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Jun/16/22 7:32:32 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, or the FAO, said that the current global food shortage and the current risk of famine have two root causes: the war in Ukraine and climate change. We have a collective duty, here in the House as well, to go green as quickly as possible in order to limit upheaval and ensure greater stability over the seasons so that there are fewer crop failures due to drought, as we saw last summer. This is urgent and it is very important. Clearly, this must all take place in an orderly manner with a predictable transition. That is what the government and we, the legislators, must propose and implement. With respect to the war in Ukraine, yes, there are energy concerns. We are seeing the repercussions in Europe. In the very near term, Canada obviously cannot magically create pipelines or infrastructure to export its natural gas or oil. That would take 10 years. The Bloc Québécois believes that the next 10 years would be better spent going green. The planet needs it, and we have an increasing number of examples at present.

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Mr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP)

Jun/16/22 7:34:01 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, one of the challenges dealing with fertilizer is along the Great Lakes where we actually have over-fertilization that has affected the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Great Lakes with algal blooms. There is a lack of planning and supports to protect our fresh drinking water supplies and the effect on fish habitat. That is going to create continued complications for sustainability for those types of areas. What are his comments on the need for us to invest much more in the Great Lakes? The United States is putting over half a billion dollars into the Great Lakes. We finally are making our commitment to the Great Lakes Fishery Commission equal, but we are still lagging behind. I would like to hear from him on that.

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie

Jun/16/22 7:34:53 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for his question. Obviously, more needs to be done to protect our ecosystems. That includes the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway, which provide drinking water to many communities in both Ontario and Quebec. More needs to be done. Do we need to do a better job of protecting riparian buffers? We need to consult and listen to the experts. With respect to fertilizers, we must continue to ramp up research to improve production and quality with the resources we have, while minimizing the negative environmental impacts. In the short term, however, our farmers are concerned about fertilizers. They ordered and paid for fertilizers from Russia before the war in Ukraine started. Since the war broke out, the Canadian government has imposed a 35% surtax that will penalize them, without penalizing Russia one bit, since it was already paid for and they were only waiting for delivery. We have been asking the government to find a solution for our farmers. However, the government seems to be too preoccupied with other things, like passports or airports. There is no shortage of issues, but this is an important one and it should be dealt with quickly.

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Mr. Richard Lehoux (Beauce, CPC)

Jun/16/22 7:36:25 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague for his speech and his concern for the agricultural sector. What does he think would be the best way to support our Canadian agriculture in order to sustain ourselves, but also to go a bit further in our international assistance?

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie

Jun/16/22 7:36:53 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I thank my colleague from Beauce and I commend him for all his work and the positive contribution he makes to the House. There are many things that can be done. When I tour my riding and I meet with our farmers, I am always very touched. In the agricultural sector, the women and men who put food on our tables are not, in my opinion, given enough credit by the public, by the entire population and by elected members. The first thing to do would be to recognize the essential role they play for all of us here. If we compare the support the government provides to agriculture, Canada does half as much as the United States and three to four times less than Europe, according to the numbers from my critic colleague. If Canada is able to produce a lot with less support, then that is great, but let us never forget that agriculture is a strategic industry since it meets a basic need: feeding the population. The sector needs recognition, which could take many forms, including real crop insurance. The labour shortage is another issue. I was on the phone again today with the Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship's team, talking about temporary foreign workers. Then there is the tax on Russian fertilizer that was purchased and paid for before the war started in Ukraine. We have a lot to do. I believe that society as a whole needs to be more involved to better support our farmers, who experience a lot of stress because they are isolated and drowning in work. There is nothing more important to society than the work they do, the critical work of feeding people.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

Jun/16/22 7:38:46 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, this crisis is incredible, and its effects will be lasting. I cannot help but think of the old saying, give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime. Millions of dollars in food aid is like giving people a fish, not like teaching them to fish. I would like my colleague to comment on how knowledge, local knowledge, especially in African countries, is essential to helping people develop a local, responsible, sustainable agricultural economy.

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie

Jun/16/22 7:39:38 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, that is a very good question. In the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s, international institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, recommended that developing countries that were struggling—the ones with subsistence agriculture that were struggling to feed their people—specialize in growing cotton, for example. They were telling these countries that they would be able to export it, generate revenue and then import their food. At the same time, the rich countries that properly support their agricultural industries set up aid programs for these countries. When the harvest was good, the rich countries helped them by giving them their surplus crops or selling those crops to them at a low cost. All of this led to the collapse of local agriculture in developing countries, because they were obviously not able to compete with the rich countries' donations in good years. International institutions encouraged countries to move away from this sector and specialize in export sectors. As a result, these countries have had their subsistence agriculture dismantled. When the harvest was bad, they did not receive any aid from rich countries. The International Monetary Fund and the World Bank told everyone to grow cotton, so many countries grew cotton. Large corporations were the ones leading it, and the price of cotton collapsed. The do-gooders in rich countries and international institutions thought they were fighting poverty, but they actually made it worse. Who are we to tell those countries what to do? They knew how to go about it. In order to receive international aid, they had to listen to the rich countries, and this made the situation worse. We have to think about that.

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Ms. Heather McPherson (Edmonton Strathcona, NDP)

Jun/16/22 7:41:35 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I have to say I am absolutely delighted that we are having this debate today and that we have the opportunity to speak about this issue. I firmly believe that the food security crisis that is facing the global community is one of the most pressing issues affecting the world right now. I am going to speak about the impacts of Ukraine on this issue, but I want to start by saying that where we find ourselves today is not just a result of what has happened in Ukraine. In fact, before the war in Ukraine and before February 24, there was a food security crisis on the planet. Before COVID, food insecurity was increasing significantly. During COVID, those numbers jumped massively, to the point where we had hundreds of millions of people around the world who were food-insecure. Then, the war in Ukraine happened. Two weeks ago, Russia destroyed a major grain warehouse in the city of Mykolaiv, Ukraine. The terminal plays a crucial role in getting grain out of Ukraine into the global market. Many people in North Africa and many people across the Middle East, which some people will describe as the “ring of fire”, are very dependent on the grain that comes from Russia and Ukraine. That major grain export warehouse was the hub for moving those grains around, so the conflict in Ukraine is making what was a very dire situation around the world in terms of food security much worse. I have heard in the House tonight some talk about how we need to make sure that we give people the tools to produce their own food. I absolutely agree with that, but this is not an issue of giving people tools so they can access their own food. This is the fact that we have an emergency and crisis where there is no food going into these regions. People are urgently at risk of starving to death. This is the reality we are in. The reality is not that we should figure out how to get fertilizer to Canada. That is a different issue. This is not a reality of “we should figure out how to make sure that our development dollars are more effective”. That is a different issue. What we are dealing with right now is an urgent food crisis where people around the world, in Afghanistan, Lebanon and North Africa, are going to die because they do not have enough food. It is a different conversation that we need to be having in this place right now. I understand the desire to talk about a whole bunch of different things, like the price of oil and gas or the issues that farmers in western Canada are facing. I come from western Canada, and I understand that, but this debate needs to be on the lives of the millions of food-insecure people around the world who will die if the global community does not step up and deal with this. I want to talk about the implications of that a little. What we are seeing with Vladimir Putin is a madman who has no interest in caring for people around the world. He knows exactly what he is doing when he stops food and crops from leaving Ukraine. He is causing and sowing mayhem in other countries. Members know what happens when there is not enough food: There is conflict. That happens. People go to war if they cannot feed themselves and if they cannot feed their families. What a perfect way for Vladimir Putin to make the west blink: to make the west divert its attention from Ukraine by having conflict in North Africa, Afghanistan and the Middle East. It is a perfect plan if western countries and the globe do not come together and respond appropriately. I have to tell members that we have some very clear solutions. We have heard from experts. I will quote until the end of time one of my very favourite people in the entire world, Mr. David Beasley, who is from the World Food Programme and who incidentally has asked time and again to have food security commitments from this country be indexed to the price of food. That is a very clear ask from the World Food Programme. I hope people in this place are listening when I say that this is something the community has asked for. It is something that specialists and Nobel Prize-winning organizations have asked for. I also want to mention some of the other things we can do. I think it would be irresponsible to come to this and talk about the people who are starving around the world and not provide those solutions, those options, of what Canada can and should do, because there are options here. The next G7 meeting will be happening in Germany in a few weeks' time. The NATO summit is in Madrid, and will take place at the end of June. The Government of Canada can ensure that the global food crisis is on the agenda at those meetings and Parliament can ensure that this happens. We can make sure there is pressure we are putting on our government. We can ensure that famine prevention and response are a core part of the 2022 G7 agenda and at other global forums such as the G20, as well as in the discussions ongoing with the World Bank and the IMF. We can make sure that food security is on those agendas. Canada right now should be pledging $600 million toward food security around the world. That is the ask, and this urgent pledge needs to happen and be announced very quickly. That $600 million needs to be spent fast. It needs not just to be promised. I do not want a minister to stand up and promise these dollars and not deliver them for weeks at a time. This needs to happen very quickly. This is an urgent need. This money cannot come from other pots. It cannot be money that was devoted to women and girls or to humanitarian aid in Ukraine. It has to be money that is used for food security. I will say as well that Canada needs to up its game on food security in the long run. I have mentioned in this place before that we give $250 million a year. We are not providing our fair share of food security money to the global community. We need to up that to at least $400 million a year, and it needs to be an annual commitment. It needs to be something Canada stands for. If we are a country that believes in human rights, that believes in women's rights and that has a feminist foreign policy, that is something Canada can do and needs to do right now. I will tie this very quickly to our responses with respect to Ukraine. We have heard from members of the government and the opposition that there needs to be more commitment to defence spending with NATO. The call has been to ask for 2% of spending for NATO. Do members know what we spend on humanitarian aid in this country? It is 0.3%. What we are saying is that as a country that believes in human rights, in multilateralism and in global solutions to global problems, we are prepared to spend 2% on defence spending and get nowhere near that in humanitarian aid or in official development assistance. We just have that as a fraction. I look around the world and see places like Denmark, which spends 2% on NATO. That is great. It also spends the promised 0.7% on ODA. It also meets its commitments in humanitarian aid. I would say if we are going to raise one we cannot not raise the other because it means that we do not believe in people. It means that we are not supportive of that. I know I am running out of time. I am going to quote David Beasley from the UN World Food Programme one more time. He came to the foreign affairs committee and told us that Canada and other developed countries have an option. We have a choice. We can pay right now, or we can pay a thousand times more if we wait. That is only in dollars. That is not in human lives, that is not in human suffering and that is not what Canada should be doing.

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Ms. Anita Vandenbeld (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of International Development, Lib.)

Jun/16/22 7:51:30 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I want to thank my hon. colleague for Edmonton Strathcona for her dedicated commitment to this issue. I think we share a lot of the same commitment and passion for what really is an absolute crisis in the world. One thing I would ask my colleague is about the $250 million a year figure she cited. I know the minister earlier pointed to $514 million just for this current crisis, plus the $100 million we are giving to the African Development Bank, but even last year there was $306 million given only to the World Food Programme. That does not include everything else we are doing in food assistance. Could she perhaps clarify the statistic there?

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Ms. Heather McPherson

Jun/16/22 7:52:15 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I will say that there have been additional promises made. As I said in my speech, I really do hope that it is urgently delivered and not just another promise, and that it is not going from one pot to another pot, because we have seen that in the past. I will also say that I have asked for transparency on our dollars and on what has been spent, but I have not been given any of that information. As a parliamentarian, it is almost a point of privilege that I am not able to get the information I need to adequately assess what the Government of Canada has spent on food security and where we actually are at this point.

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Mrs. Rachael Thomas (Lethbridge, CPC)

Jun/16/22 7:52:58 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I believe the hon. member across the way has very much outlined the problem, and I agree with many of the points that she raised in that regard. She also drew attention to the fact that this is really about people, and I appreciate that, because I think we have to consider the human face. The member also stated that we need more money to be contributed in order to help solve this problem, so my question is this: Where will the more money that is needed come from? I do not believe that the member opposite has spoken about the importance of entrepreneurship, innovation, small business owners and industry within Canada, and getting that part of our economy back up and running so that we can have those individuals actually helping to fund these types of initiatives. Government does not have money of its own, so I am just curious: Where does it come from?

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Ms. Heather McPherson

Jun/16/22 7:53:57 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, first of all, I would say that hunger is a choice and that this is something we do have the ability to solve, but the global community has not yet seen fit to do so. One of the things that the New Democratic Party has put forward is a wealth tax. Right now, $6 billion would go a very long way to solving the global food crisis that we are experiencing. Elon Musk is worth $300 billion, so a wealth tax would be a really interesting way that we could actually start raising money to use for this. I also talked in my speech about tying humanitarian aid to defence spending. We could lower our defence spending and increase our humanitarian aid, which I think would be another way. We could take away oil and gas subsidies and use the money to subsidize farmers in Alberta, and also use it for the food crisis around the globe. That is another option that we could use, and there are many. I could go on, because I have a lot of other options.

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Mr. Gabriel Ste-Marie (Joliette, BQ)

Jun/16/22 7:55:08 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I want to congratulate my colleague on her speech and commend her for her commitment to the cause. It is sincere. I want to clarify something. When we refer to the price of agricultural inputs, even in the Canadian market, it is all in the perspective of global production and global prices. It is pretty clear that a people at risk of starvation is about as serious as it gets, despite all the other important issues they may face. My colleague talked about the important commitment to allocate 0.7% of GDP to international aid and the fight against hunger. I completely agree with that commitment. I deplore the fact that the government, regardless of its political stripes, never meets it. I wonder if the opposition parties would be able to pressure the government to commit to the 0.7%. Are these the kinds of concerns that could be included in a co-operation agreement with the government?

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Ms. Heather McPherson

Jun/16/22 7:56:27 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I must say the work that I have done for decades is to try to move both Conservative and Liberal governments further on this issue, and much of it was before I was elected as a member of Parliament. It is the shortsightedness that really worries me about our global response, because when one is unwilling to contribute multilaterally in the short term, the long-term costs are massive. The long-term costs to Canada's reputation as a country are very difficult. We saw that when we tried for a UN Security Council seat. There is a reason that Canada was not able to get one. Canada is no longer respected in the world as playing a role that punches above its weight, which is sad, because it is something that we were very proud of, and should be very proud of as a country. We have that potential as a country. I look at the things Pearson had promised. It was Lester B. Pearson who actually said that 0.7% is what every country should be contributing. We have never made it. Other countries have made it, and have been able to maintain it through economic ups and downs. Canada has never come close, and it is obscene, to be honest. We could do it. We have every ability to do it.

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Ms. Rachel Blaney (North Island—Powell River, NDP)

Jun/16/22 7:58:02 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I want to thank the member for her very impressive speech in the House today. I learn something from her every time she presents here. One of the core messages I heard is that we have never gotten to the goal. I want her to explain that to the House. Despite Conservative and Liberal governments taking turns, why is it that we still, as Canadians, have never reached this commitment to make sure that we are supporting people across the world so they do not go hungry?

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Ms. Heather McPherson

Jun/16/22 7:58:35 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I would like to thank my colleague for her question. It is a question that we all need to be grappling with. The sewing of a flag on a backpack is such a truly Canadian thing to do. We sew our flag on backpacks when we travel around the world, because we are so deeply proud of our contribution globally. However, right now in peacekeeping, which is something that Canada was known for, we have not met even a fraction of our promises. We have also not met a fraction of our promises on having a feminist foreign policy. None of that has happened. I wish the government, whether it was Liberal or Conservative, had done more. Certainly once the NDP is in government, we will.

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Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons (Senate), Lib.)

Jun/16/22 7:59:30 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I really appreciated the member's intervention today, but I took a bit of an exception to one of the last comments the member made. She said that Canada does not punch above its weight and that is why it did not get a UN Security Council seat. I would encourage her to visit our troops participating in Operation Unifier and Operation Reassurance in eastern Europe and talk to the other countries on the ground there about whether Canada punches above its weight. I am sure she would hear a much different story than she indicated in the House. I find that sometimes when I talk about global assistance and Canada playing its part in other parts of the world in helping to take care of people, inevitably a certain number of people come back and ask why we are not taking care of people at home first. They ask, “Should we not be taking care of everybody at home first before we start spending money in other parts of the world?” I certainly disagree with the concept that we should not be participating in and contributing globally to these various programs, for the reason the member has been talking about: If we do not pay for them now, we will end up paying so much more later.

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Ms. Heather McPherson

Jun/16/22 8:00:58 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, first of all, I will address the fact that the member's Prime Minister promised 600 peacekeeping troops would be deployed. We currently have 60. We are ranked the 70th country in peacekeeping around the world. I do not think we are punching above our weight, as we would like to do. I think that realistically, as we are parliamentarians, we are meant to do what is best for the country. We are meant to be a multilateral force. The argument that we cannot play a role internationally because of our obligations domestically is a bit juvenile, to be honest.

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Mr. Kody Blois (Kings—Hants, Lib.)

Jun/16/22 8:01:44 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, I will be sharing my time with the Minister of Northern Affairs this evening. I am very pleased that colleagues in the House have called this take-note debate forward this evening, because the question of global food security as a result of the war in Ukraine is the most important question right now that we all collectively face. I am very proud to be the chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. We have started a global food security study because of what we are seeing around the world and because we have seen the explicit targeting, by the Russian Federation, of Ukrainian assets that feed not only Ukrainians but the whole world. It is important to start by giving some context to how important Ukraine is in the global food conversation. It represents 47% of sunflower oil exports to the global market, between 10% to 12% of wheat exports to the global market, 18% of barley and a really high percentage of corn as well. Suffice it to say that not only is Ukraine the breadbasket of eastern Europe, but it is extremely important in the global food sense. Another thing that is extremely important is that 50% of the World Food Programme's contributions toward vulnerable states come from Ukraine. As we start to stare down what is truly becoming a global food crisis because of the illegal invasion, because of the war, those countries are the most susceptible right now to being impacted. I commend all members of the House for bringing forward this discussion. It is important and extremely timely. I want to give some other reflections, although this is a very short period of just five minutes for opening remarks on the take-note debate. The committee had the chance to hear from Minister Solsky, essentially the minister of agriculture in Ukraine, about the fact that right now they are trying to plant on 80% of the territory that is not yet occupied by the Russian Federation. We heard from member of Parliament Yulia Klymenko that 13% of the arable land in question is being mined right now by the Russian Federation. As we can appreciate, the front line of this combat is fluctuating in eastern and southern Ukraine, and the Russian Federation has been planting mines. That is not going to be solved overnight. We heard from Ms. Klymenko herself that farmers have perished simply trying to harvest their crops and plant on their fields. I had a conversation yesterday with the ambassador of Ukraine to Canada. She showed me a picture of the artillery shells in the fields in which the Ukrainians harvest not only for their own people, but indeed for the world. It needs to go on record explicitly that part of the Russian Federation's plan is to create destabilization around the world regarding food security and energy prices. We have to understand that some countries, particularly in the Horn of Africa and Southeast Asia, are reliant on the Russian and Ukrainian importation of food products. Those are the same countries that could fall and then create regional geopolitical challenges, with governments being overthrown, and this could be ripe for terrorism and extremism. That is the testimony we have heard. I want to talk about what Canada can do in this, because that is the conversation we are having. We know that there is a global challenge. We know that countries are particularly vulnerable. Even though Canada is very food secure generally, we are seeing a huge rise in prices at the supermarket because of some of the import costs as a result of the war. Canada has played and will continue to play an important role in this domain. Some 22 million tonnes of grain product is sitting right now in silos in Ukraine, but it is not able to be moved because of the blockade in the Black Sea. The challenge in 2022, of course, is that as the harvest comes off the field, what do they do with that grain? It is important that we provide temporary storage. I know the Ukrainian government is looking to Canada to work to try to provide storage on the western border with Poland. That is extremely important. We also need to make sure that farmers in Ukraine have the capacity to continue their work. For those who are not in occupied territories, we have to be doing everything we can to help. There is a conversation around what type of equipment we can provide for demining some of the agriculture fields. What technical expertise can Canada offer? I think that is an important conversation. Of course, there is the trade corridor. Conversations are happening right now with the United Nations, Turkey and Russia. What can we do to provide a NATO solution as well to create those corridors? To finish up, there is also a role we can play in Canadian production over the next couple of years, because this is not just a 2022 issue. We need to help produce more so we can help provide for the global market. I wish I had more time, but I look forward to taking questions from my hon. colleagues.

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Mr. Dave Epp (Chatham-Kent—Leamington, CPC)

Jun/16/22 8:07:15 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, would my colleague agree with the statement that world hunger is being induced by two causes? The one we think of right now is the lack of availability of food and the situation in Ukraine causing or exacerbating that, but the second thing that is causing hunger around the world, particularly in the global south, is simply the cost of food. It is becoming unaffordable in so many places. I wonder if he has a comment on that dynamic.

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