Bill S-11 (Historical)

Safe Food for Canadians Act

An Act respecting food commodities, including their inspection, their safety, their labelling and advertising, their import, export and interprovincial trade, the establishment of standards for them, the registration or licensing of persons who perform certain activities related to them, the establishment of standards governing establishments where those activities are performed and the registration of establishments where those activities are performed

This enactment modernizes the regulatory system for food commodities.

Safe Food for Canadians Act

[Denis Blanchette, NDP, Louis-Hébert, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her speech.

We will support the bill. It is a step in the right direction, but from what I understand, it does not solve the problem. I have a problem with a bill that is a step in the right direction but does not solve a crisis.

We are used to this government playing political games and rejecting all of our amendments. Nevertheless, I would like to ask my colleague what should have been added to Bill S-11 to make it worthwhile and to ensure that we do not see more crises like what we saw at XL Foods.

[Francine Raynault, NDP, Joliette, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to talk about Bill S-11, but before doing so, I would like to provide a bit of background.

A few months ago, I rose in this House to speak out against the disastrous consequences of Bill C-38 to implement certain provisions of the budget. Among other things, I pointed out that the bill far exceeded its mandate. The Conservatives have brandished this bill like a magic wand to implement their ideological austerity agenda.

I also spoke out against cuts to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency that would allow private companies to carry out inspections. After repeated attempts by the NDP to convince the government to provide more information about this bill, the Conservatives proceeded. I sat for 22 hours straight in protest. It was in vain. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency budget was cut by $46 million, and 314 full-time jobs will be eliminated by 2015.

While it is true that the number of inspectors at the CFIA has declined steadily on the Conservatives' watch, I would be lying if I said that I do not support Bill S-11. Like my NDP colleagues, I immediately saw this as a step in the right direction that would give Canadians greater food safety.

I must say that the NDP did not expect any less: we have been demanding that the agency be modernized since Sheila Weatherill's report was released in 2009. Now that the bill has reached third reading, I still support it. Nevertheless, the Conservatives' attitude is unfortunate.

It is unfortunate because the witnesses we heard at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food confirmed our fears: Bill S-11 would not have been enough to contain the crisis that recently struck XL Foods in Alberta. The government did not bother to listen to the NDP's recommendations, and our amendments were rejected without any discussion. The Conservatives missed an excellent opportunity to shed their reputation as an autocratic government and demonstrate a little co-operation.

The important thing to remember is that the government's reckless cuts are putting Canadians' lives at risk. In many areas, cuts are irrevocably affecting people's lives across the country. When it comes to food safety, it is a matter of life and death.

And if life is not important enough to the Conservatives—except, of course, the lives of the unborn—we must recognize that there is also an economic benefit to food safety. How many E. coli crises like the one that struck the community of Brooks, Alberta, can our economy withstand?

The NDP supported XL Foods from the very beginning. What did the minister do during the crisis? He took days to respond, burying his head so deep in the sand that he probably found new oil reserves.

The Conservatives' reaction to the XL Foods crisis shows that they do not hesitate to mislead Canadians by saying things in the House that are not true. On October 2, the minister himself assured us that the CFIA had added 700 new inspectors since 2006. The minister included in that calculation hundreds of people who have nothing to do with protecting Canadians from unsafe food products. What is more, the facts show that there was no new meat hygiene inspector position at the CFIA. How do they come up with it?

The only time the Conservatives added inspectors to the meat processing program was following the listeriosis crisis, another crisis that Canadians could have done without. The government added 170 inspectors to calm things down, but cut 314 a few years later.

Let me put this into words the members opposite will understand: do the math.

Looking at these sorry past decisions makes us wonder, and rightly so, whether Bill S-11 is just a smokescreen.

Among the amendments unilaterally rejected by the Conservatives was one that guaranteed anonymity to an employee who blows the whistle on a practice that contravenes CFIA rules. At XL Foods, some employees who saw that standards were not being met chose not to say anything out of fear of losing their jobs. That is why the CFIA should have guaranteed this necessary anonymity, but the Conservatives refused.

Another amendment seemed necessary to me, and it called for the immediate audit of the Canadian food system with the coming into force of the bill. We then proposed that an identical audit be done every five years to verify whether all the objectives set out in the legislation had been met. If not, the government could have made the necessary changes, but the Conservatives refused.

In closing, I would add that Canadians will not be fooled by the dramatic increase in food safety-related penalties. They have been multiplied by 20 for the sake of appearances, but historically at the CFIA, the maximum fines have never been applied at current levels. In 2011, for example, the average fine was just 5% of the maximum fine and none exceeded 20%. Instead of being tougher, such increases might put a damper on the regulatory environment and decrease the number of penalties.

I could continue for some time listing the problems with this bill. That being said, I can only commend this initiative and confirm my support for it, for the welfare of the community.

Even though it is a step in the right direction, unfortunately it looks more like a dance step.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Joliette.

I rise today to speak to Bill S-11, An Act respecting food commodities, including their inspection, their safety, their labelling and advertising, their import, export and interprovincial trade, the establishment of standards for them, the registration or licensing of persons who perform certain activities related to them, the establishment of standards governing establishments where those activities are performed and the registration of establishments where those activities are performed.

The bill would streamline a range of existing food safety legislation under one act. Among other legislation, it would repeal and replace the Fish Inspection Act, the Meat Inspection Act, the Canada Agricultural Products Act and the food provisions under the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act.

Bill S-11 would raise the potential maximum fine for food safety infractions to $5 million, a 20-fold increase over previous maximum fines. This of questionable value, given that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency does not have a rigorous history of enforcing fining of companies due to limited resources. In 2011, no fines exceeded 20% of the maximum fine.

The bill would streamline inspectors' powers and procedures for all types of food. Previously, these were different according to whether the product was fish, meat or another agricultural product.

The bill would provide for the availability of official certification for exported foods and also would require food importers to comply with the licensing regime. It would allow the CFIA to suspend or revoke the licence of an importee instead of prosecuting for non-compliance. This could provide for more timely response in the advent of international recall.

The bill would allow for traceability requirements to be introduced through regulation at a later date. The New Democrats support enhanced traceability, particularly for meat, fish and fresh produce in the advent of a recall.

Finally, the bill includes a prohibition against tampering with products or selling products that might risk the health of Canadians or that have been subjected to a recall.

However, we in the NDP have some concerns with this bill.

It would provide a new due diligence defence that could significantly insulate companies from taking responsibility for any risk. This could diminish the Canadian public's confidence in our food supply and undermine the European Union's confidence in our exports. The United Kingdom recently rejected similar legislation for this reason.

It would do nothing to protect workers in meat processing plants with regard to whistle-blowing protection.

It also would include provisions that may inadvertently disallow certain products for Canadian export. The proposal to incorporate by reference standards could permit conflicts of interest to influence policy making and could abdicate government oversight entirely in some cases. There is no clause to address possible material conflicts of interest.

It would also do nothing to address problems with fraudulent nutrition information, despite the enormous health and financial toll of nutrition-related illness. The CFIA considers irregularities in nutrition labelling to be lower priority quality issues, not health and safety issues. According to the fines information published on CFIA's website for the period of January 2010 to September 2012, not a single fine was levied for inaccurate nutritional information on food labels, despite the fact that at least two of CFIA's own product sampling surveys demonstrated significant widespread inaccuracies in nutrition information provided in pre-packaged foods and restaurant websites and brochures.

By streamlining inspectors' powers for all types of food, there is concern that inspectors will have insufficient knowledge and/or experience to undertake this task. There are very different products with very different hazards associated with them.

The bill would create an internal review mechanism that regulated parties could use to seek review of certain inspection decisions or deal with complaints, rather than the current judicial review process. This should be monitored for transparency with resources given to public interest interveners.

Finally, the bill would give the minister power to grant, suspend and revoke non-transferable licences or registration for persons and establishments as well as any conditions that the minister might choose to prescribe. This represents more centralized power in the hands of the minister.

Let me talk about cuts to the CFIA budget in 2012. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency report on plans and priorities signed and tabled by the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food himself on May 8, says, “Planned Spending is declining by approximately $46.6 million and 314 FTE's from 2012-13 to 2014-15--REF-CFIA Report on Plans and Priorities”. This comes from section 1.51 the financial resources and human resources CFIA report on plans and priorities.

The Conservatives like to say that they have invested $100 million additional funds to the CFIA. That claim is false. The $100 million is projected over five years and only $18 million have actually been allocated this year. In budget 2012 the next three-year outlook for food safety indicates a projected cut of $56.1 million.

Let me turn to auditing the CFIA compliance verification system, CVS. New Democrats believe that the CFIA processes such as the central verification system, need to be audited immediately. Bill S-11 was amended in the Senate so that a CFIA audit was required within five years of its coming into force, but this is not enough. Given repeated failures in the food safety system, we cannot wait five years. This is why we put forward an amendment at committee stage that would require an immediate audit in order to get baseline information to be applied in future reviews. Unfortunately, the Conservative members of the committee voted against it.

In January 2009, Sheila Weatherill was appointed by the Prime Minister to investigate what led to the listeriosis outbreak that left 22 people dead during the summer of 2008 and recommended how to avoid a similar tragedy. The compliance verification system was a new pilot inspection program adopted by the CFIA in 2005. Weatherill found that the CVS was flawed and was in need of “critical improvements related to its design, planning, and implementation”. She also found the CVS was “implemented without a detailed assessment of the resources available to take on these new tasks”.

In the aftermath of the 2008 disaster, it was discovered that Maple Leaf was under no obligation to report to the CFIA test results showing contamination in the plant. In a system which increasingly relies on companies to police themselves, this shortcoming was not addressed.

XL Foods, one of the biggest meat processors in the country, had also ignored this requirement to notify CFIA of test results. The CFIA does not have the resources in place to fully understand what was going on in that plant.

Important pieces of the Weatherill report were never fully adopted by the government, including a substantive internal audit that addressed CVS, the pilot reporting system being used for food inspectors during the Walkerton crisis that continues to be used today. A financial audit of the CFIA was completed by PricewaterhouseCoopers, but it did not address the systems and the processes recommended by the Weatherill report.

There is much more I could say about the resources to the CFIA, on penalties that one would say are adequate but not enforced, and on further resources. However, let me summarize what we are looking for.

New Democrats have a serious number of concerns with the bill, however, we support the bill moving to third reading. We know the Conservatives need to accept responsibility for gutting food safety resources. They have been proponents of increased self-regulation. Inspectors look at paperwork, not at meat. This is a direct result of fewer resources provided to CFIA, and we are seeing those consequences now.

There should be no super events that catch us unaware. Given the increased complexity and centralization of the food system and greater volumes handled by any single facility, resources for food inspection should be increased to ensure the safety of Canadians.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, my hon. friend raises a good point, something that this Parliament was victimized with the moment the Conservatives gained power in 2011, that they we will do things their way or no way. They are not interested in reasoned amendments, not on omnibus Bill C-38 or Bill C-45, and not on this food legislation Bill S-11.

There were many thoughtful amendments brought forward, not for the purpose of stage playing or any purpose than to make a good bill better, as my friend from Welland said. However, the Conservatives are not interested. As I said earlier, even at committee when I was moving my amendments, there was no response from the governing party. The Conservatives just asked the chair to call the question because they were not interested in discussing it.

[Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe, NDP, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for his speech. He mentioned that amendments suggested in committee were simply dismissed, even though the opposition parties worked hard to develop those amendments.

Earlier today we were debating Bill C-44. What I find funny is that although everyone agreed on the principle of the bill, the opposition's suggested amendments were also rejected, without any real argument or debate.

That is unfortunate, because the NDP has been clear that Bill S-11, as it stands right now, might not have prevented the major beef recall we had recently—the largest beef recall in Canada's history—or the 22 deaths resulting from the 2008 listeriosis crisis.

The amendments proposed by the opposition deserve to be seriously considered, which the Conservative government did not do. That is unfortunate. I would like my colleague to comment on that.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the official opposition for raising the whistleblower amendment at committee. My colleague is quite right, that if whistleblower legislation were put in this legislation, it would establish a threshold of proof that is not absolute, in other words, not beyond a reasonable doubt. It would establish on a balance of probabilities whether someone has violated the law. That would have been helpful because a whistleblower wants to blow the whistle without fearing that his or her employer would suddenly be charged, possibly with criminal charges. Employees would be liberated by such whistleblower legislation in the bill, knowing that they could blow the whistle and that any consequences as a result of their employer's failure to do something would result in non-criminal charges. I am saddened that the government has not included whistleblower legislation in Bill S-11.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the factual remarks by the member for Guelph. He laid out quite a number of facts that the government has basically misrepresented time and time again. One of those facts concerns section 13 of the Meat Inspection Act, where the the government has always had the authority it requires. It tries to portray Bill S-11 as needed to deal with the latest serious food recall in Canada, the second under the present minister's watch. The government really had the authority.

Bill S-11 was not a priority for the government, although it is now claiming that it was, because the government put it in the Senate. It was not an issue then. It was just luck that it happened to be there when this crisis developed.

The second major area where there seems to be government messaging that misrepresents the facts is that of auditing, which is important not just for what has happened but also going forward.

Could the member enlighten us why the government constantly misrepresents the number of inspectors and the facts by claiming it did an audit when it really did not do the kind of audit the Weatherill report called for? Why would the government go to these lengths to say it did something that it really did not do?

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to again speak to Bill S-11, the modernization of Canada's food safety system. This is, undoubtedly, a timely issue, especially given that we are hardly two months removed from the beginning of the largest beef recall in Canadian history caused by a collapse in monitoring and sanitation measures at XL Foods in Brooks, Alberta.

I also note that there has been no delay in addressing the bill. I last rose and spoke to Bill S-11 on October 22, not even a month ago. In fact, and I will address this through my remarks, I believe we may have proceeded a little too quickly, by only a few days perhaps, for how serious a matter this is.

We know there is widespread support for modernizing our food safety system. When the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was first created in 1997, it was understood that the agency was only the first step in a multi-step process that also involved consolidating its legislative framework. The first attempt to do this was by a Liberal government in 2004 through Bill C-27 and it has been tried a couple of times since.

Witnesses who appeared before the committee generally spoke well of the need to proceed with this legislation but were also sure to voice their concerns, concerns that we share and that are important to be heard because of how serious an issue food safety remains. When it is time to vote, we will support Bill S-11. However, it is important that our concerns and the concerns of stakeholders across the country get raised and discussed.

We all know the context that makes this legislation more potent: the remarkable failure at XL Foods in Brooks, Alberta, where beef left the facility destined for the United States contaminated with E.coli 0157, a harmful pathogen that can cause serious illness when consumed by humans, especially those most vulnerable, like young children and seniors. The facts are pretty clear. Whether the Americans caught it first and let us know or the CFIA discovered it independently on September 4, Canadian officials would have known that day that there was an outbreak of E.coli at Establishment 38. Right then and there, bracketing should have caught any further contaminated meat. It did not.

During testimony by the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, he stated:

The initial find, the problem, was that they had a discovery but then had not bracketed properly. That's taking production on either side of the affected batch out of the food cycle as well. They had not done that, and until CFIA was back in there doing the trend analysis, that was not discovered.

The government can argue that none of these shipments that the Americans stopped and that XL Foods tested on September 4 got out, but that E.coli contaminated meat from XL Foods made it to store shelves means it is playing word games and that tainted meat from that batch or not made it to consumers and made 18 Canadians ill. Semantics does not take the meat off the shelves. It was a recall issued on September 16, about two weeks later, that did.

The minister makes it clear in his statement that meat got out because XL Foods was not bracketing, nor was it monitoring E.coli trends. Why not? More still, we ask day after day what the delay was to no avail, until eventually we heard that only under Bill S-11 would inspectors finally have the power to compel conveyors and processors to supply the necessary documentation requested by inspectors. That is curious.

I will remind members that subsection 13(2) of the Meat Inspection Act states quite clearly:

The owner or person in charge of a place or vehicle referred to in subsection (1) and every person found in that place or vehicle shall give the inspector all reasonable assistance to enable the inspector to carry out his duties and functions under this Act and shall furnish the inspector with any information the inspector may reasonably require with respect to the administration or enforcement of this Act and the regulations.

That is the law now.

It also states in paragraph 13(1)(c) that inspectors may:

...require any person to produce for inspection, or for the purpose of obtaining copies or extracts, any book, shipping bill, bill of lading or other document or record that the inspector believes on reasonable grounds contains any information relevant to the administration or enforcement of this Act or the regulations.

That is the law now without Bill S-11.

Moreover, as recently as this past February, the CFIA made its regulations concerning inspectors' powers clear through the processor's guide to inspection, reinforcing the legal requirement to provide information to and assist an inspector when requested.

When I shared this concern with the CFIA president, George Da Pont, he assured me that while the Meat Inspection Act presently does provide these powers for inspectors, the new bill adds phrases like “timely” to the act, which will create an authority to provide documents in a certain timeframe.

Both acts have consequences for non-compliance and the addition of “timely” would not have changed what happened. In fact, much of our concern with Bill S-11 comes from what is not written and what will be incorporated by reference later on. We may very well see the appropriate timelines put in place but there is no way to know that now.

We are supporting this legislation because the language surrounding inspector powers will slightly strengthen and be made more clear but it remains abundantly clear that this bill is not a magic bullet that would have prevented 18 Canadians from falling ill last month.

What we all really require to augment our food safety system is the knowledge that the CFIA is adequately supported with sufficient staff and resources. I am not the sole voice on this issue.The only objective way to achieve this is through an independent comprehensive resource audit, such as the one requested by the independent investigator into 2008's listeriosis outcome, Sheila Weatherill. In her report the following year, which addressed measures necessary to help prevent another outbreak like the one in 2008 that killed 23 people and made many others sick, Ms. Weatherill was concerned with some of the information she received and stated the following:

Due to the lack of detailed information and differing views heard, the Investigation was not able to determine the current level of resources as well as the resources needed to conduct the CVS activities effectively. For the same reason, we were also unable to come to a conclusion concerning the adequacy of the program design, implementation plan, training and supervision of inspectors, as well as oversight and performance monitoring.

A full account of resources is absolutely necessary to not only ensure the adequacy of staffing but the effectiveness of training and allocation. I think members opposite are really concerned that we want to employ hundreds more inspectors. While we were justifiably concerned with their cuts to inspectors and the CFIA in the budget, some $56.1 million in cuts, which ostensibly have an impact on front-line resources, we thought they would like to know, that they need to know, if there are real efficiencies that could be attained once we know if everyone is adequately trained and where there can be redistribution. It is the smart way to run a business.

Given her concerns, Ms. Weatherill went on to recommend:

To accurately determine the demand on its inspection resources and the number of required inspectors, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency should retain third-party experts to conduct a resources audit. The experts should also recommend required changes and implementation strategies. The audit should include analysis as to how many plants an inspector should be responsible for and the appropriateness of rotation of inspectors.

That is pretty clear. We know that the CFIA did not do this because, in 2010, then CFIA president, Carole Swan, indicated that while it retained PricewaterhouseCoopers to conduct a review, she was very clear when she stated:

They didn't conduct it as an audit. An audit is a very specific process. It was a detailed review .

This means that not all the Weatherill recommendations were complied with. This means that even before the government's cuts in this year's budget, neither the agency nor the government had any clear impression of its resources and how best to allocate them. While cutting blindly may not have led to the E.coli contamination in Brooks, it certainly will not help the already compounded problem of inspectors in facilities who still do not have the necessary training in the compliance verification system, nor will it facilitate the transition of individual meat, fish and other agricultural product inspectors into a consolidated Jack of all trades and masters of none.

This very issue was highlighted during the Senate hearings on Bill S-11 when Bob Kingston, the president of the Agriculture Union of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, told members of that committee:

You will be interested to know that in the XL plant, only a small portion of the inspectors are actually trained in CVS. That is right; for more than four years after CVS was introduced, most inspectors there have not been trained in how to use it. Why, you might ask? The answer is actually simple. The CFIA cannot afford to deliver training any faster and does not have enough inspectors to relieve those away while being trained. As well, resources are often diverted to address crises, which further derails training.

To me, this is a clear statement that the CFIA lacks the resources and support to carry out its mandate.

According to the CFIA's website, the compliance verification system reads:

The CVS is a task-based inspection tool that:

is based on the CFIA’s regulatory requirements,

provides clear and consistent direction to CFIA inspectors,

is capable of adapting to rapidly-changing program requirements, and

can be applied to any inspection activity, in any commodity’s inspection program.

This is particularly important to me because it is not only verification of industry compliance but of consistency in inspection. In fact, a specific example on the CFIA website, and I can provide the website address to my colleagues opposite if they would like to check it out for themselves, reads:

For example: inspectors must regularly check a plant’s sanitation records, employee hygiene, cooking temperatures, ingredient controls, and lab results for pathogens like Listeria, Salmonella, and E. coli.

Instead of the authority to request documents within a certain time, which they had, what it sounds like the inspectors really needed to prevent the outbreak at XL was adequate training on CVS and enough staff to cycle them off while training. This revelation strikes right at the heart of the often repeated myth that the Conservative government has hired more inspectors than ever. It can have record numbers of inspectors and even if we believed more inspectors were hired, which no one does anymore, how can they perform their functions fully without adequate training?

It is another clear indication that while the government is willing to build a car, it will not pay to hire a proper driver or, in this case, train one. Instead, it is adding an additional burden to inspectors who are responsible for keeping us safe.

Mr. Kingston continued in his testimony to say:

This situation is not limited to XL. As a matter of fact, ...we found the exact same scenario throughout Quebec.

This is yet another example of industry self-policing gone wrong because the CFIA is not adequately resourced to verify compliance. Does the government even know how many of its inspectors are adequately trained?

Since the beginning of October, when the hon. member for Toronto Centre and our leader, wrote to the Auditor General to commence an immediate audit and our now retired colleague from the other place, Senator Robert Peterson, moved an amendment for an audit function to be placed in the bill, we have argued the absolute necessity of this comprehensive study into the CFIA. Despite all of this, when I proposed an amendment to commence an immediate and comprehensive resource audit at committee, the Conservative members voted it down. All this, despite the fact that there was not one witness who thought it was a bad idea.

They love quotes on the other side. Karen Proud of the Retail Council of Canada said:

I can't see that our members would object to such an audit. It's always a good thing to look internally at whether you have the right resources to match your requirements and your mandates and, especially given a new piece of legislation, whether you've matched up the right resources.

Similarly, during a meeting of the Senate committee on agriculture and forestry, Mr. Albert Chambers, the executive director of the Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition argued:

It has become very common in the food industry to use an accredited certification body to provide a third-party audit to a food safety management system.

In fact, at the June 21 meeting of the same committee, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food replied in response to a question about a third party audit that he would entertain the idea. In the weeks that followed the E. coli outbreak, he strangely became more and more resistant to the idea.

Sadly, Conservatives on the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food voted against every single amendment put forward by opposition members. As a matter of fact, there were not many. We used our opportunities judiciously, hoping to work collaboratively to make good legislation better.

Despite asking us to work with them on a bill that everyone agrees is a good start, the Conservative members refused to follow their own express wishes. In a spirit of mindless partisanship, they even blocked an amendment of mine that would have seen the clock start ticking for the five-year limited review, which is there now and the act does provide for, immediately upon royal assent instead of waiting an unknown number of months until the rest of the act came into effect.

There was not an inch given to improve the bill. Despite our co-operation, Conservative committee members were determined to vote against us at every turn. Towards the end of the study, I requested two additional days for us to speak to departmental officials and get their answers to questions and concerns posed by other witnesses and for us to shape strong, wholesome amendments to further improve a bill that we all support. It was so important to our food security that we needed the opportunity to get it right and to address all of our concerns the first time around. Alas, that never happened.

However, we remain optimistic that on some day, this arrogant, dismissive way of the government will give way to better, more responsive legislation.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise to debate Bill S-11.

Sincerely, and with great deference to the other place or at least with as much deference as I can give the other place, I believe it should have been Bill C-whatever number we would have given it. The bill should have started in this place, not the other place. The 120 days that the other place took should have been spent in this place with us studying the bill, rather than the paltry number of days that the government has decided we should have simply because the other place had it for a period of time.

Whether the other place debates it or not is of no consequence to New Democrats and it is certainly of no consequence to this member for Welland. What is of consequence at the end of the day is the House debating the people's legislation, because this is the people's House and this is indeed where the legislation should have started. That is why I have called the government to account on that particular aspect.

To get back to the bill itself, at one point in time we had an emergency debate, and I will not use the reference the minister suggested and the colourful language that he used to describe the debate. At one point in time I actually said to my friends across the way that when one cannot take yes for an answer, it is still yes. It was yes then and it is yes now.

The unfortunate part for my colleagues across the way is that they could not find a way to say yes to any of the suggestions that this side of the House had. According to the parliamentary secretary, they deferred to the “experts”, when indeed it was simply a question of someone parroting verbatim the good things that the PMO suggested they parrot.

Ultimately one gets back to Sheila Weatherill's report. I had the great pleasure of serving with my colleague from Malpeque on the subcommittee on listeriosis and that was when I first came to know about food safety. I came to know first-hand the devastating effects that food safety, when it is not followed in the way that it needs to be, can have on Canadians. We saw that with the great tragedy in 2008 when those folks died from listeriosis.

That is why it was so eminently important for us on this side to make this legislation as good as it possibly could be. That is the one shortcoming we find on this side. What we had said from the beginning was that we would be supportive, encouraging, helpful, proactive and bring forward what we believed would be good suggestions. We held to our word along the way, even though the government curtailed the amount of time we actually had to work on it.

When I was on the subcommittee during 2008, the government decided to call on Ms. Weatherill and do a parallel investigation. The irony of the investigation, which by the way cost the Canadian taxpayers millions of dollars, was that all but a handful of the recommendations were exactly the same, almost uniquely identical. We saw the same things.

One of the things that we saw in the CVS, the compliance verification system, that Sheila Weatherill also saw was that the compliance verification system was flawed and in need of “critical improvements related to its design, planning and implementation”. She went on to say it was “implemented without a detailed assessment of the resources available to take on these new [CVS] tasks”.

It was not just a question of adding up the numbers of how many people were there. Ms. Weatherill said that we had to audit the design, the planning and the implementation. That is what recommendation number seven said. It was not that we go out to PricewaterhouseCoopers, a nice place that adds them up and says, “Today, there are 22. Tomorrow there will be 24, and now we are done.”

The entire system needed to be looked at because the CVS was a pilot project. That is all that it was, leading up to 2008. It was started in 2005 by the previous government as an attempt to do food safety differently. There was nothing wrong with the pilot project. There was nothing wrong with making that attempt. What was wrong was verifying that the verification system actually verified what it was intended to work on. No one ever answered that question because no one audited it.

We are still left with the question hanging over our heads. Was the compliance verification system actually verified to see if it does what it was intended to do in the first place? We added up the number of folks who might be in it and we received a number. The government still does not really tell us the actual number. It uses this number of 700.

Let me offer a little help to the government. There are 170 new inspectors in the ready-to-eat meat sector. That came out of two places: the subcommittee that recommended that additional people were needed in that field and Sheila Weatherill who said the same thing. Since we are in the spirit of being nice, let me commend the minister for taking on and fixing the ready-to-eat meat sector and putting 170 new inspectors there.

That did not happen at XL. None of those new inspectors who went to the ready-to-eat meat sector are in those abattoirs. There are no additional inspectors in any of those abattoirs. The XL meat plant certainly has more today than two years ago. It simply filled the vacancies of the folks who left, because there is a great turnover in that plant as all of us now know. Sheila Weatherill actually went through that.

Carole Swan, who at the time was the president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the actual person in charge, said about this audit, which was supposedly conducted and the one that the government stands today and still defends as an audit, that:

They didn't conduct it as an audit. An audit is a very specific process. It was a detailed review.

Number seven of Sheila Weatherill's report has not been completed. Parts of it have been done. The government counted the number of people but it did not audit the design, the plan or the implementation because it never asked PricewaterhouseCoopers to do that. It did what it was asked to do and that is fair. It is fair for the government to say that it counted the number of people but it is unfair for the government to suggest that it did a strategic audit of the recommendation, which was fundamentally critical to ensuring that the CVS actually worked. We can have as many people as we like in CVS but if it does not work, it does not mean anything.

Consequently, the government has not lived up to fulfilling all of the recommendations of the Weatherill report, let alone the recommendations coming out of the subcommittee. Some of the recommendations were done and some were not. Some of the recommendations were just left out because the government did not really like them.

When it comes to resourcing, the government loves to tell us one number and play with another one. Let me quote again for the House what we know to be true. On May 8 of this year the Minister of Agriculture said, “Planned Spending is declining by approximately $46.6 million and 314 FTE’s”, which in human resource jargon means full-time equivalences. What that means is that over the next two years there will be 314 less jobs now than the before.

The government loves to tell us about the $100 million, but it neglects to tell us that it is actually over five years, not this year. It neglects to tell us that it has actually only spent $18 million of that $100 million already. It should have spent far more than that because it has been out there for over a year. The resourcing that the Conservatives' continually talk to us about is not always wholly there because it is the jig of the number. They throw numbers out and somehow they might look similar or perhaps not.

We do know the facts because we did read the budget, although I sometimes wonder about my friends on the other side. We did read that lovely book that the government gave us in budget 2012 that says the three-year outlook for food safety indicates a projected cut of $56.1 million annually.

That is the Conservative's budget. I am not making it up. I am just reading the stuff they gave us. Of course, if the other side is now telling us the book is not true, that they no longer believe that page of the budget is going to be enacted, then I think they would have to amend it. Surely they would have to retract it and tell us something altogether different. However, they have not done that.

It is unfortunate, as this is a bill that the House seems to want to pass. I have heard my colleagues from the far end and my colleague for Guelph, who works on the committee with us in the spirit of co-operation to make food safety the priority that we all believe it is. This is about safe food for Canadians, for the children and people out there who may be immune suppressed and for the elderly who we saw get sick once before and some in fact died. We want to ensure that we do not have that happen again. All members in the House believe this to be true.

Therefore, in the spirit of co-operation, the official opposition went to committee and told the government side that we could help make the bill better. We put amendments forward because we wanted to help make the bill better. No one person or one party is blessed with all the best ideas. Unfortunately, some may think that perhaps they are. The irony is that we all know that.

I know the member but I always mispronounce his lovely riding, so I won't go down that road. It is a wonderful place in New Brunswick, Tobique—Mactaquac. Every now and again Glaswegians can get their mouths around funny words. However, it was with that spirit of working together that we entered into making sure that this legislation came back to this place in an expeditious fashion, unlike the other place that hung onto it and then went on vacation for the summer, which is how important its members thought it was. They went on vacation.

Meanwhile, some of us worked on the special co-op committee during the summer, which was our vacation. I see some of my colleagues from all sides of the House who were there working. It was the members of the House who went to work during the summer and the members of the other place could indeed have done that. If they did not want to do that, they should have passed the bill to us.

There were a number of amendments that we put forward. Some were as simple as defining a container. In the legislation it says “containers” and then goes on to define a cargo container. What is a cargo container? Is it a box car? Is it a shipping hold? We suggested that we should better define it and talk about pails, totes and baskets to give it further definition. We thought that would be understandable so that when folks saw the legislation they would get a sense of what it was about, rather than having to wait for the regulations to come out for the definitions.

The Conservatives said no, but I have to give them credit, they had a reason. For the first four amendments we put forward they had some reason why they did not like it. However, on the other seven amendments, they just voted no. They did not seem to have any reason or they ran out of reasons, I am not sure which.

Clearly, the opposition side of the agriculture committee, including the member for Guelph who was supportive, felt that the two responsible factors were the compliance verification system and the audit. We felt an audit should be done now because in five years when we go back and look at the system, the problem is that we may not know where we started.

As I said in committee, if I want to drive to Edmonton and I do not know where I am when I start, in five years from now I will be somewhere. It might Edmonton but it might be in Malpeque, which is a wonderful place in Prince Edward Island. When I get there I know the member for Malpeque will say to me, “Member for Welland, you actually drove in the wrong direction. Turn around and go back the other way and then you will get to Edmonton”. However, I would then get there in ten years instead of five years.

Therefore, doing an audit now would give us a benchmark of where we are and where we are going to start from. In five years, we would know if we were better, worse or the same, and whether we need as many inspectors. Part of the government's problem is that when we say those things, it thinks we want to have more inspectors in five years.

Maybe we need fewer. Maybe the system is working so well and is so efficient that there are too many people doing that and we need to transfer them to where they are not doing quite as well. That would be the value of the resource. That would be the value of legislation.

Of course, my friends across the way on the government side just voted no. They did not really have a reason. They just voted no. Then when we suggested whistleblower protection, their response was that the Criminal Code covers that off.

We heard the parliamentary secretary say that the Criminal Code covers tampering but that it is not the best way to do it. Instead, it should be in the legislation. We agree. We think that is the best way to do it, as we do with whistleblower protection.

In the last crisis we just faced, there were workers who said that had they been protected, they might have come forward sooner, and we may not have had a crisis. That is “may”. We are not certain. However, any opportunity that would have prevented it would have been good for the cattle ranchers across the country. They suffered needlessly because of the failure of someone in the system. Whistleblower protection may have indeed helped those ranchers not suffer the unintended consequence of what happened when it came to that crisis.

We saw the government rely on the Criminal Code, but it did not rely on it for this one aspect of the bill because it believed it was better, more expeditious and made more sense to do it that way.

As for fundamental protection for people who want to come forward and tell the government something it ought to know, it is telling them to take their chances in the courts and see if they can convince a crown attorney to go ahead with the charge and see if they can get a conviction. What the government did not talk about was whether they could get their jobs back afterwards. They are more likely to be fired while going through the court system. Of course, if people won that one, they would have to go through civil proceedings to try to get their jobs back. Therefore, they would go to court twice, and along the way, would have to pay for lawyers.

However, if the Conservatives had put simple whistleblower protection into the act, it would have talked about people who make vexatious claims against a company because they are mad at the boss. This was about real claims to help prevent another food crisis for Canadians across the country.

We want to make food safety better. We want to help this legislation be the best it can be for two simple reasons. The first is that this may be the last opportunity for quite some time to do something with respect to the food safety act as we amend three acts into one. More importantly, this is about food safety for Canadian families, children, the elderly, and all of us. All of us eat. We all eat differently. Some of us graze, and some of us do not.

At the end of the day, this was about making fundamentally good legislation. It started out as decent legislation. It could have been great legislation, because all of the hands at the committee were indeed onside to make it so. The government side brought forward a bill that in its sense was pretty decent. All sides of the House at that committee, including my friend from Guelph, were bound and determined to try to make it better. There were no egregious amendments or poking sticks in eyes. There was none of that. This was about making it better from the day it showed up at committee. The unfortunate part is that as good as it is, the bill could have been so much better than it is. That is the shame of not having all sides work together.

When the government puts a hand out and asks that all sides work together, it should recognize when the hand comes from the other side to work with it to make it better. Our hand was extended to the government to make it better. Unfortunately, it decided to say no, and that is truly unfortunate.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary continually says that his government has completed all of the 57 recommendations of Sheila Weatherill when in fact they have yet to do that. Clearly, the seventh recommendation is an independent third party comprehensive audit, independent of the CFIA and outside sourced so that it can be objective.

When asked about that issue, Mr. Albert Chambers, the executive director of the Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition, argued that it had become very common in the food industry to use an accredited certification body to provide a third party audit to a food safety management system.

Even the former president of the CFIA, Carole Swan, said that only a survey by PricewaterhouseCoopers has been done, which is quite different than an independent third party audit.

One of the problems we have perpetually is not knowing whether the CFIA is properly resourced and has the proper support. While we support Bill S-11, the problem is that the Conservatives continually refuse an independent audit. Why do they refuse an independent third party audit?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture]

Mr. Speaker, once again, I am in before you in support of our safe food for Canadians legislation. This is a bill in which I firmly believe.

This is also a bill that finds virtually unanimous support among stakeholders. Let me read some quotes.

The Food & Consumer Products of Canada says, “These changes will further enhance Canada’s reputation as a global food and beverage product safety leader”.

Martin Unrau, president of the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, says, “The CCA commends the government for bringing this ambitious but necessary legislation forward”.

Ron Bonnett, president of the CFA, says, “The Canadian Federation of Agriculture views the introduction of Bill S-11, the Safe Food for Canadians Act, as an important step to enhance and modernize Canada's already reputable food safety system”.

Our government is committed to making food as safe as possible for consumers. As I have said before, Canada's food safety system is world class. However, some of the legislation that governs it needs to be modernized. It is legislation that functions well, but it can be improved.

In this case, change is both needed and good. We must always ensure that the authorities granted by legislation are adequate for our goals of good governance. As well, we must look at our operating environment to see if things have changed so we can adapt and keep pace.

In light of the 2008 report of the independent investigator, Sheila Weatherill, regarding listeriosis, there is a need to strengthen and modernize much of the legislation that governs the activities of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. I should add that when our government introduced Bill S-11, we fulfilled the final recommendation of the Weatherill report. This demonstrates how seriously we take food safety.

I would like to explain how the safe food for Canadians act will strengthen and modernize our legislation. I would like to focus on five main points. The first involves strengthening the ability to trace and recall foods. The second has to do with consolidating our inspection and enforcement authorities. The third point involves providing stronger import controls. The fourth aims to modernize the certification of exports. Finally, the fifth point aims to protect Canadians from things like tampering, hoaxes, and deceptive practices.

First of all, let us look at how passing this bill will strengthen Canada's ability to trace and recall foods. There has been a lot of talk recently about food recalls, and everyone wants to know how products can be recalled more effectively. This bill is designed to fill those gaps.

I would like to ask the following question: who among us has not found some leftovers in the fridge and wondered how long they have been there? Although we know that bacteria attack food before we can taste or smell them, we inspect our leftovers by checking for mould and bad smells. As long as it seems okay, we think about keeping the leftovers for a little while longer.

Of course, cleaning out a refrigerator is one thing and getting unsafe food commodities off the shelves in our retail outlets is something else altogether. Here is how our bill would improve our capacity to recall and trace unsafe food products.

Our proposed legislation would give strengthened authority to the CFIA to develop regulations related to the traceability and recall of food commodities and the appropriate tools to take action on unsafe food as the need arises.

Our proposed legislation also includes prohibiting the sale of food that has been recalled. These new powers would go a long way to strengthening the CFIA's ability to keep consumers safe from potentially harmful food. Also included would be the authority to require regulated parties to establish a traceability system.

However, it is not up to the CFIA alone, and I wish to point out that our food safety system is a partnership between government, industry and consumers. We all have a role to play when it comes to food safety.

This leads me to consolidating our inspection and enforcement authorities. What exactly does that mean?

As I said earlier, Canada's food safety system is world class; however, we must recognize that it is getting old.

Take for example a wonderful recipe handed down by your great-grandmother. Over the years, every generation modified the ingredients and added comments in the margin. It is still a good recipe, but it is kind of difficult to follow.

Over the past 50 years, we amended food safety legislation as the need arose to take into account changes, including changes in technology. It was a good approach in that the intentions were good, but the results varied. I will provide an example.

When it comes to illegally imported food products, meat inspectors do not have the same powers as fish inspectors. A meat inspector can order that the product be removed from Canada, but a fish inspector cannot. It does not always make sense nor is it always practical for different powers to apply to different food products. After all, some companies produce both meat and fish, and there are inspectors in charge of examining a range of products.

Of course, the inspection work gets done, but it could be done more effectively. What we really need to do is incorporate various legislative provisions on food safety into one law, which would establish a subset of rules that everyone could understand and follow easily and that would apply to all food products. This streamlined process would have many benefits.

It would allow the current inspectors to do their job better and it would simplify training for the next generation of inspectors. It would also allow the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to be more efficient and effective and the inspectors to manage risks more consistently, whether we are talking about meat, fish or other food products. That is precisely the purpose of this bill: to establish a subset of powers that will make all food products and regulated parties subject to the same inspection rules.

Since the 1960s, many cooks have changed the recipe to control food safety in Canada. They did excellent work, but the time has come to adopt a new version of the recipe.

Our proposed legislation also addresses strengthening import controls, and here is why.

Thanks to our globalized marketplace, consumers can purchase almost any food they desire in Canadian grocery stores. With so much of our food coming from abroad today, many consumers are asking good questions. At the end of the day, they want to know whether imported foods are really safe to eat.

This bill and our government's planned overhaul of our food safety system would address some gaps in our legislation with regard to food imports. First, a specific clause in the legislation would prohibit the importation of unsafe food, thereby stopping it before it makes it to the marketplace. Second, we would licence importers. We need to ensure that we sustain the parity that exists, in terms of standards and compliance, for both domestic and imported food commodities, and that is what we plan to do.

These are just some of the tools we can use to do that: keep unsafe food out of Canada more effectively; track food importers and remove unsafe imports from our shelves more efficiently; and impose tough new penalties on importers who break the law. Together, these measures would better protect the health of consumers and would give Canadians greater confidence in the safety of imported food.

Let us now talk about export certification. While the bill is geared towards import, or keeping unsafe foods out of Canada, it is also geared towards export or certifying that Canada's products leaving this country are of the highest quality.

I have noticed that, when Canadians talk about food safety, they often ask questions about what is coming across our borders from other countries. But, frankly, what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. If we demand high standards in food safety from our trading partners, then they have the right to demand the same of us.

That is why, around the world, the idea of food certification is taking hold. Many countries, including Canada, have been insisting that food imports be certified to give consumers an added layer of confidence in the safety and quality of the food they are buying.

Some of you might be thinking this is one more burden on the food industry. The fact is, despite the high quality of our food, some foreign markets have been closed to Canadian producers. Armed with an official seal of approval, our food exporters may finally be able to pry these markets open. So certification will heighten our capacity for food exports, not hinder it.

But there is a major stumbling block to certification. At the moment, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency can only certify some foods for export. We need to expand that authority to encompass all food commodities. In this way, all Canadian food exporters can get the edge they need to go after new foreign markets.

The proposed legislation would allow the CFIA to certify all food destined for export. Essentially, this would create a level playing field and show potential export customers that the food we are offering them is every bit as safe as what we consume ourselves. In so doing, we could be helping more Canadian food producers to gain a foothold in international markets.

Last, but definitely not least, let us have a word about protecting the Canadian public from food tampering, deceptive practices and hoaxes.

Canada is blessed with one of the world's best food safety systems, but the confidence of Canadians is based to a certain extent on faith. We trust that the system works effectively and that our food is safe to eat. When Canadians hear that someone has tampered with a food commodity, it can cause alarm. We worry not just about the product or the brand in question; we start to think that if it could happen to this brand, it could happen to any brand. Even if the threat turns out to be a hoax, the damage is done. Our faith in the food safety system has been called into question.

Until now, in Canada, tampering with food, threatening to tamper with food or falsely claiming to have tampered with food was dealt with through the Criminal Code. However, we think there is a better way. Passing the bill would mean that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency could act immediately when there are reasonable grounds to believe that this type of activity has occurred. That could save time and potentially lives.

We need to update and modernize food safety in the country. I am proud to say that our government is taking action. This new food safety legislation would allow the CFIA to go after those who put hazardous foreign objects into food, those who threaten to tamper with it, or those who knowingly or recklessly communicate false or misleading information to strike fear into the hearts of consumers. Those culprits could face prosecution. The proposed legislation would provide new authorities to address immediate food safety risks and would build additional safety into the system, from the producer or importer to the consumer.

We need to work together. That includes making Bill S-11 into law. Previous governments, both Liberal and Conservative, have tried to enact legislation with similar aims. The NDP recently voiced support for what the bill strives to accomplish. At agriculture committee, and during previous debate in the House and in the other place, both opposition parties made a point of voicing their support for our legislation.

During an agriculture committee meeting, the member for Welland said: “...hopefully, it will become a standard across the country for food safety”. At another meeting, the member for Guelph exclaimed: “...everyone around this committee table supports Bill S-11”.

I now call on the opposition members to make good on their word and help pass this important bill.

Some have claimed that because this important legislation was dealt with efficiently at the House of Commons agriculture committee and no amendments were made to the bill there, the government has not done its due diligence. However, the fact is that this legislation has been debated numerous times in both the other place and in the House of Commons.

Bill S-11 has been studied in both the Senate and House of Commons agriculture committees for over 20 hours during which 46 witnesses appeared, including the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food on two occasions. Both the Senate and House agriculture committees have, indeed, done their due diligence in their study of the bill.

While journalists and opposition members are entitled to their opinion as to whether proposed opposition amendments to Bill S-11 would improve the bill, the expert legal advice offered to our government was that these amendments were not necessary at best and would be an encumbrance to the CFIA and the food safety system at worst.

When it comes to the safety of Canadians and their food, our government listens to the experts.

The changes we are proposing would go a long way toward strengthening and modernizing our already robust regime. Passing this bill would give Canadians even more confidence in the safety of the food they eat.

With so much good will and good intention from my honourable colleagues, I see no reason why we cannot deliver on this bill to provide Canadians with a modern food inspection system and the protection they deserve.

The House resumed from November 7 consideration of Bill S-11, An Act respecting food commodities, including their inspection, their safety, their labelling and advertising, their import, export and interprovincial trade, the establishment of standards for them, the registration or licensing of persons who perform certain activities related to them, the establishment of standards governing establishments where those activities are performed and the registration of establishments where those activities are performed, as reported (without amendment) from the committee.

Business of the House

[Peter Van Loan, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, this afternoon, before we depart to our constituencies and events for Remembrance Day where most of us will be participating in remembrance services in our ridings, we will resume third reading debate on Bill C-28, the financial literacy leader act.

The week of November 19 will continue to see a lot of important action at the House committee level, where we are looking at the budget implementation act, Bill C-45, the jobs and growth act, as it advances through the legislative process. The finance committee is supported by 10 other committees looking at it and all together they will conclude the review of this very important bill and the very important job creation and economic measures that are laid out, measures that were first put before Parliament back in our March budget.

Meanwhile, on Monday the House will continue the third reading debate of Bill C-44, the helping families in need act, which we started this morning. Given support for the bill from all corners of the House, I hope it will pass that day so the Senate can pass it before the end of the year.

After Bill C-44, it is our intention to take up the report stage and third reading of Bill S-11, the safe food for Canadians act, which was reported back from the agriculture committee yesterday. I hope we will see strong interest in passing that bill quickly, just as we did for second reading.

Once that bill passes on Monday, the House will return to third reading of Bill C-28, the Financial Literacy Leader Act, if we do not finish the debate today.

That will be followed by second reading of Bill S-8, the Safe Drinking Water for First Nations Act. On Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday, the chamber will consider report stage and third reading of Bill C-27, the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, which was also reported back from committee yesterday.

I should also advise the House that on Tuesday when we return from the Remembrance Day week, immediately after question period I will call ways and means Motion No. 14 respecting some technical amendments to tax laws. Let me assure the House that there should be no doubt about this, but the opposition will no doubt be disappointed. This motion will definitely not implement the New Democrats' $21.5 billion job-killing carbon tax.

Finally, on Thursday before question period, the House will resume second reading debate of Bill S-8 and after question period we will take up Bill S-2, the family homes on reserves and matrimonial interests or rights act, also at second reading.

Agriculture and Agri-food

[Merv Tweed, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food, regarding Bill S-11, Safe Food for Canadians Act.

The committee has studied the bill and has agreed to report the bill back to the House without amendment.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Chair, I think the whole question of, for example, what is considered to be commercial and in confidence is an issue, as is what is considered to be releasing technically advantageous information into the marketplace that pertains to the company in question with regard to a food safety incident. I mean, these are the types of things where there has to be....

He's asking for agreement in writing to maintain the confidentiality of the legislation. Well, then, just what...? In order to determine what can and can not be divulged, there has to be an understanding as to what is confidentially protected or not protected. This is where everything is going to bog down.

I think that's what we're trying to avoid with Bill S-11. We're trying to give the minister and the agency the tools they need to be able to respond quickly to situations when they arise.