THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, April 23, 2026
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met with videoconference this day at 8 a.m. [ET] to examine and report on the role of the agriculture and agri-food sector with regard to food security in Canada.
Senator John McNair (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Honourable senators, I call together this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. My name is John McNair, and I am the deputy chair of this committee. Welcome to the members of the committee and our witnesses, as well as those watching us online. I want to start by acknowledging the land on which we gather today is on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation.
Before we hear from our witnesses today, I would like to start by asking the senators around the table to introduce themselves.
Senator McBean: Marnie McBean, Ontario.
Senator Sorensen: Karen Sorensen, Alberta, Treaty 7 territory.
Senator Black: Robert Black, Ontario.
Senator Muggli: Tracy Muggli, Saskatchewan, Treaty 6 territory.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you. That was probably for more Mr. Wade than our colleague. Nice to see you here on that side of the table.
I would like to ask all senators to consult the cards on the table for guidelines to prevent audio feedback incidents. I would also like to remind all those participating to refrain from switching languages mid-sentence and to not speak too quickly. Clear audio supports accurate interpretation, transcription and captioning.
Today, the committee is continuing its study on the role of the agriculture and agri-food sector with regard to food security in Canada.
We have the pleasure of welcoming the Honourable Senator Dawn Anderson; and joining us online, we welcome Brian Wade, Director, Inuvialuit Community Economic Development Organization. Thank you both for joining us.
We’ll begin with your opening remarks before we move to questions from members. You will each have five minutes. I will signal that your time is running out by trying to get your attention, and I will do that when you have about one minute left.
Senator Anderson, the floor is yours.
The Honourable Margaret Dawn Anderson: Thank you, chair and honourable senators. I speak to you as a member of a northern community, an Inuk and a senator for the Northwest Territories. This is a privilege, but it is grounded in the lived realities of my community and territory, where food insecurity is a part of everyday life.
For Inuit, hunger was historically feared when animals were scarce. Inuit have always understood hunger. It was a part of life on the land shaped by seasons, weather and migration. But today hunger is different. It is no longer about just what the land provides. It is about what systems fail to provide. It is not about survival in nature. It is about inequity within a modern system.
In the Northwest Territories, food insecurity is not occasional. It is structural. According to Statistics Canada, 34.2% of residents live in food-insecure households. In Nunavut, the number exceeds 57%. These are the highest numbers in Canada. Behind these numbers are daily realities. Families make decisions every day about whether to pay for food, power, fuel or rent. Food insecurity in the North is not simply about whether food is available. It is shaped by cost, access, quality, geography and the ongoing impacts of colonial disruption. In many communities, groceries cost two to three times more than in Southern Canada, driven by transportation, freight and limited competition.
Food quality and shelf life are central to food security in the North. Food often arrives after long transportation routes and expiry, and best before dates are central factors. Federal guidance from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, or CFIA, distinguishes between expiry dates and best before dates. Identifying best before dates as indicators of quality rather than safety. As outlined by the CFIA, the best before date is a date before which the food will retain its normal quality, flavour and nutritional value when properly stored. Food may still be sold after this date provided it is not unsafe.
When food quality is left primarily to retailers with limited oversight, standards become discretionary rather than consistent. In Northern communities with little competition, one actor effectively decides what is sold, how long it stays on the shelves and what quality is acceptable. This creates an accountability gap where there are no clear limits, no consistent enforcement and little recourse when quality declines. Over time, this leads to unequal outcomes where lower standards become normalized. This appears to be the case in the N.W.T. and many small, isolated Indigenous communities. Within the last year, I have personally seen and purchased food that was close to two years past its best before date.
Some of these products are subsidized under the Nutrition North Canada subsidy. This raises serious concerns. Public funds support access to food without any consistent standards for quality or remaining shelf life. Retailers have framed this as a balance between affordability and freight costs. In practice, this has contributed to a shift toward private label or no-name products, which are, according to the retailer, on average 15% less cost than brand-name products. While some no-name staple products may be comparable, differences also emerge in processed foods where cost reductions can mean higher sodium, higher sugar, lower nutritional density and greater reliance on preservatives. Over time, in a system that relies heavily on shelf stable food, these differences matter. The issue is not whether the food is legally safe. It is whether Northern families are receiving consistent quality, reasonable shelf life and the same nutritional standard expected elsewhere in Canada. Legal sale does not mean equal quality. In the North, that distinction has real consequences.
Food systems in the North are not shaped by policy but by who is responsible for enforcing it and who is making decisions on the ground. This creates a systemic gap where rules exist but responsibility for enforcing quality and accountability is fragmented. When responsibility is shared across federal, territorial and retail levels but standard levels are unclear and oversight is limited, accountability becomes fragmented. The federal government sets broad rules but does not consistently enforce quality. The territorial government monitors impact but does not control supply. Retailers make day-to-day decisions but operate without clear limits, so when something goes wrong or there’s inferior quality, expired food or limited choices, there is no single point of responsibility.
At the same time, country food remains essential. Hunting, fishing and harvesting provide nutrition, cultural continuity and resilience, but these systems face growing barriers, climate change, unstable ice and rising costs for food and equipment. Importantly, while imported foods can sit on shelves long past their best before dates, local, nutrient-rich food faces barriers to being inspected, shared and sold.
In the North the issue is no longer just access to food. It is access to food of equal quality, food dignity and the ability to sustain our own food systems. None are being met. Maslow’s work makes something clear: When food is not secure, nothing else can be. It is the most basic foundation of health, stability and dignity. In the North, this is not theoretical. It is lived.
[Indigenous language spoken] Thank you. I look forward to any questions you may have.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Senator Anderson. The floor is now yours, Mr. Wade, for your presentation.
Brian Wade, Director, Inuvialuit Community Economic Development Organization: Good morning, everybody. My name is Brian Wade. I’m joining you today from Inuvik, Northwest Territories. My professional title is the Director of the Inuvialuit Community Economic Development Organization, also known as ICEDO, under the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, or IRC.
I am a husband, a father, a harvester and an Inuvialuk. Inuvialuit are the Inuit of the Western Arctic. We are represented in six communities in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.
We have a modern treaty, the Inuvialuit Final Agreement, which was signed in 1984.
In 2021, the pandemic highlighted the dependency that Inuvialuit have on the southern food system. Emerging out of the pandemic, Inuit Nunangat experiences increased cost of market food and equipment to access our traditional foods. Leadership at the time envisioned and prioritized a food sovereign region that was self-determined.
I joined the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, or IRC, team in 2021. I was given two priorities — to establish a country food processing plant and to build a team and a program that will allow our Inuvialuit reindeer herd to thrive.
As I present to the Senate committee today, my goal is to introduce you to Inuit agriculture.
The Deputy Chair: My apologies, Mr. Wade, but we have lost audio again. We will hear from you on the next panel.
We will now proceed to questions from senators. Senators, you will have five minutes for your questions, which includes the answer.
Senator Black: Senator Anderson, the Government of Canada announced at the end of March that they are investing $1.75 million in community-led food projects in the Northwest Territories. Can you expand on what you know about what they are planning to do?
Senator Anderson: I can’t expand on where that $1.75 million is going.
Senator Black: I have a second question, and it is a broad one: What is the answer? You’ve shared a lot of concerns. How can the Government of Canada further strengthen food security in the Northwest Territories? What are the answers? You’ve got pen to paper now.
Senator Anderson: Thank you for the question. I did write a list of recommendations based on my experience and what is happening right now. The first thing I would start with is strengthening Nutrition North Canada. Currently, they are under review. We have been in contact with Nutrition North Canada. To go back a little bit, when I purchased the food that was past its two-year date, I reached out to the retailer. After a lot of searching, I reached out to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, or CFIA, and I reach out to the minister responsible for Nutrition North Canada.
We subsequently met with the retail, who stated that the food had been removed from the shelf, only to learn in January that the food had never been removed from the shelf; it remained on the shelf in the community of Ulukhaktok. So there are different parts. Nutrition North Canada needs to be strengthened. As they subsidize some of the foods — specifically juice and cereal — that are in the medium range on the Nutrition North Canada list, they need to start looking at regulations around best-before dates and removing the food from the shelf because the quality and nutritional value of a food item decrease.
The federal government needs to establish shelf-life regulations. Currently, the CFIA says that if there is food past the best-before date, then it is necessary to contact the retailer. That just does not work. They need to expand inspection capacity. When I spoke to the CFIA, they indicated they had never been to the Northwest Territories. Their investigation that they conducted as a result of our contact with them was insufficient.
I have asked for a follow-up. They went to communities that have access by road and by plane in most places: larger centres, not small isolated communities.
There needs to be retailer accountability. The retailer needs to be held to account for what is sitting on those shelves. There needs to be a transparent complaint system. When I went to complain on the retailer’s website, there was no mechanism to do it except item by item. That also needs to be addressed.
There needs to be support for country food systems. We had been working with Mr. Wade. We had spoken to the territorial government in regards to looking for a food inspector for northern foods so that northern foods could go on sale on the shelves — fresh and accessible. There is no funding currently for that type of position. So those are my key recommendations.
Senator Martin: Good morning. Thank you so much. You are such an important voice not just for your region but really for the North. I wish we could have heard the rest of the other testimony because there are questions there.
I think you have already outlined some of the key recommendations, but if I may first just ask, obviously, Nutrition North is there. It’s meant to do its job, but you’re saying the whole thing needs to be strengthened. If we were to tackle Nutrition North as an entity, what are some of the key gaps or weaknesses that you have identified? I know you have already listed your recommendations, but if I ask, “What’s the problem with Nutrition North,” what are some key concerns that you have?
Senator Anderson: With Nutrition North, my understanding is it was developed in 2011, if I am correct, to address food insecurity in the Arctic. Sometimes when policies are made in the South and implemented in the North, they don’t work. There is not enough contact with the communities that are impacted by decisions that are being made in Nutrition North.
Nutrition North also definitely needs to have some rules and regulations around best-before dates and no-name food items. What is happening in the North, because the food is not traditionally our food, we have higher rates of obesity and diabetes. With the introduction of a retailer moving toward no-name items instead of brand names, you are now creating a risk for those numbers to increase health-wise.
Nutrition North needs to keep an eye on what foods are going in, how long they are going in for, what they are doing with foods that are past their best-before dates and how long they are selling those best-before dates. Also, I was informed that one of the retailers does not bring in diet pop. When we are dealing with diabetes and they don’t bring in diet pop because the shelf life for diet pop is six months, we are left with regular pop, which has a shelf life of a year.
So the retailer is making decisions I don’t think communities understand and that I don’t think Nutrition North is aware of, nor do I think the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is as engaged as it should be with the territory it purports to represent.
Senator Martin: There is a lot more to this that we could be exploring. I have another question that I think does impact the North. It is about the cost and availability of power, which can affect the cost of everything from food storage to local production.
How does energy access shape food security in the Northwest Territories?
Senator Anderson: As we all know, our infrastructure is old. We rely a lot on diesel and heavy fuels. When you are faced with, I guess, having to pay for your power, which is a necessity, or pay your rent or buy food, then you have to make some really tough decisions.
In the North, we also experience a lot of power outages that sometime go longer in duration than they should. That actually affects people’s appliances, and then there is no accountability for coverage of those appliances. I have had two stoves burn out from power outages. I had to replace both stoves because replacing the electrical outlet was almost half the cost of a new stove. It affects fridges too. It is not an uncommon occurrence, sadly, and there is no accountability for the replacement of those key items in a home.
Senator Martin: Maybe as just one example, it seems like the solutions are actually within the community. You have better solutions than what is potentially on the table.
Is there a leading solution from the community that you have seen that Nutrition North or the government should look at maybe expanding or implementing?
Senator Anderson: To me, the most important thing is that those entities are in the community, and they are not. There is a disconnect between the entities making decisions and enforcing those decisions on communities where they are not seeing the complete impact.
Senator Martin: Thank you.
Senator Sorensen: I want to echo Senator Martin’s comments about the importance of the voice. We had Senator Duncan here last week. As you have often said when I’ve been in a room with you, we just don’t get it. It’s not our lives. Don’t ever underestimate the importance of you continuing to remind us that life in the North is different than anywhere else in Canada, and I appreciate it.
You said that Arctic security must encompass human security; specifically, access to housing, clean water and reliable food. Given that climate change is rapidly shrinking the window for ice roads and sealess supply to the Northwest Territories, what specific investments in local food sovereignty are needed? My notes say year-round greenhouses or community-led harvesting. I think Mr. Wade was about to talk about his — I wrote down food processing plants and reindeer herds. Again, for people who grew up where I grew up, reindeer herds need further explanation.
Do you have one infrastructure investment that would make a difference? Or more than one? What infrastructure would be helpful?
Senator Anderson: To speak a bit about the reindeer herd, the reindeer herd came about because the Chief of my region did not sign the treaty. He said we needed food, not a treaty. Out of that came a reindeer herd that was herded for, I believe, five years, that came from the U.S. across mountains into the Mackenzie Delta. That reindeer herd was run by reindeer herders, and at some point, my uncle William Nasogaluak purchased the reindeer herd and successfully ran the herd for a long time. He did very well running the herd, culling the herd and selling the resources, the antlers, for aphrodisiacs internationally, dealing with that. That reindeer herd was then returned back to the Inuvialuit and is currently being run by them. It is still a source of food for the Inuvialuit. It is harvested, and that harvest is shared amongst the six Inuvialuit communities.
In terms of the greenhouse, we have been working with a philanthropist who runs a charitable organization called Promise for the North. He has been working on year-round greenhouses. He has been very effective in the last year advancing issues around greenhouses, also working with the Inuvik on a year-round greenhouse. I believe he’s working with three or four of the communities.
We have also tried to make a connection between him and the World Vegetable Center in Taiwan after visiting there. We’ve made some connections, as they can provide information on what types of seeds would be applicable in the area and the growth of the seeds dependent on the greenhouse. We have been working on some key issues around it.
Just briefly, there are some pop-up food banks but very few, especially in the small, isolated northern communities. There is no space and no one to run it. The majority of people in the smaller communities are struggling with food themselves.
Senator Sorensen: Such as, where would the donations come from?
Senator Anderson: Yes.
Senator Sorensen: Interesting. I want to elaborate on this.
Those are interesting stories. It is so fascinating about the reindeer herd. What I’m not hearing is government-funded infrastructure that could help the situation. When I’m thinking about a report, is there a belt recommendation that needs to go in there?
Senator Anderson: Funding for a food inspector for traditional foods would go a long way.
Senator Sorensen: Thank you.
Senator Muggli: Thank you for being here. I will expand on what you just said.
I was curious about regulatory changes that might be needed regarding the inspection of locally harvested food. It sounded like maybe there’s a concern with inspections. Are there regulation changes needed so that locally harvested food can move into your food chain more efficiently?
Senator Anderson: If I understand correctly, our locally harvested food can’t be shared or sold until we have a food inspector in play. That would be the next move because the Inuvialuit are harvesting food. They are prepping and sharing food across the six communities.
Senator Muggli: So right now, it is not being sold at all because of the lack of inspection?
Senator Anderson: That’s correct.
Senator Muggli: Is that a recommendation that would be useful — to have access to timely inspection?
Senator Anderson: To have a food inspector, definitely.
Senator Muggli: Yes, good. To return to power, is there any research or investment happening on alternative power sources at this time?
Senator Anderson: In some communities, there are. I believe in Paulatuk, there is; in Inuvik, they have the wind. Some people use solar panels. It is insufficient, I would say.
We also have a high rate of public housing, not privately owned housing. Public housing falls under different rules than private housing. That makes it a bit challenging. Unless you have the territorial government making moves in public housing to change the way it is given power and energy, it is very difficult because the majority of housing in these small communities facing these issues is public housing units. Many of those public housing units are old.
There are reports of windows and doors not closing and the presence of mice and black mould, so there are ongoing housing issues that also contribute to this issue.
Senator Muggli: In terms of infrastructure, housing is also key to food security because if you don’t have a decent house to live in or power sources, then your stove short-circuits or your fridge breaks down, and you cannot even store food.
Senator Anderson: That’s correct. Housing is central. In many communities, you do not just have one family living in a housing unit; you could have two to three generations in that housing unit that is not equipped for two to three generations. But because the housing wait lists are so lengthy, often large numbers of families reside in one housing unit.
Senator Muggli: With the public housing, do the building codes need to be changed to match the needs of the people living in them?
Senator Anderson: That, and also, who builds those houses? Are they being built to our Arctic standards? Are they being built to southern standards? Are the builders being held to account when those buildings fail? We were in the community of Aklavik, and there was a new build. They were in the new build for only weeks, and they had to abandon it. This new build in Aklavik just sits there wasting now because it was not built properly.
Senator Muggli: What happened within the course of a couple of weeks?
Senator Anderson: There was leaking and some pretty severe structural issues.
Senator Muggli: Wow. Could you describe what you think are the major risks to local hunting other than, obviously, the environment, but are there any concerns around disease or anything like that among herds or their management?
Senator Anderson: I may not have a fulsome answer. However, with regard to hunting, climate change is definitely one of them. The ice is not as thick as it could be, making it unsafe to go to some of the traditional areas, forcing people to detour around certain areas and the animals’ pathways may be changing. The cost of hunting is another issue. Gun laws also have an impact on people. Understanding our accessibility is important. The Chief Firearms Officer is another issue because our Chief Firearms Officer is in Alberta. So there are some key issues that could easily be fixed but continue to go on.
Senator Muggli: Thank you.
Senator Burey: Thank you for being here, Senator Anderson and Mr. Wade. I am hoping we can get some comments if things work.
A theme that we have been hearing, Senator Anderson, is that there is a lack of everything in the North, but especially coordination. People are working in silos, and there is a lack of consultation as well, to which you alluded.
We heard from Jimi Onalik, president of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency. Two meetings ago, they mentioned reindeer, country foods and that sort of thing.
When you are able to engage the community, there are other benefits, such as nutrition but also social cohesion.
Knowing that Nutrition North Canada has such a big impact on how we look at food security, and we understand that review, do you think that they should be more coordinated with the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency so that we can achieve some of these goals of working together with the community with an in-depth consultation?
My question is about real consultation within the community and not working in silos. Can you comment on that?
Senator Anderson: Yes, I can.
When you go back to Nutrition North Canada, they are currently under review. They are meeting with a large group of people. They are reviewing their policies. They invited me, but I was unable to attend, so I will be staying in contact with them so that they understand the concerns.
When you talk about coordination, the problem is that the federal system is siloed. I don’t know how you would fix that. For me to address the issue in Ulukhaktok around best-before dates, I went to three agencies. Even doing so, the issue is still persistent. I’m still getting pushback from the retailer specifically, reinforcing the fact that the CFI regulations do not have any rules around best-before dates is concerning to me.
By having that gap of freedom left but no accountability on the best-before dates because I tasted that food, which was stale, discoloured and did not smell right, but I still bought it off the shelf at full price, two years past its best-before date. So those kinds of things that need to come into play. People who are benefiting from a community should be held accountable to that community. That’s my concern.
It would be nice to see coordination. But I also don’t want to see more paternalistic colonial systems come in to dictate how we live in the community and how we hunt and fish.
We still follow our animals. In the summer, we’ll do whale hunting, spring and fall are geese, fishing and caribou. We follow our animals. The one thing that has changed is that Canada has interrupted our ability to do that. First, they put us in communities that were not communities. They took away our dogs. They restricted our ability to hunt. There are now gun rules. There is so much already federally imposed that combines together, and the collective nature of it has created structural issues for us with regard to having food security and having access to our own foods.
Someone asked earlier about animals and disease. There are. Whales, a couple of years ago, had the toxin from cat litter that could cause a pregnant woman to spontaneously abort the fetus, so they were told that they had to cook it to prevent that. We are aware that there are some impacts from other areas in our waters that affect our animals, but we still very much rely on those animals.
Senator McBean: Thank you. It is all so interesting. I have a couple of questions in a couple of directions. I am trying to listen to you in a good way.
So when you are talking about having an inspector come up and inspect the harvest, would that work? Because I get a sense that the way that you live and the way that the people in the North live is so spread out, that having an inspector in one place, people are not going to be bringing what they are harvesting in to one inspector, so this one inspector would have to cover such a big area. Would it make more sense to create a certification system where somebody in towns and communities would have the ability to be certified instead of having one inspector?
Senator Anderson: I will try to answer that.
Brian Wade just mentioned about the processing plant for foods in Inuvik. They do have a processing plant in Inuvik. If I am correct, and Brian might have to correct me the next time he speaks, they do purchase foods and process them at that particular site.
Because the communities are very close, the concept of a food inspector, for me, would ideally sit with an Indigenous organization, and that Indigenous organization would then be responsible for getting that food to where it needs to go. To me, that would be the best option.
Senator McBean: Thank you. To be clear, that’s instead of having someone come up, helicopter in and think that they come and do the work. I want to ensure that gets in right.
Then, for these products where the best before dates that you are buying are clearly after that date, do you know if the products are being bought in a timely manner but not being sold in a proper manner, or are they being purchased beyond their date, at full price — which I think is egregious — and then sold at full price? Do you know where they are being purchased in their life cycle?
Senator Anderson: They are being purchased from the South. I do not know which large company. If I’m correct, it is Loblaws. I’m not sure about the life cycle. The thing is with foods in the North, especially in the smaller communities, they are often barged in. Your food supply usually arrives on a barge. The barges come in once a year.
My educated guess would be that the food comes in during the summer. Then, it is expected to last for that year. They will fly in expired foods on the plane. Milk, fruit and vegetables will be flown in but there are stringent rules around foods that expire that must be adhered to. When the CFIA did their investigation, they found a few items that were pulled off the shelves, due to the investigation, that were expired.
I believe it is once a year. I believe the majority of the food comes on the barge, and I do not know how long they hang onto the food, but in my community of Tuktoyaktuk, when I was last there, there were a few cases of mayonnaise on the floor at 50% off that were already six months past their best before date.
Senator McBean: Back to Senator Black’s question, what is the fix here?
Would you recommend more flights in with food, which takes the cost up, or fewer — because I just want to learn how to fix it. I want to figure this out. What is the workaround? Let’s say a food only lasts six months but it only gets brought in once a year and it takes months to get there, how do we still make that food available in that area?
Senator Anderson: My suggestion would be that, first, you monitor your best before dates. Many of them are over a year, but put them on sale before they pass their best before dates. Plan a little bit better. Don’t try to make the most profit off of an item, which I think is what is happening. Finally, be accountable. Be accountable to the community.
My territory is not the only territory it is happening in. It is happening in Newfoundland and Labrador. It is happening in other Indigenous communities. It happens in Nunavut. It happens in the southern parts of the Northwest Territories. I have spoken to a number of people. We are not the only place experiencing these best before dates. I think it is an overlooked issue. I think that people don’t see it. Like I said earlier, it’s normalized now. The expectation is that we will continue to buy this food that is not healthy because nobody has brought it up as an issue. It has not been identified.
The Deputy Chair: We are now moving to the second round, colleagues.
Senator Black: I have a short question. I agree that the accountability needs to be at the retailer level. I think that is what you are saying to Senator McBean. I was in the North, not quite the Arctic, a year and a half ago. I noted that some grocery store items were very costly, and some weren’t much different than what I pay in Fergus. I saw that difference.
Is it the cost of the item that causes the backlog or the movement toward selling best before dates? If an item is $100, let’s just say, nobody is buying it, so it is going to get to a best-before-date expiration. Is it that, or is it the fact that retailers are bringing up end-of-life shelf items? Do you know what I am saying?
Senator Anderson: I do know what you are saying.
I don’t really have the answer for that. What I can say is some of the items on the food shelves that are best are not expensive items. When you talk about how some foods are comparable to here, that is because those foods are not popular. When you have a popular item in the North, that price rises. It becomes a huge commodity for the retailer and the price goes up because they know someone is going to buy it. People will still buy it because it is a popular item, whether it is flour, sugar, cookies, canned fruit or pickles. Pickles are one of the most expensive items because they are popular. Pop is cheaper than juice. It is cheaper for me to go buy a can of pop than it is for me to buy a can of juice, and juice is covered under Nutrition North, so there are things that are just illogical that cause you to question what is going on, why it is going on and how it has not been addressed. Why is it allowed to continue?
That, to me, is the problem. There seem to be arbitrary decisions made by a retailer that have profound implications for a community.
Senator McBean: My question is on something similar to what Senator Black asked earlier. It is a little different. It goes to Mr. Wade and the inconsistency of the internet.
Would federal investment into things like transportation and the infrastructure of power be helpful? You spoke to inconsistent power and losing an oven. Would it be helpful for food security in the North to have regular reliable electricity and regular, reliable transportation? I do not think that regular transportation is always possible, but would this be possible as a federal investment?
Senator Anderson: Yes. Roads would be a particularly helpful asset.
However, once you build roads, they will remove you from Nutrition North. Tuk was a fly-in community with periodic road access. Tuktoyaktuk lost their Nutrition North subsidy, so there is no subsidy in my community because of it. You can build roads and create an opportunity for food to get in there, but it may change whether Nutrition North covers that community.
Let’s use Norman Wells as an example. Norman Wells is on the Mackenzie River. Their barge could not get in because the water was too low. They had to fly in their fuel and groceries. Costs went up exponentially. Now they are part of the proposed Mackenzie Valley Highway route that they have been requesting for over 50 years. Will that change their status with Nutrition North if they are on Nutrition North? Most likely it will.
Yes, you can build roads, but then it changes how that community accesses supports and services as well.
Senator McBean: It’s like you get better access to food because you’re on a road, which should bring costs down. Is Nutrition North enough? I think we actually heard something when Senator Duncan was talking about — was it the town of Old Crow?
Senator Anderson: Yes.
Senator McBean: Is the subsidy for Nutrition North enough? Even if you have road access, do you need some sort of Nutrition North subsidy?
Senator Anderson: In my opinion, you would still need some sort of Nutrition North subsidy. I know of a number of people in my home community who are struggling with food insecurity and who don’t have the means to pay some of the prices that are in the community. They share a lot of their food and will actually go online and ask if anyone can help them with food for the day or for the night. It is not an uncommon thing on Facebook to see people asking for help because there is a lack of resources and a lack of support. It’s a very challenging environment to live in. The cost of living is so high right now in all aspects: gasoline, housing, water, fuel. In some of the communities, our water and fuel are actually trucked to the houses. There is no connector. If you have bad weather, your water and fuel can’t get to your house because the road systems don’t allow it.
There are many complexities that come into play that I think are just not factored into Southern-based legislation made by many people who have never been to the North. Over 90% of the people who come into my office who make decisions about us have never been there.
I can’t tell you how many people we’ve invited to come to the North, how we have travelled with people to the North and we’ve met people in the North so that we can create relationships with them and provide insight and opportunity for education. It’s a fact that these decisions continue to be made here.
I often don’t support legislation here. The reason for that is because the context under which the legislation is made does not work in the North. It doesn’t work for the people. It’s actually sometimes more harmful than it is helpful. Some of these policies that people think are helpful are actually harmful.
Senator McBean: Thank you very much.
Senator Martin: Senator Anderson, your experience is really helping connect local challenges with federal policy decisions. You are the link. You are the key.
You are right; we don’t understand the challenges. When I went up North to Fort St. John, which I had never been to — I was asked to go to Tumbler Ridge — I had no idea. My colleague has to drive two hours just to get there, and then he drives hours upon hours to get to his riding. You are talking about an area, a region that’s not connected, period, in so many ways.
My question is — I think that I probably know the answer. You talk about the rising cost of living. It’s all across Canada, but I would say especially in the North. People ask one another and share, but my question was going to be, before hearing your earlier response, about maybe a food bank or a lunch program.
How are people surviving in the North? We know there is a rising demand for food banks in the South, but I am wondering about the North.
Senator Anderson: There are some breakfast programs for kids in schools. They have snack programs. I know when we visited the school in Tuk, they had a breakfast program and they had snacks available, but I don’t know about those best-before dates. We had a community meeting in Ulukhaktok, and the juice boxes we were provided were six months past their best-before date. I don’t know about the quality of food that people are getting. Cereals on the shelves were past their best-before date as well.
Food banks make sense if you have the means to support them. I know when we were in Norman Wells, they had a food bank. We visited it. Food Banks Canada also helps. They actually travel in. There is a gentleman by the name of Jay, whom we’ve actually travelled with. Jay met us in Yellowknife and travelled with us to Inuvik and to Tuktoyaktuk. He is actively involved in many of the communities trying to work not only with the food banks but the greenhouses as well. It’s the smaller, more isolated communities like Ulukhaktok, Sachs Harbour and Tuktoyaktuk that don’t have that option available to them.
Senator Martin: We need you in the Senate, but I feel like Canada needs you at the table to figure out how to solve these issues. Thank you so much for your important work.
The Deputy Chair: Colleagues, I want to thank our witness for taking the time today to be with us and for answering our questions.
I do want to indicate that Mr. Wade is going to participate on the second panel. We believe that we may have the audio issues fixed.
For the second panel today, we have the pleasure of welcoming two witnesses who are joining us online: Casey Pruim, Board Chair, BC Dairy; and Stefan Schmitz, Executive Director, Global Crop Diversity Trust. There is a third witness joining us online from the previous panel — we had some audio issues — Brian Wade, Director, Inuvialuit Community Economic Development Organization, or ICEDO. In person, we have Michael Scheffel, Managing Director, Policy and Standards, Canadian Seed Growers’ Association. Welcome.
Colleagues, we will begin by letting Mr. Wade give his presentation, and if we experience audio issues again, we will be suggesting that he turn his video off and try that. If that doesn’t work, we will let him put in a written submission, and we will prepare written questions to him.
Mr. Wade, let’s give this another try. Thank you for your patience.
Mr. Wade: Good morning. Thank you for the introduction and the patience to work with us here.
My name is Brian Wade. I am joining you today from Inuvik, Northwest Territories. My professional title is Director of the Inuvialuit Community Economic Development Organization, also known as ICEDO, which is under the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, or IRC.
I am a husband, a father, a harvester and an Inuvialuk. Inuvialuit are the Inuit of the western Arctic. We are represented in six communities in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. We have a modern Treaty, the Inuvialuit Final Agreement, which was signed in 1984.
In 2021, the pandemic highlighted the dependency that Inuvialuit have for the Southern food system. Emerging out of the pandemic, Inuit Nunangat experienced increased costs on market food and on gas and equipment to access our traditional foods. Inuit leadership at the time envisioned and prioritized a food-sovereign region that was self-determined.
I joined the IRC team in 2021 and was given two priorities, to establish a country food processing plant and to build a team and a program that will allow our Inuvialuit reindeer herd to thrive.
As I present to the Senate committee today, my goal is to introduce you to Inuit agriculture. Since time immemorial, Inuit have been stewards of our land, animals, waterways and fish. Inuvialuit have maintained our land and water in its pristine state. Inuvialuit have utilized the fish and animals to feed and clothe us for generations. Inuvialuit have maintained, balanced and monitored our natural resources to ensure sustainability for future generations.
The IRC Country Food Processing Plant highlights Inuvialuit values of food sharing. The processing plant enables and compensates able harvesters to feed our people who cannot harvest and don’t have access to our traditional foods to which they are accustomed.
Current operations allow ICEDO to distribute two meat packs twice a year to every Inuvialuit household in the ISR, 1,200 households. To date, IRC has been able to directly compensate harvesters with a meaningful income totalling more than $1 million and has distributed over 140,000 pounds of country food to Inuvialuit households at no cost to the house. Procurement and distribution of country food is done in collaboration with shareholders, co-management and territorial and federal governments. ICEDO is proud to tell you that we have a new 7,000 square foot processing facility currently in design thanks to partnerships with CanNor and the Pathways program.
The Country Food Processing Plant program strengthens food security for the settlement region. It encourages knowledge transfer and cultural knowledge exchange, and it promotes positive mental health.
The second project I want to highlight to the Senate is the Inuvialuit reindeer herd. In 1935, the reindeer arrived in the Mackenzie Delta after a long journey from Alaska. The reindeer were a gift to the Inuvialuit from the federal government and were introduced to provide a sustainable protein source to Inuvialuit people through times of declining caribou herds.
Throughout the past 91 years, the reindeer herd has had numerous owners. Some owners achieved moderate levels of success but ultimately couldn’t sustain the financial obligations. The Inuvialuit reindeer herd is a free-range herd that utilizes a migration path on Inuvialuit private lands. The migration route is approximately 150 kilometres north to south and 80 kilometres east to west.
ICEDO took ownership of the herd in 2021. At this time, the herd numbers were approximately 1,500 animals. The herd was abandoned and had no operational infrastructure in place to support operations. Since taking ownership, ICEDO has built a team of six Inuvialuit herders who spend 320 days of the year out on the tundra with the herd. We have four cabins along the migration path to house the herders throughout the year, and we have been able to grow the herd to approximately 6,000 animals.
This past winter, ICEDO successfully harvested 250 reindeer, which will be distributed out to Inuvialuit across the region at no cost. ICEDO has built a relationship with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada over the last year and is proud to say that we have signed our first contribution agreement with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to build our Inuvialuit reindeer herd from a local food security initiative to a national agriculture business. Initial support of these programs came from CanNor, but IRC has been self-invested for two years with no federal dollars put towards these two projects’ operations.
Through all these successes, there are challenges. Our programs are heavily regulated. Our location geographically makes relationships with CFIA, DFO and AAFC difficult to maintain, and compliance under current regulations challenging to navigate.
Thankfully, through existing working groups from ITK, we are able to bring Inuit governments, CFIA, DFO and AAFC to the table to work towards the commercialization of country food. This goal is a priority on the Inuit-Crown Partnership Committee, or ICPC.
As those in the food security world are aware, funding grants are very difficult to obtain regarding food security, especially when projects reach a size such that they are actually impactful. The vision that ICEDO has is to create a social enterprise where we can create a viable market for our traditional foods that will allow country food to be sold and served in hospitals, long-term care facilities, schools and daycares. Generating revenue is not to create a profit, but to alleviate the dependency on federal funding and continue our current operations of addressing food insecurities in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to present these meaningful programs today. I look forward to answering your questions.
The Deputy Chair: Congratulations. We got through it, and we appreciate the presentation. Before we move to the next presenter, I should let you know that you each have five minutes. I will signal when you have one minute left by raising my right hand. It is just a caution that you are coming up against your time.
Mr. Pruim, the floor is now yours. You can proceed with your presentation.
Casey Pruim, Board Chair, BC Dairy: Good morning, chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today on behalf of BC Dairy. BC Dairy is the producer advocacy association representing more than 400 dairy farming families across the province of B.C.
Collectively, the industry supports over 12,500 jobs in British Columbia and contributes more than $1.2 billion to the province’s GDP. British Columbia offers a useful lens for your study on food security.
We are a province with strong agricultural capacity, but also with real vulnerabilities. We are geographically constrained, highly urbanized and heavily dependent on a small number of key production regions. That means food security in British Columbia is not an abstract concept. It comes down to whether we can continue to produce food locally, reliably and at scale in the face of growing pressures.
Today, I would like to focus on two areas where federal action can make a meaningful difference: flood infrastructure in the Sumas Prairie and continued support for supply management under CUSMA.
First is flood infrastructure. From a food security perspective, this is a national issue. Protecting core agricultural regions should be viewed in the same way as protecting major transportation or energy infrastructure.
The Sumas Prairie in Abbotsford, B.C., is one of the most productive agricultural regions in Canada. It is home to a significant share of our province’s dairy production, as well as poultry, eggs, fruits and vegetables. It is a cornerstone of local food supply.
In November 2021, that entire region was inundated with flood waters after extreme rainfall caused the Nooksack River in Washington State to overflow and water to flow north into the Sumas Prairie. Farms were evacuated, animals were lost and critical infrastructure failed.
The economic damage was severe. The flooding inundated more than 15,000 hectares, affecting over 1,000 farms and 2.5 million livestock, causing $4.7 billion in property damage and disrupting key transportation routes for domestic and export goods. But more importantly, it exposed a structural risk to our food system. If we lose Sumas Prairie, even temporarily, we lose a meaningful portion of our local food production capacity.
Since that event, important work has been done by the province and local governments. However, the scale of the challenge exceeds what can reasonably be addressed at the local or provincial levels alone.
Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events. The infrastructure protecting Sumas Prairie was not designed for these new realities. This was all too evident by the most recent round of flooding the region experienced this past winter in December 2025. This new flood event has reignited advocacy efforts of the local municipality, farmers and business owners.
There is a clear role for the federal government to partner in long-term, resilient flood mitigation infrastructure. This includes dike upgrades, pump capacity and watershed-level planning.
Investing in this now is significantly more cost-effective than repeated disaster recovery. More importantly, it ensures that we maintain domestic production capacity in a region that Canadians rely on.
That’s why we support the resolution from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture advocating for the recapitalization of the Disaster Mitigation and Adaptation Fund and the launch of a new intake of applications from local governments for eligible infrastructure projects. We can’t risk putting this off for another generation. We need significant investment in this region now to safeguard our future food supply.
Our second issue is supply management and CUSMA. Food security is not only about physical infrastructure; it is also about the economic systems that allow farmers to continue producing food. Canada’s supply management system provides stability for dairy, poultry and egg producers. It aligns production with domestic demand, ensures predictable farm income and supports consistent, high-quality food supply for consumers.
In British Columbia, this stability is particularly important. Our cost structures are higher, our land base is limited and our proximity to the United States creates constant competitive pressure. Supply management allows farmers to invest, plan and adapt to challenges like climate change and labour shortages. Without that stability, we would see reduced domestic production and increased reliance on imports.
Under CUSMA, Canada made significant concessions that increased foreign access to our dairy market. While these were part of a broader trade agreement, they have had real impacts on producers. If we continue to erode supply management through trade negotiations, we will weaken one of the most effective tools we have for maintaining domestic food production. From a food security perspective, that is a risk.
We encourage the federal government to continue fully defending supply management in any future trade negotiations, with no further market access concessions.
To conclude, food security in Canada depends on both physical resilience and policy stability. In British Columbia, that means protecting critical agricultural regions, like the Sumas Prairie, from climate-related risks, and maintaining systems like supply management that enable farmers to keep producing.
These are practical, achievable areas where federal leadership can have a direct and lasting impact. Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Mr. Pruim. Mr. Schmitz, you can proceed.
Stefan Schmitz, Executive Director, Global Crop Diversity Trust: Thank you, chair and honourable senators, for the opportunity to appear before you today.
I am pleased to contribute to this important discussion on food security in Canada.
I represent the Global Crop Diversity Trust, an international, non-profit organization located in Bonn, Germany, dedicated to safeguarding crop diversity, forever, and is also know as Crop Trust. This diversity is conserved as seeds and other genetic matter in gene banks around the world. Seeds contain the traits plant breeders and researchers need to develop crops for heat, drought, flooding, emerging pests and new diseases. Access to crop diversity contributes to agricultural innovation in Canada and around the world.
As growing conditions change, crop diversity from drier regions is increasingly valuable. Even in Canada, growing regions are shifting. For example, crops like maize and soybeans are now expanded to Western Canada. Millets, quinoa and buckwheat offer new opportunities to diversify. This depends on access to crop diversity from around the world.
Crop diversity supports food security for Indigenous communities, who need their crops to perform well even in unpredictable weather and environmental conditions. Cultivating minor crops and byproducts, both for taste and tradition, is not only culturally appropriate but also reduces dependence on major crops and imports.
The Canadian people already benefit from access to crop diversity. Two thirds of wheat grown by Canadian farmers can be traced back to material developed by the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, or CIMMYT, and Canadian lentil breeders use materials from the International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, ICARDA.
These centres are part of the CGIAR, the world’s largest agricultural research partnership. The Crop Trust provides in-perpetuity support to their international genebanks.
Between 2020 and 2024, Canadian institutions requested over 4,000 seed samples from CGIAR genebanks. This demonstrates the extent to which Canada utilizes international collections and contributes to international cooperation. Canada also contributes to this system. Canadian genebanks have shared nearly 130,000 seed and plant samples through the multilateral system of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. The global framework for exchanging plant genetic resources under which the Crop Trust operates. Canada’s genebanks are helping secure the future of food at home and around the world.
The Crop Trust ensures this global system works and works well. Our Crop Diversity Endowment Fund provides stable, long-term funding to key genebanks. We strengthen the global genebank system through services like quality management system training, data management platforms, and the Genebank Academy to support the next generation of plant scientists. We partner with Norway and NordGen to manage the Svalbard Global Seed Vault located in an Arctic archipelago, the world’s ultimate backup facility. It safeguards 1.5 million samples, of which nearly 35,000 samples have been deposited by Plant Gene Resources of Canada.
Together with our partners, we ensure that the crop diversity needed for resilient agriculture remains safe, accessible and available for use. But now, this effort requires more collaborators, more contributors and more champions.
Safeguarding crop diversity is one of the most effective and efficient actions any country can take to protect its food security. We encourage this committee to recognize crop diversity as a driving force for food security and champion the conservation of this valuable resource in Canada’s genebanks and across the global system.
Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you, Mr. Schmitz. Well done and delivered on time. Mr. Scheffel, you are here in person. We will let you give your presentation.
Michael Scheffel, Managing Director, Policy and Standards, Canadian Seed Growers’ Association: Thank you, chair and members of the committee, for the invitation to contribute to your study on food security.
My name is Michael Scheffel. I am the Managing Director of Policy and Standards at the Canadian Seed Growers’ Association, or CSGA.
CSGA is Canada’s national seed crop certification authority. For more than 100 years, CSGA has worked with the Government of Canada to deliver a national seed certification program. Under the Seeds Act, our mandate is to set standards and deliver a national program of seed crop certification, which we do for the benefit of Canadian agriculture. We are a member-based, non-partisan organization, not a lobby group, and we have built a system that farmers can trust.
Our task, day in and day out, is to ensure confidence in the services we provide to certify the identity and purity of pedigreed seed crops, the start of the food chain. When a farmer buys certified seed, they know they are getting the variety, the purity and the quality they paid for.
And 9 out of 10 bites of food start with seed. From the wheat used to make bread to the hay and silage that feed cattle to the vegetable oils used in cooking, it all starts with seed. If we care about food security, we need to ensure our seed system is innovative, resilient and trusted.
Each year, CSGA certifies seed crops of roughly 70 different crop kinds. That includes major crops like wheat, canola, corn and soybeans, as well as smaller acreage crops that are important for crop rotations, specialty markets, local economies and climate resilience. Our role is to make sure all these crops benefit from clear, science-based standards and an efficient regulatory environment.
There are two issues in front of us right now that will shape the future of Canada’s seed system and our food security: seed regulatory modernization and the future of plant breeding at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, or AAFC,
First, regarding seed regulatory modernization, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, or CFIA, initiated this process in 2020 and is now developing proposed revisions to the Seeds Regulations for publication in the Canada Gazette later this year. This will provide a blueprint for change. We need a modern, agile seed regulatory framework that simplifies requirements yet still protects farmers and the public interest. We need tools like incorporation by reference, and a model where CFIA delegates the administration of the seed certification program to CSGA, which would allow standards to be updated more quickly, reduce red tape and let CFIA focus its resources on oversight and compliance, rather than the day-to-day administration of the regulatory program.
Second, the future of plant breeding at AAFC. AAFC has signalled that it wants to move away from finishing varieties and focus more on upstream research. If that shift happens without a clear transition plan, it will create a gap in our innovation pipeline. The recently announced closures of facilities raised many concerns among a diverse group of stakeholders.
AAFC-bred wheat varieties are grown on millions of acres today, but AAFC also works on smaller acreage crops that hold little interest for the private sector. If we want Canadian varieties that are adapted to Canadian farms and ecosystems, and that support sustainable farming practices, public breeding must remain part of the equation. Otherwise, we risk becoming reliant on just a few large acreage crops or imported varieties that were not bred for our conditions with long-term consequences for productivity, sustainability and resilience.
Farmers have invested tens of millions of dollars in AAFC’s germplasm development through royalty payments on certified seed purchases and check-off dollars on their grain production. They deserve meaningful consultation on any change in AAFC’s role and clarity as to how plant breeding innovation will be translated into market-ready, commercial varieties if AAFC steps back.
In closing, seeds of innovative new varieties improve the sustainability of crop production and the profitability and competitiveness of Canadian farmers, ultimately contributing to food security. Getting seed regulatory modernization right and securing a strong, long-term role for public plant breeding are two concrete ways we can protect the foundation of Canada’s crop production system and contribute to food security for both Canada and the world.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. I would be pleased to answer any questions.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you to all the presenters. We will now proceed to questions from senators. Senators, I remind you that you have five minutes for your question or questions and that includes the answer.
Senator McBean: I will start with BC Dairy. How can the federal government support dairy producers in maintaining affordability for consumers while managing rising input costs?
Mr. Pruim: Thank you for the question. I would say the biggest way would be to continue to support our supply-managed system, where we have predictability in the market and are able to match supply to demand. In that way, we can control our costs. There are obviously other outliers as far as fuel and feed, but that would be the main way — with continued pressure from the United States through trade agreements — just the uncertainty and desired access to the Canadian market with incomparable products, labour advantages and things like that.
That would be the biggest way the government could support that.
Senator McBean: With four witnesses, I have so many questions. I have to sort my brain and my notes.
Mr. Wade, thank you for your patience, for hanging out and getting through that. The third time is the charm there. How can federal programs better support infrastructure training and local food production, specifically with your two goals? I appreciated the two lanes that you have there with creating the food processing.
I am a little curious where that new processing plant is going to be and where it is in its development. But with respect to your two goals, how can federal programs help you out?
Mr. Wade: It is really unfortunate that infrastructure is such an easy target. It is easy to build a building, but the operation and maintenance behind it are where the gap is in the funding world, especially when you look at a social enterprise or preliminary business that cannot generate enough revenue for our operations.
But is is you realizing the cultural differences — we talked about CFIA and the regulatory side of this. That is a very Western-forward way of thinking, where, for generations, Inuvik have taken it upon themselves for food safety — so doing a lot of lobbying on that recognition. If it is safe enough for me to serve my family, it should be safe enough to serve the general public.
The new processing facility is located in Inuvik and is replacing the existing facility we have that is extremely small and overused.
Senator McBean: You mentioned that every season — it is goose season in the spring and the fall — and all of the differences.
Having a processing plant in one spot, does that support people eating country foods across the region? It is amazing you have the two meat packs going into every house, but are hunters not just feeding their community in their community?
Mr. Wade: This allows it to look at food security from a regional perspective rather than an individual community perspective. Like many natural resources, populations fluctuate. When a resource is in abundance in a certain area and low in another community, we’re able to offset that fluctuation.
Just being able to compensate the harvesters with rising costs on equipment, gas and assessing the land — we’re able to compensate them for their time and efforts on the land, harvesting on our behalf. They are also meeting community and personal household needs while out there. This is not strictly a revenue-generating endeavour. They are out there harvesting anyway, so we are asking that what they catch in abundance or what they are not going to use for their personal needs — to give that to our processing facility so we can distribute it regionally.
Senator McBean: Finally, 250 reindeer — how many meat packs will that end up being?
Mr. Wade: We do 1,200 meat packs that average about 20-25 pounds per household, but we will also be able to distribute to community events, regional events, Indigenous Day, Aboriginal Day and Inuvialuit Day — these celebrations — as well as donate to the local food banks, which we currently do, and the long-term care facilities, daycares and on-the-land activities, as well.
Senator McBean: I’m checking. At one point, you said that, right now, everyone is getting two meat packs — they are getting to 1,200 households. Then, later, you also said that, of the herd, which is now 6,000 — congratulations for growing that; that is quite great growth from 1,500 — from the 6,000 animals, 250 reindeer were harvested. Is that where the two meat packs for the 1,200 households came from?
Mr. Wade: That is a portion of it. We have many animals that we put in. It is a variety box. Reindeer is one of them, but it also includes moose, muskox, all fish and bird species, rabbits — anything that people harvest throughout the year will go into these meat packs.
Senator McBean: I love this job, because I get to be a curious person.
We have been talking about it a lot — the infrastructure of refrigeration, then, becomes quite important, because these 1,200 households need to have reliable refrigeration and freezing to keep this meat. Is that always a concern for everyone?
Mr. Wade: Yes. We bought community freezers for each community, not only to store our raw goods when we are procuring it but when we are sending our finished goods back to communities, as well. Then, it is dual-purpose: Communities use it to store community and personal harvests, as well. But O&M, once again, is a funny thing to navigate, so that has its challenges.
Senator McBean: What is a funny thing to navigate, sorry?
Mr. Wade: The operation and maintenance of them, O&M.
Senator McBean: Owning them. Thank you. Yes, sorry.
Senator Muggli: I also have questions for everyone, so I might need another round, but I will start with our witnesses from whom we have not heard yet. I will start with Mr. Schmitz. Willkommen to you from someone who grew up in a town called Munster, Saskatchewan.
My questions for you — are there particular academic institutions you work with in Canada? I am wondering — I will ask both questions at the same time: What further investment is needed to continue this work, and what would you identify as being the key risks to challenging this work?
Mr. Schmitz: Yes, and Guten Tag. Thank you very much. It is a good question.
There are various institutions we are working with. Two that immediately come to my mind is the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon that is somehow linked to your national genebank infrastructure. Those are our main peer-partner institutions in Canada.
Of course, we would love to have this growing. I can assure you we are currently in a process where we try to reach out to more partners. Canada is currently one of our focal countries with which we would like to intensify our cooperation.
I would support this Canadian endeavour as well as the global endeavour in many different ways. Let me pick one that is purely technical and another one that is more political and financial.
The technical one that immediately comes to my mind is that there is a now-established global standard of a genebank information system that has been developed and is operated and disseminated by the Crop Trust. Most industrialized countries and many countries of the Global South — international organizations and so on — have adopted that information system. That is kind of the platform that makes it possible for all genebanks around the world to collaborate with breeders and researchers, so that, all over the world, they know what kinds of genetic traits they can find.
Canada’s 15 genebanks are registered at FAO currently, with the one in Saskatchewan being kind of the hub in the hub-and-spoke system.
They have expressed interest in also migrating to the state-of-the-art system. We are still waiting for that, and if there is a little bit of political support, that could probably help to raise the Canadian profile of that and on this IT level make Canada a full member of this international community.
Moving on to the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, it is always helpful if the issue of ex-situ conservation, the conservation in gene banks and the free access and benefit sharing of that material have political supporters and if more countries in those treaty negotiations that take place every other year stand up and speak in favour of the importance of ex-situ conservation, I would say the better.
Last but not least, the crop trust. We are fully dependent on contributions from various countries. Our endowment fund has accumulated to a market value of $400 million U.S. This is half of the amount we need to fulfill our mandate completely.
Canada has supported $9 million, many as operational contributions years back in 2012. Of course, this is also my duty to say, as a fundraiser, we always welcome contributions from our partner countries like Canada and other G7 and G20 countries. Thank you very much. I hope I answered your questions efficiently.
Senator Muggli: Yes, you did. Fascinating. Danke. I will go on second round.
Senator Burey: Thank you to our witnesses for being here and for sharing your expertise. I will start with Mr. Wade. Thank you so much again for continuing. The third time is the charm.
The interest in the reindeer herd is something that all of us really want to talk a little bit more about. I think the other part you wanted to talk about was the social enterprise part of it, which can lead to more food security in the North. Could you expand on that social enterprise and what it would take, that part of it?
Mr. Wade: Really, what we’re trying to do is grow the herd to a sustainable size so that we can harvest large numbers off it, creating a retail market not only locally but territorially and across Inuit Nunangat — which represents the four Inuit regions across Canada — being able to create revenue which would continue operations.
I presented two programs to you that are both unique, but in a few years they will become one. They cannot exist without one another. The processing facility is there. The upgrades to the size and capacity of the facility will allow us to harvest more reindeer and package it more professionally and distribute it across Canada.
To create that revenue so that we can continue to distribute country food meat packs to Inuvialuit households at no cost is essentially our ultimate goal; to keep the doors open and projects operational so that we can continue to deliver country food, which is the preferred food for Inuit.
Senator Burey: I want you to elaborate on the funding part of it, which was something you were getting at. What would that look like to make it more sustainable?
Mr. Wade: Yes. To cover operational costs, we have been heavily funded for the two years by CanNor for start-up costs to expand to bring on capacity, to build capacity and to cover all operational costs.
But much like CanNor, they are good at starting you off, but they discontinue when you become a certain size. I don’t know of any business that can grow to a sustainable size in two years and become profitable and self-sustainable. Essentially what we’re looking for is operational dollars. Like I told the committee, we entered a contribution agreement with Agriculture and Agri-food Canada to go from a local food security issue to a national agribusiness, but it has failed to recognize that operations still need to exist as we do that.
So both of these projects right now operate at $1 million annually. When we look at investments from the federal government regarding food security, there are not a lot of grants out there that cover $1 million annually for a specific program. That was my comment; when a project becomes a size where it is actually impactful to a region or a certain demographic, there aren’t grants out there to support that right now.
Senator Burey: We heard from a number of witnesses that the middle part is missing. And if you needed more money, it would be easier to get, but that middle part is missing. Thank you for that.
Mr. Scheffel and Mr. Schmitz, thank you for being here. I was going as both of you, is there any integration with the two entities? I would like to try and figure that out in my mind if you could comment on that.
Mr. Scheffel: Well, I could start and you can fill in the blanks later.
Not directly, I would say. The Canadian Seed Growers’ Association does have a committee that reports to our board of directors that’s called the Plant Breeders Committee.
Our Plant Breeders Committee is composed of plant breeders from both the public and private sector here in Canada. They provide advice to our board and to our Regulatory Services Committee on different aspects pertaining to the genetics and production of breeder seed of different varieties.
Recently we did have a Plant Breeders Committee to which we invited the Canadian, who is leading the discussions on the treaty that was spoken about, Axel. You may know Axel quite well. He was recently in Peru, I believe, where the last meeting of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture was being held.
We had a session where Axel came to talk to our Plant Breeders Committee. The plant breeders were able to ask him questions to verify and confirm some of the conditions around the proposals for trying to generate some more revenue for the international system by commercial plant breeders to pay into that system when they find some genetics that was worthwhile for them to develop commercial varieties.
Senator Burey: Thank you.
Mr. Schmitz: Yes, I will try to make it short.
Of course, I also know Axel very well. There are many indirect contacts like you. Mr. Scheffel, in your introductory statement, you highlighted you are working on the big staple crops more as well as more also minor crops for crop rotation, niche markets and specific ecological zones, so the whole spectrum.
But to do this, plant breeders need that gene pool, and therefore, it is extremely important to keep that. For that reason, we are now very deeply engaged with the International Seed Federation, which has an upcoming, annual meeting in Lisbon. As well, I just came back from a trip to Washington, D.C., where I met the American Seed Trade Association.
As I said before, we are looking forward to deepening our cooperation with Canadian partners in particular, and it was a great opportunity now to meet you here, Mr. Scheffel, at least virtually. My next trip to Canada, be assured that I will knock on your door to have a personal conversation. Thank you.
Senator Burey: Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: That is a heads-up for you.
Senator Muggli: Mr. Scheffel, could you tell me how long seed certification typically takes? Is it fairly rapid so that producers can get that seed in the ground? Have you identified any key risks to seed resilience?
When you are testing new seed varieties, it is important to be able to have producers who can do that. Do you have concerns regarding the closure of the agriculture research centres in Saskatchewan?
Mr. Scheffel: Thank you. Yes.
In Canada, we have a national variety registration system for the major crop kinds that we grow in Canada. Once a new variety has been registered by CFIA, and that follows several years of widespread testing and evaluation of those varieties under Canadian conditions, it may take up to three or four years before that variety will get into the hands of farmers. First, you have breeder seed. The breeder has a small quantity, maybe 50 kilograms of seed to start with, then that seed has to be multiplied in order to produce the millions of kilograms that are necessary to plant the millions of acres that we have out there to grow a crop.
The breeder will distribute seed to a select seed grower. A select seed grower will produce a quantity of seed and sell it on to other seed growers and it takes about four, five years for the quantities to be sufficient for commercialization.
Senator Muggli: Are there any particular risks to seed resilience that you might be concerned about or also the cuts to the research centres?
Mr. Scheffel: I will speak to the facility closures first.
It is a particular concern for the seed sector as a whole. In particular, there is a facility at Indian Head that is proposed for closure. At the Indian Head facility, there is a unit called the seed increase unit, which is a specialized group of people with equipment and facilities and land where they are actually producing the breeder seed of the AAFC varieties that have been bred there.
The closure of the Indian Head facility could lead to problems with the management of the breeder’s seed supply. If there are problems, if production is moved to another location, if they don’t have the proper facilities, equipment and people to maintain the variety purity of that breeder seed, as it is beginning its journey to farmers’ fields, you could end up with some contamination that could damage the quality of that product. In fact, we’ve had incidents where that has happened, where a variety is not commercialized because of contamination that happened during the seed production phase of it.
Plant breeders are always looking to produce new and innovative farmers that work for farmers, manufacturers and the foreign markets. Resiliency is a large part of that. Finding new varieties that have the greatest drought tolerance, insect resistance or disease resistance, that kind of thing. It is a continual search. It is a continuous battle, to be honest, against pests that can destroy crops.
Senator Muggli: Thank you.
Senator McBean: First, I have a quick question for Mr. Schmitz.
What kind of partner is Canada compared to the other nations? Are we a leader? Are we a contributor? Are we a user?
Mr. Schmitz: Canada all over is, regardless of whether you are looking at crop trust specifically, and the support of the global gene bank system, or on international agricultural research, the CGIAR system, I would say Canada is a country with a very good middle. You are not a champion. You are not among those large donors. The largest donors of crop trust on an equal footing are Germany, Norway and the U.S. Even now under a changing political situation in the U.S., the U.S. Congress approved a continuation of the support of Crop Trust very well, knowing that this is in the interests of everybody.
With all of them having contributed roughly $80 million, $90 million over the years to the Crop Trust, Canada is $9 million U.S. dollars, 10% out of that. Another $9 million or $10 million would really be a great signal in those difficult times for other key donors in the G7 an, the G20 that there is an ongoing commitment to one of the most important global public goods we have on earth, one of the very foundations of food security. This is a long-term investment. There is not a quick win. It is long-term, but all the more important.
Senator McBean: Danke. What barriers do Canadian seed growers face bringing new and innovative seed varieties to the market? I imagine it costs money to develop a new seed. Then there are always those situations, kind of like Roundup, where it’s connected to an herbicide treatment or something like that. What barriers do Canadian seed growers face?
On the other side, if you can speak to it, does it make it more costly for the end user and the farmer?
Mr. Scheffel: It is an interesting question.
Seed growers themselves are not necessarily developing new varieties. They are receiving breeder seed or high-generation seed of new varieties from breeding institutions, like Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Crop Development Centre at the University of Saskatchewan, breeder seed from the University of Guelph. Those are some of our major public sources of new and innovative varieties. Then there are the major multi-national companies involved in the canola, corn and the soybean area.
Within the seed sector, we have quite distinct subsectors. The canola value chain is one thing: the corn value chain is another, the soybean value chain is another. Genetics come from different places.
Cereals, small grains, pulses like chick peas, lentils, peas and beans are another area of interest.
Large multinational corporations are well invested in things like canola, corn and soybeans. They will contract with our members to produce the certified seed that those companies need to sell to their customers.
When it comes to things like cereals and pulses, a lot of the production of that, especially in Western Canada, is being done by seed growers, who are members of sort of almost seed grower co-op company types of things. There are SeCan, CANTERRA, and FP Genetics. These are companies that will license publicly developed varieties from crop development centres, from Ag Canada, from the University of Guelph, wherever.
Then our member growers will then produce that seed, multiply that seed up and then become local retailers in the area where they grow it as well.
There are different types of economic models, if you like, for the different types of crop kinds that are out there.
Senator McBean: Thank you.
The Deputy Chair: Colleagues, once again, I want to thank our witnesses for taking the time to be with us today and for so effectively answering our questions.
I also want to thank our clerk, Library of Parliament analysts, the interpreters, the audiovisual staff and everyone who is involved with making this a live presentation. That concludes our meeting.
(The committee adjourned.)