THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE AND FORESTRY
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Tuesday, June 9, 2026
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry met with videoconference this day at 6:32 p.m. [ET] to examine and report on the role of the agriculture and agri-food sector with regard to food security in Canada.
Senator Mary Robinson (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: Good evening. My name is Mary Robinson, and I am the chair of this committee. Welcome to members of the committee, our witnesses as well as those watching this meeting online.
I would like to start by acknowledging that the land on which we gather is the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe Nation.
Before we hear from our witnesses for today, I would like to start by asking the senators around the table to introduce themselves. We will start with our deputy chair, Senator McNair.
Senator McNair: Good evening. I’m John McNair from the province of New Brunswick.
[Translation]
Senator Oudar: Good evening. Manuelle Oudar from Quebec. Tonight, I am replacing Senator Hébert. Welcome.
[English]
Senator Black: Senator Rob Black, Ontario.
Senator Muggli: Tracy Muggli, Saskatchewan, Treaty 6 territory.
The Chair: Thank you.
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 Joseph Murdoch-Flowers, Executive Director of the Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre; June Muir, Chief Executive Officer of the Unemployed Help Centre of Windsor Inc.; and Kirstin Beardsley, Chief Executive Officer of Food Banks Canada.
Thank you very much for joining us. We’ll begin with your opening remarks before we move to questions from our committee members. You will have five minutes. I will signal that your time is running out by trying to get your attention, and I will do that about a minute before you should be wrapping up, so keep an eye out for that.
We will start with you, Mr. Murdoch-Flowers. The floor is yours.
Joseph Murdoch-Flowers, Executive Director, Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre: Thank you, chair and senators, for the invitation.
[Translation]
I will make my opening remarks in French and English.
[English]
Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre is a food hub in Iqaluit, and we are affiliated with a national food organization called Right to Food. Our centre serves the community with multiple holistic programs that provide food access, food skills and advocacy that respond to local needs.
I wish to speak to you about three topics today: one, community meal demand; two, our research on the relationship between food insecurity and economic support; and three, our vision for food sovereignty in Inuit Nunangat.
Number one is community meal demand. We are most well known in our community for our community meal program. We cook and serve between 300 and 600 meals per day, five days a week. We have observed steady increases in the numbers of meals we serve every day. In 2022 we served 58,000 meals, whereas in 2025 we served 91,000 meals. As of today, we have served over 38,000 meals this year.
I am proud of the team at Qajuqturvik, who continue to meet the staggering demand for free, accessible, nutritious and quality food. We serve homemade meals in a comfortable setting, where people joyfully eat and build community together. We believe that the increase in demand for meals speaks to the increasing economic challenges that people in our community face.
[Translation]
Second, we have a research partnership with Dr. Sappho Gilbert, a researcher at Harvard University. She studied the relationship between economic supports, such as the Inuit Child First Initiative, and the demand for our daily meal program.
We look at the demand for our daily meals as an indicator of food insecurity. In other words, if people are food insecure, they are more likely to participate in our daily meal program.
Our research shows that when money flows into community bank accounts, food in the city quickly becomes more available, resulting in a temporary drop in demand for our daily meal program.
[English]
Our research with Dr. Gilbert supports the proposition that increasing people’s incomes leads to decreasing food insecurity.
We offer a number of other food access programs, such as a produce box, a free weekly country food offering to Elders, an evening Inuit women’s program and a range of special events always involving food.
[Translation]
We believe that food sovereignty in Nunavut and Inuit Nunangat must extend beyond emergency food access to support a truly northern food economy. In our view, this does not mean greenhouses or cargo containers converted to heated gardens.
That is why I would now like to describe our vision of Inuit Nunangat food sovereignty: an economy based on hunting.
[English]
Hunters and fishers have knowledge, discipline and skills that should be valued in the same way farming is valued.
We want the federal investments to create a paid Inuit hunters’ network across Inuit Nunangat. Creating a sustainable hunters’ network would mean paying hunters, covering the costs of going out on the land, investing in the capital infrastructure needed to safely harvest animals using traditional methods and funding programs that ensure this knowledge is passed down from Elders and experienced hunters to youth. It also means working with other levels of government to create a regulatory environment where country foods can be legally sold and purchased and where costs are subsidized until a sustainable market can be created. That would be much more effective than subsidizing costs to ship food up from the South that is still unaffordable for many Inuit.
Significantly investing in employment and training opportunities as well as income supports, with additional top-ups for northerners, is also key. We cannot significantly reduce food insecurity if we don’t address incomes. Increasing incomes has to be a key part of the new national food security strategy, particularly in Nunavut, where a third of the population lives in poverty.
I hope you will consider this perspective when you deliberate on Budget 2026. I thank you for the opportunity to share.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Murdoch-Flowers.
I wanted to welcome Senator Burey, who has joined us since we began.
Next we go to Ms. Muir. The floor is yours.
June Muir, Chief Executive Officer, Leamington Regional Food Hub, Unemployed Help Centre of Windsor Inc.: Good evening, senators. My name is June Muir, and I am the CEO of the UHC —Hub of Opportunities in Windsor and President of the Windsor Essex County Food Bank Association. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today about food insecurity, food recovery and reducing agricultural waste in Canada.
The Unemployed Help Centre of Windsor Inc., or UHC, operates 26 community programs and services across Windsor and Essex, including a food bank that supports a network of 15 local food banks and 75 community agencies. We also run a food hub in Leamington, Ontario, which has the largest concentration of greenhouse growers in North America. Leamington is uniquely positioned to serve as a national agricultural recovery and redistribution hub.
For over a decade, the UHC has been showing how surplus agriculture products can be recovered and redirected to people in need rather than going to waste. Through our Plentiful Harvest Food Rescue Program, we have recovered over 48 million pounds of fresh produce since 2012. Today, we recover approximately 7 million pounds annually. Through our Farm to Food Program, delivered in partnership with Feed Ontario and Food Banks Canada, recovered produce is transformed into more than 200,000 servings of soup annually.
Through our food swap program, we work with food banks outside our region to access an added 2.2 million pounds of food that would not otherwise be available locally.
Collectively, these programs support an estimated 1 million visits annually. What is needed now is the infrastructure capacity to scale this work nationally. The UHC is working with Food Banks Canada on a collaborative vision to strengthen food recovery and redistribution across Canada. Together, we see an opportunity for Leamington to become a leading national agriculture recovery, processing and distribution hub, converting surplus produce into fresh, frozen and nutritious prepared foods that can be distributed year-round to communities across Canada.
However, achieving that vision requires additional infrastructure and capacity. Our current facility has proven what is possible. The next step is building a new state-of-the-art hub that can run at a national scale.
Ontario’s greenhouse sector includes approximately 147 growers operating more than 4,500 acres of production capacity, yet an estimated 120 million pounds of produce are lost annually. Canada already produces enough food to help address hunger. The challenge is not supply; it is infrastructure, coordination and access.
With federal investment in a new food hub, the UHC would have the capacity to significantly expand food recovery, storage, processing and distribution operations. We could increase annual produce recovery from 7 million pounds to 19 million pounds within two years, generating approximately $68 million in food value for Canadians.
The new facility would allow us to do far more than store and distribute produce. It would enable value-added processing, including packaging fresh and frozen produce and nutritious soup, transforming surplus fruits and vegetables into healthy food that can be preserved and distributed year-round to communities across Canada.
This investment advances key federal priorities by strengthening Canada’s food security infrastructure, supporting agricultural sustainability and building a more resilient national food recovery and redistribution system.
We respectfully request federal support to construct a new state-of-the-art food hub. This investment will provide the capacity to transform surplus produce into nutritious food and expand its distribution to communities across Canada. In partnership with Food Banks Canada, the UHC will help strengthen a national network that connects agricultural abundance with communities experiencing need.
Canada has the food. What we need is the infrastructure to ensure that surplus food reaches people instead of landfills. The UHC has partnerships with greenhouse growers who have agricultural capacity. Food Banks Canada has the national network. Together, we can create a made-in-Canada solution that grows and supports growers, reduces waste and delivers nutritious food to communities across the country. With federal support, the Leamington Regional Food Hub can help make that vision a reality.
Thank you so much for this opportunity, and I look forward to answering any questions.
The Chair: Perfectly timed, Ms. Muir. Thank you.
Next we have Ms. Beardsley. The floor is yours.
Kirstin Beardsley, Chief Executive Officer, Food Banks Canada: Honourable senators, thank you for the opportunity to appear today and contribute evidence to your study on the role of the agriculture and agri-food sector in food security in Canada. My name is Kirstin Beardsley, and I am the CEO of Food Banks Canada, a national organization supporting more than 5,500 food banks and community organizations in every province and territory.
Our vision is a Canada where no one goes hungry and reliance on food banks is no longer necessary. While we remain committed to reducing hunger and decreasing dependence on food banks, the scope of the challenge has moved beyond any one community and requires systemic supports. We are working collaboratively with partners and governments to ensure the food bank network remains strong, efficient and effective in supporting those who rely on it.
The government’s data shows that a quarter of people in Canada now experience food insecurity. This is happening in communities across the country at levels never recorded before. Food insecurity is highest in Nunavut, where more than half of the residents are affected.
Our 2025 Food Banks Canada HungerCount report showed that more than 2.2 million people now rely on food banks each month in Canada. It took 25 years for monthly use to reach 1 million and only five years for that number to double.
This level of demand is unsustainable. Food banks are under severe and unrelenting pressure. Last year, more than half reported providing less food than usual, and one quarter ran out of food before demand was met.
As Canada prepares to launch its national food security strategy, investments in food recovery, transportation, storage and distribution infrastructure should be central considerations, helping connect surplus food with food banks while reducing food loss and waste.
Local food banks work directly with retailers, manufacturers, distributors, producers and other community partners to recover safe, nutritious food that might otherwise go unused. Food Banks Canada supports this work on a national scale. We have built a network of partnerships across Canada’s food industry and coordinate the recovery, transportation and distribution of surplus food across provinces and territories. This allows us to connect available food with communities facing need, while helping to address the growing challenge of food waste.
Agriculture represents one of the most significant opportunities to combat food insecurity and food waste. Across farms, greenhouses and food processing facilities, substantial volumes of nutritious food are lost each year due to cosmetic standards, market fluctuations, labour shortages and supply chain constraints, not because the food is unsafe or unsuitable for consumption.
By strengthening food bank infrastructure, transportation networks, storage capacity and processing capabilities, Canada can unlock another way to better serve people living with food insecurity.
Done well, food bank food recovery involves sorting, grading, cold storage, processing and redistribution across vast distances. Expanded processing capacity enables year-round distribution and extends the reach of recovered fresh produce dramatically. This is the kind of infrastructure investment with compounding returns. It reduces agricultural waste, supports producer viability, cuts disposal costs for growers and delivers nutritious food to Canadians who need it.
The volume and complexity of the food that needs to be recovered to meet the need exceed current infrastructure capacity. Cold storage, processing equipment and refrigerated transport remain critical gaps.
Food Banks Canada supports a national network spanning every riding in the country. While Canada’s agriculture and agri-food sector provides a strong foundation to combat food insecurity, lasting solutions depend on coordinated action across all regions of the country through our network. A national food security strategy must address key gaps in infrastructure, coordination and access to succeed.
First, invest in Food Banks Canada’s network infrastructure, including food hubs, cold storage, processing capacity and interprovincial distribution networks to connect surplus food with communities in need.
Second, support us in creating formal pathways for agricultural producers to direct surplus food into the food bank system, including a federal tax credit for donations from farmers to food banks, like the one that already exists in Nova Scotia, Quebec, Ontario and B.C.
Finally, we acknowledge the reality that Northern communities face specific challenges, including high food and transportation costs and limited infrastructure. Investments in refrigerated transportation, storage, transportation networks, like year-round highways, and interprovincial and -territorial distribution would enable surplus food from southern production regions to reach remote communities. The evidence is clear, the need is urgent, and the tools are available. Every pound of food recovered is a pound that does not go to waste and does go to someone who needs it. Food Banks Canada and our national network are ready to be partners in building a food security system that works for everyone in Canada.
Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you so much to the three of you. I really appreciate how you managed your time because I know we will have a lot of questions.
We will now proceed to questions from senators. Senators will each have five minutes in which to ask and have their questions answered. We will start first with our deputy chair, Senator McNair.
Senator McNair: Mr. Murdoch-Flowers, in testimony before this committee in April of this year, Jimi Onalik, President of the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency, stated:
. . . there is a theme across all three territories, and it might seem a little bit counterintuitive. The price and availability of power are such a huge driver of the ability to deliver programming.
I am curious to know if you agree with that statement. If so, how do the price and availability of power impact food security in Nunavut?
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: Thank you for the question, senator. As you are aware, all of the electricity that is provided to the city of Iqaluit, where I work, comes from the diesel generator that’s up on the hill. With the increasing fuel costs, this has an impact on the cost of fuel and subsequently passes the costs on to anyone using it, including our organization.
We also see those costs increase in freight and cargo. As Ms. Beardsley indicated, the food comes from the South and goes up North on airplanes. We have received a notice from the airline partner that we work with that prices have increased at least 43 cents a kilo on cargo, which will lead to an 8% increase in our cargo costs this year, thus increasing the demand for our services and so on, yes.
Senator McNair: I think you touched on it already when you talked about hunters and fishers and having a paid hunters’ network. In your opinion, where would funding be best spent to have the greatest impact on food security in Nunavut? Is it the creation of that network?
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: We believe that an important piece of food security and food sovereignty in Nunavut is supporting the local food economy, which is indeed country food through hunting and fishing. At Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre, we do benefit from a program, particularly from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Local Food Infrastructure Fund, which we have then put into the infrastructure that we need for going out on the land and accessing country food.
The effect of investing in the local Inuit food economy goes beyond simply accessing that meat and fish that we bring to the table. Country food is really central to Inuit culture. When we invest in country food and the tools that we need to access it, what we’re doing is actually investing in mental health, education, land awareness, economic development and suicide prevention. These all have to be factored into considerations of where we are putting resources in the northern food economy.
Senator McNair: I want to talk a little bit about your daily meal program with 300 to 600 meals per day, and I understand you also have a takeout option of bannock and other food.
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: Yes.
Senator McNair: How many volunteers do you have in your organization?
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: Thank you for the question. You are all welcome to certainly come and join us in Iqaluit at some point for a meal. We run mainly with a staff of about six or seven in the kitchen. We do have a regular roster of volunteers, but we have found that the time that we serve is during the workday, and a lot of people who would like to volunteer have day jobs as well. I would say we have somewhere in the range of 15 to 20 regular volunteers who come and assist us at various points in the week.
Senator McNair: You served 91,000 meals last year. That’s a staggering number — impressive — but, unfortunately, not the trend we want to see going in that direction.
For those of us who don’t understand completely, country food is locally harvested food from the country in your area?
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: Yes, that’s right. Cariboo; seal; muktuk, which is whale; Arctic char, which in Iqaluit means several fish; clams; berries; and all that good stuff that we get straight from the land in Nunavut. It’s truly the 100-mile diet.
Senator Black: Thank you for your testimony and the staggering numbers, as my colleague said. I have a couple of short questions before I get to a longer one. What’s the difference between Right to Food, formerly known as the Community Food Centres Canada, and Food Banks Canada? That question is to you, Mr. Murdoch-Flowers and Ms. Beardsley.
Very quickly, is there a difference, or is it the same thing under different names?
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: Perhaps I’ll pass the question to Ms. Beardsley first.
Ms. Beardsley: We are both national organizations that serve networks of organizations across the country. Food Banks Canada is a vast network, but we support the same goals of making sure that people have access to food. We advocate for policies that reduce the need for folks to rely on community supports, and we support organizations right across the country.
To answer the question directly, we are different organizations, but we support food security in various ways. Community food centres tend to have more meal programs, growing programs and other types of programs in the community, and food banks tend to provide direct food support and also a range of other options. So they are separate organizations with similar goals.
Senator Black: That answered my question.
Then I will turn to Ms. Muir and think about the UHC and Food Banks Canada, and we did visit Second Harvest a few months ago. Are they all the same but under different names? I’m getting to another point here, so I don’t necessarily need a long answer.
Ms. Muir: The UHC —Hub of Opportunities has a limited regional food hub in Leamington currently. We are an organization that has access to the largest number of greenhouse growers in North America. Actually, Second Harvest will visit us and pick up food and produce. We are lucky to be in this area; it’s right in our backyard, and there is so much to recover. That’s why it is so important that I was invited today and I’m able to share with you what we could do with all that produce to get it out to people in need. Working with Food Banks Canada, we will be able to get it across the country.
I don’t know, Kirstin, if you want to add anything to that.
Ms. Beardsley: The UHC —Hub of Opportunities is one of the 5,500 organizations that we work with across the country. Food banks are the infrastructure. We have the bricks and mortar that allow us to pull the food in, transform it and get it back out across the country. We work with Right to Food, Second Harvest and other organizations addressing food insecurity across Canada.
Senator Black: My final question, which you can mull on and answer if you wish, is this: If I look at Right to Food, Food Banks Canada, UHC, Second Harvest and some of the other groups that we’ve met with, are you all competing for the same small amount of dollars from the federal government? Are you going to one place while another organization is going somewhere else? I am assuming that you are all competing for the same small pot of money. Yes, no, maybe so?
Ms. Beardsley: By and large, most of our networks often advocate for policies that would reduce the need for food banks and reliance on community food supports. As Joseph said earlier, income is really the solution to food insecurity in Canada.
What we are coming here today to try to share is that the capacity of the food banks is at its max. We have doubled food bank use in the last six years alone. There are 2.2 million visits to food banks and other community organizations every single month in Canada. We need investments in infrastructure to allow us to be able to meet those needs, but the system itself needs infrastructure support.
I don’t know if we are all asking for the same pot of money. I know we have worked together to advocate for policies. Ultimately, we want to see fewer people needing food banks, but, in the meantime, we need a strong system as people come through our doors.
Senator Black: Please don’t get me wrong; I am not upset or questioning the value of what you’re doing. I just want us to realize that, ultimately, we’re going after the same small pot of money, maybe federally, and maybe we need to think about that.
Senator Muggli: I think I’ll start with Ms. Beardsley. Thank you for being in Ottawa two weeks ago. I was able to meet with a few Saskatchewan folks, which was really informative.
I know your report talked about the root solution because the root cause is income insecurity. It’s interesting how we have this incredible number of organizations around our country that are trying to help people get food, but the root cause is income insecurity.
I’m wondering if you have ideas of how we could best approach income insecurity. I would like to go for the root cause instead of Band-Aids, realizing we’ll always need some of those. Do you have some suggestions on what the best approach is to address income insecurity?
Ms. Beardsley: Last week, we published our Poverty Report Cards, which looks at legislative progress as well as how folks are doing across the country. In that report, our recommendations at a federal level are to reform Employment Insurance, or EI, to ensure that the program is responsive to the needs of today’s workforce. We are seeing unemployment trend upwards. In some communities, it’s becoming acute.
Food banks tend to be the canary in the coal mine. We see folks at the doors of food banks before we see them in the data, so we need to make sure that if folks lose their jobs, there is a system in place that is built for today’s labour force.
The issue can’t only be addressed at the federal level, so we are also asking the federal government to conduct a national review of provincial social assistance, which we know is inadequate right across the country, and look at the role of the Canada Social Transfer in ensuring adequacy of social assistance across the country.
We also had recommendations in that report about the North, and one, just off the top, is the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit, which we advocated for and are very grateful to see flowing into folks’ bank accounts. We know that groceries cost so much more in the North, so making sure that it is an equitable benefit for people in the North is critical. Those are some of the advocacy priorities.
I want to say that our mission is to relieve hunger today and relieve hunger tomorrow, so we want to make sure fewer people need food banks in the future. But the food bank system right now is struggling to meet the needs of folks, and we can’t wait a generation for people to have the food they need to thrive.
Senator Muggli: Mr. Murdoch-Flowers, you also talked about income insecurity. Did you say maybe the researchers from Harvard have also identified that as a — is the Canada Groceries and Essentials Benefit in the North the only way to address this, or what might be some other meaningful interventions for income insecurity?
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: Thank you for the question. I did refer to some research we did with Dr. Sappho Gilbert around income supports. She looked at the relationship between when people receive money — for example, with the Inuit Child First Initiative community or hamlet grocery voucher program, people got deposits of money into their accounts, and people have shared with us that that was the most effective relief for food insecurity. That was temporary. That has been finished for over a year now.
We also believe that when we invest in the local hunting economy, the effect is that we increase food security for the community that we serve, but also the hunters and fishers we work with — and we work with hunters and fishers all over the territory — tell us that when they hunt or fish with our program, yes, they get paid for what they are doing, but they also get country food for themselves and for their own communities.
The effect of the Iqaluit or the Qajuqturvik Community Food Centre country food program is not only to increase country food access, which is culturally relevant to Inuit who come to the food centre; it also increases food security through the territory with the hunters and fishers we work with.
Senator Muggli: For the second round, if you want to think about some of the regulatory issues that might help support the issues around food and the sharing of country food.
The Chair: Well played.
Senator Burey: Thank you so much for being here. I want to give a shout-out to Ms. June Muir, whom I had the pleasure of meeting. I have not gone to the Leamington Regional Food Hub yet, but I will get there.
Thank you for sharing so much of the work. For all the witnesses, this is really food for thought.
This is a really complex issue, but, Ms. Muir, could you answer this question? Regarding the local food economy and recovering so much of the vegetables in our greenhouse capital in the Leamington area, how could that intersect with the National School Food Program?
Maybe all of you want to comment on that, but would you start off, Ms. Muir?
Ms. Muir: Yes. Thank you for your question.
Food inflation is higher than inflation, and the families that we’re seeing are struggling to pay their rent and their hydro, so there is not a lot left over for food. We’re seeing working people. We’re seeing friends, neighbours or colleagues utilizing the food bank.
What is unique about what I’m speaking about today is that we live in an area that has the largest number of greenhouse growers in North America. If we can recover more produce than we’re recovering today, we can, as you know, take 19 million pounds and get it out to people in need rather than it going to a landfill. I don’t think many have that opportunity in Canada to do what we can do, as you know from coming and seeing Leamington with all the farmers. If we were able to recover that, that is $68 million in food value for Canadians, and, of course, we’ll be able to ramp it up.
It is a sustainable food system. With the food costs being so expensive, it takes a burden off families, single people and single parents.
We are a hub of opportunities. We have employment programs and newcomer programs. When people come to us and they are hungry, the first thing they think about is food. They can’t concentrate on getting a job. They can’t concentrate on anything except feeding their family. Once you give them a human basic need, they are able to then move on.
It’s really important that we look at sustainable food hubs and what we can do to feed Canadians.
Senator Burey: I don’t want to interrupt you, June, but I wanted to get to the other guests. Did you comment on the school food program? Does it interact with the school food program?
Ms. Muir: Absolutely. We are going to be making a lot of soup, and we will have a lot of vegetables to cut up. We would be able to deliver to the schools. We work with the schools now on a small scale, but we plan on having a community kitchen and a freezing line, so there is a lot we will be able to help with for the student nutrition programs.
Senator Burey: Let me go to you, Mr. Murdoch-Flowers. I was very interested in the research that you did but also the fact that you spoke about mental health and reducing suicide risk and this kind of social cohesion that the whole food economy brings.
Could you talk a little bit more about that?
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: Sure. Thank you.
I’ll try to put it succinctly, but there is a level of cultural disconnection that arises from the Inuit’s history with the federal government, which has led to a disconnection from those activities that are vital to us and sustain us physically with food and sustain us spiritually and culturally.
Hunting and fishing are where we can both gain the nutrients we need to feed ourselves but also feel a sense of pride, connection and community and build discipline, patience, skill and cultural pride. These things all combine together to have the effect that you’re talking about.
[Translation]
Senator Oudar: First of all, thank you to all three of you for the outstanding and impressive work you do. I’m filling in for another senator on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, and thank you for having me. It’s always a pleasure, and I’m always impressed by the work that witnesses do on a daily basis.
My question is for you, Mr. Murdoch-Flowers. While the file was being prepared, I looked at your website and saw that it was very well done. Bravo. I saw that in 2023, a delegation was heard at Canada’s fourth Universal Periodic Review at the United Nations Human Rights Council. I understand that you produced a report with four recommendations.
I had some questions on the first recommendation, but before I get into that, I have to say that I was struck when I read that the Inuit face a chronic and widespread food crisis every day and that the rate of food insecurity you talked about is the highest among Indigenous populations in the world.
It’s quite striking to read that, and I think we need to look at solutions like the ones you’ve included in your report. I’m thinking particularly of the first solution, where you talk about recognizing hunting as a paid profession. In fact, you suggest that the work of hunters, which is largely unpaid, could be compensated. That could solve a lot of problems, in terms of both livelihoods and historical acknowledgement of the harm that has been caused.
I wanted to hear more about recommendation 1 and ask you whether you had looked at what was being done in other provinces, such as Quebec, where we have the Cree Hunters Economic Security Board. Are there any models that you would like to share with the committee?
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: Thank you for the question, senator.
That’s exactly the program we want: hunting as a paid profession. We find it costs a lot of money to go out ice fishing. Because of that, hunters and fishers have to decide whether they are going to work in the wage economy, get a job with the government or something else. They have to choose between that or hunting on weekends.
We find that it gives choices to hunters and fishers who don’t want to do that. When I say to an employee, “It’s your job to go hunting,” they’re very happy to go hunting and bring seals and whales back to be eaten at the food centre.
Does that answer your question?
Senator Oudar: Are there models in other provinces or elsewhere in the world that inspire you and that you would like to see in place?
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: Yes. We did a report with Right to Food called Seeds of Sovereignty — it hasn’t been translated into French yet, I’m sorry — but we made recommendations in the report. We take inspiration from other Indigenous food centres in other parts of Canada. The recommendations are in the Seeds of Sovereignty report, as are references to what we did with the Qinnirvik Country Food and Bulk Store at the Qajuqturvik community centre, which is an inspiration to others.
I have done presentations in Labrador and to the Inuit in Nunavik and other Indigenous communities. I don’t have a specific program to give you as an example, but that’s it.
[English]
The Chair: I have a question before we go on to the second round. I wanted to build on a point that Senator McNair touched on, and that was in regard to the high cost of energy. Mr. Murdoch-Flowers, we did have testimony from Senator Karetak-Lindell. She did a good job of painting the picture about the cost of energy and how that impacts food spoilage and the ability to capture economies of scale or the ability to have food stored and keep it for a while, including hunting, fishing, gathering and country foods.
I was wondering: Have you had any conversations within your community about alternative energy options? When we look at income being the solution, we’re still going to have the issue of storing food and keeping it for longer periods of time. Do you have anything to share with us on conversations about alternative energy?
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: Thank you for the question, Madam Chair. I have not had those conversations directly with people in the community around energy needs. I can tell you anecdotally that our Inuliqtait Country Food Program, as well as our programs that involve bringing up food from the South, will occasionally have transportation and storage issues that lead to significant spoilage, whether it is a shipment of mattaq or seal that arrives that is thawed out and no longer consumable or a batch of strawberries that is mouldy because they were improperly stored on the way.
So I have had no specific conversations on alternative energy, but we certainly see the effects of the lack of proper transportation infrastructure and storage that give rise to food wastage, which we’re all trying to prevent.
The Chair: Are you aware of anyone having that conversation in your area about energy alternatives?
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: Not off the top of my head. I don’t have names, but I believe one of the infrastructure projects that the Prime Minister has put forward is a hydro dam near Iqaluit.
The Chair: Okay. I wanted to touch on something Ms. Muir said about landfill avoidance. I recall — it seems like a hundred years ago but probably was just last year — a lot of discussion around the avoidance of food waste. One of the benefits was capturing that food and being able to have people eat the food, but the other was talking about the reduction of methane through composting and the waste of the food. I just thought that it’s quite interesting how today we don’t say that so much because the cost of food has gone so crazy that we’re more focused on feeding people, but we do have that other benefit to keep in mind, which is reducing climate change. So I wanted to make that point.
We will now move on to the second round.
Senator McNair: I was saying to Mr. Murdoch-Flowers when we came in that it’s fitting we have somebody from Nunavut here today because CBC was running an article on an Inuit group calling for the overhaul of Nutrition North Canada and the poverty reduction frameworks that are in place. I think we are hearing a common theme from all of you: Increasing people’s incomes leads to the path of food security.
Ms. Muir, you indicated — and this is a common theme we have heard before, too — that Canada has the food; what it doesn’t have is the logistics or the transportation system to distribute it yet.
Do you want to talk a little bit more about that? Leamington seems to be perfectly positioned for that next step.
Ms. Muir: Yes. That’s a really good question. We will work — and Food Banks Canada will help us — to move the food across Canada from coast to coast.
Currently, in Leamington, where we are able to recover the produce, we have people who will come with big transport trucks with food, and we do food swaps. We get the food that we don’t get donated, and they take back a truckload of produce. We have that food swapping going on. If and when we can get this to come to a reality, then Food Banks Canada will be there to support us in moving the produce and soup around the country.
Senator McNair: I was at the Ontario Food Terminal, and I was surprised to learn that trucks go from there to Newfoundland and everywhere in Canada, essentially. I assume that is a model you are building, too.
Ms. Muir: Yes.
Senator Black: I will build on Senator McNair’s questions. Please don’t think I don’t value what you’re doing. I’m a strong supporter. Let’s start with that.
We spent some time at the Ontario Food Terminal, and we heard from Bruce Nicholas, the general manager. He said that, yes, they are sending it to the East and the West, and it’s doable. They have to make it work logistically, but he said that taking it to the North was the most difficult.
They have been doing that for 72 years. The food terminal has been open for 72 years. If you get a pot of money, what assurances do you have in your back pocket, both the Unemployed Help Centre of Windsor Inc. and Food Banks Canada, that you can make it happen, I’ll say, overnight? They have been working at it for 72 years and still find it difficult, in some cases, to get it out there.
Ms. Beardsley: That’s one of the main roles of Food Banks Canada, so we are not starting from scratch. We have the logistics capacity. We do get food from anywhere to anywhere. We do regular shipments into the North and regular shipments from coast to coast right now.
Whenever we get a large-scale food donation, we make sure that moves. The way we can do it is through partnerships. We are very much supported by the corporate sector in Canada. We have truck partnerships, rail partnerships and air cargo partnerships. We work with those sectors to be able to get the food wherever it is needed.
Where we’re really strained right now is less around the transportation of that food and more that it cannot right now be absorbed. As June was saying, we have this abundance of food that we can’t get into a food bank because they were built to respond to just their community needs, rather than systems-level needs. We need infrastructure that allows us to say yes to anything. We shouldn’t have food going into landfills that could go onto someone’s plate. That would come into a regional hub, and Food Banks Canada, with our logistics team that has been at this for years, is then able to move that food where it’s needed, whether that’s up into Nunavut, Labrador or Vancouver Island. That’s part of the work that Food Banks Canada has done for 40 years.
Senator Black: Ms. Muir, any additional comments?
Ms. Muir: No. I am glad that Ms. Beardsley answered that question. As we said earlier, it is not really a logistics problem. There is enough food in Canada. We just need the hub to be able to transform it.
When I talk about the hub that we’re going to build, we’re talking about 40,000 square feet. It will have a frozen line, so the produce will come in and be washed and diced. Soup will be made in the commercial kitchen. Think about 19 million pounds of food. Think about a pound of butter.
We’re going to be able to make soup. We should be able to reduce costs across Canada for student nutrition programs. That was a question asked earlier. We’ll be able to share the soup, the frozen products and the fresh products. We already do help schools in our area.
We have the sustainable food sources, and, working with Food Banks Canada, we think this is a great solution to food insecurity.
Senator Black: Thank you very much.
Senator Muggli: Back to Mr. Murdoch-Flowers, I have one quick question on numbers. If you’re feeding 600 meals a day, what percentage of your community is that?
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: To be slightly more precise on that, we serve 600 portions of food. We allow individuals to take, as a takeout meal, more than one meal, up to four per person.
We are looking at this as 600 meals going out to a community of around 8,000. It is more like 400 or 500 that we’re doing, but, occasionally, we hit over 600. That is anywhere between 8% or 9% of the community.
Senator Muggli: That is still a lot.
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: It is.
Senator Muggli: Getting into the Inuit hunters’ network, I’m curious about what is needed to pursue this in a successful way. I’m curious about slaughter facilities. Are there regulations that are of concern to you? What ideas do you have about that? I’m also curious whether gun laws or any other regulatory issues are of concern in this regard.
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: Our slaughter facilities are on the ice. That’s where the slaughter happens for seals and so on. But on the regulatory issue, Nunavut Inuit benefit from the Nunavut Agreement, which allows Inuit to hunt and to sell. Nunavut is a particular jurisdiction with our own country food access that is already readily available.
Others have spoken about the effect of gun laws, so I won’t revisit those comments. The Nunavut Court of Justice issued an injunction against the long-gun registry, which I believe is still standing, allowing Inuit to have firearms to go hunting.
In terms of the regulatory schemes, it can be extremely complicated around regulating access to country food if it goes beyond Inuit harvesting. If it’s about selling or anything like that, then territorial laws come into it, such as migratory bird laws, the Fisheries Act and so on. It’s a complicated regulatory regime around regulating access to country food.
In the Seeds of Sovereignty report by Right to Food, to which I referred earlier, we do make certain recommendations around reducing the regulatory barriers around Indigenous people, generally, in Canada accessing their own country food.
Senator Muggli: Is there a desire to export some of the country food to other territories or provinces or out of the country?
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: Yes. Since we have opened our Qinnirvik Country Food and Bulk Store in Iqaluit, we constantly get requests from other provinces and other community organizations, such as Tungasuvvingat Inuit here in Ottawa. They have reached out to ask if they can get country food from us. I might bring down some country food and share it with some friends, but commercial, interprovincial or interterritorial trade is not on the table.
Senator Muggli: Or is it? It might be a recommendation in our report. Should it be?
Mr. Murdoch-Flowers: I would certainly love to see that, yes.
Senator Muggli: Thank you.
The Chair: I wanted to take a quick moment because we are almost out of time. My question may be for Ms. Beardsley and/or Ms. Muir. One of you talked about a tax credit for food donations. I am thinking about farmers, packers and processors and how that food might be donated too close to the end of its best-before situation. Are there other countries offering tax credits or some kind of incentive to that part of the food chain from which we can learn? Are there other places we can look at to adopt or learn from their practices?
Ms. Beardsley: There are other countries. I can pull up the list. I don’t have others off the top of my head. We do have four provinces in Canada that offer fresh food tax credits to farmers for their donations.
We have some examples already in existence, and we’ve seen that that has a real incentive for folks to be able to donate. We know there are costs associated with a donation of food from farmers. There are labour costs, transportation and storage costs and what have you. Incentivizing it has had a positive impact in the four provinces where we see that now, which is why we are advocating for a federal fresh food tax credit. Yes, there are jurisdictions that we can collect some information about and share.
The Chair: If you wouldn’t mind putting that together and sending it to us so we could include that in our report, that would be great.
That does conclude the time we have for questions. I do want to take a moment to thank all three of you for being here virtually and in person. It takes a lot of work. We don’t take that lightly. We appreciate your expertise and all the time and effort you put into being here to give valuable testimony. Thank you.
For the second panel today, we have the pleasure of welcoming Dean Orr, farmer and graduate student, and Chris Franc, Chief Executive Officer of 4-H Canada. Thank you very much 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 try to get your attention when you have about one minute left.
We will start with Mr. Orr. The floor is yours.
Dean Orr, Farmer and Graduate Student OAC, as an individual: Hello and good evening, everybody. Thank you for having me. I am very excited to be back in front of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, talking about two of my favourite things, agriculture and land use planning, and how they both impact food security.
My name is Dean Orr. I am a young full-time farmer. My family’s farm is just north of Toronto on the outskirts of the Greater Toronto Area, or GTA, where we grow grains, maple syrup, some poultry and do seed cleaning.
I am also a masters student at the University of Guelph, studying rural planning and development. My thesis is in calculating how much farmland Ontario needs to feed itself and what preserving a minimum amount of farmland might look like in planning practice.
Land use planning has been a passion of mine for years as I have seen my peri-urban farm community dissolve before my eyes to be replaced by inefficient and expensive sprawl.
Food security is relevant when a parent has to wonder where their next meal is coming from. It is also relevant on a much broader scale. Can our province feed itself? Can our nation feed itself? Does that answer change with our ability to trade with other countries?
Land use planning is the basis for food security. If we don’t have our agricultural resources, we can’t grow food. It is as simple as that.
Ontario has been losing agricultural land at an astounding rate, much of it due to poor land use planning. Since 1941, we have lost 50% of our agricultural land, or 11.5 million acres.
The latest Census of Agriculture states that Ontario has lost 319 acres per day, just under 1% of our agricultural land per year over the last five years.
Ontario’s farmland is the crown jewel of Canada’s agricultural resources, with a higher soil class, a longer growing season and some of the best and most consistent rainfall and weather, making it an irreplaceable national resource. Over 50% of Canada’s Class 1 soils are located in Ontario.
In provincial planning policy in Ontario, there exist requirements to plan for certain things to keep pace with the forecasted population. Housing, municipal water and sewer infrastructure and employment are some examples.
Missing from this list is agriculture. There are no requirements for maintaining a minimum amount of agricultural land to guarantee food supply for any given population. Nowhere in Canada does this exist, in fact.
As other development needs are demonstrated, planners have a legal duty to override protections put on agricultural lands because there is no backstop and no minimum requirement for farmland.
These decisions, made over and over, have cut deep into our agricultural resources. People assuming that we have more than enough agricultural land is something I have heard many times. Wondering whether that was actually true has inspired my research at the university.
Early stages indicate that we do not, in fact, have an abundance of agricultural land. Depending on the diet scenario, Ontario may be short up to 30 million acres of enough agricultural land to feed itself.
If we zoom out to a national scale, Canada may only have just enough agricultural land to feed itself.
Our research is ongoing, and I will be happy to send along drafts of the manuscript as we near completion in the fall. It begs the question: How do we do a better job of protecting our farmland? No-go areas for development, where development is expressly forbidden on our farmland, will be necessary. Provinces will have to be responsible for this, however. The federal government will have to respond differently, not having jurisdiction over land use planning.
Here are six suggestions to help curb farmland loss from a federal level.
First, the easiest, cheapest and most effective solution is for the federal government to require provinces to report on how much farmland they have, how much they are gaining and losing and what the methods of loss are and require that they calculate how much land they need to feed their populations. Now, I’m no constitutional expert, but this should stay within the division of powers while providing the provinces and the public with the critical information they need to better manage their resources.
Second, the federal government could provide a funding stream to non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, whose sole aim is to protect farmland, such as the Ontario Farmland Trust.
Third, continue to influence land use planning decisions that impact agricultural land by providing funding for what we do want to see. Examples include providing federal dollars for building housing only within urban boundaries, only building “missing middle density” housing or locating housing or industry in Canadian Shield cities incapable of agriculture.
Fourth, examine the role of agriculture in the division of powers and what additional powers may be used to protect agricultural lands.
Fifth, involve multiple levels of government to coordinate the protection of farmland. Recent research out of the University of Guelph has shown that higher levels of municipal government are able to better provide the resources and coordination to better support agriculture and protect farmland.
Sixth, the Senate could specifically study farmland loss in Canada and what can be done to decrease or eliminate it.
Agriculture is an end use for the land — it is not development-in-waiting — and needs to be protected as such to maintain national food security. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Orr. You are getting a round of applause from this end of the table for that, especially the sixth one. Thank you.
Next we have Ms. Franc. The floor is yours.
Chris Franc, Chief Executive Officer, 4-H Canada: Honourable senators, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. My name is Chris Franc, and I am the CEO of 4-H Canada, a national youth development organization that has been building leadership, life skills and agricultural knowledge in young Canadians for more than 100 years.
At 4-H, we work with thousands of youth across Canada, many of whom are deeply engaged in agriculture, food production and community leadership. From that vantage point, we see food security not only as a policy challenge but as a generational opportunity.
Through your study, you’ve heard clearly that food security in Canada is complex. It is about access, affordability, resilience, production capacity and trust in our food system, as noted by many. It is an interconnected network that is only as strong as its weakest link and relies heavily on the entire Canadian community.
From our perspective, there is one additional link that connects all of these priorities: people. More specifically, young people.
When talking about the future of food security in Canada, we must also talk about who will grow the food, build the systems, design innovative solutions and maintain public trust. That future workforce and future leadership are in our youth today.
At 4-H, we see first-hand that when young people are engaged in agriculture and food systems, they develop practical skills, build confidence and leadership, and they strengthen their connection to community and country. But, more importantly, they become active contributors to, rather than passive recipients of, food security.
Therefore, I respectfully offer three recommendations. First, embed community engagement and food and agriculture education within Canada’s food security strategy. Many of the most effective food security solutions are community led. Organizations like 4-H are well positioned to deliver experiential, community-based learning. For example, in partnership with Syngenta, we have the AgriFood Challenge, a Canada-wide initiative challenging 4-H members to take action in support of sustainable agriculture and food security in their communities. Several winning clubs this year grew and harvested fruits and vegetables in community gardens and then donated them to local food banks.
But they also educated their community on how to preserve food at home, engaged other community organizations and worked on ways to improve output and be more efficient. One club in P.E.I. — shout-out to the Kensington 4-H Club — worked with a local farmer to reduce food waste by collecting leftover potatoes after digging and harvesting had finished and then brought those leftovers to the local food bank.
It’s both living our motto, “Learn To Do By Doing,” while also embedding community values that they will carry with them for a lifetime. In fact, 4-H youth are almost four times more likely to feel strong in civic engagement and volunteerism.
We would encourage the federal government to ensure that youth are not only included but empowered as leaders in these initiatives.
Our second recommendation is to invest in youth pathways into agriculture and agri-food careers. Canada’s long-term food security depends on a skilled and innovative workforce, which is in crisis right now, and there are three subsets to this crisis: skills, people and leadership. That is why it is critical to invest in youth training and mentorship, exposure to diverse careers across the agri-food value chain and opportunities to lead and innovate.
4-H youth are 3 times more likely to feel capable in craftsmanship, 3.6 times more likely in mechanical aptitude, 2 times more likely in leadership and 2.6 times more likely in overall career readiness, and the list goes on.
Improving food security is not a short-term strategy. It is critical to plant the seeds now to reap the rewards for generations to come.
Our final recommendation is to recognize youth organizations as partners in building public trust. 4-H Canada and similar organizations play a unique role as trusted, non-partisan, community-based platforms for learning and dialogue. Young people can be powerful ambassadors, helping to reduce misinformation, increase transparency and build stronger connections between consumers and producers. Our programs teach youth to be courageous, capable and confident in speaking publicly, the foundational cornerstone of a great ambassador.
In closing, I would emphasize that food security is not something we will achieve through infrastructure, policy or programming alone. It is something we build through people, knowledge and community capacity over time. If we invest in young people today through education, leadership and opportunity, we are both supporting the next generation of farmers and food leaders and strengthening the resilience, sustainability and confidence of Canada’s entire food system.
If I could leave you with one action, it would be this: intentionally integrate youth into Canada’s food security strategy as active contributors, not just as future participants. Relatively small investments in programs like 4-H make a big difference. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Franc. I appreciate the comment about the Kensington 4-H Club. They had a pretty catchy title for that: Potato Gleaning with Meaning. Awesome. Thank you for that. And a shout-out to the MacMurdo family for letting those folks put their hands on those potatoes.
That is great. Thank you so much for your opening remarks. We will now proceed to questions. Senators will each have five minutes in the first round in which to ask and have their questions answered. We will start with Senator McNair, the deputy chair.
Senator McNair: Ms. Franc, I have to ask: How cool is it to be the CEO of 4-H Canada?
Ms. Franc: A dream come true, honest-to-God.
Senator McNair: Pinching yourself each day, I’m sure. You do great work.
In May of this year, in testimony before this committee, Lindsay Steele, an agriculturalist and farm owner at Hustle Farms in Nova Scotia stated:
The other thing that can really go a long way to keeping farms going is national programs for young farmers, whether it is through Farm Credit Canada or another program that allows them to buy into these farms and that reduces interest rates or has tax benefits so that they can afford to buy.
Not all farmers can retire and basically hand their farms over to their kids. There needs to be some type of ability for those people to continue on, and that is an issue that a lot of farmers face.
I want to know if you both agree with that statement. To maintain farmland as farmland for as long as possible, how should it be zoned to enhance food security and the economic viability of farmers? In the absence of a succession plan, how should the federal government reduce interest rates or offer tax benefits to entrants or non-family farmers who wish to participate or purchase farmland instead of selling it off to a developer?
Mr. Orr: I’m sorry. Could you repeat the question?
Senator McNair: I am curious as to what you suggest as far as how the land should be zoned to enhance food security and protect farmland. In the absence of a succession plan, should the federal government have options such as reducing interest rates or tax benefits to entrants or non-family members who wish to purchase? It is about keeping farmland in production, correct?
Mr. Orr: Yes. Anything the federal government can do to make it cheaper for new entrants would be a fantastic thing. I know, as a young farmer myself, it’s expensive. Farming is very expensive to get into. Land, especially in Ontario, is very expensive. Equipment is expensive. Anything to help lower the costs for young farmers, specifically, to help them get in would be helpful.
Senator McNair: There are two panel members here who can talk about how much the cost is per acre in each province to keep it in production.
Ms. Franc, is there anything you want to add on that generally?
Ms. Franc: I echo the sentiment, anything to reduce the barriers. The notion of interest and tax benefits is helpful. There are a lot of capital costs associated with taking over a farm and catching up and upgrading a farm. Grants and programs of funding would be the dream, honestly, for a lot of young farmers that we see.
Senator McNair: I don’t want to take the time to deal with it today, but if you could send us any more information on the AgriFood Challenge, I would be interested in receiving that.
Ms. Franc: I would be happy to.
Senator McNair: I appreciate the work that you’re both doing, respectively, in this field. I encourage you to continue to do so.
As you said, Ms. Franc, the question is: Who will grow the food that will feed us? It is the next generation. I appreciate the work you are both doing.
Mr. Orr: I could add that anything to help keep the price of farmland down is helpful. When it comes to land use planning type decisions, things like having a greenbelt in place help keep the price of farmland down and more affordable for farmers.
On the one hand, if you’re retiring, you want to get as much money as possible for your farm, but that doesn’t help the next generation get into farming. We need better things around making sure that farmland stays farmland and doesn’t end up as development land or speculation-land-in-waiting to help keep those costs down and the barrier to entry lower.
Senator McNair: We’ve all been in communities where we’ve seen farmland. I grew up in Fredericton, New Brunswick. There was a dairy farm in the centre of town. It is no longer there. It is gone, and houses have replaced good farmland. We are trying to avoid those opportunities.
Senator Black: Mr. Orr, I often ask this question at the end, but I will ask it at the outset so we don’t end on a sour note. I have this fear, which keeps me up at night, that there will come a time in Ontario where we don’t have enough land to grow the food that we need for our province, let alone the country of Canada or the world, and we are expected to feed the world.
My first question is: Do you foresee this? I get the sense that maybe you do, but you could speak to that. What would you say to that?
Mr. Orr: It is a scary thought. When I started looking into it with my research, I was shocked that no one had explored that before. When we first started diving into our literature review, we were looking at other studies from elsewhere in the world that looked, generally speaking, at country-level, rather than province-level, per capita farmland requirements.
A typical American or Canadian diet might need about 2 to 2.5 acres per person per year to feed themselves. Ontario has a population of about 16 million right now, and we have 11 million acres of farmland, with probably 1 million acres on top of that that is ready to be developed and just hasn’t been yet. So we’re looking at about 10 million acres, and we need about 32 to 40 million acres of land to feed Ontario.
We know that Ontario is a net food importer right now, so I think that we’ve just been hiding it well and that we potentially don’t have enough farmland to feed ourselves.
Senator Black: Thank you. Together, we have brought the group down tonight.
Mr. Orr: Yes. It’s really uplifting, isn’t it?
Senator Black: Ms. Franc, as you well know, 4-H holds an important place in my heart. I am always impressed with the young people whom I meet who are passionately involved in the program.
I know that you had 100 young people here just a few weeks ago in Ottawa, in the Senate Chamber, for part of a day. One of the programs was a Speak Up event. Could you share with this group what that was about? If you know anything about the one-issue group that I spent some time with, you could touch on that, too. Thank you.
Ms. Franc: Of course. You are right. We had 100 youth from across Canada come. The Speak Up event was engaging with different stakeholders involved in the agriculture and agri-food sector, as well as those who engage with youth. We asked them to pose a question to our youth. Those youths then broke into groups to prepare a response, and then they presented them directly to the stakeholders involved.
For example, they presented to you, Senator Black, about food security. I have not yet heard, actually, what they shared with you, and I’ve been meaning to pick your brain about that. I would love to hear that. I do know it was a great opportunity for youth to be actively involved in the process and to share their feedback. The feedback from both sides and that collaborative dialogue have been really wonderful. It was a huge success.
Senator Black: I expect, maybe, floating around your office or somebody’s office, you will have the PowerPoint for that group. If not, maybe you could get it. If you could share it with us as part of your testimony, just as part of the input, that would be great.
Ms. Franc: Of course.
Senator Muggli: Mr. Orr, it is so ironic that we don’t have land to feed ourselves, but I’m from the land of wheat, canola, peas and lentils, and we export it all. My question ties into that.
Do you have any thoughts about value-added food production and what we should be doing in that regard?
Mr. Orr: Certainly, there is a lot of opportunity for Canada to look at value-added food. I know I mentioned previously that Ontario is a net food importer. We import about $13 million more than we export. Some of that is food that we export to the United States at a lower cost and then import back at a higher cost.
Pork is an excellent example of that. Hundreds of trucks roll over the border every day with pork in them to be processed in the United States and come back as more expensive cuts. That’s part of the reason we are spending so much money on importing food. There are a lot of opportunities to be had in growing our processing capacity at home to help that, not only to feed ourselves and to keep money within Canada, as opposed to exporting it, but to add that export value before it leaves is also helpful for Canadian farmers and producers.
Senator Muggli: Do you have any ideas as to what kinds of incentives are needed to encourage people to grow that industry?
Mr. Orr: That’s a great question. I know money is an easy one to say. Even big industries are looking for money to help put up plants and stuff like that.
It’s a little bit harder to give money out to more small- and medium-sized producers, but there is definitely a huge need, especially in Ontario, for small- and medium-sized processors, not just big pork processing stations but smaller chicken and beef processing stations.
So if there was some way for the federal government to help encourage the building and upkeep of those modern plants — I think a lot of the older processing plants have closed because of increased health standards, as well as increased inspections on meat plants. Anything to help the smaller processor get through that is helpful.
Senator Muggli: Thank you. And thank you for explaining the calculation of how many acres it takes to feed people. That was going to be one of my questions. I was curious.
A very quick question to Ms. Franc. How many 4-H participants go on to produce food as a career?
Ms. Franc: About 80-plus per cent of our 4-H members are involved in agriculture in some way. Whether it’s producing food or being part of food processing, they are involved one way or another.
Senator Muggli: Thank you.
Senator Burey: Welcome, young people. Thank you for coming to our committee. We need you.
Mr. Dean Orr, I think we met before when you came to our study. When we had our land use inquiry, I did speak about the very compelling information that you shared with us. I’m very pleased to hear that you’re doing your master’s thesis. Congratulations on that excellent work.
I wanted to inquire a little bit more about some of your recommendations that involved the federal government because you were right on point about the jurisdictional issues.
My first question is on the reporting of how much land we have to feed ourselves. Could you comment if there is any reporting done now?
Mr. Orr: In short, there is not. The Province of Ontario, anyway, does not keep track of how much farmland it has, how much farmland it is losing, what it’s being lost to or how much we need to feed ourselves.
When we’re talking specifically about farmland loss, most of that comes from the Census of Agriculture, which happens every five years. That data is good; it is the best data we have. It’s good in the sense that it is ground truthing — it is farmers filling this out and telling us how many acres they are operating — but it is not perfect data.
It doesn’t differentiate between a farmer having decreased acreage because of loss to development or a farmer having decreased acreage because of rewilding efforts or naturalizing efforts, or perhaps they just have less farmland than they thought after using better GPS to map their fields.
By having the provinces be responsible for reporting on this, I think it would add that additional layer of data we’re desperately missing right now, and having them consistently report on it would add a lot to their land use planning decisions.
Senator Burey: Thank you.
Ms. Franc, I’m very excited to hear about your 80% “conversion rate”; I’m going to use those words. I’m a pediatrician in one of my lives. You had a recommendation about education and engaging the community. Can you speak more about that, specifically the AgriFood Challenge? I’m speaking for younger kids, like those in elementary and high school. Can you tell us if there are any such programs and expand on them?
Ms. Franc: Sure. With what we do at 4-H and the “Learn To Do By Doing” concept, we have clubs where they get that hands-on experience. They can choose to participate in the cattle club. There are vet clubs and vet clinics as well out west that happen, where you can learn how to take care of animals and those sorts of things, and then there is broader public speaking training.
The foundation of the 4-H program is positive youth development. Giving them responsible, caring leaders to learn in a safe environment is the foundation of a lot of what we do. The clubs are very grassroots.
Recently, nationally, we are looking at the full journey of our members to make sure we are supporting that talent pipeline to career paths in agriculture, from their experience of walking a calf or doing exhibits, whatever it may be, up until the senior high school years when they’ve done those projects. Now what other skills can we give them and teach them to get career ready, such as public speaking? Through Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada funding, we’re looking at a senior youth engagement strategy towards a career path, and we are already doing that through our Members Forum and our Citizenship Congress. So we are looking at making it more cohesive.
Senator Burey: Digging a little bit deeper into looking at newcomers, how are you trying to engage? As we know, young farmers are more diverse. How are you engaging that population?
Ms. Franc: We are just starting to look into that. I think it’s a really exciting opportunity. To your point, there is a lot more diversity in our population, and there is a lot to learn. What we’re going to look at are the best ways to engage culturally with them and to bring them into the fold: learn to do by doing, but share your experiences as well.
So we’re very much at the early stages of looking at those sorts of elements, and I’m really excited for that opportunity.
[Translation]
Senator Oudar: Welcome to both of you, and congratulations to each of you for what you do in your respective fields.
I’m replacing Senator Hébert. In preparing for today’s meeting, I reviewed the thirteenth report of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, Critical Ground: Why Soil is Essential to Canada’s Economic, Environmental, Human, and Social Health. Congratulations. The committee did a great job. There is a government response, which I take to be fairly positive. The response endorses and supports several of the recommendations, including soil composition as a strategic national asset, as well as the creation of a national soils institute and a database to share knowledge with provinces, territories, Indigenous governments and universities.
I wanted to hear your thoughts on that. Right now, I understand that the Canadian Soil Information Service is not doing that work. It may catalogue the lands, but it doesn’t do the work you’re telling us about today, which has more to do with governance. It’s a bit different. I wanted to hear your thoughts on the proposal for a national soil institute. I saw there was also a national soil advocate or something like that. We could start with you, Mr. Orr.
[English]
Mr. Orr: Soil is important. Soil is life. Water is life. Without being able to recognize our soil and agricultural resources, it is very tough to know how to properly plan a society.
A lot of the soil data that we have needs updating at this point. For example, the Soil Capability for Agriculture mapping is sometimes 70 years old, depending on when it was taken; that needs to be updated, for sure. It was done at a very broad scale, and the resolution could be improved on the mapping for that. Canada doesn’t have a lot of agricultural soil. I’m sure you have all heard this before. At most, about 7% of our land mass is arable; probably about 3% to 4% is suitable for continuous crop production. We don’t have very much of it, and we need to know absolutely as much as we can about it so that we know how to protect it as best we can.
[Translation]
Senator Oudar: Does 4-H have anything to add to that?
Ms. Franc: Thank you for the question.
[English]
I can speak more at a macro level. Education, resources and data are always important, and that will help our youth succeed. So looking at an institute and some sort of protection to share knowledge and information to help us make informed decisions, to help farmers make informed decisions and to be more efficient is always a win. I wholeheartedly support these recommendations.
[Translation]
Senator Oudar: You were on the same committee as I was this week when we heard from the Minister of Finance. He had a big wish list, not only in terms of food sovereignty but also for Canada to stand out on a global scale in terms of agriculture and ensure that it would be the breadbasket of Europe and other countries.
Listening to you this evening, I see that there are concerns. Do you think Canada’s objective of turning to exports to Europe is viable?
[English]
Mr. Orr: Yes, it is viable. Certain provinces might be short on agricultural land. Canada as a whole does still have a little bit of a surplus, from what we’ve been able to see, which is good news. It allows us that flexibility to be able to feed ourselves while continuing exports, especially from the Prairie regions, which certainly have a surplus of agricultural land to feed their populations.
We can look at other countries, like Holland, which are operating on a much, much smaller footprint than we are, and they are an absolute powerhouse of exporting agricultural products. A lot of that comes from very intensive greenhouse agriculture, which is certainly something we can improve upon in Ontario and the rest of Canada, not only to reduce our reliance on imported produce from the United States, for example, a lot of which comes from California, but to grow more efficiently and more intensely on the limited acres that we have to help take advantage of that export market.
[Translation]
Senator Oudar: What about you, Ms. Franc, for 4-H?
[English]
Ms. Franc: From the 4-H perspective, there is an exciting opportunity. It’s exciting for young farmers to think about exports and how we can maximize the opportunities. It is about having the foundational supports, the tools and efficiencies, as Mr. Orr spoke about, in-house and at home so that we can be successful at home and globally.
The Chair: I had a question. Here we are speaking with Dean Orr of 2026, but what if we could sit next to you, Dean Orr, in maybe 2066? I’m just trying to frame the question in your mind because you alluded to it when you talked about new entrants versus those exiting and people needing to fund their retirement and looking at that asset. As we say in agriculture, you only get to sell land once.
Should farmers have to bear the brunt of giving up that value in order to finance a succession of agricultural land protection?
Mr. Orr: That is a fantastic question. I know that was a point of contention when the Greenbelt Plan was actually first put in place in Ontario in 2005. You could have a farmer on one side of the road maintain the development potential of their land. For the farmers on the other side of the road located within the greenbelt, their land price effectively dropped by half or a quarter overnight.
It was a point of contention for farmers at the time, and rightfully so. Even if it’s not a realized value at the time, it is a huge potential loss to future income.
Offsetting farmland protections through federal grants or programming would be nice and a good gesture toward the farming community. I think it’s something that urban places should be doing as they grow. They should be paying for the protection of future farmland as it happens.
An example of this might be that if a developer is looking at developing something along an urban boundary, they might have to pay a farmer to put a conservation easement on their land further out and then cover the lost cost of potential farmland prices. It is kind of a win-win. There are examples of that, maybe not specifically in farmland. I’m essentially thinking of transfer of development rights. It would be having people who want to develop pay for the protection of farmland.
The Chair: Where I come from, we talk about how it is easier to pull than push rope. I look at this challenge we have of this rising cost and value of farmland. Depending on if you’re buying or selling, it is a cost or a value. I wonder if giving thought to farm profitability is something that you’ve looked at instead of looking to artificially impact the value of land with grants and subsidies. If instead we got to the root cause and looked at farm profitability and made it such that farming is financially lucrative, you could pencil out the cost of the land. Have you given that consideration?
Mr. Orr: Farmers are price-takers, right?
The Chair: We are price-takers, and I might say that I am thinking more about the regulatory burden and tools in the tool box when we look at how competitive we can be and how we can maximize our yields and quality and look at the Competition Act and the Grocery Code of Conduct and all of the things that contribute to predictability and profitability. We look at business risk management and the Sustainable Canadian Agricultural Partnership, or S-CAP, and things like that. Unfortunately, we don’t live in a world where there is a silver bullet for anything anymore, so it is a whole mishmash of potential solutions.
Mr. Orr: The more profitable farmers are the less chance there is that, when it comes time to retirement, they are going to try and shoot for the top dollar figure for their land, and they may look to pass it off or sell the land for less money to someone who wants to keep farming it. They may look at putting a conservation easement on it before they sell their land, which would help protect that land permanently for agricultural production.
As a farmer, you have to fund your retirement.
The Chair: And you have to absorb some of the cost of financing and ensure that land continues to be a performing asset in food production. Thank you for your answer.
Senator Black: Senator Oudar asked the question I was going to ask Mr. Orr about soil health and food security. You answered that for the most part.
Ms. Franc, on my desk in the Senate Chamber, most days, I have the 4-H pledge out. When I looked at that today in preparation for this evening, I wondered if maybe we could recite it together, and then you could tell us how it relates to the food security study we are undertaking.
I pledge my head to clearer thinking, my heart to greater loyalty —
Ms. Franc: — my hands to larger service, and my health to better living, for my club, my community, my country and my world.
Senator Black: How does that tie into our study of food security?
Ms. Franc: As an aside, I studied that when I interviewed for this position. I’m three months in. I made sure I knew the pledge because it is foundational to what we do.
It absolutely puts everything together. We are creating young leaders who are well rounded and skilled to support our community for the next generation and to create community leaders. I truly believe we are a network and an ecosystem of people and that we are only going to succeed if we support each other.
In food security, it is the exact same thing. We need to support each other. We need to work together and help where we can. This is exactly what the pledge talks about. We are here to support our community with larger service and in living better. And we’re not just doing it for ourselves; we’re doing it for our neighbours, families and friends across the board.
Senator Black: Thank you.
The Chair: I wanted to talk a bit about artificial intelligence, or AI, integration in agriculture. When we look at food security, I know I have first-hand experience with what it means to replicate trials and to collect data points. AI now allows us to process and capture in one year data that would have taken an entire career before.
This is perhaps more for you, Ms. Franc, since you work with youth through 4-H and, as Senator Burey said, convince people to pursue jobs in agriculture. I assume many of your people have a background in agriculture, but I would be interested to know what that stat is when we look at young people in agriculture and how we attract them to the field. Do people who come to you have exposure to agriculture, or is it 100% conversion? What are you seeing in what the youth are studying, such as veterinary medicine, food science, plant science and fertility, both animal and crop? Can you speak a little bit about how AI might be helping attract people to agriculture?
Ms. Franc: I think AI complements agriculture in so many exciting ways. It speaks to efficiency and doing things faster and smarter.
I was at a youth development forum yesterday. It doesn’t replace what we’re now calling “human skills,” like critical thinking, problem solving and teamwork, but it helps us focus more on critical thinking and teamwork so that the data can be taken care of so much more efficiently. Then we can make smarter decisions faster. It is a really exciting opportunity that our youth are looking at to complement what they are doing in agriculture, in short.
The Chair: Do you know roughly how many of the people currently enrolled in a 4-H program come from a farm family and how many don’t?
Ms. Franc: I don’t have that stat, but I know a lot come from farm families and rural communities, though.
The Chair: Mr. Orr, could you touch on the AI question?
Mr. Orr: On our farm, we have more data than we know what to do with. We now have technology in the tractors and the combines that allows us to collect information on the seeding rate and the inputs used in the planter. Then when we go to harvest, it tracks yield as well, so you can correlate all of that. It is hard to go through that information at the end of the year, so having some kind of technology available to make decisions easier is fantastic.
On the other hand, I am worried that AI is going to take research jobs and other farming jobs away. Fewer farmers and fewer farm technicians, which we’ve experienced with the change in technology over the last hundred years, in my mind, is not necessarily a good thing. We want more people in agriculture, so finding a careful balance that can be struck between having AI fill gaps to help agriculture but not reducing employment or other inputs is important to keep in mind.
The Chair: I have to train my brain when I think about this because AI and robots are different things.
When we look at technology in general, we talk about using it to eliminate the “three d’s” within jobs: the dirty, the dull and the dangerous. I consider how my grandfather farmed, how my father farmed and how my generation farms today, and we see those advances. I’m so happy we don’t have to sit in an open-cab tractor or use a horse and plow and that we are seeing an evolution. I appreciate your comments. We have to be mindful of that and make sure we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, so to speak.
That concludes our questions. I want to thank you both for being here. Ms. Franc, it was wonderful to see you virtually. Maybe next time we’ll get you in person. Good luck with the new job. We have a former CEO of 4-H on the panel, so he’s keeping an eye on you, as I’m sure you know. Mr. Orr, thank you for coming. I appreciate all of the time and effort that you put into your presentations and answering our questions.
(The committee adjourned.)