennis Prouse Profile
Dennis Prouse
2020-12-08 15:35
Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My name is Dennis Prouse, and I am the vice president of government affairs for CropLife Canada. With me is my colleague, Ian Affleck, vice president, biotechnology.
CropLife Canada represents the Canadian manufacturers, developers and distributors of pest control and modern plant breeding products. Our organization's primary focus is on providing tools to help farmers be more productive and more sustainable. We also develop products for use in urban green spaces, public health settings and transportation corridors.
Last week, this committee heard from Mr. Jim Everson, president of the Canola Council of Canada. We feel that he provided some excellent comments and context for the committee, and some of his points are ones on which we hope to build and expand today.
This study is a timely one, as it speaks to the broader economic challenges we have and the post-COVID-19 future for Canadian agriculture. Specifically, how can Canadian agriculture and agri-food act as a driver for investment, jobs and growth at a time when Canada will need it more than ever?
Fortunately, a road map to this future already exists in the form of both the Barton report and the agri-food economic strategy table report. Both outline the tremendous promise of Canadian agriculture and how we are now falling short of meeting that promise.
The Barton report, for instance, sets as a goal of having Canada as the number two agriculture and agri-food exporter in the world. Currently, we are number five. That's simply not good enough for a country with Canada's potential. The economic challenge post-COVID-19 is going to be making Canada's critical industries more competitive, and agriculture and agri-food is at the top of that list.
The road to growth in agriculture and agri-food lies in replacing out-of-date and globally unaligned regulatory regimes with new enabling regulatory frameworks that leverage global best practices. These points are also being stressed by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the Business Council of Canada.
For governments, regulatory modernization is relatively easy to implement in that it often doesn't require legislation or even regulatory change. Often, new policy is all that is needed. It also does not require new money—an important consideration in the years to come—and it delivers fast results. It should be a top priority for government across the economy, particularly in agriculture and agri-food. Regulators need to be given a growth mandate—as they are in the U.K.—with clear, measurable targets on regulatory modernization.
Specific to processing and value-added products, we have a number of examples of innovations in the form of new plant varieties that have either moved to the United States already or are in danger of doing so simply because Canada lacks a clear regulatory framework for plant-breeding innovations broadly. A key example of that is products of gene editing. These are value-added products that could be grown and processed in Canada, giving benefits to both Canadian consumers and our export markets. In short, processing plants will get built wherever the innovative technologies hit critical acreage first, which is where they get planted first, and unfortunately, right now that is not in Canada.
It's unfortunate that Canada is lagging behind many of its like-minded, science-based global competitors, including Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Brazil, Argentina and the United States, which have found a reasonable path forward for gene editing and are already reaping the benefits.
The Treasury Board Secretariat's regulatory road maps highlighted this as a priority two years ago. We would be pleased to talk about these examples in detail in the question and answer period, but we sincerely hope that, with the announced public consultations on the relevant policies slated to begin in January 2021, Canada can align with these countries quickly and put us back in the game.
This is why the government needs to act quickly on the concept articulated in budget 2019 of placing a competitive lens on regulatory agencies.
I want to confront one issue head-on. Whenever regulatory modernization comes up, there are instantly accusations that this involves industry's somehow skirting or attacking health and safety standards. That's not the case at all. Our members are deeply proud of the role that our technologies have played and will continue to play in making Canadian agriculture more sustainable than ever. This improved sustainability is not a slogan. It's a scientific fact.
Farmers also care strongly for the stewardship of their land, and they are determined to leave a better environmental future for the next generation. Sustainability has been, and remains, a cornerstone of what we do.
What that means in practice is that regulators acknowledge and embrace their role in helping to facilitate innovation and competitiveness for Canadian companies, all while maintaining their focus on science-based regulation and the health and safety of Canadians. This is about allowing regulators to focus on their core mandates by being more efficient and focusing on actual risks.
Securing market access and growing trade markets will also be a vital part of our recovery. Canada consumes only 30% of what it produces, and agriculture and agri-food create a net $10-billion surplus in our trade balance. Protectionist forces, however, will be strong around the world in the coming months and years. Canada needs to work with like-minded nations to fight for science-based regulation, and against non-tariff trade barriers wherever and whenever they pop up.
Despite our current challenges, we believe the future is bright. We have tremendous natural advantages and a smart, strong workforce. Give Canadian farmers and agri-food producers a competitive regulatory environment and access to global markets and we can help lead the post-COVID-19 recovery. Making this happen, though, requires bold, decisive action by government. There is nothing preventing expediting implementation of the road map that has already been broadly consulted on, and nothing preventing starting today.
Thank you. We'd welcome any questions the committee might have.
View Lianne Rood Profile
CPC (ON)
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of the witnesses for appearing here today.
Mr. Prouse, I'm glad you decided to bring up regulatory approvals. I want to ask you about producers who supply processors and their ability to bring products to new markets. You did touch on that. It is my understanding that Canadian innovators of new crops and varieties find it really difficult to receive regulatory approvals in Canada.
Could you tell us about the innovators and the products they have recently attempted to bring to market in Canada?
Ian Affleck
View Ian Affleck Profile
Ian Affleck
2020-12-08 15:50
Thank you, and thank you to the committee for having us here today.
Excuse me if I get a little impassioned with the answer. I grew up on a potato farm in P.E.I. and studied plant breeding at the University of Guelph, so new plant varieties are probably more exciting to me than many.
There are a lot of examples of where new varieties could have come to market in Canada and then didn't. Linking back to what Dennis said in his opening statement and how this relates to processing capacity, I'm sure you've heard from many folks about what it takes to get a processing plant built and how you create an environment that is ripe for investment in this space, but part of that is that you have the product to process in your country that is desired by the person investing in the plant.
I can give you a couple of examples of where opportunities have passed us by.
Recently, a company working out of Saskatchewan, Yield10, developed four canola varieties with a higher oil content. This is a great processing opportunity and it has benefits for more than just the processor. The farmers are getting more oil per acre, so their greenhouse and carbon footprint is going down. Their farm gate values are going up, and also, then, a processor is able to produce canola oil more efficiently because they're crushing less canola per minute to get the same amount of oil. What that comes back to is that it helps the processor decide that Canada is where they're going to put their capital investment.
Unfortunately, they've taken those varieties to the United States first. Those are new canola varieties developed in Canada and commercialized in the U.S. first. As that gets to critical mass acreage and you're a processing company trying to decide where you're going to build that plant, things are leaning in the direction of the other jurisdiction. We have other examples that follow along.
Coming to future examples, the protein industry supercluster has invested $30 million in some high-protein varieties that are really exciting and have a lot of opportunity for Canada, but if we don't have a clear pathway to commercialization in Canada, you could also see those be commercialized elsewhere. There's a high-oil soybean in the United States developed by Calyxt, and we still don't have approvals for that in Canada.
More so than just getting the approvals, it's the idea that they're needed at all for certain products in Canada. In many countries, the standard food safety requirements are all that is needed and no special reviews of these new products. While at times we talk about gene editing, which is the interesting and exciting new kid on the block for technology, this is really about plant breeding at large, and the plant breeding industry in Canada has seen the impact of our regulatory system over the years. We're falling behind the rest of the world.
If we can catch up, if we can make Canada competitive for new varieties that are either specialty for processing or provide the farmer the ability to produce that variety more efficiently per acre, more sustainably per acre and with higher value per acre, it just continues to create the environment where building processing capacity continues to make more and more sense.
I hope that responds to your question.
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