Agriculture Committee on Nov. 4th, 2014

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Chair. I propose:

That Bill C-18, in Clause 95, be amended by replacing line 27 on page 63 with the following: “"( o.l) exempting, with justifiable conditions,”

I am moving this amendment and asking for support because I don't think we've had enough justification for inclusion of these exemptions. I recognize that some might be necessary, but I think that this amendment adds better language by recognizing that the exemption has to have some justification and conditions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much.

Are there questions, or is there is debate on it?

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

I'm wondering whether, once again, we could have.... I'm not sure why, but right now the bill is worded “with or without conditions”. In other words, there may be times when conditions are required; there may be times when conditions are not required.

I'm not too sure exactly what this particular amendment is doing. It's “with justifiable conditions”. It's eliminating the “no condition” situation—that's the way I would read it—and is inserting a word, “justifiable”. But I don't understand the problem with the wording “with or without conditions”. That covers the full spectrum. Why we would constrain that and offer only one imposed solution, which is that you must have “justifiable conditions”, I don't quite understand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Would you like to respond to that?

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

I don't know whether we can get any kind of commentary from the experts about what this change would mean.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Mr. McCandie Glustien.

[Nicolas McCandie Glustien]

The exemption authority is a regulation-making authority giving the Governor in Council the authority to make regs—for this one, to exempt something. This is the normal way that exemption authorities have been written for most of our statutes. You can exempt something without conditions or with conditions, and those conditions would be set out by the GIC.

The Governor in Council would propose the conditions. From our perspective, those would be justifiable, in that we've developed a case for them, we've put them through the regulatory process, the proposed reg has gone through GIC 1 and GIC 2, and there has been comment. That's really the justification for those conditions.

I don't think the wording “justifiable” adds anything, and it also removes the ability to exempt something completely, without conditions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you.

Is there further debate?

(Amendment negatived)

Shall clause 95 carry?

(Clause 95 agreed to)

(On clause 96)

We'll now move to clause 96 and will go to the first NDP amendment, numbered NDP-14.

Madam Brosseau, please.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move:

That Bill C-18, in Clause 96, be amended by replacing line 30 on page 65 with the following: “time, with the consent of Parliament.”

Again, it's to limit the incorporation by reference.

I think I can guess how this is going to go.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

It's hard to believe that.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

I'd even bet on it, but I'm not going to go there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you.

Mr. Allen, please.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I've heard my friends across the way, who seem to love incorporation by reference. They may one day be sitting on this side of the table and regret the fact that they introduced incorporation by reference. As has been said many times by those of us and those who are older than me, “Be careful what you ask for”. That is because at some point in time it may be utilized in a way you may not have anticipated. It's all well and good when you have control and you have power, but it's not necessarily so when you don't.

I know that Mr. Harris has that understanding, because at one time he was on the opposition benches and he knows what it feels like to be on that side of the ledger. It was a long time ago, I recognize that, Mr. Harris. And you were, indeed, a very good opposition member when you were there, sir, if I may put that on the record.

Clearly for us, the piece is that when you incorporate by reference and you do this to legislation over and over again, regardless of what you feel is a business way of getting things done expeditiously, ultimately you take parts away from our role as parliamentarians, and that's the piece you should think about.

I recognize that this is the direction this government is taking, and you have every right to do that. I think there are some times when you take the reports back to the folks who are sponsors of the legislation, the minister, you should think about incorporation by reference and whether that's what you really want. As I said, at some point there may well be someone else doing things by reference that you won't like. Ultimately, one ought to think about whether you want to give up the powers of a parliamentarian to incorporation by reference, or whether you want to maintain them for all of us, because it is about all of us as parliamentarians.

I think you're eroding that piece, and I think it's a mistake. I understand that you don't, and I respect the fact that you don't agree with us. We'll see how the vote goes, Mr. Chair. I am a betting man from time to time, when I think I can really win. Scotsmen never like to part with their money so I'm pretty sure I'll win this one. It will be 5 to 3 for sure. I'm not sure about my colleague and whether he'll vote with us or not.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Is there further debate?

We have NDP amendment 14.

(Amendment negatived)

I'll now move to PV-6 and Ms. May, please.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is the Green Party's sixth amendment to Bill C-18. As the previous amendment, this one is in relation to the Health of Animals Act, again to stress the need to maintain Canadian scientific capacity and remove the discretionary ability of the minister to rely solely on foreign evidence.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you.

That's been brought forward before, so is there any discussion on it, please?

(Amendment negatived [See Minutes of Proceedings])

I will move to clause 96.

(Clause 96 agreed to)

There are no amendments between clauses 97 and 108. May I assume that we can group those and approve those?

[Some voices]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

(Clauses 97 to 108 inclusive agreed to)

We now move to clause 109 and I would ask Madam Brosseau if she would present NDP-15, please.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

That Bill C-18, in Clause 109, be amended by replacing line 5 on page 75 with the following: “time to time, with the consent of Parliament.”

Once again, to limit incorporation, I'm not sure how this one is going to go, but I am asking for support of this amendment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you very much.

Is there any discussion on amendment NDP-15?

(Amendment negatived)

(Clause 109 agreed to)

We don't have any amendments on clauses 110 through 113. I ask consent that we approve those clauses as written.

(Clauses 110 to 113 inclusive agreed to)

(On clause 114)

We will move to L-2. Mr. Eyking, please.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

We're moving into another category that deals with fines and penalties. As we can see, the minister is going to have discretion and they're pretty hefty fines. For minor violations it will be $5,000, for serious ones, $15,000, and for the very serious, $25,000.

It concerns me a lot, and there is no doubt about it, that Canadians and farmers and the rest of the world want to feel that they have the safest food possible when they buy Canadian food. We all agree on that. What I have a problem with is these fines.

I've been in the farming business and the inspectors came on our property, and a lot of times they would coach us on how to better our products and how to better handle our products. When we had the presentation from the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, their concern about this part of the bill was that it has gone from the CFIA being a bit of a coach to being a bit of a referee. When you look at these penalties they are pretty hefty. For instance, if you have a farmer who has a carrot packing line and one of the packers forgets to put on his or her hairnet and an inspector sees that, all of a sudden there is a $5,000 fine for a minor violation. There is no rhyme nor reason to that kind of fine for that situation.

There is no doubt if you have a big killing plant, and they are processing chickens, and the water is not done right and there is salmonella in the water then big fines have to be put in place for big, serious offences.

I have a problem with the amount of the fine. Some inspectors might have a little bit of an axe to grind with some of the farmers and all of a sudden are slapping on fines. Not only could that cripple a farmer, but it could also slow down his production. I have a real problem with that.

We need something in place. We definitely need an appeal process in place so that if a farmer or somebody else is producing food and making jams or whatever and gets this big fine, they can go to an appeal and there is some sort of board consisting of farmers and people in the food industry for the people who have been fined to go to.

It's heavy-handed. I don't think it's going to help the agriculture industry. It will just drive big fines instead of helping to move the industry forward, especially when you see the cutting of many inspectors that we see in the system, so there are fewer CFIA inspectors. I see this as starting up a new system that's really not going to make our food any safer. It's going to hit people when they can't afford it and it gives too much power to the inspectors.

That's why I'm changing. It says this:

That Bill C-18, in Clause 114, be amended by adding after line 24 on page 77 the following: “(1.1) Section 4 of the Act is amended by adding the following after subsection (1): (1.1) Before the Minister makes a regulation designating a violation under paragraph (l)(a) or fixing a penalty in respect of a violation under paragraph (l)(c), he or she shall consult with a cross-section of persons and businesses involved in the agriculture industry.”

That way, Mr. Chair, the inspector knows he can't go willy-nilly and put these fines on without some repercussions or without the individual having some say in the process.

We have to have a watchdog in place from the food industry because at the end of the day the food industry wants to be safe and healthy. They need to be involved if programs are going to be set up like HACCP. They also have to be involved, when fines are implemented, in how much the fines are.

That's why I'm putting in this amendment. It was also stated by some witnesses that this part of Bill C-18 has some concerns about the amount of penalties that are in place.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Thank you, Mr. Eyking.

Mr. Dreeshen, please.

[Earl Dreeshen, Conservative, Red Deer, AB]

Thank you.

I have a couple of comments on some of the discussion taking place. First of all, I want to make sure it's on the record that there are more CFIA inspectors; there is no cutting of CFIA inspectors. If we have that on the record, that's the first part.

Second, and this ties in to some of the things that you, Mr. Eyking, mentioned a short time ago concerning an order paper question. You had asked about increasing the administrative monetary penalties, making sure they're dissuasive; you were asking whether the minister was planning to increase them to ensure that they were dissuasive. We have one side in which you question whether there's a need, but we're also taking a look at other situations and maybe this should happen.

The other aspect of inspectors is that they do a great job. They're not going out looking for people to fine; they're trying to ensure safety and all of these types of things. I think it does a disservice to those who work in the industry to suggest that they're going out trying to increase their dollar value or something like that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Bev Shipley]

Mr. Eyking, please.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

I'm not saying that the inspectors are not doing the right job; I'm just saying that the fines are in place. If you had a police officer stop you for a parking ticket or whatever, and all of a sudden they could fine you anything they want up to $5,000.... This is too broad for the type of violation that could happen, and it could put people out of business. I just don't see having these huge amounts as making our food industry safer.

Yes, I've stated that we may have to look at some of the fines that are in place, but there has to be some merit to the big numbers put on them. I use the example of the person who forgot their hairnet on a packing line. All of a sudden, a big fine comes for this farmer and well, yes, the inspector puts the fine there, and all of a sudden for a minor offence it's $5,000. I think there has to be somebody or some body to be a watchdog over how much....

And there's no appeal process, unless the government can tell me about an appeal process for somebody who gets those big fines to go to to plead their case, saying, “Look, this inspector came in, there was a change of shift, and something was forgotten.” But I don't see any appeal process here for farmers who are going to be dinged with these big fines.