Hon. Donald Neil Plett (Leader of the Opposition): Minister, during the 2019 federal election campaign, your government promised food producers that they would replace Farm Credit Canada with a new entity called Farm and Food Development Canada. Yesterday, we received from you an answer to a written question on the Senate Order Paper on this subject which confirms your government, at this point, has no intention of following through on this commitment.

Minister, is this a case of your government making an election promise to farmers without having any idea on how to implement it? Or did you ever really intend to follow through on this promise?

Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau, P.C., M.P., Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food: You’re right. There is no easy answer to this one. It’s not the government who will conduct this business, of course. It comes back to the industry.

When I travel across the country, what I hear in many regions is the need for regional slaughterhouses, and it comes down to the question about federal and the provincial jurisdiction regarding inspection. At my last meeting with my provincial and territorial colleagues in Guelph, we identified this as a priority. We have asked the CFIA to work on facilitating interprovincial trade and access to this certification.

It’s a challenge because at the federal level we have to remain at the international level. What goes through a federally inspected slaughterhouse can be exported, and the challenge is that we cannot go lower for interprovincial trade because we have to comply with our international trade commitment. There is a challenge there, but it has been identified as a priority.

Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau, P.C., M.P., Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food: Thank you. Yes. As you well know, and as you said, this is under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Health, but, obviously, I am following this project very closely since it might have an impact on our producers.

I’m glad that our dairy and beef producers have had the opportunity to be heard. I know that significant progress is being made in terms of understanding the nutritional value of our products and that it is being recognized.

The final decision hasn’t been taken yet, but you can count on me to always advocate for our producers with my colleague the Minister of Health so we can find the right balance to protect the health of Canadians and also take into account the interests of our farmers.

Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau, P.C., M.P., Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food: Thank you, senator. Actually, we have increased AgriStability in the last year and a half. To increase AgriStability and to make it more timely, affordable, bankable and understandable, we have to do it in collaboration with the provinces, because these programs are funded 60% by the federal government, 40% by the provinces. We need two thirds of the provinces to be able to make significant changes to this program.

We did remove the reference margin limit, which was one element in AgriStability that made the program more difficult to understand and, therefore, less bankable. We made this important change that represents $95 million more per year for our farmers who need it the most.

The federal government has put in a contribution of $46 million that we could have put in place to improve AgriStability more by increasing the compensation rate from 70% to 80%. Unfortunately, we did not get the support of enough provinces to make this happen.

I can tell you that the business risk management program is doing better than it was before we arrived. Our government has increased financing to the business risk management programs, and we are, right now, in negotiations with the provinces for the next partnership agreement.

Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau, P.C., M.P., Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food: Thank you.

The agricultural sector is one that contributes its share of GHG. We do have a strategy to reduce emissions from the agricultural sector. That is why we are investing so much to support our farmers to allow them, invite them and incentivize them to adopt better practices, like cover-cropping, rotational grazing and better management of fertilizer, for example. I’m talking about the On-Farm Climate Action Fund and clean-technology programming as well.

We are doing a lot in consultation with the sector. I am spending a lot of time consulting via Zoom and other platforms, but I’m also glad to be back in the field, travelling across the country to meet farmers and ranchers and having conversations with them. They are committed to doing their part. They understand; they get it. They are the first ones to be impacted by climate change, and they always want to do better.

We have dairy farmers and grain farmers who are both committed to zero emissions by 2050. It is encouraging to see their commitment to go in this direction, and we will be there to support them.

To respond to your second question, we have also invested significantly in the Protein Industries Supercluster. This is a sector that we strongly believe in. Last week, I was in Saskatchewan, visiting —

Hon. Marie-Claude Bibeau, P.C., M.P., Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food: Thank you.

We definitely do commit to support our grain producers and make sure that we keep this brand trusted, as Canadian food is known for being sustainable. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency allows us to have such a good reputation because our inspection system is very robust.

The Canadian Grain Commission is involved in the consultation, and I have been following this closely. There are some recommendations that will find consensus quite easily. Some of the proposals that have been brought forward do not necessarily make this consensus yet and could bring two very different business models for the commission.

It is definitely worth an in-depth analysis of the different paths that we might move forward with. This is something that I definitely care about and the department is working together with my team, obviously, because we want to find the right direction. Well, there are some paths in front of us that are quite different, so it has to be done in a very diligent manner.