Bill C-27 (Historical)

Canadian Food Inspection Agency Enforcement Act

An Act to regulate and prohibit certain activities related to food and other products to which the Acts under the administration of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency apply and to provide for the administration and enforcement of those Acts and to amend other Acts

This enactment provides statutory authority respecting the inspection powers of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the enforcement of Acts under its responsibility. It authorizes a number of measures such as
(a) subjecting various activities related to the importation and exportation of, and interprovincial trade in, regulated products, to a licensing regime;
(b) prohibiting, licensing or permitting certain activities related to dangerous things that are subject to the Health of Animals Act or the Plant Protection Act such as pathogens;
(c) permitting the exchange of information with other governmental authorities or prescribed organizations;
(d) permitting the Agency to enter into arrangements in respect of foreign inspections; and
(e) modernizing powers of inspection.
In addition, it creates certain new offences related to those measures as well as offences related to tampering with a regulated product.
It also authorizes the Minister to make orders to respond to natural disasters or urgent situations.
Finally, the enactment amends certain other Acts in consequence.

Safe Food for Canadians Act

[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.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, thank goodness the member for Guelph is asking tough questions because all we hear from the government side are the trained seals on the back benches who take their direction from the parliamentary secretary, which is one of the problems with this place. My colleague from Welland asked pretty tough questions at committee, too.

I have one simple question. We support the bill. In fact, an even stronger bill was introduced by the Liberal government in 2004 or 2005, which was Bill C-27 at the time. The bill has a nice sounding name. Yes, it is good to have all the powers and authorities that the bill recommends, but what about the resources? We know about the budget cutbacks in terms of financial resources. Could the parliamentary secretary tell me the total number of inspectors working within the CFIA to inspect imported food coming to Canada and to the stores, which they are not really doing, and those kinds of areas? Could he give me the numbers?

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today and speak to the modernization of our food safety system. It has been a long time coming. If anything has been made clear by the recent outbreak of E. coli at XL Foods in Brooks, Alberta, it is that we need to take a closer look at food safety in Canada. We need to take a closer look because a system that the government recently claimed is one of the foremost in the world has inexplicably failed and left 15 people sick across Canada.

After nearly a month of constant coverage in the media, Canadians are all too familiar with the constantly evolving situation at the XL Foods establishment 38 in Brooks, Alberta, which led to the largest beef recall in Canadian history. It is important that Canadians watching this are not that fooled by the feigned urgency of the minister or his government when it comes to this legislation. The government is simply trying to change the channel on a rather dire issue.

When Conservative senators first introduced the legislation in the upper house in June, there was no urgency to seeing it debated expeditiously. In fact, it did not become a priority until the Conservatives were embroiled in defending their cuts to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency in the last month.

Bill S-11 gave the minister an opportunity to claim that inaction on our part would hinder giving powers to inspectors that would prevent food safety breakdowns like XL's in the future. Unfortunately, this is a terrible ruse, an all too familiar tactic by the government.

Let us assume for a second that Canadians were not aware that under the current provisions of the Meat Inspection Act, the inspectors at XL Foods in Brooks were unable to request the documents they needed, which of course is not true. Why would the government let a bill granting these authorities languish for a summer in the Senate if that were the case? This is all to characteristic of the government. There is no willingness to make good public policy for the sake of Canadians. Instead, it waves it around the House like a hammer, scoring cheap political points.

The bill is important, but Canadians need to understand that it is no panacea. Once the bill is passed, Canadian food inspectors will not magically be able to prevent further outbreaks of food-borne illness and will not have that many more tools than they already have at their disposal. In effect, the bill will streamline some of the elements of inspection at the CFIA. Many of the changes are superficial, and all are primarily designed to modernize our food safety and inspection system. While it is nice to build a more efficient and modern vehicle, we need to ensure that we have enough resources to drive it.

This spring the government announced some drastic cuts to the CFIA, including a reduction of $56.1 million in the budget. Only recently did we discover that the government had no clear picture of the resources available to the CFIA before making those cuts, because it had not performed the comprehensive audit of resources that had been requested by the independent investigator into the listeriosis crisis.

We support modernizing our food safety system. After all, it was a Liberal government that introduced Bill C-27 in November 2004, a legislative measure designed as a second step in our modernization process, intended to consolidate and enhance the existing inspection and enforcement powers of the CFIA for food, agriculture and aquatic commodities, agricultural inputs, animals and plants.

Interestingly, the member for Haldimand—Norfolk, now a minister but then the official opposition agriculture critic, complained that the bill might restrict industry too much and noted that her party “supports a less intrusive approach to regulatory policy in Canada”. The bill died the following year upon the dissolution of Parliament. Since then there has been a major food safety crisis, one that killed 23 Canadians and made many more extremely ill.

The first lesson we learned from the 2008 listeriosis outbreak was that once the contaminant is in the market, it is already too late. Food-borne illness targets the most vulnerable of our population: children, seniors, pregnant women and their unborn. The only way to fully protect them is to catch contaminated food before it hits the shelves.

An independent investigator, Sheila Weatherill, was appointed in the wake of that tragedy to determine what went wrong and delivered a series of recommendations on how to ensure that the situation would never happen again.

In responding to her report, the government has made great fanfare about completing all of her 57 recommendations, Bill S-11 included as the final one. Yet the proof of this completion remains to be seen.

Before this House passes another bill on food safety, the government will have to reassure this party and Canadians that if it is to make real and meaningful changes, it will provide independent assurances that the CFIA will finally get the resources it needs and, in that regard, doing a comprehensive resource audit is required to see what it needs.

On its face, Bill S-11 is relatively straightforward. It would consolidate the Meat Inspection Act, the Fish Inspection Act, the Canada Agricultural Products Act and the food provisions of the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act into a single act.

Furthermore, it would establish a parallel inspection and enforcement structure for all food commodities, meaning there would no longer be dedicated meat or fish inspectors but inspectors trained for all commodities. This is slightly concerning to me. I have the greatest esteem for our inspectors who work so diligently to ensure we have safe food once it reaches our tables, but I know that even right now they are not given all the tools they need to perform their roles to the fullest. We are asking inspectors to become jacks of all trades, spreading expertise even more thinly than it is right now.

I ask the government, what mechanisms would be instituted to ensure that all inspectors receive adequate training across all commodities, when it has still not, four years later, trained all inspectors on the comprehensive verification system?

This issue was highlighted very recently in the wake of the E. coli outbreak at Brooks. Mr. Bob Kingston, the president of the Agriculture Union at the Public Service Alliance of Canada, made the following comments at the Senate Standing Committee on Agriculture about this bill:

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.

This revelation strikes right at the heart of the oft repeated myth that the current Conservative government has hired more inspectors than ever. Moreover, 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.

It is concerning to us on this side that we might only be increasing the uphill battles that inspectors are facing while training to keep our food safe.

Mr. Kingston continued in his testimony to say:

This situation is not limited to XL. As a matter of fact, we were just at a conference this weekend and 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.

What then happened in Brooks, Alberta? This kind of food safety decay does not happen overnight. A plant does not get shut down for three weeks for a faulty nozzle; a plant gets shut down for three weeks because there are compliance problems from top to bottom.

The minister stated that the Brooks facility boasts 40 inspectors and 6 veterinarians. How many of those inspectors are fully trained on the compliance verification system? Where in the legislation has the government addressed the number of inspectors required for each plant?

Pretending this legislation has the answers that Canadians need is disingenuous and not at all reassuring, because it creates no clarity and gives no answers to the issues I have just raised.

The bill would also establish a number of prohibitions, primarily relating to importing, exporting and interprovincial trade, as well as the manufacture, preparation, and sale of food commodities. It would also bring in tougher penalities for tampering, hoaxes or other deceptive practices. Here, we agree that the CFIA should be given the necessary tools to enforce import standards and to penalize deceptive practices. However, simply giving the CFIA a bigger stick is not reassuring to inspectors.

Since the outbreak of E. coli at XL, the government has tried to claim that the CFIA does not have enough enforcement powers at its disposal. The minister claimed that it took two weeks to issue a recall of contaminated meat because CFIA inspectors on the ground were not given timely access to documents that would have shown that XL was not monitoring trends leading up to the outbreak.

That is a convenient narrative. However, the existing Meat Inspection Act already gives powers, compelling:

[that] any person 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.

Additionally, the current regulations state:

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.

As recently at this February, the CFIA made its regulations for processors clear on its website in “A Processor's Guide to Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) Inspections”, which reinforces the legal requirement to provide information to and assist an inspector when requested.

In reading the government's release on Bill S-11 from earlier this year, it is clear that the power to request documents is not new. Question 8 of the FAQ sheet asks if inspectors are getting any new powers. The question is answered as follows:

Under the Safe Food for Canadians Act all inspector powers of the Fish Inspection Act, Meat Inspection Act, and the Canadian Agricultural Products Act have been consolidated into one suite of authorities with a modernized language. The Safe Food for Canadians Act does not distinguish between different food products, as each individual statute did.

So far, the only new thing about this is that the powers are now uniform instead of separated. It goes on to answer:

The main new authority that did not exist in any of the former food safety statutes is the power to request a warrant by telephone. In addition, the proposed legislation provides more explicit authority for an inspector to pass through or over private property to get to a place for inspection purposes or to take photographs.

This new act gives the power to phone in a warrant and to make private property more accessible. Perhaps my colleagues across the way could tell me how that would have helped the 40 inspectors on the ground at XL Foods. Were they somehow unable to monitor the lines? Was it a closed-door facility they were unable to gain access to? It does not seem that way, as the ministers claimed they had a very close working relationship with the XL Foods staff. However, the answer continues:

Many authorities have been updated from their previous version to reflect new drafting conventions and to make them clearer for all stakeholders. Some of these authorities include the power to request that an individual start or stop an activity to prevent non-compliance with the act, the power to ask for documents to be produced, and the prevention of obstruction and interference with an inspector carrying out his duties.

Finally, we have the piece that they claim was missing, except, as the department clearly states, it was already there. This super power that finally will be granted to inspectors was there all the time, but the drafting language just needed to be made clearer. This is information coming right from the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food's own department. I am glad that the language will be made clearer, but it reinforces further that this legislation is not the magic bullet our food inspectors need.

Our inspectors need, and consumer safety demands, that the government includes in this bill a comprehensive third-party resource audit, including human resources like the one our hon. colleagues in the other place attempted to include and which our leader, the hon. member for Toronto Centre, requested from the Auditor General.

In fact, the audit was first called for by the independent investigator into the listeriosis outbreak, Sheila Weatherill, who said:

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.

Accordingly, she recommended:

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.

To this day that has yet to be done. A mere survey was undertaken and the former president of the CFIA, Carole Swan, stated that the review was not the same as a comprehensive audit. The government could not answer who its inspectors were, what their roles were or where they were located. It obviously cannot answer the question of whether there are enough or if we might need more. The members opposite will attempt to observe that the Auditor General already has the power to inspect the CFIA. However, having studied the last omnibus bill closely, all of the members opposite will also have noted that at page 187 the bill removed from the authority of the Auditor General of Canada the power to request that the CFIA provide information about the agency's performance. Certainly, it is within the mandate of the Auditor General to examine whatever departments he or she sees fit, but there are restrictions on how many audits he or she can perform yearly.

Furthermore, if the Conservatives object so strenuously to the Auditor General performing the review, they should open up a transparent third-party, arm's-length process so that we might finally know which resources are required, where they are required and if we have enough, among other things. Sadly, for the government it is all about communications victories, not real assistance for Canadians. In the minister's speech today, he talked more about us in the opposition than his own bill. While this bill contains a number of important measures that we could support, it does not go far enough to ensure there are appropriate resources allocated, and we have given the Conservatives every opportunity to date to add viable and important measures like an audit, yet every time they have refused.

We agree with Bob Kingston when he says:

Generally speaking, the bill is a good start but we need to ensure that the proposed appeal mechanism does not give industry too much power to undermine the work of CFIA inspectors.... The government has made an important policy statement today with the tabling of the Safe Food for Canadians Act. Now it’s up to the government to provide the CFIA with the resources to enforce the new rules and CFIA management to adopt a prevention mindset.

We will be moving this bill to committee next. I sincerely hope that the government will be more amenable to making the necessary changes to ensure that our inspectors have adequate resources. I hope that the members opposite can make this about more than scoring cheap points, and I look forward to the opportunity to take a closer look at the bill in the coming days.

Food Safety

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, a lot has been said about Bill S-11 tonight, and I want to provide a little history on it.

Bill S-11 encompasses some of what was in Bill C-27 in 2005. It was opposed by members who are sitting over there, now in the government. I will tell members who led the fight to oppose the government in implementing those new safety measures for the CFIA. It was the current Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food. That is who led the fight, the agriculture critic for the official opposition of the day. Let us get that on the record.

The Minister of State for Finance talks about rhetoric on this side. If he wants to assure people and do away with the rhetoric, then the two ministers responsible, the Minister of Health and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, should show up and answer questions. They should call a press conference and assure Canadians—

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Good morning, witnesses.

As has been noted by the chair, this will be our concluding message from witnesses to the committee in terms of our going forward and reporting on this very important matter.

I guess over the past month or so we have heard a lot of things. A lot of things were repetitious from one group to another, but one theme remained consistent: people should have the right to know, and they should have the right to know that the information they believe to be true is actually true.

I guess before this committee we've had a number of issues. A number of years ago we had Bill C-27, where we brought together a number of bills. The bills died in 2006. Where we tried to bring some clarity, where truth in advertising was really the foremost issue, that was on dairy products, where we brought the dairy terms part into that bill. Even though the department felt we shouldn't do that, we did it.

Yet we hear this morning from you that we need to make sure that people have confidence in the system. We know there are things on the shelf today that shouldn't be there. You know they shouldn't be there, particularly the Competition Bureau, the CFIA. It's not a health issue. We're not talking about safety. I think you've made that very clear and I don't think there's anyone here who questions the safety of our Canadian food products.

Given that so much of the product that we buy on the shelves today is marked “Product of Canada”, when in fact the product within the contents of that packaging or containment is not Canadian, and when you ask a Canadian, they believe it to be Canadian, isn't that misrepresentation of fact or truth?

If the Competition Bureau knows this, why do we not have the watchdogs? Why do we not have the people who can go into the stores and make sure that what's on the shelf actually is what it says it is?

I just don't understand why this has gone this far. I have some other comments in terms of what we might be doing in the future, but can I have your comments on that and why we have failed so miserably in the past?

Canada Consumer Product Safety Act

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak to Bill C-52, the Canada consumer product safety act.

I was here earlier and I listened closely to the minister's remarks. He did go to some considerable length to make it sound like the government was taking strong action where maybe previous governments had not taken the kind of action necessary. I do think it is important that I set the record straight in that regard. It was several times that we recognized in the previous government that greater consumer protection was necessary and that there needed to be new authorities implemented in terms of the protection for consumers and consumer products and, in particular, in the area of food.

In the previous Parliament, there was the introduction of Bill C-27 which would have moved forward in a lot of those areas, taking strong measures, especially in the area of labelling, of bringing up to date quite a number of bills that required modernization and giving greater authorities for CFIA and other agencies to deal with imported product, hoaxes and threats of putting foreign products into food or threatening that on the grocery store shelves. It was really the Conservative opposition of the day that prevented that from happening.

I am glad the Conservatives have now seen the light and are bringing forward a bill that we very much believe is a step in the right direction.

I agree with many colleagues who have previously spoken that this does need to go to committee. We need to look at the details to ensure there is nothing in the fine print that we should be concerned about. As a party we will be moving this forward to committee. We see it at this stage as a step in the right direction. It is an issue that exploded after, basically, the lead scare on toys from one nation that exports those products to Canada.

In reality, we have to look at both bills. We are here to speak to Bill C-52, but we have to look at both Bills C-51 and C-52 because they are intertwined and both have to move forward to committee.

As I indicated, we are committed as a party to improving the safety and health of Canadians. We believe this debate should occur at committee. We believe it is important to strengthen the regulatory process to ensure that Canadians have access to the safest consumer products that can be made available and to ensure that the products are labelled properly so that consumers do in fact know what they are buying.

As I indicated, we also think it is necessary for these bills to have a proper review and also necessary to ensure that witnesses on both sides of the question, people with the technical and the legislative expertise, be invited to committee to go through the bill in detail.

Currently a lot of the information about consumer products is done on a voluntary basis. I think we know that this is just not as adequate as it should be.

This new bill, then, will prohibit the sale, import, manufacture, packaging, labelling and advertising of consumer products that may pose a risk to consumers. While voluntary recalls will continue to happen, inspectors named under the act or by the minister will now be able to order the recall of a consumer product.

In the past, I have expressed in the House some concerns about the way some of the ministers in the government use their authority. I have just a note of caution. These authorities are there for a purpose, not for an ideological agenda. They are there to protect consumers and to ensure that consumers have the safest products available. They are not there for purposes other than that. I want to point that out at the beginning.

On the area of labelling, we read about it in the press almost daily now, and it relates mainly to food products. With the intertwining of the bills, I think it is important to mention this. I did have the opportunity in December and January, with a colleague, to meet consumers and the farm community on the whole issue of our regulatory system in Canada as it applies to, yes, consumer products, but certainly and mainly to food products that are on grocery store shelves.

One area that Canadian farmers are really concerned about is that a double standard applies to them. They face a tougher regulatory regime than do their competitors, yet their competitors' products end up on Canadian grocery store shelves in competition to those of our farmers, who face that tougher regulatory regime.

Canadian farmers face double standards from their own government regulations by taking on costs to meet high food safety and environmental standards only to watch imports that do not meet the same standards price them out of the supermarkets. There are a lot of examples in that regard.

We have to ensure that with this bill coming in, and with tougher regulations and more inspections, Canadians who are meeting these standards are not disadvantaged. We cannot allow that to happen. I will use a couple of examples that I know well from the agricultural arena.

For the health of Canadians, Canada has established rules to eliminate feeds using specified risk materials from cattle in order to eradicate BSE, yet the United States has not imposed those same rules, and Canadians continue to import and consume those beef products from the United States. We cannot allow that situation to continue.

Gencor, a plant in western Ontario, closed about five or six weeks ago. It was killing 700 older cows a week. The reason it closed was that its cost regime for removing specified risk materials put it at a disadvantage with U.S. plants. It went out of business, with the loss of 120 jobs and a processing plant for Canadian product.

With these new regulations on consumer protection and under Bill C-51 on food protection and labelling, et cetera, we have to ensure that at the end of the day our industry is not put at a disadvantage. We have to be on a level playing field with the United States.

As well in the farm sector, although this bill does not specifically relate to the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, the bill does relate to Health Canada. It has authority over the PMRA, which is responsible for pesticides in this country. Some pesticides are banned in Canada because they are deemed unsafe for the health of farm workers applying the product, yet Canada allows imports using these pesticides because they meet Canadian food residue limits.

Here is what we have. We do not allow the use of this pesticide or herbicide because it may have an impact on workers. Therefore, even though it may be a cheaper product, a producer is not allowed to use it in this country because of its impact, as I say, on workers. Yet we will allow the product produced with that herbicide and by foreign workers onto our grocery store shelves, and again our farmers are not competitive.

I make this point. As Canadians consume these imported products, Canada is no longer protecting the safety of farm workers. We are simply exporting the problem to foreign workers in exchange for cheaper foods and undermining the potential of Canadian farmers. It is another example of how Canadians are disadvantaged. They are important measures, yes, and they are measures that need to be taken in terms of workers. We should not be exporting--we can, I guess, but we should not be--our moral responsibility to other countries and disadvantaging our own in the process.

What I am saying is that Canada cannot have it both ways. Imported products that do not meet or do not even have to meet Canada's domestic production standards undermine Canada's high domestic standards for food safety. Canadian farmers are not only competing in a regulatory system that impedes them in the international markets, but they are operating in a regulatory environment that gives their international competitors the advantage in domestic markets.

I have to make that point, because with these new bills and these new regulatory authorities, with greater authority for the minister, all of which are important, we have to ensure consumer product safety but we also have to ensure that Canadian producers and, indeed, Canadian importers are not disadvantaged as a result.

The last point I would make is one that we have heard a lot about recently. In fact, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food is holding hearings in this area. The Prime Minister, along with the Minister of Health and the Minister of Agriculture, mentioned this issue when they announced the introduction of these bills. It is the whole issue of product of Canada labelling.

I raised this question earlier with the Minister of Health. The fact of the matter is that one can buy product of Canada olives in Canada. One can buy product of Canada grapefruit juice. One can buy product of Canada orange juice. I do not know of anywhere in this country where we grow olives. I do not know of too many grapefruits or oranges being grown in Canada, so why would such a package on a grocery store shelf read “product of Canada” when those products are being sold here?

The fact is that the definition is wrong. When Canadian consumers go to the grocery store shelf, they should feel confident that what they are buying is indeed a product of Canada. Under the current definition, that is not the case. The current definition is that 51% of the total package costs occurred in Canada. It really has nothing to do with what is in the package.

That has to change. As the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, we are looking at it. It has to change and relate to the product that is in the package itself, because I firmly believe that if Canadians are given the choice, they will veer toward buying the product that is indeed produced by Canadians, knowing the kind of regulatory and environmental regime we are under and knowing that it is supporting other Canadians in their economic activities.

Certainly I want to emphasize to the minister and to the government as a whole the absolute urgency of dealing with product of Canada labelling. It is a very serious matter. It has to be dealt with in a comprehensive way.

There has been some suggestion that we could go to voluntary labelling as well and that may be a possibility. The bottom line is that Canadians need a strong regime to define what indeed is a product of Canada and what is not.

We do see Bill C-51 and Bill C-52 as important in that they modernize our regulatory regime for consumer products in Canada. The government has to go further than what is currently stated in these bills. We must get a definition of product of Canada. The bottom line is that there has to be truth in labelling. That is what consumers want and it does not matter whether it is a widget, a computer, an apple, an orange or a piece of steak. People want absolute certainty that there is truth in the labelling on what they are buying. There has to be a regulatory and enforcement regime around that to make it stick.

Our party is committed to improving the safety and health of Canadians. We have attempted to do that in the past. As I mentioned earlier, there was some opposition from members in the Conservative government. We support measures which strengthen the regulatory process to ensure that Canadians do have access to the safest consumer products.

We look forward to reviewing the details in the legislation at committee to ensure that it is as accountable, transparent and effective as possible for Canadians. We do see this as a step forward. We look forward to the discussions in committee, some of the technical briefings, and some of the witnesses who will come forward with information that will be useful to all of us in the House to ensure that at the end of the day this is the best legislation possible for the interests of Canadians and for Canada as a whole.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you to both of you.

Bill C-27 was a pretty comprehensive bill. In fact, I spent a lot of time on that. I wonder if there are ways of getting to this licensing of importers without the government having to go to the full measure of very extensive legislation. If either of you have any thoughts on that, I'd like to hear them.

The hearings of this committee are really on the “Product of Canada” definition, and you folks understand the definition is that it is only 51% of the cost. I take it from both your comments that neither of your organizations has a problem with changing the “Product of Canada” designation. I don't know where we'll end up, whether 80% or 70% or somewhere in between, but the definition should actually define the product itself--what's in the package. As long as the guidelines and rules are clear on what that definition is and that it targets the product in the package, would your organizations generally not have a problem with that definition?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank everyone for their presentations.

I really dislike having to take 30 seconds to deal with Mr. Lauzon's political malarkey, but it can't be left to stand on the record as if it were true, because it is not.

I'd suggest, Mr. Parliamentary Secretary, that you go back to the debate in the last Parliament on Bill C-27, when we were trying to define the dairy terms. You will find there were two obstacles in defining those dairy terms. One of them was by the name of Mr. Ritz, and the other was by the name of Mr. Anderson. That's all I'll say on the subject, but I don't think the discussion today was the place for that kind of comment.

In any event, we've had a good discussion. It comes down to truth in labelling.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Please do.

If fees from farmers are only covering 10% of your costs, could you include in that calculation you're going to give us what the administration cost is for collecting those fees? I wouldn't be surprised if the farmers are just employing people to do the administration and this is not gaining you a whole lot in terms of your overall structure.

I know that with potatoes from Prince Edward Island, for instance, the various fees from CFIA on a truckload of potatoes cost as much and sometimes more than the transportation to get the truckload of potatoes to Toronto. That makes our industry non-competitive.

There's another point I wanted to raise, and maybe this is a question for the parliamentary secretary, Jacques. The previous Parliament had introduced Bill C-27, and it was noted at the time that there was opposition to the bill from the opposition--and that's normal--but it was seen as a very important piece of legislation for streamlining the system. In fact, it would have made us more cost-competitive by increasing our ability in terms of border inspections and harmonization with the United States and other countries.

I don't know whether you're in a position to answer, because I think the direction has to come from the government, but certainly it was a piece of legislation that I still maintain and believe is necessary. I don't know whether you can answer, André, or whether the parliamentary secretary can answer on behalf of the government, but I'd like to know when we can expect to see legislation that will update all the various acts of CFIA and the animal and plant health acts and so on and get us up to modern times, because it didn't get through the last Parliament.

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

The pillars of supply management are fundamentally right, and we cannot lose them.

John, I'll go to you. You talked about truth in advertising. Two years ago this committee--I was then the chair of the committee--with the cooperation of all parties put forward Bill C-27, which was a compilation of eight or nine different pieces of legislation under CFIA dealing with the issues of bringing things in uniform form into legislation. We brought in a piece of legislation that was never there before, and that is truth in advertising, or the dairy terms act, as we would....

Well, Kraft became involved, and that bill is there somewhere in the halls of Parliament, but it likely will never see the light of day, because the politicians are afraid to touch it. I was not afraid to touch it. I think the politicians around the committee table were not afraid to touch it, but I don't think the government of the day is ready to touch it, and that's the problem we have. The Krafts of this world--the multinationals, the large players--are playing into this. There was nothing wrong with the legislation. Simply, we wanted to know that when you advertised something as having cream in it, it had to have cream in it. We needed to know that.

I know where you're coming from, and I'll allow you to comment.

Bob, on the issue of wildlife crop loss, who should pay for this when it's in the common good? We have the same thing in the sealing industry; there are certain people out there protecting the seals, and it may have contributed to the downsizing of our fishing industry. We don't know for sure, but it probably has. There are people out there who want to protect these things, just as they want to protect the elk and the deer and the moose and all these other things that are playing havoc with the industry. Who should pay for that? If is for the common good, should not the common folk pay for it?

Income Tax Act

[Joy Smith, Conservative, Kildonan—St. Paul, MB]

Madam Speaker, I am very happy to put some comments on the record about Bill C-271, an act to amend the Income Tax Act.

I must applaud the member for Westlock--St. Paul. This very progressive bill has addressed a problem that has been touching on the education of our young people and the lives of our students and music teachers here in Canada. I can tell members from experience that I know well what it is like to have music students come to my home. It is something that I did at one time. I have to say that this private member's bill is long overdue.

First of all, I was appalled at the comments I heard from members on the other side of the House, particularly those from the Liberal Party.

Number one, what was said was that they have no problems with cash credits being given to students who go to formal institutions to get their education, but let me tell members a little about the kind of education that students get from certified music teachers.

A certified music teacher who is giving music lessons out of his or her own home takes the children through grade levels. There are standards. There can be music programs like those from the Royal Conservatory of Music. The music teachers give the lessons. The children do a lot of practice and cannot progress until they actually take the examination at the end of the year. If they pass the examination, they go to the subsequent grade.

This helps a lot of students, particularly students in rural Canada. There are schools of music all over Canada, but I would say that most of them are centred in major cities. Many of our students in our rural areas are at a disadvantage because of the cost of having to leave their homes and get their education elsewhere.

This is about investing in the future of our students. It is lifelong education. Members opposite often talk about lifelong education. Here today we saw a dismal display of the understanding of what education is all about. Clearly, music teachers, 20,000 of them across our country, are watching this and saying, “What are they saying? What are they talking about?” Clearly, there is a high standard of education from certified music teachers.

The downside is the cost to parents. As I say, I applaud the member for Westlock--St. Paul for putting this much needed bill forward because many parents and students cannot afford the cost of extended music lessons. When students go through the public or private school systems, the cost of everyday life is great. The cost of books is great. The cost of education per se is great.

Over and above that, there are a lot of students who would like to become musicians and music teachers. They would like to achieve those kinds of goals. But in actual fact, by the time the cost of the instrument is paid for, whether it is a violin or a piano or another instrument that one wants to play, we find that these are very expensive. Some of them run into hundreds and thousands of dollars.

Qualified music teachers who build a home business of teaching students do much to contribute to the economy in their particular district. What I hear from members opposite is that there are merits in the bill and yet they divorce their support from this bill based on the fact that this is what we call homegrown business. Not only is it homegrown business, but it is formalized education outside the parameters of the bricks and mortars of institutional schools of learning.

Many students have reached very high standards and have gone to Julliard or to extended music schools all over the world. Where did they start? They started at home with a qualified music teacher, teaching them grades 1 through 9 formally, with the counterpoint and the other kinds of educational expertise they have to learn to get to a certain level before they can go further. They have a whole basis of formalized education that opens up a whole new world to them.

I came from a small place in southern Manitoba called Wakopa, a little hamlet, on a farm. My parents never had the kind of money that we needed to get through school. A lot of us took music lessons with the local music teacher.

Members opposite are playing the violin as if this is a story they do not want to hear. However, this is a very serious issue and it is a very progressive bill. I would call on members on all sides of the House to support the bill. It accommodates the education of many students throughout Canada, many students who would otherwise not develop.

Many music students are happy being able to study their music. They are happy to enjoy the music and the development it offers them. Apart from that, it is also a great part of the education of Canadian students. Many students would attest to the fact that. Because of those certified music teachers, their lives have been changed. It has opened up new worlds to them. It has helped them to develop as individuals. It has provided jobs for them.

Having some tax breaks and credits is of paramount importance to the education of our children. Members on all sides of the House have to look carefully at the attributes of music teachers. Music teachers have a one-to-one individualized relationship with their students. That helps the students to have a vision on how they can develop and grow. Once they get their basic music, then they can go on to all sorts of different fields. I know first-hand of students who have taken their basic music degree or music education and then later have gone to higher levels of education.

In some rural areas, as these students get into the higher levels of grades 9 and 10 or into their ARTC music degree, they will teach the beginner students as well.

The bill has a lot of merit. It has a lot to say about understanding the education and lifelong learning of individuals in our nation. We need to build a high standard of education. We need to encourage individuals, no matter what their backgrounds are or how much money they have. We need to give individuals a vision of who they can be. In many places, especially in rural Canada and in our urban areas as well, that certified music teachers provide that opportunity.

We talk about the feel good kind education and the enhancement of the well-being of somebody. However, it also very difficult formalized education. Anyone who has ever studied music would understand that. Anyone who has ever gone through counterpoint would understand the logistics of that kind of education as well.

We need to give a lot of support and credit to the students in our nation and to the 20,000 music teachers who work on a daily basis to help their students reach their highest levels of learning.

Over and above that, across the nation we have festivals where students can compete and understand what it is like to receive an award for their singing or for their playing. Many communities have music festivals that teach other kinds of skills as well, and they have built-in toastmasters.

I fully support Bill C-27. It is an extremely progressive bill that should have been in this House of Commons a long time ago. The Liberal Party has been in power over a decade and this has not come up in the House.

The teachers and the students in music have done very well. If there is anything the government can do to support their lifelong learning, it should be done. I would like to even see some things extended, where the price of instruments, et cetera are also included.

To conclude, the bill would add to the well-being and high educational standards to which every student wants to attribute themselves.

Spirit Drinks Trade Act

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I must thank my colleagues, and even some across the way, for their signs of approval when I raise that point.

So there are some terms that have to be protected: butter, milk, cream and cheese. Strangely enough there is no protection for them at the present time. Changes are, however, in the cards with Bill C-27. Obviously we are in favour of very clear labelling in order to protect our good local products.

Take fruit juices as another example. Strange as it is, “100% fruit juice” on a label must mean that the container has 100% juice inside it. Even if it only says “fruit juice”, that is the only thing that can be there.

That is not the case with dairy products, however. There is no such obligation at this time. So supermarkets can sell something labelled “buttered popcorn” when no butter is listed among the ingredients. It is just a marketing ploy to attract a buyer who thinks he is getting something extra: butter. Sometimes he does, and sometimes he does not. So we need to look at the list of ingredients every time.

We can buy a cream pie that contains no cream. That too exists. It can be found at the supermarket. We know that ice cream can be made using butter fats instead of real cream. The labelling is misleading. Fortunately, this will change thanks to provisions included in Bill C-27, which has yet to be passed.

Obviously, the idea is not to prevent certain products from being manufactured or marketed, but rather to regulate their labelling, so that consumers know exactly what they are buying. Popcorn without butter is still popcorn; but if there is no butter, the label should not say something different. It will no longer be permitted to use the word on a label or in a trademark. Manufacturers will not be allowed to write on the label that the popcorn is buttered if no butter was used. That is what we want and wish for. Bill S-38 on wines and spirits provides for similar protection.

With respect to dairy products, according to a Quebec dairy producers survey, dating back to 2001, when they read the word butter on products at the grocery store, a majority of consumers tend to think that the products contain butter. That is a reasonable assumption, because we are used to reading information and relying on it. But in such cases, as I said earlier, it is simply a marketing ploy to have consumers believe that they are selecting a good dairy product when it is not the case. We must always be wary of what is written on the packaging.

We had another long debate on the labelling of GMOs, genetically modified organisms. Naturally, the Bloc Québécois is spearheading efforts in that area.

Another, more recent survey, conducted by Léger Marketing and released in May 2004, shows that 91% of Quebeckers and 83% of Canadians are in favour of mandatory labelling for GMOs.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am delighted first of all, if what the parliamentary secretary says is true. If it has happened, I am delighted. We wanted to address those issues. They were raised with us by the Association of Canadian Distillers and we wanted to ensure that their voices were heard. It would appear that this has been done and that makes a nice change.

What really concerns me though is what the parliamentary secretary just said. It proves something that this side of the House has been saying for a very long time. The fuss over Bill C-27 is not at all about the dairy labelling amendment. Not at all, and this is what the other side of the House does not get and it would appear the parliamentary secretary does not get.

It is about the same thing that the last election was about and why that party has such reduced numbers on that side of the House. It is about accountability. We have been fighting Bill C-27 on the basis of a lack of accountability that is there. We have been fighting it since day one. We have made numerous efforts to introduce various forms and mechanisms of accountability into Bill C-27. We believe it is extremely important to Canadian producers and processors to have protection from their own government. These protections do not exist in Bill C-27. When we have tried to introduce them, every attempt to do so has been thwarted by the Liberal government.

When the parliamentary secretary says that the fuss is about something else, he is either grossly misleading the public who are watching this, or he still does not get it. That is unacceptable because the government has to learn about accountability. People have to be responsible for their actions and it is time that the Liberal government learned that.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food (Rural Development)]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to hear that the member for Haldimand—Norfolk and her party will be supporting Bill S-38. She has outlined a number of points in terms of its benefit to rural Canada.

I want to deal with a couple of points with which the member had some concern. One point the member mentioned was the matter of consultations. I do not think a government in Canadian history can be found that has consulted as wide as this one has on so many issues. In fact, Spirits Canada has made it very clear to us that it is supportive of the amendments that were made in the other place. I am not sure whether or not the member is aware of those amendments. I will outline them for the member.

It is clear that when the bill was being debated in the other place, we did receive input from the Association of Canadian Distillers, as well as additional input from International Trade Canada regarding the exact nature of Canada's trade obligations. The Senate acted to deal with those concerns with amendments.

The Senate decided to amend the bill to make a distinction between the type of protection Canada is obliged to provide for the spirit drink names under the Canada-EU wine and spirits agreement and the type of protection for names in the NAFTA and in the food and drug regulations.

The Senate decided to eliminate the blending provisions for Scotch whisky and for Irish whisky, as these provisions would more appropriately remain in division 2 of the food and drug regulations where the rest of the blending provisions for spirit drinks reside. I believe that concern that the member raised has been in fact addressed.

With regard to her second concern on the term “spirit drinks”, the government and the department has undertaken an interdepartmental review of this question related to the provision of Bill S-38 and feels that including a definition for spirit drinks would not be necessary. A general definition is not required as the legislation is very specific as to which spirit drinks are affected.

The proposed legislation does not actually reference “spirits” only “spirit drinks” and those specifically identified in the schedule to the Spirit Drinks Trade Act. We do not see a problem with relying on the definition of spirit drinks as that term would be commonly understood.

I believe we have addressed the concerns that the member raised. We would hope that hearing that, the member will be game for speedy passage of this legislation.

The last point is with regard to her comments on Bill C-27. There will be an opportunity to debate that on another day. Certainly, I hope that the official opposition is not going to start to compromise on that bill. Really, what that bill is all about, where the fuss is at the moment, is the dairy industry coming forward and wanting truth in labelling. I think all parties in this House should be supporting truth in labelling.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise in the House today in support of Bill C-38. The bill respects the implementation of an international trade commitment by Canada regarding wines and spirit drinks.

The bilateral agreement between Canada and the European Union affords the Canadian industry recognition and protection to signature products. This is important because the value of this industry is tied to the inherent value in Canadian brands.

The Conservative Party supports the intent of the bill as an export strategy for the Canadian wine and spirits industry. Conservatives are very supportive of rules based trading systems, especially ones that help secure international markets for Canadian products and that help ensure that Canadian consumers have access to high quality products produced in other countries.

As such, we support the general thrust of the bill and the agreement that it helps implement.

Formal recognition by the European Union of rye whiskey exclusively as Canadian will provide Canadian industry participants the opportunity to invest and grow knowing that their investments will not be undermined.

The bill is good for many reasons; for the wine industry and for the distilleries. It also is good for rural Canada. Why rural Canada specifically? Many of Canada's distilleries, wineries and breweries are based in rural Canada, so they provide jobs which are good. Also it is agriculture which takes place in rural Canada that provides all the ingredients for these beverages. After all I have not seen many corn fields or grape fields in the middle of downtown Toronto. Therefore, this is good for rural Canada.

As our brand names become known on the international stage and through this bill, which would protect the integrity of those products, in other words people from other countries would be unable produce copycat products, the integrity of our products will be preserved. That will encourage our Canadian distillers and wineries to continue using Canadian product that comes from rural Canada.

Rural Canada does not just feed the cities, it also provides power. Rural Canada also provides the key ingredients for all our world famous wines and spirits.

Many people are confused by the bill. I have spoken with different people about it. They are afraid we will be unable to buy Merlot wine again. That is not the case in fact. The bill would is protect Canadian wines on a regional basis and Canadian spirits such as rye whiskey. No matter where we go in the world, if we order rye whiskey, we would be certain that it came from Canada and was made here with Canadian product.

This is a good thing for Canada on the world stage. We have a high quality reputation on the world stage. Our rye whiskey has been available around the world. There has been a demand for it for many years. Our grapes are quality, whether they are from the Annapolis Valley, or southern Ontario including my own riding of Haldimand—Norfolk, particularly the Niagara Peninsula, or the grapevines across the Prairies or the Okanagan Valley. The wines we make in Canada from these grapes are winning first prize awards around the world. It is wonderful for Canadians to be represented that way on the world stage.

I said that there was some confusion. Merlot is a grape, but for many years some thought that was a region. Italy and France have had regional protection of their wines for many years. If we go into a restaurant and order a glass of Bordeaux, we know that it comes from the Bordeaux region in France. Its quality is very carefully controlled. It is the same thing for Burgundy as well as the many great Italian wines. They have regional designations that protect and promote the integrity of the quality that wine.

The proposed bill will open the doors for our wines to have that same promotion and that same protection. This is a good thing. We will be unable to refer to a Bordeaux or a Burgundy because those come from France. We will be able to promote the Niagara Peninsula and the doors will be opened for our great Pelee Island wines as well. There are many other award winning wines produced in Canada, but I do not have the time to go through them all today. I congratulate them for being such ambassadors for us on the world stage

Another benefit of protection and bringing us in compliance is a number of years ago legislation was originally written to protect a product very similar to our rye whiskey, and that is Scotch whisky. Scotch whisky is very special. It is called the water of life. As we know, it comes from Scotland. However, that has not always been a controlled situation.

Many years ago one of the eastern nations decided that it wanted to meet the taste buds of its population by providing a Scotch-like product. The rules at the time on the international stage said that it could only be Scotch whisky if it were made in Scotland. It was a bit loose on the definition. One very ambitious distillery decided to make Scotch-type whisky in a town that it renamed Scotland so all bottles then could say “made in Scotland”. Fortunately the powers that be on the international stage got together and recognized the type of deception that was attempted there. That is why they tightened up the rules. That is why I am so glad that as we proceed with Bill S-38 we are tightening up the rules even more so to protect Canadian product.

Contrary to what the parliamentary secretary said during his speech, we have a few concerns with the bill. When we spoke with Canadian distillers, they indicated that they still had some concerns. While they are generally in support of this bill, there are a few things that they would like to see fixed.

First, they believe that there is a need for the government to eliminate certain provisions currently found within the food and drug regulations that would duplicate provisions in Bill S-38 if passed. Second, they are also requesting, though, that no provisions be deleted from these regulations without a comprehensive and full consultation with the industry.

Quite frankly, that request on the part of the distillers causes me some concern. We have seen all too often in the 12 months that I have been in the House that while the Liberal government has claimed consultations with industry, in fact it has met with maybe one stakeholder, if it is being generous on that given day. However, in terms of doing a cross-spectrum consultation to get the impact of its decisions on others, we have not seen that at all.

We are dealing with this very issue on Bill C-27 these days, where industry has not been considered. The impact of the government's intentions and actions has not been duly considered, and we are looking at a real mess coming up there.

I am not sure that this is the time or place to address it, but my Conservative colleagues and I will be opposing Bill C-27 as hard and as loudly as we possibly can. Someone has to stand up for the producers and processors in our country. Sadly, the Liberal government has not done it. Fortunately, and thankfully, my Conservative colleagues and I are happy to step up and take on that role.

Apart from the elimination of the heavy-handed approach, we would also ask that the government respect the request of the Canadian distillers and this time work in close consultation with them as the changes move forward.

For purposes of due diligence and legislative housekeeping, we are prepared to consider recommendations with regard to improving the legislation, particularly with respect to explicitly defining what constitutes a spirit drink. This is something that is omitted in the bill. Normally in legislation one tends to define what the key subject is and what the parameters are. Nor is there any reference to its definition under things like the Excise Act or whether it is that definition that applies here. We would very much like to see an explicit and unambiguous definition of spirit drink to guide the interpretation of this act for its future and for possible expansion.

Some of the members on the other side of the House are chuckling to themselves as I say that as if to say, “How could anyone not know what a spirit is?”

Let me assure members that definitions change over time. A number of years ago I worked in the wine and spirits industry, and new products came out that caused a lot of concern. Perhaps members will remember the invention and introduction of the cooler. It started out as a wine cooler. Then it moved to become spirit coolers. The industry and the regulating bodies over those industries had real problems. No one could class them as wines, or spirits or beer. They did not fit any of the previous definitions.

There was a great deal of consternation at the time about the tax levels that would apply to them and how they should be priced. The provincial boards that sell their own wines and spirits have different pricing formulas depending on whether the product is classed as a wine or a spirit. No one knew what to apply because these products defied the current definitions. The world moves on. We want to ensure that whatever is in this act is very clearly defined so there can be no ambiguity.

We also will seek clarity on the necessity to reduce legislative and regulatory duplication in the food and drug regulations under the Food and Drugs Act.

We also want to seek assurances from the government about its assumption that there are currently no instances of products in Canada which are non-compliant with the bill, so we can ensure that vendors are not unfairly penalized once the act comes into existence.

The government does not appear to have anticipated what will be done if in fact there are pre-existing inventories of non-compliant spirit drink products once this legislation comes into force. The parliamentary secretary has indicated that he does not believe that there are any known non-conforming products. As we have seen so often, particularly during question period in the last week, just because the government is not aware of something happening does not mean it has not happened and does not exist. We have seen examples all this week where the government claimed not to know anything, and in fact millions of dollars of taxpayer money was being spent. The fact that the government did not know about it does not mean it did not happen.

We want to ensure with this bill that there is a thorough due diligence done to ensure that any pre-existing inventories are dealt with in a proper manner.

Overall, this is a decent bill. It will help promote and protect Canadian wines and spirits. It also will be a boon for rural Canada, both at home and abroad. For that reason, I will be happy to support it. However, we want to ensure that it is done right. For these reasons, we look forward to working on the bill as it is debated in the House.

In closing I would like to add a light note, being that it is the end of the day. I am told this is a true story, and I worked in this industry for a number of years.

The country I mentioned before, which tried to produce a product labelled “made in Scotland”, also did some market research. It decided it wanted to introduce a scotch-type whisky, but it wanted to ensure that it would sell. Therefore, it did a lot of research into popular brand names of the day. They discovered a few. One was Queen Anne. I am sure many members in the House are familiar with that. Another was King George. It thought it would get the best of both worlds so it came out with a product, which it put on the market, called King Anne.

We are trying to ensure that our quality and standards are much higher than that . I believe Bill S-38 will help us achieve that and achieve even more prominence for the quality of our wines and spirits in the world market.

Justice

[Keith Martin, Liberal, Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there have been some serious misrepresentations in the House by the opposition against the government position on some very important judicial matters and in particular the protection of children. It is time to set the record straight.

In protecting children, our government has enacted some of the toughest laws in the world against the exploitation of children, against child pornography and against Internet luring.

Bill C-2, which received royal assent on July 20, criminalizes the sexual exploitation of children, particularly between the ages of 14 and 17. It looks at the age difference. It looks at the age of the young person and the nature of the relationship and whether there is any exploitation.

In reality, the age of consent is actually 18 years of age in our country. We will not criminalize the sexual relations that occur between young people. We have also enacted Bill C-27 and Bill C-51, which go further in supporting and protecting our children.

Agriculture and Agri-Food

[Paul Steckle, Liberal, Huron—Bruce, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present the sixth report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

In accordance with its order of reference of Friday, December 10, 2004, your committee has considered Bill C-27, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, and agreed on Tuesday, June 21 to report it with amendments.

Canadian Food Inspection Agency

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the minister is asking us to approve legislation that protects the CFIA but not producers or processors. Nothing is stopping the government from amending Bill C-27 to ensure that the CFIA does not abuse its powers.

As it stands, agrifood processors can have their inventories seized and operations shut down by the CFIA for two years, be found innocent and then have no recourse for their losses. Can the minister explain why he believes this is just and fair?

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the agriculture minister seems bound bent on ensuring that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency remains unaccountable. As it stands, Bill C-27 permits the CFIA to seize or destroy property without accountability for its actions or compensation for those who have been unfairly treated. The CFIA itself defined accountability as training its inspectors in the new rules and regulations.

Why does the minister refuse to legislate that the CFIA be held responsible for its actions?

Supply Management

[Rose-Marie Ur, Liberal, Middlesex—Kent—Lambton, ON]

Mr. Chair, I am pleased to rise tonight to speak on the subject of supply management. Perhaps I will spend a few minutes to educate those who are watching as to what supply management is all about.

Canada's supply management system matches production to Canadian demand and allows farmers to receive a fair price from the marketplace without relying on taxpayer dollars.

Supply management eliminates major fluctuations in prices at the farm processing or distribution level and ensures an efficient and secure food supply that respects Canadian safety and health standards.

The dairy, poultry and egg industries are important to Canada as together they contribute a net $12.3 billion to the GDP, generate $6.8 billion in farm cash receipts, sustain more than $39 billion of economic activity, and employ more than 215,000 Canadians throughout the country.

Supply management empowers farmers while benefiting processors, consumers, government and taxpayers. It exchanged the boom and bust cycles with a stable and orderly market, once again without costing the government or taxpayers a dime.

In Canada, pricing mechanisms are based on the farmers collectively negotiating minimum farm gate prices for milk, poultry and eggs. By acting together, farmers can negotiate a fair price for their food based on what it cost to produce that food.

In other countries without similar pricing mechanisms, an even smaller portion of the price paid by consumers is received by the farmers. For example, baskets of dairy products were surveyed in all cities in Canada versus cities in the United States by ACNielsen in June 2004. It was found that the cost on average in Canada was $89.75 versus $110.92 in the U.S. As a result, dairy products are approximately 23.6% cheaper in Canada than in the United States.

I would now like to speak specifically on issues related to Canada's dairy industry and the progress the government and the members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food have made to address serious concerns facing dairy farmers.

The government has been working hard for some time to establish a fair and equitable regulatory regime for dairy product standards and the use of dairy terms. For the dairy producers there are two key issues: the definition of dairy products contained in the regulations; and the labels used to describe dairy products and food containing dairy ingredients. Both of these issues fall under the responsibility of the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the CFIA.

Let me first discuss the need for clear regulatory definitions. There are some inconsistencies in the dairy products regulations' definition of milk product and the definition included in the food and drug regulations. The government wants to remove these inconsistencies, but we should do it in a manner that is transparent to all interested involved. That includes both dairy producers and dairy processors.

The second regulatory issue involves the labelling used to describe dairy products and non-dairy substitutes. The hon. member for Montcalm and his Bloc colleague have been working with the Dairy Farmers of Canada on product labelling. Liberal members have previously tabled amendments regarding labelling and the Conservative Party has brought forward private members' bills relating to this topic.

The issues are complex. To make informed choices, Canadians rely on the accuracy and the truthfulness of product information. The CFIA protects consumers and industry and promotes fair market practice by setting and enforcing standards related to the accuracy of product information appearing on food labels.

In fact, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency launched an extensive consultation on food labelling related to highlighted ingredients and flavours which include new rules for dairy terms. The stakeholders who participated in this consultation included producers, including the Dairy Farmers of Canada, processors, exporters, importers and consumers.

Producers and consumers were very much in favour of rules for clear food labelling. The issue has been before the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food as it studies Bill C-27, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Enforcement Act. I am sure that my hon. colleagues on both sides of the House applaud the breakthrough reached last week.

As hon. members may be aware, I brought forward an amendment that adds a clause dealing with the use of dairy terms. Under these provisions, it will no longer be possible to market an agriculture product using a dairy term on the label unless the product contains the dairy ingredient represented by the dairy term. Nor will it be possible to market an agriculture product that has a dairy term on the label if the agriculture product is intended to substitute for a dairy product.

There are exceptions allowed. One exemption applies to products that have traditionally been used under a specific name. No one wants the term “peanut butter” to be disallowed simply because it is not a real dairy produced butter. The other exemptions deal mostly with the words that now must be added to clearly inform consumers that these are not real dairy products. On product labels we will see more terms such as “artificial flavour” or “simulated flavour”. These words will tell consumers that the products do not contain actual dairy products.

It is through these measures that we have provided the solution to a problem that we have discussed and debated for some time now. I believe that this amendment and other approaches, such as making the regulatory definitions consistent, is the best way to address the issue.

It is important to note that the Dairy Farmers of Canada supports the amendment that I put forward, which was unanimously adopted by the committee. I wish to thank all hon. colleagues on the agriculture committee for their support.

In a recent letter sent to my office by the Dairy Farmers of Canada, it stated:

On behalf of the Dairy Farmers of Canada I am pleased to extend our gratitude for your contributions that resulted in the unanimous adoption of labelling amendments to Bill C-27.... These amendments are the culmination of several years of active lobbying to ensure that dairy terms are not misused or misleading. They will help to protect the integrity of dairy products.

We should be reassured by the progress that was achieved last week in the standing committee. We should continue to bring both sides together, the producers and processors, so that we can build a competitive agriculture and agri-food industry in Canada, one that maintains its worldwide reputation for quality.

To further this objective, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food has offered to both processors and producers to establish a forum to discuss dairy issues and standards, to build a consensus on recommendations to him. We look forward to the results of these discussions.

Supply management is a valuable system that not only benefits Canadian farmers but also consumers throughout Canada. That is why the Government of Canada remains committed to defending the supply management framework and defending the ability of Canadian producers to choose how to market their products.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Mr. Chair, I want to come back to a question I asked earlier around modified milk products, the imported ingredients that are now showing up in our product. The member spoke quite eloquently about what these were doing to our producers.

Earlier, when I asked the minister that question he talked about it being a labelling issue that we are considering under Bill C-27.

However I clearly understand that these imports are actually not just about labelling. They are having a direct impact on our producers and their ability to make a living. My understanding is that 50% of the ice cream market has already been taken away by imported ingredients.

Knowing that my colleague is a farmer, I wonder if she could talk about what it means to farmers in our community when they are not able to sell their own products because they are being replaced by foreign ingredients and we do not even know what is in them.

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Mr. Chair, I am sitting in on the Bill C-27 hearings and the New Democrats brought labelling issues forward, as did other members. We have been working on that. The question is, is it sufficient to start to win back the 50% of our ice cream market that we have lost? We are losing serious chunks of our yogourt and cheese markets because we have seen nine years of indifference on this file. The dairy farmers have been pushing for this for nine years on labelling issues and suddenly now we are getting action. Are we getting action because we have a minority government? I would think so.

Is this going to be sufficient? We have seen nothing in the past from the government on the issue of labelling and nothing from the CFIA on labelling. It was just allowed to happen and all the while we saw our market share continue to erode. Is this a first step? Yes, it is, and it is a good first step, but are we actually going to see a second step? We have to look at the record of the government and it has been pretty poor on this file.

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Yes, Mr. Chair, the hon. member points out quite correctly that there is a series of issues beyond simply the WTO trade-related ones, and one of them has to do with labelling.

It is my understanding—and I have my parliamentary secretary right here—that during the discussions in committee, specifically on Bill C-27, amendments were put forward to deal with the issues of labelling. From what I have been able to see, those amendments make good sense. The agriculture committee is a hardworking group of individual MPs and they do excellent work. I may not always agree with all of the members all of the time, but I have to say that it is a hardworking group of men and women, dedicated to the well-being of producers and of the industry as a whole. They have taken steps in terms of amendments to Bill C-27 to deal with the issue of labelling, and I am pleased that the committee saw fit to do that. If I am correct, and I will ask the parliamentary secretary, that was unanimous in terms of the committee supporting those amendments.

Agriculture

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, I need to point out to the hon. member that Bill C-27 was referred to committee before second reading. That provided members of the House, government members and indeed opposition members as well, the opportunity to shape the legislation in the way they felt was best. If there are specific recommendations that he would like to see in that legislation, I suggest that the hon. member come to committee and lay on the table amendments to achieve that.

[Barry Devolin, Conservative, Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock, ON]

Mr. Speaker, farmers across Canada are burdened by increasing government interference in their lives. They are concerned about the way the Canadian Food Inspection Agency goes about its business.

Bill C-27 should be focused on reorganizing the CFIA to make it more accountable and responsive to producers. Bill C-27 does not include any significant appeals process for producers. Can the minister tell us why?

Committees of the House

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise in the House today to address avian influenza. This is a contagious and deadly virus that has resulted in the deaths of millions of birds in British Columbia. This is an important issue to poultry producers in the Fraser Valley and, indeed, to all Canadians.

I am pleased that the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food has tabled its report on avian flu, which focuses on the management of the crisis. I know that the committee has worked hard to evaluate the CFIA's response to this disaster. I would like to thank my hon. colleagues on all sides of the House who have worked hard on this evaluation.

I would also like to recognize the hard work of my colleague, the hon. member for Abbotsford. He has spent countless hours on the ground addressing the concerns and needs of his constituents and, in effect, all Canadian poultry producers.

Most importantly, let us recognize the hard-working people of the Fraser Valley who have participated in the many forums surrounding the evaluation. Their resilience is representative of all Canadian agricultural producers in times of crisis and their patience is greatly appreciated by the members of this House.

We have seen the devastation that the avian flu virus has caused in Asia where it is not under control. It is important to recognize that the virus that was discovered in British Columbia was not the same strain as the one that jumped the species barrier in southeast Asia infecting and killing many people.

However this House has to recognize that it is the same disease and that it can jump the species barrier. It is deadly.

If history has taught us anything, we cannot ignore the threat that the World Health Organization has been warning us of. I encourage officials at Health Canada and at the CFIA to share information on developing safeguards and action plans for Canadians in the event that we are faced with the human strain.

It is evident that the avian flu crisis was mismanaged in the worst way from the top down. As we know, the CFIA operates under a hodgepodge of legislation and that has prevented it from doing the job it needs to do when responding to emergency situations affecting Canada's food supply.

What is worse is that it has taken the Liberal government seven years to develop legislation to correct this legislation. Bill C-27, which is currently before the House of Commons, seeks to amalgamate the inspection and enforcement powers of the CFIA. It is my opinion that the delay and inaction from the Liberal government in regard to the operations and function of the CFIA is partly to blame for the mismanagement of this particular crisis.

The CFIA's inability to deal effectively in a crisis recently came to light in a troubling internal review of the CFIA's handling of the BSE crisis. The review entitled “CFIA BSE Emergency Response Assessment Report” was made public by the Vancouver Sun through access to information. It underscored some worrisome findings, stating that the Liberal government's response to the BSE crisis was “plagued by poor planning, staffing problems and repeated failures to share information”.

Furthermore, it highlighted several gaping holes in the CFIA's ability to deal with, at that time, future emergencies such as a possible outbreak of avian flu or hoof-and-mouth disease.

The review was completed for the CFIA on December 10, 2003 by an outside consultant and it warned that if the CFIA did not take steps to fix some of the problems identified they “could undermine CFIA's ability to respond to more complex or time-critical emergencies”.

This raises several questions. A mere two months after this warning was made, the CFIA was faced with the outbreak of avian influenza. I have to wonder if there was any attempt during that time to initiate corrective action, actions that could have prevented the gross mismanagement that occurred in the Fraser Valley.

In the report that has been tabled in this House, the standing committee has developed seven concrete recommendations to better manage the outbreak of contagious disease in Canadian agriculture. These recommendations cannot be ignored. If they are left ignored, the Liberal government will once again fail to ensure necessary protection for our Canadian livestock producers facing potential new and emerging threats.

While we can all agree that consumer protection is essential, we must not forget the threats that face the farm.

The avian flu crisis confirmed that the Liberal government has no concrete action plan in place for threats that require the massive destruction of Canadian livestock. For example, if foot and mouth disease ever entered Canada, this disease would have the potential to devastate our livestock industry.

Canada is in grave need of an organized, pre-planned livestock destruction system. We must prepare for the airborne disease of foot and mouth before it happens. We cannot afford to be scrambling to contain the disease without a plan, much like what happened in the Fraser Valley. It would be an agricultural nightmare. The seventh recommendation of the committee recognizes this fact. The time to act on it is now, not to send it back to the committee from which it came. It has already done what it wanted to with it. We need to take the action now.

I would like to address one of the other recommendations, which relates to compensation.

The CFIA ordered a cull of 19 million birds in the Fraser Valley. There was a protocol for compensation according to the type of birds involved, but the then agriculture minister was unable to provide any information at the time as to how or when producers in British Columbia might be compensated.

Producers later found out that they would be compensated based on outdated bird values laid out in the compensation for destroyed animals regulations under the Health of Animals Act. The compensation available to producers was an insult to the hard-working men and women of Canada's poultry industry.

Furthermore, the standing committee's report points out that the Health of Animals Act has the following deficiencies: It does not have the capacity to distinguish between the species of different industries. It lacks recognition of the value of genetic material and rare breeding stocks. It completely disregards compensation for forgone income.

Compensation amounts for broiler breeders and layers were determined using a specific formula. The widespread nature of the outbreak limited the replacement market for these birds, making it difficult for owners to restock their flocks with adult birds. It is clear that the formula failed.

Specialty bird owners incurred a large amount of damage. These producers are not supported by supply management and suffered the loss of irreplaceable breeds, the loss of niche markets and the loss of capital investment required to start all over again.

To emphasize the necessity of addressing the issue of compensation, I would like to read in its entirety the recommendation of the committee:

That, in its review of the existing compensation program under the Health of Animals Act, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency must ensure fairness and consistency among all types of production. In recognizing the intrinsic value of genetic material so important to some industries, flexibility must be allowed in compensation. The Agency, in consultation with the affected industries, should also consider how equitable compensation might be offered for forgone income, and for one-time losses.

The Conservative Party of Canada supports the compensation of affected producers based on the same principles as any other disaster beyond their control. A Conservative government would ensure that compensation flowed quickly and effectively to producers.

Clearly, the compensation for destroyed animals regulation failed farmers. The Conservative Party demands that the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food make sure that these regulations are thoroughly and properly adjusted.

As recommended by the committee, we trust that the government will consult with agricultural and agrifood stakeholders in a responsible, open and transparent manner.

In closing, I would like to once again recognize the producers in British Columbia who were so seriously impacted by this situation. The Liberal government failed producers in the Fraser Valley and for that, it should be ashamed.

The Conservative Party recognizes the importance of producers' hard work, the benefits it offers to our safe food supply, and the contribution it provides to the Canadian economy. I would like to assure Canadian producers that their next government, a Conservative government, has an inherent appreciation for agriculture. Conservatives recognize the importance of respecting producers and the welfare of animals in times of crisis.

There are several problems that have been addressed through this report. A lot of them obviously have to do with the avian influenza outbreak in British Columbia. This is not the first time we have encountered difficulties with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. In fact, there were problems with the BSE situation. Too many producers across our country encountered difficulties of an unnecessary nature on a daily basis.

One particular producer in my riding has been having problems. She has been trying to import chemicals that would work on her sweet potato crop. These are chemicals that are used and approved in the United States for sweet potatoes. In fact, the same chemicals are approved in Canada for use on apples.

This producer is trying to build a brand new industry in this country, sweet potatoes. When she applied to bring in that chemical from the U.S. to put on her sweet potato crop, she was denied permission. Why? Believe it or not, she was told that somebody might eat the sweet potato skin to which the chemical had been applied. Most people I know eat the skins of apples, but not many eat the skin of a sweet potato. That is the kind of nonsense I am talking about.

There was another situation just last week where one of my constituents had a problem bringing in frozen fish from the Far East. All of the paperwork had been approved by the CFIA in advance. Yet when the ship docked in Vancouver with that very time sensitive load on board that had survival characteristics, because let's face it frozen fish is a time sensitive commodity, the constituent was told, “Too bad, it is Friday morning and we are not going to inspect your product until Monday”.

As a result, my constituent was in breach of the contract. The person was also to receive a bill for $1,300 for off loading, inspecting and reloading those goods that are no longer of use and for which business was lost.

We have to have accountability from this agency. That is why in Bill C-27 the Conservative Party is working so hard to add amendments that once and for all would cause the CFIA to be held accountable.

There is one thing I found frightening during the briefing regarding Bill C-27. When I asked what methods and means of accountability would be included in Bill C-27, I was told that the CFIA would be training its inspectors on the new rules and regulations. That is it, it would be training them.

That is not accountability. Canadians know that is not accountability. That is the first step in preparing for accountability, letting people know what their jobs are and what are the constraints and parameters of performance. Accountability is when people are expected to operate within those constraints and parameters and consequences are imposed if they do not do so.

We are talking about accountability for all of CFIA's actions, not just in the handling of the avian influenza outbreak, not just in the handling of the BSE crisis, not just in its day to day operations, but in everything it does. We need a safe and secure food supply system, granted. However, we also need to know there are no abuses of the system, that the processors who have to work within the system can do so in a fair and reliable way knowing that the government agencies that are there to help consumers are also there to help them succeed. If the producers cannot succeed, then none of us will have anything to eat, and who will be held accountable for that?

[Denise Poirier-Rivard, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Madam Speaker, I will take a moment this morning to outline the position of my party, the Bloc Québécois, on the report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food on the avian flu outbreak in B.C. last year. The Bloc Québécois welcomes this report for several reasons.

First, a general comment. What happened in British Columbia in 2004 was a very sad thing for the poultry industry and poultry farmers. We have to learn a lesson from this; we cannot just go on as if nothing happened. For the past to be a guide for the future, we have to learn from our mistakes and ensure they are never repeated, be it here or anywhere else.

In that context, the Bloc Québécois wants to support the committee's recommendations concerning the avian flu episode while reiterating some of its positions on human and animal health.

This experience with the avian flu outbreak must make Quebeckers and Canadians realize how crucial it is for the provinces and the federal government to implement effective animal health policies. While some would like the free market to work some magic and resolve all problems in the area of animal and human health, we have to seriously consider the advisability of implementing policies and regulations to at the very least contain such problems, if not prevent them.

This is why the Bloc Québécois made sure that the recommendations contained in the report recognize the essential role of those provinces which, like Quebec, have field expertise in dealing with animal health. Need I repeat that Quebec has a traceability system and its own food inspection and animal health agency—the Centre québécois d'inspection des aliments et de santé animale, or CQIASA—which is the envy of everyone the committee heard during its study of Bill C-27?

Of course, prevention in animal and human health comes at a price, as some people have quite rightly pointed out. That is why the Bloc Québécois thinks that such public health policies and preventive measures, in order to be fair, stable and equitable, cannot rely on either the free market or agricultural producers.

They cannot rely on the free market, of course, because it has a regrettable tendency to value potential profits above public or animal health. Such policies cannot rely only on producers either because producers are already financially overburdened as a result of disastrous harvests, the closing of borders to their livestock, and the steep decline in world prices for agricultural products.

Therefore, it falls to the government, that is, the citizenry as a whole, to assume the duty and responsibility of covering the inevitable costs of ensuring the quality of the meat, fruit and vegetables that all of us, in Quebec and Canada, find on our plates.

Quebec provides a telling example in this regard: for those who criticize our high tax levels, here is another argument demonstrating the wisdom of this approach. Quebec takes the health of its people very seriously and hopes that the other provinces will follow suit. We must remember, at a time when trade among the various countries is increasing, that it is essential for the public health authorities of our various trade partners, both provinces and countries, be agreed on the best possible practices and policies. We cannot make any mistakes when it comes to human health.

Let us return briefly to the avian influenza report. I would like to inform the House that the Bloc Québécois is especially pleased with some of the recommendations here.

Recommendations 1, 2 and 3 perfectly reflect the concerns of the Bloc Québécois, particularly by wanting to give the public more responsibility for the crisis that occurred and coming out in favour of adequate prevention of such crises in the future.

I will read the recommendations.

The first recommendation states that an independent commission of inquiry should be struck with the mandate to investigate the 2004 avian influenza outbreak in British Columbia.

To prevent the reoccurrence of outbreaks, the commission must review the effectiveness of the emergency preparedness and implementation strategies that were deployed in British Columbia, regarding zoonotic diseases.

The second recommendation says that the Auditor General of Canada should be asked to audit the effectiveness of various emergency preparedness strategies related to animal diseases, studying first the 2004 avian influenza outbreak in British Columbia, with an emphasis on strategies related to zoonotic diseases

The third recommendation is that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency establish a “Special Animal Disease Response Team,” comprising CFIA, provincial and local experts, that can be quickly deployed with appropriate equipment, and that is responsible for overseeing practices of emergency preparedness plans and procedures.

The seventh recommendation is that any industry recommendations or actions for a pre-emptive cull to limit the potential spread of an outbreak of animal disease must be submitted to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The agency, in consultation with the affected provinces and industries, must be proactive and responsible for authorizing and supervising any such pre-emptive cull.

Recommendations 3 and 7, which I have just read, emphasize that the federal government cannot go it alone and must call on the expertise of the provinces and the industry.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake, MB]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Battlefords—Lloydminster for bringing this forward and giving us a chance as the House of Commons to discuss the shortfall that we experienced with the avian flu.

Since I became a member of Parliament and a member of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, the one thing that has shocked me is that the CFIA seems to be completely unaccountable to us as politicians. It continues to mishandle such important issues to the Canadian public and Canadian agriculture.

We have had the BSE crisis, the CWD in elk and white tail deer and the avian flu. The CFIA seems to waffle on decisions and to be unapologetic for the way it has handled these situations. We really have to look at how we oversee this agency. How do we as politicians make sure that it is doing what is right for Canadian agriculture and the public? We need to make we are the ones in control and making the decisions affecting the industry.

I am quite proud of the work that the committee has done on this and the recommendations that have come forward. The seven recommendations really revolve around a lot of the issues that have already been laid out by my colleague. There is no doubt that we have to take a cautious approach in developing policy and that is why it is so important that we bring this report forward today and discuss it in Parliament, so we can move quickly in implementing these recommendations.

The report contains seven key recommendations that would ensure something like this never happens again. We need to fix the problems so that when these zoonotic diseases occur we can actually deal with them in a responsible manner that is best reflective of the needs of the industry.

The first recommendation calls for an independent inquiry to look at the entire situation in Abbotsford. As we know, some of the the things that happened in British Columbia were atrocious. The way the flocks were destroyed was terrible and the way it affected the guys who had backyard flocks was devastating. We need to find humane ways of handling the animals as well as addressing the disease problem and we need to do it in a manner that is effective and done quickly. We wanted to have that review.

The second recommendation revolves around the need to have the Auditor General step in and do a complete accounting and review of the way CFIA works and handles these disease outbreaks, essentially looking at emergency preparedness and how prepared we are to deal with these diseases. We never know what is coming around the corner at us and we need to have a good strategy.

We saw BSE in 2003 and at the end of that year we saw avian flu. We now need to ensure that we know how to deal with any future diseases coming down the pipe in a very responsible manner that everybody can understand, scientists, veterinarians, provincial governments, the federal CFIA, the producers who would be affected and the concerned public.

The third thing we want to do is set up a special animal disease response team to deal with this, to communicate it properly and to oversee the way in which the emergency preparedness plan is put into action. We think that will be critical for the future development of CFIA and how it handles the entire industry.

We want to ensure there are more level three labs and containment facilities across the country in order to get results on all samples tested so we can go through the process of quickly identifying the problem as well as the farms. If we have to do what we call scorched earth policy, going in and destroying the entire flock or herd, we need to ensure we can do that in an expedited manner to prevent the spread of disease.

I know many people do not like hearing about taking on an entire population of animals in a certain area, but we have to minimize the spread of that disease and the risk that is associated with it.

As was already said, we must ensure that the animals are destroyed in a humane fashion. Walking in and publicly blasting them with guns and hockey sticks is completely unacceptable. It was suggested we should be using curling rocks as a more humane way. We must ensure that we employ the most humane practices in destroying the animals. It should be done under the care of veterinarians who are trained professionals in this matter.

The sixth recommendation is one that has been an ongoing issue and deals with the compensation of these herds and flocks that are being destroyed. Right now it is arbitrarily set in stone within the Health of Animals Act. An animal is only valued up to a certain limit and that is all the compensation owners are entitled to even if the value exceeds that animal's worth.

There are so many costs associated to the producer who has the unfortunate experience of being affected by the disease, whether it is avian flu, BSE, tuberculosis, or who knows what else is out there. For years we have been fighting the one time costs in disinfecting, in cleanup, and in lost income because the animals are going to be taken out of the system for some time before the facilities are able to house them again. We must help these producers through that time.

Therefore, these one time costs, this lost income must be made part of the compensation program and not just the value of the animals. We need to remove the whole issue of maximum value. As long as we are accurately representing market value and have those animals appraised, then we are doing what is responsible as a government in addressing the needs of the producers.

The final recommendation is to ensure that the communication and consultation between CFIA and producers is done in a more transparent manner and working with the industry in a better fashion. The one major complaint that has come out of British Columbia is that provinces never felt they were part of the consultation with CFIA. They felt they were on the outside looking in the entire time and that they were in the passenger seat, and CFIA was in the driver's seat. The provinces were not properly informed or participated in any of the decision making process. We must ensure that the provincial departments of agriculture are involved in these decisions. I really recommend that we move on that.

There has been quite a bit of comment about CFIA and its usefulness. We are not here to talk about Bill C-27, but in addressing the whole issue of the way we deal with disease outbreaks, we need to begin looking at Bill C-27, and how we put the leadership structure into that organization. It has been just a complete shock every time that we have officials from CFIA before the committee. There seems to be a real wall and barrier between them and us. Officials actually seem to dislike appearing before the committee and talking to us about the issues of the day that affect the industry that we as a committee are responsible for dealing with on behalf of the people of Canada.

I want to ensure that we put in place a structure where CFIA is accountable to Parliament and that CFIA is showing the leadership that reflects the views of Canadians and the industry. We must ensure that Bill C-27 incorporates these recommendations and we need to have an agency that is working well and properly.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food (Rural Development)]

Madam Speaker, I know the hon. member is concerned about these issues but it amazes me how much of his time was spent trying to tie political rhetoric into this issue by bringing in Bill C-27 and talking about the minister and his henchmen at the CFIA.

This is a serious discussion and a serious report about a serious issue. We recognize that. The member actually belittles the work of the committee with that kind of political rhetoric. He said that maybe certain things were done because an election was coming up. Absolutely nothing could be further from the truth. The CFIA is an independent agency doing its work in terms of food safety. I am absolutely amazed that the member, whom I respect a lot, would spend his time with that kind of rhetoric.

The member said that the CFIA took a long time basically to get down to destroying the stuff. What is his or the Conservative Party's recommendation in terms of the timeframe that should be involved? I know the committee report makes recommendations as do others but in terms of a herd or a flock being destroyed, what timeframe is the member talking about?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I move that the third report of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food, presented on Tuesday, April 19, be concurred in. It is a pleasure to rise today to discuss this tremendous report.

I would be remiss if I did not at this point thank the clerk of the committee, Ms. Bibiane Ouellette, and our researcher from the Library of Parliament, Jean-Denis Fréchette, who have done a fantastic job in putting this report together. J.D., in a side comment to me the other day, said that in his 20-some years on the Hill this is by far and away the best report he has ever been part of and has seen. I take that as a real compliment to the yeoman's service in the work done by the chair and members.

This report actually came about at the direction of the soon to be retired member for Langley—Abbotsford. It was in his riding, and of course the Deputy Speaker shares some of that area, that the tremendous impact of the avian flu crisis was felt, an impact that it is still undergoing. We felt we had to get out there and hold some hearings to get the viewpoint of the actual producers affected by this.

A report was to come from the CFIA, which was to have been tabled by the end of 2004. That report did not show up, and get this, it did not show up until the night before we were to hold public hearings in the latter part of January in Abbotsford. Was it just a coincidence that the CFIA finally got around to tabling that report?

A tremendous amount of viewpoints note that the CFIA report is really no more than a grandiose scheme to pat itself on the back. When we look at who had input into that lessons learned report the CFIA finally got around to putting out, we see that there are 122 different interventions, if I counted the numbers properly, but all of them are basically in house. Even such experts as the people from the PCO were getting in their two cents' worth, but nowhere in that CFIA report is there any mention of the producers who would have liked to have put something forward or of the SPCA folks from greater Vancouver who wanted things on the record.

We felt there was a tremendous void and decided to take action. The committee travelled to Abbotsford in January and held hearings.

I would also at this point like to say that I will split my time with the member for Selkirk—Interlake.

We travelled to Abbotsford and heard interventions. Let me say that a lot of what we heard was really damning evidence. I think the biggest underlying reason that I wanted to go there and hear these interventions is that in my riding we faced the brunt of the chronic wasting disease with elk, to begin with, and then of the BSE crisis, which is still ongoing. Of course nothing has really been resolved on the CWD or BSE fronts and here we are on the third strike with the CFIA.

I knew from personal experience in my riding how the CFIA handled the crises on CWD and BSE. They were not farm gate friendly, not at all. Their inspectors on the ground were tremendous people. Some of them live within my riding and I know them on a first name basis. They have done yeomen's work in trying to cover the bureaucratic butts here in Ottawa and the decisions that went sideways a lot of time or took us in a misdirection because of a political agenda as opposed to a practical “let us get to the bottom of this” agenda.

A lot of the concerns we heard on CWD and BSE, and now avian flu, speak to the whole idea of compensation. If this is for the greater good of the Canadian public, for food safety and security, then everybody has to take a part of the hit, not just the farm gate, not just the farms affected and of course the collateral damage on the industries around them, but everybody.

We have seen the numbers on BSE escalating to the point where we are talking about $7 billion of hurt, an amount that is going to take some producers down. They will never recover. We are also seeing it rippling out onto main street, to small towns that are not going to recover from that hit. It is just not in the cards.

Having these hearings in Abbotsford I think really reinforced the idea that Bill C-27, now before the agriculture committee, basically underscores and gives the nod of approval to the CFIA for a lot of the action and inaction it has shown us over the last short term; it really underscores the fact that the CFIA be allowed to continue doing that. There is no recourse mechanism. There is no appeals mechanism. There is nothing in the bill that speaks to compensatory value for beyond just an ordinary run of the mill animal.

We have to look at these things on a case by case basis. We have to become much more proactive in the way that the CFIA under Agriculture Canada reacts to these. One of the recommendations we brought forward I think is a great one. It is that we must have an early warning team that goes in with the mandate, the authority and the responsibility to stop these crises dead in their tracks.

We saw that example when both Delaware and Texas in the U.S had an avian flu crisis. They went in, took the barns down and did away with the birds right away. What we saw in Abbotsford was a month and a half of nothing happening as they ran up the flagpole here to Ottawa to make decisions that took that long getting back down to the ground.

In that very first barn, the farmer himself told officials to get rid of it but they just did not quite get around to making that political decision. I guess they knew they would be calling an election and nobody wanted that blight on their record. However it is there and it will show up again as we go into another election mode.

It is just unbelievable that the best interests of producers are not paramount in any of this. These are the guys taking the economic hits and we do not see that in this so-called lessons learned from the CFIA. The only lesson that the CFIA seems to learn is to become more private and go more underground with its decisions and actions so that there will not be the fallout.

We as politicians have to step up and say that is not going to happen. We need to take a more indepth look at Bill C-27 to make sure we get this right because we have already seen that the CFIA is answerable to no one at this point. That needs to change as we increase its powers.

I want to get back to this report. Two internationally recognized experts, who were within spitting distance of the first barn, were not even consulted nor were they allowed to take part in the trace-out and the action that needed to follow. They were the ones who said and kept saying that this was high path avian flu, so the red flag went up right there.

However it took the minister and his henchmen at the CFIA weeks to decide to do that test and then to do something about that barn. When they finally did, they actually exacerbated the problem by taking those birds out of quarantine and leaving them sitting on the driveway of the farmyard for three days in plastic bins inside of a truck trailer. They did not seem to know the science, which everybody else around the world has learned, that the avian flu can be airborne and waterborne. After three days of these birds being left in the parked truck there was this yucky stuff oozing out of the trailer onto the ground and mixing into the groundwater.

When they first brought the birds outside of the barn to do things with them, the birds, of course, flap their wings and when they do that fluff and dander go into the air and downstream the next barn gets infected, and they wonder how the heck that happened. These guys really have to answer for a lot of those political, bureaucratic decisions that were made. The inspectors on the ground are carrying out their jobs.

I would like to put some quotes into the record that are in this report.

Bruce Arabskyi, with the group on behalf of primary poultry producers, said:

If there is another outbreak? There should be a total lock-down--no movement of birds or manure. Compensation must be in place to allow drastic action.

That is something that is not in Bill C-27 at this point and must be put in there so we can make those movements when it is required.

The second quote is from Dr. Neil Ambrose, a veterinarian who made presentations on January 19. He said:

It is ludicrous that the disease was not contained in the Matsqui flat area. Again it is because of procrastination and lack of common sense. We spent a huge amount of time waiting for decisions to come from Ottawa, and most of the time local CFIA staff didn’t know how to interpret those decisions.

This particular report goes on to make seven very good recommendations. We were maybe shy on one thing but I know it came out with the BSE problems and so on which is why it is not in these recommendations. However I would like to put it on the record so the government will have a look at this. When a barn or a farm goes down and its stock is completely done away with no compensation package is paid out. Right now they are allowed a year's revenue holiday to get restocked and so on but that is not long enough.

I know Mel McRae, who had the search-out herd in my area for BSE, is asking for a three year Revenue Canada break so that he can pay it out in thirds and get a chance to restock his farm and so on without paying those horrendous penalties on moneys that basically are in the common good. We have to start looking at things like that as well.

This is a report that is long past its time. It really points out the flaws in that we have politicized and bureaucratized the CFIA.

Canada Grain Act

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand today on behalf of the producers of Battlefords—Lloydminster to discuss Bill C-40. This is the first chance we have had to look at the bill. It is a fairly innocuous piece of legislation, just a few little paragraphs that comprise the bill, but the effects are far-reaching.

We need to have rules based trade. No one will argue with that. The problem I find, time after time, is that Canadian producers seem to be held to a different standard from other producers in the world. We always seem to be getting the short end of the stick. I am not sure if that is because we bargained in bad faith or that we have turned in too easily and allowed other countries to overrun the system that we work with here.

I have some major concerns with this little piece of legislation. No one has a problem with the WTO and with good, sound rules based negotiations and trade around the world. The problem is how do we do that without having these sidebar deals constantly caught up in trade actions that take years to come to agreement and hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars in hurt that we, as Canadians, seem to face on many different levels. I have some real concerns with being forced to make these changes as quickly as we are being asked to do so.

The government knew this was coming down when it starting forming legislation in September. It finally got around to doing this now. This has to be in place by August 1, the start of the next crop year, or we will face sanctions. There is no doubt in my mind that someone will pull the pin and we will face sanctions. The concern I have is the government wants us to treat this as housekeeping, look the other way and let it go through.

A lot has been made about the so-called consultative process that the minister undertook through his parliamentary secretary. The parliamentary secretary had a few meetings across the country. He lands at an airport, books a room in a hotel, invites three or four people from around the area to make a presentation, jumps back on an airplane three hours later and he is on to the next venue. That is not really a consultative process. We need to talk to a myriad of farm organizations, not just the ones that are government-friendly.

The Minister of Public Health introduced the bill, which I found a little strange in that the agriculture minister is here. He was here in question period. It was strange to have the Minister of Public Health from downtown Toronto introduce a bill that really has far-reaching effects on my producers in western Canada.

There was not a lot of agricultural intelligence in that speech. I am sure it was a canned speech from Agriculture Canada. She talked about the glowing results of what we are looking at. It just did not go anywhere. I asked a question about the billion dollar bail-out about which she was going on and on and she did not have the answer. I would have thought that if she was appointed and gave a glowing recommendation of this last announcement, she would have some idea about the aspect of the delivery and how far along it was, but she did not. I suppose someone forgot to give her that sheet.

Bill C-40 talks about doing three things. The government will now require, under the Canadian Grain Commission, entry permits, but there is no timeline in place as to how and when that will happen. We know that this will face the oversight of the other countries, especially the United States to which this is targeted, on August 1. However, we have no idea what form those permits will take, how they will be authorized, what the chain of command will be and what the bureaucracy will shape up to be. That is a concern.

The Grain Commission has become a real thorn in various parts of western Canada in the way it is operating. It is very secretive. It cuts back services, yet gets more and more money in its budgetary process. We have some major concerns with that as western farmers.

Another thing the bill talks about is blending. A person has to have permission from the Grain Commission whenever this is done. We have always had a blending aspect, but my concern is that we are losing the capacity to do that on the prairies. The Grain Commission really only wants that done at port. That could potentially cost my farmers hundreds of millions of dollars in a crop year by not being able to blend like we do.

The member for Macleod made the argument earlier, and I totally agree with him, that we have far too many grades and too complex a system in the country. We are graded at the various levels in protein and so on under milling wheat, yet when it goes into the boat to head off to Japan or whatever country is lucky enough to buy our product, it goes back in as milling wheat, period.

We clean it to export standards on the Prairies at these big huge terminals we built. When it gets back to the coast, then they are allowed a different standard and they tend to load garbage back into the hold of the boat.

I have heard complaints from the Japanese who import about stratified boatloads of Canadian grain that I have sold at a certain grade, cleaned to export standards, the 1% dockage or less that I am allowed. It is cleaned, but when it gets to the coast, they are allowed up to 4% on certain grades and they dump in lumber, bottles, crap and corruption. We had loads rejected at the other end a few years ago because of deer droppings.

If anybody knows how many times that grain has gone up and down an auger and an elevator and through machinery into trucks and back and forth to town before it got to Japan, one would wonder how that product could still be mixed in with the grain other than somebody bought the screenings and dumped it back in the boat after the farmer was done.

Part of the major concern I have is at what point along that chain do I no longer own and am answerable for it. I have dumped it in the pit at my elevator, however many miles away from my farm. We are fortunate because my farm is very close to some large terminals. Six months, eight months later, I can get a letter back from somebody saying, “We have now rejected your malt barley because”. How do I fight that?

In my role as an MP, I have had four of those instances come to the attention of my office. We have had three of them overturned and forced the company to take the hit, not the farmer. When is it no longer my product?

That is why I look to organizations like the Wheat Board, which is supposed to be there to help me. Lately it is not doing a lot of that. A gentleman by the name of Ken Ritter heads up the Wheat Board. Ken and I ran against each other in 1997. We get together a couple of times a year and I often kid Ken . I say to him that I supposedly won, but he got the better job. He gets to go home nights. His paycheque looks as good or better than mine. He does not have 75,000 people to whom he has to answer. His job can disappear, so can mine. That is the game we play.

I do not see a lot farmer farm gate-friendly resolutions coming out of the Wheat Board, the Canadian Grain Commission and a lot of the government programs out there. Therefore, I am very concerned about the bill and the impact it could have.

When we look at the blending and how we have to keep track of all the products now, under the legislation we have country of origin labelling inserted into Canada through the back door. There is a big uproar over why we would want to do that, and the cost of that labelling, but there it is. This is going to happen.

I do not know how they will do that without grain confetti or something. A few bushels here and there get blended off, but we do not run a separate train car or a separate truck for a few bushels of product. We tend to blend it and make the run pay. I am not sure how we will enforce that. I think we will see a tremendous amount of paper chase. A lot of bureaucrats will be happy with this. However, it will cost my producers a lot more in lost revenue because they will have to pay for it.

The third and final thing that is affected, and it is a sleeper issue, is the rail cap. This only affects board grains basically and it really will negatively affect our delivery, especially closer to the U.S. border. I know the member for Macleod made that point earlier about peak times when we need our grain moving. Right now there is no grain moving. He talked about the amount of elevators and granaries on the farms that were full. He is absolutely right, the system is plugged.

We have road bans on now in western Canada because of the spring thaw. We just had some more rain and snow up in our area so those bans will be on for longer than we would like. Farmers will then be in the field and forced to haul their grain while they try to do other portions of their farm work such as spraying in June and haying in July. Then we have the end of the crop year and they have been unable to move their product because they have not had the time to do so. However, will the cars be available?

This is a major concern in that the captive states in the north tier of the United States will, through this bill, be able to haul into the south part of Canada and use our rail system to get it to port. They will not like the turnaround times, but it does give them an extra access they do not have at this point. I know in the system, Portland. They drive right out on Roberts Bank and drop right into the containers that go off shore. We do not. We handle the grain three or four more times before it gets into the container.

I am not sure they are going to like the turnaround time or the freight rates, but the problem I have with this is that the rail cap was supposed to help western farmers access the 13,000 cars that the federal government owns and is in the process of supposedly rolling over to the Farmer Rail Car Coalition. It is a major concern at this point because then we would no longer control access to those cars to the same extent we do now, which is questionable.

We could not say no to a farmer from North Dakota, South Dakota or Montana who wants to make use of those same cars up into Canada. If he gets an elevator that will take his grain, under this bill we have to allow it. That is another concern in having access to those railcars: timely access to them. It may or may not put in jeopardy the whole Farmer Rail Car Coalition bid, because there will be some major drain on those cars. People have talked both sides of the fence in allocation of cars. This adds to that muddied water, let us say, in car allocation so that it is not in the best interests of our farmers in western Canada.

The U.S. has a vested interest in doing that, but the Americans also have access to the Mississippi River. They barge grain down at virtually no cost at all. Upgrades and maintenance required on the Mississippi are done by the Army Corps of Engineers. They use it as a training exercise. No cost goes back to the overhead for WTO compliance for American farmers. That is quite an ace in the hole. It makes a big difference. If the Americans start to load up our rail system plus having the ace in the hole of the Mississippi system, my guys are hit twice. That is why I have some major concerns.

I have no problem with this bill going through to committee, but I certainly want to see a full and open debate and a good strong witness list coming forward so that we can get this done in time for the August deadline.

We have another bill before committee right now. Bill C-27 is tying us up and does not have a snowball's chance in hell of passing before this session ends in the spring, election or not. No one other than the CFIA likes that bill. I would argue very strongly that the committee drop its hearings on Bill C-27 and get right into Bill C-40 if we are to make that deadline. This is something that we are going to have to do to hit that implementation.

Rules based trade is fantastic. My concern is that we seem to get mired down and continue to think that we are hewers of wood and drawers of water. We think that bulk commodities are all we can do in western Canada. A lot of this WTO compliance is targeted to our bulk commodities, as are the complaints, for that matter. If we were allowed to value add, to process that product on the Prairies, and if farmers owned those processing plants, we would see an extra $1 or $2 a bushel in added revenue, plus then we would be shipping a processed commodity that would not face all of this rigmarole under the WTO.

This would also get us into the emerging markets in the Pacific Rim that do not have the infrastructure to process. We could start to fill those markets. Right now we are not filling those markets. They do not want bulk grain. They want flour. They want malt ready to go into their malt plants that they have started to develop over there. They want the durum flour and pasta. We need to start filling those markets. This legislation does not help that out at all.

We really have to wonder whose side the government bureaucrats organizing these things are on. Are the bureaucrats thinking this through or are we just going in there being the white knight and signing all these international agreements while our producers here in Canada take the hit?

We are seeing emerging markets and emerging producers such as Brazil coming forward. They can produce twice the product for half the cost because they do not face the taxation and regulatory burden that my guys do, but we have to compete with them out there in the global market. Now, with WTO agreements and so on, I am going to have to start competing with them for the domestic market here in Canada. That is great. Good for them. Come on strong, I say, but let us get a level playing field. When they are starting to be the world supplier on several different commodities, how do they still fall under this developing nation preferred status and get the gold key to my domestic markets here in Canada?

Someone has to start to think this through and look after my farmers first, not someone else. As much as we like to see them coming forward as well, it cannot be on the backs of my farmers.

I do not really see how this rule change is going to help my producers in any positive way at all. Certainly until we get some amendments, as the member for Haldimand—Norfolk said today, this bill has no chance at all of getting through in time for the August 1 deadline.

Whose fault is that? Is that our fault for giving the bill due diligence as we should? Or is it the fault of the government, which agreed to this in this short term timeframe and is trying to push it through in the dying days of this session? Or in an election for that matter, it will try to point the finger and say, “You put our guys at risk”. No, the risks are in the day we signed on to this stuff. That is my concern.

In 2002 there was a very fulsome report on the grain commission and the whole grain trade. No one has yet seen a copy of that report. It has been hidden away. I asked for a copy of that report over two months ago at the agriculture committee. I finally got a letter back. The clerk of the committee showed it to me at the last committee meeting, last Thursday. We got a reply from the government. The government will get the report to me just as soon as it has a chance to translate it.

As far as I remember, the Official Languages Act was in place in 2002, so if that report was tabled as it was supposed to have been and as we were told it was, it is already in both official languages. The government is stalling. There are things in the report the government does not want us to see. Let us imagine that: these guys are being secretive.

Canadian Food Inspection Agency Enforcement Act

[Gurmant Grewal, Conservative, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the constituents of Newton—North Delta to participate in the debate on Bill C-27, which is an act to regulate and prohibit certain activities related to food and other products to which the acts under the administration of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency apply, and to provide for the administration and enforcement of those acts and to amend other acts in consequence. The short title of the bill is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Enforcement Act.

The intent of this proposed legislation is to consolidate, modernize and enhance the inspection and enforcement powers of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The bill seeks to provide the CFIA with the basic inspection and enforcement tools that it needs to continue protecting Canada's food supply and animal and plant resource base. It is intended to allow CFIA inspectors to do their jobs more effectively and efficiently and to provide Canada with modern border enforcement tools that will be more consistent with recent American legislation.

Bill C-27 consolidates inspection and enforcement provisions from the eight acts that form the current legislative base for the CFIA. Those eight acts are: the Canada Agriculture Products Act; the Fish Inspection Act; the Meat Inspection Act; the Seeds Act; the Feeds Act; the Fertilizers Act; the Health of Animals Act; and the Plant Protection Act. These acts were introduced by different departments over the course of many years. Some date back as far as the 1940s and 1950s. These acts have been around for a long time, and the department thought it would try to integrate, consolidate and modernize the food inspection legislation.

Government responsibility for food in Canada is divided among the federal, 10 provincial, three territorial and numerous municipal governments. Some 77 pieces of legislation govern Canada's food inspection among the three levels of government.

Federal responsibility centres on export and interprovincial trade, protecting and expanding export markets for Canadian food products and facilitating interprovincial trade. In addition, the federal government sets food safety, quality and grading standards for products sold interprovincially and internationally. It administers regulations aimed at preventing the production or sale in Canada of dangerous, adulterated or misbranded products.

Provinces and municipalities are responsible for the intra-provincial aspects of the food industry, including local food processing, the food service industry and the food retail industry. They decide whether and how to inspect local operations, including restaurants and grocery stores, as well as dairies and meat plants whose products are sold within the province.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is the result of the amalgamation in 1997 of food safety and inspection programs from three federal departments: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Health Canada and the Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The establishment of a single agency followed a long history of discussions about the benefits of consolidating the federal food inspection system.

Following are some of the reasons for creating the CFIA. Industry and government favoured harmonized standards and streamlined inspection to ensure the competitiveness of the Canadian food industry domestically, as well as internationally. Canadian producers and processors were vulnerable to trade challenges in a fragmented system. Closer integration of the U.S. and Canadian markets under free trade agreements made the industry anxious to reduce the costs and inefficiencies resulting from differing provincial standards. Canadian exporters were concerned about being denied access to external markets on the grounds that Canadian food safety standards and inspection systems were not equivalent to those of the markets into which they were shipping.

The agency's main activities focus on inspecting the food supply, but it also conducts activities related to animal health and plant protection. The agency is responsible for delivering federal inspection programs that enforce these policies and standards. Bill C-27 is basically a housekeeping bill, but that does not mean it is without fault. It has flaws.

My main concern is that the bill does not incorporate any aspect of accountability for fair and effective enforcement on the part of the CFIA.

Food inspection is absolutely essential to Canadians. We want to have faith in the food we eat.

Large quantities of foodstuffs, for example, rice or some indigenous foods, are imported into Canada by Canadian firms from China, India and many other countries. Many of the foods are from different communities in their country of origin.

Some of these foods are accepted into the United States but normally they are not accepted into Canada. The criteria used in decisions often appear to be arbitrary and unfair. The importers or business people are catering to a huge multicultural market in Canada and are unable to import foods which are easily imported into the United States of America, our neighbour and largest trading partner. We need to look into that aspect.

The root cause is the regulatory process. Since my election to this chamber in 1997, I have taken a particular interest in regulatory reform and in reducing red tape. I have been the co-chair of the Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations and have succeeded in passing a private member's bill, of course with the cooperation of all members in the House.

That bill provides parliamentarians with an opportunity to disallow any federal statutory instruments that are illegal, redundant or that are not supposed to be there, even ones that originate from government agencies like the CFIA which we are talking about today. I also organized a conference on regulatory reform and have authored numerous op-eds on the issue.

Let me talk about Bill C-205 which was one of, I think, 1,700 bills that have been introduced in the House since I was elected. I was lucky to have the cooperation of some members from the opposite side as well.

Prior to the passage of my bill, Parliament was powerless to revoke hundreds of regulations written by government agencies like the CFIA, the CRTC and many other agencies. In other words, the quasi-government organizations or agencies have been delegated the power to make regulations. When Parliament delegated the power to them to make the regulations, parliamentarians did not have the power to review, scrutinize or disallow the regulations which many times contradicted the original intent of the legislation.

There was a big black hole in the accountability for many years before the passage of this most important private member's bill. As a result of the passage of that bill, all the regulations that are made in Canada by different agencies now come under the purview of Parliament. The Standing Joint Committee on the Scrutiny of Regulations has demanded to review and scrutinize some of those.

I am therefore interested to see that Bill C-27 seeks to support the government's so-called smart regulation strategy by providing more consistent inspection and enforcement powers; providing a wider range of regulatory instruments; simplifying and streamlining the regulatory process; and contributing to the increased harmonization of legislation and regulations, to reduce overlap. Sometimes regulations are not consistent with those of our largest trading partner. The bill seeks to contribute to the regulatory cooperation with the United States, our largest trading partner.

This bill is long overdue. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency was created in 1997 to combine all federal food inspection, animal, plant and health services into a single inspection agency. The legislative basis for the agency should have been updated at that time or shortly thereafter, not after seven years.

Even though the government has had more than ample time to prepare the legislation, it is still not without flaws. Therefore, I am concerned that the bill does not incorporate any aspect of accountability for fair and effective enforcement. It fails to address accountability for frivolous or false detainment and destruction of products and materials. Without such accountability, I will not be able to support the bill. I look forward to meaningful amendments to the bill.

Business of the House

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his cooperation.

Today we will conclude consideration of the business of supply for the present period.

Tomorrow we will start with Bill C-10, the civil law harmonization legislation. I believe that there is agreement to do this at all stages.

Then we will start on a list that will carry us into next week: report stage and second reading of Bill C-18, respecting Telefilm; reference to committee before second reading of Bill C-27, respecting food and drugs; second reading of Bill C-26, respecting border services; report stage and second reading of Bill C-15, respecting migratory birds; second reading of Bill C-29, respecting patent regulations; and of course, completion of business not finished this week.

My hon. colleague has also indicated cooperation on Bill C-20. I know that there are some ongoing discussions with respect to a quick completion of Bill C-20, the first nations fiscal bill. We would hopefully get to that before we adjourned.

On Monday evening there will be a take note debate on the problems in western Canada with pine beetles. Accordingly, I move:

That, pursuant to Standing Order 53.1, a take note debate on pine beetles take place on December 13, 2004.

Canadian Food Inspection Agency Enforcement Act

[Charlie Angus, NDP, Timmins—James Bay, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is always a great honour to rise in the House and speak about business that affects the people of Canada, particularly people of rural Canada who produce our food.

I am honoured to speak to Bill C-27 in our first round of discussion. As someone representing agricultural interests, whenever a bill comes forward on agriculture, the first thing I ask is what kind of consultation and input has come from agricultural producers. In fact, that was one of the very first questions I asked at the briefing. At that time, I received a rather vague answer, but I was assured there had been consultations.

I phoned a number of the agricultural organizations that I trust and with which I have worked. None of them were aware really of any of the details about Bill C-27 until it was announced. That disturbed me. I believe the support of our agricultural community is vital for a bill like this to pass.

One thing we can all agree on is that food safety and customer confidence will be the number one agricultural issue in the 21st century. We see how changing consumer tastes on a number of matters can affect our ability to produce and how it can affect our markets. When we talk about food safety, we have to look at the complexity of the issue, and it is a good to talk about the role of the CFIA. The other element that is crucial is consumer confidence.

I have a number of concerns about the bill which could potentially undermine consumer confidence, and that would reflect badly on our role as legislatures.

There are some serious questions we have to ask about our willingness to create a bill such as this. To me, it appears to be a very large omnibus bill. There are a lot of devils in the details, as we always say, and issues that will be dealt with by orders in council. I am very concerned about the kind of sweeping powers we might see. We use the term smart regulations. That is a bit of a buzz phrase. Maybe I am a child of Orwell, but whenever I hear a term like smart regulations, it sounds to me like an oxymoron or perhaps something of which I should be very wary. I tend to take a second glance at these. I am worried that in some cases smart regulation is moving us toward dumbing down our regulations to appease our American neighbours.

[Denise Poirier-Rivard, Bloc, Châteauguay—Saint-Constant, QC]

Madam Speaker, I rise to speak on Bill C-27 as a goat farmer and producer of raw milk goat cheese.

As you know, Quebec has its own food inspection agency, the Centre québécois d'inspection des aliments et de santé animale, which for a number of years has been imposing much more stringent standards than those found elsewhere in Canada. I want to mention this centre particularly to illustrate the rigorous quality of sanitary inspections in Quebec and the lessons that Canada could learn.

In my work with goats, the herd management process is very stringent, well supervised and very well regulated. In my case, I have a herd of purebred goats for which I have health insurance certificates. My goats have been treated against worms and eat no animal meal. There has never been a case of tuberculosis or brucellosis. They are examined by a veterinarian twice a year.

Monitoring of the dairy operation is essential and is carried out by agents of Macdonald College, McGill University, within the Quebec Dairy Herd Analysis Service, or PATLQ.Inspections of this quality make it possible for us to produce excellent goat cheese, which I hope to offer to you some day. Milk is a living raw material. We must take all the precautions necessary to ensure its quality. Quality is essential to making a highly appreciated local product, raw milk cheese.

Just to provide some history, on March 30, 1996, Health Canada, in theory to improve the level of public health protection, proposed amendments to the Food and Drug Regulations. The proposed amendments dealt with unpasteurized cheeses made from raw milk. It would require all cheese being sold to be pasteurized. That would mean the disappearance of fine cheeses from the grocery shelves.

According to Health Canada, this measure was going to improve the protection of public health. There was nothing to justify such a measure, since the last case of food poisoning related to unpasteurized cheese in Canada goes back 61 years.

I would like to point out that there are—and always have been—many plans for new cheese factories using raw milk. If they go ahead, they will involve merchants, restaurants, distributors and possibly exporters.

Had it not been for the Bloc's intervention both inside and outside the House of Commons, defending our methods and our producers, the measures contemplated by Health Canada would have no doubt put an end to this burgeoning market sector. In part to develop these new markets, Quebec adopted inspection measures a long time ago, measures that Ottawa is in the process of copying.

The bill we are debating today aims primarily to streamline and update federal legislation and clarify the mandate of inspectors. The Bloc Québécois supports this principle, especially since the bill allows the government to get its own house in order. The bill also aims to facilitate trade between Canada and its major trading partners. Specifically, it aims to bring certain practices in line with those recently adopted in the United States.

I would now like to talk about respecting areas of jurisdiction. The governments of Quebec and the provinces have been working with the federal government for some time now to try to harmonize health practices. In 1998, the Parti Québécois government signed the framework agreement governing the division of responsibilities with the federal government.

That said, food security is still a complex practice, involving multiple laws, regulations, government agencies and non-government organizations. This is a prime example of how much easier things would be if there were one level of government in Quebec.

The Bloc Québécois will ensure that the bill does not weaken the scope of the 1998 framework agreement. The Bloc Québécois will also ensure that the federal government does not try to interfere in Quebec's areas of jurisdiction, especially in establishing policies and standards. Even with the framework, the Bloc Québécois will continue to be vigilant so that Ottawa does not force Quebec and the other provinces to take over federal inspections as a way of saving money or try to play a greater role in establishing policies and standards.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has contradictory duties. The preamble to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act sets out the agency's fundamental problem. It has three contradictory duties: access to markets, food safety and consumer protection.

Genetically modified foods are a perfect illustration of the perpetual conflicts of interest faced by the CFIA at a time when consumers and producers are becoming increasingly concerned with the effects of genetically modified foods on their lives. The CFIA is refusing to apply the principle of precaution.

I want to also point out certain flaws in the CFIA appointment process. Section 5 of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act states that the president and executive vice-president shall be appointed by order of the governor-in-council. The Bloc Québécois condemned this situation when the CFIA was established. Since the government has committed to consulting the partners on important appointments, it should set out in the legislation the requirement to consult Parliament when appointing a president or executive vice-president.

For example, we can consider the appointment of the current CFIA president. He was appointed by the former Prime Minister in September 2000. He is a career civil servant who worked mainly for the Office of the Auditor General of Canada. He was deputy clerk of the Privy Council, where he was counsel and coordinator, security and intelligence.

We believe that the individuals appointed to this position must have prior experience so they can fully develop their expertise, as well as have an intimate knowledge of this area.

There is one other point we consider important. We must adopt a regional approach to health practices. When a single case of BSE was detected in Canada, all the provinces were affected by the embargo imposed by our foreign partners. The American embargo applies to all ruminants. I am a goat breeder and, along with the sheep farmers, we have been hard hit by this situation, because that country is our main customer. Quebec producers are paying for a single case of mad cow in Alberta, 5,000 kilometres away.

It is not normal for Canada to be considered as one single health region. The UPA president, Laurent Pellerin, came to the same conclusion at a press conference on May 21, 2003, when he said, and I quote:

If we were separate provinces each with its own distinct inspection system and if we had a more regional approach to product marketing systems, only one province would have to deal with this problem.

The president of Maple Leaf Foods, Michael McCain, recently spoke out in favour of dividing Canada into regional zones from the point of view of animal health. We believe that Ottawa should quickly enter into discussions with Quebec to decentralize certain elements of the food inspection system.

Had such a regional approach to health practices been taken in the past, Quebec's producers would have been spared the crisis. The predecessor of the current Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food took a regional approach in response to the crisis caused by Newcastle disease in poultry.

It would appear that the territorial approach is good for everyone but Quebec. During oral question period, on September 22, 2003, in response to a question by the hon. member for Drummond, the former agriculture minister said, “When a reportable disease takes place in a country, unfortunately the whole country is recognized as having that. We are a country, and this country is Canada”.

Yet Canada itself applied this territorial approach less than a year ago.

As was said earlier, Newcastle disease is a contagious and fatal viral diseaseaffecting all species of poultry. It can kill entire unvaccinated flocks. When various American states were affected, what did CFIA do? In April 2003, it imposed restrictions on poultry import and entry into Canada, but only for the four states affected: California, Nevada, Arizona and Texas.

If Canada was able to recognize that only certain American states were at risk, it could have done the same during the mad cow crisis and spare Quebec the horrible crisis we are facing.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Madam Speaker, I apologize. I thought I had another 10 minutes.

I would just add that our primary concern with Bill C-27 is that it does not incorporate any aspect of accountability for fair and effective enforcement on the part of the CFIA, an organization that has acknowledged it is known for its lack of accountability.

[Diane Finley, Conservative, Haldimand—Norfolk, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise in the House today on Bill C-27, an act to provide the Canadian Food Inspection Agency with enforcement and inspection authorities.

When the CFIA was created in 1997, the objective was to facilitate a more uniform and consistent approach to food inspection in Canada. Instead, the legislative framework governing the CFIA resulted in a hodgepodge of legislative authority that was anything but uniform and consistent.

Employees of the CFIA have been administering and enforcing 13 different statutes without a uniform set of powers, rights or obligations, which this proposed act would finally give them.

Seven years after the creation of the CFIA, our veterinarians, inspectors, systems specialists, support employees, financial officers, researchers and laboratory technicians may finally receive the tools they need to do their jobs effectively. It is high time.

In the agriculture minister's news release on Bill C-27, the minister praised the Canadian Food Inspection Agency by stating, “Canadians have one of the best food inspection systems in the world”.

I must say that, as the official opposition critic for agriculture and agri-food, I echo the minister's comments in this regard. The fact that Canada's food supply is safe makes the closing of the U.S. and Japanese borders to the trade of Canadian livestock all the more frustrating since we all know that the U.S. and Japanese border closures had more to do with opportunism than fact and sound science.

That being said, we in the official opposition are heartened by the U.S. president's recent commitment to do all that he can to expedite the rule making process in order to resume trade of Canadian livestock. We are committed to working with the Canadian government and our U.S. counterparts to help ensure that this border is reopened just as soon as possible.

The minister claims that Bill C-27 would address a number of inconsistencies in existing enforcement and inspection legislation. He also claims that Bill C-27 is intended to provide the CFIA with new enforcement and inspection tools, similar to border enforcement provisions introduced by our major trading partner, the United States.

While the goals of the legislation are laudable, we in the official opposition have several concerns with the current legislation.

First, the Conservative Party of Canada generally supports a less intrusive approach to regulatory policy in Canada. For far too long, agriculture and agri-food producers in this country have had to deal with an ever increasing number of regulations imposed by various levels of government, creating unnecessary stress and burdens on Canadian producers.

Granting the CFIA authority to make regulations dealing with mandatory record keeping, food quality and safety programs could result in regulations being created without adequate consideration for the implications felt from these by the agriculture and agri-food industries.

In this respect, we are concerned that the key agriculture and agri-food stakeholders impacted by this legislation have not been adequately consulted in preparation of this bill.

While the minister claims that consultations have taken place in the development of Bill C-27, we do remain skeptical as to the degree of this consultation.

During a briefing my office received from the CFIA officials, I took the opportunity to ask them precisely which stakeholders had been consulted in this process. The best they could do was assure me that consultations did in fact take place. However they failed to specify with whom they had consulted.

Just yesterday my office was informed that neither the Canadian Federation of Agriculture nor its key stakeholder members had been consulted in any way in the development of this proposed legislation.

To come up with legislation that can have such a large impact on agriculture and agri-food producers without consulting them in the process is indicative of this government's approach to agriculture policy. That is a top down approach with a certain disregard, if not outright contempt, for Canadian agricultural producers.

We trust that the government will ensure that agricultural and agri-food processes are truly consulted in a responsible, open and transparent manner.

We in the Conservative Party will be pushing for these consultations to take place when this bill is referred to the agriculture committee and we will do all that we can to ensure that the concerns of agricultural producers are heard and acted on accordingly.

Although the legislation is a step in the right direction, it is unfortunate that the government took so very long to provide food inspection and enforcement officers with the necessary tools to do the job to the best of their ability.

I find it hard to believe that since the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's inception in 1997 the Liberal government waited seven whole years to make the CFIA fully operational. This delay and inaction from the Liberal government has presented the CFIA from doing the job it needs to do when responding to emergency situations affecting Canada's food supply.

The CFIA's inability to deal effectively in a crisis recently came to light in a troubling internal review of the CFIA's handling of the BSE crisis. This internal review, made public by the Vancouver Sun through access to information, underscores some very worrisome findings.

It stated that the Liberal government's response to the mad cow crisis was plagued by poor planning, staffing problems and repeated failures to share information. Furthermore, it highlighted several gaping holes in the CFIA's ability to deal with future emergencies, such as a possible outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease or a repeat of avian flu.

The review, completed for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on December 10, 2003, by an outside consultant, warned that if the CFIA did not take steps to fix some of the problems identified, they “could undermine CFIA's ability to respond to more complex or time-critical emergencies”, raising questions about the agency's handling of last spring's avian flu outbreak in the Fraser Valley.

It came to our attention that this review, entitled “CFIA BSE Emergency Response Assessment Report”, was actually written several months after the cow infected with BSE was discovered in Alberta, but before an Alberta-born cow with BSE was discovered in Washington state in late December.

In fairness, the assessment concluded that in general the CFIA's response to the BSE crisis was a success, but there were many areas of concern, including the following.

While the CFIA had declared an agency-wide emergency to respond to the BSE crisis, it did a poor job of communicating that, even to its own staff. As a result, several months after the crisis, many of the staff believed that an emergency had not even been declared.

Another concern included the finding that the CFIA's chief veterinary officer was designated as the agency spokesman on BSE, despite a standing policy not to assign spokesperson's duties to someone with critical responsibilities. “As a result,” the report says, “some key activities were not taken or were not completed on time”.

In addition, another finding showed that the start-up of an emergency operation centre in Ottawa to handle the BSE crisis was delayed, leading to confusion in procedures for obtaining decisions and in communicating decisions to those who needed them.

There was no plan in place to provide backup staffing. “Primary response participants were exhausted by the end of the response period and a longer response could not have been sustained with the same staff,” the report states.

In general, the report concluded, problems with communications and information sharing meant that “time that should have been spent focusing on the emergency response was spent on developing communications procedures and tools instead”.

The report makes 23 recommendations, including upgrading emergency operations facilities and rotating emergency response staff.

In light of the CFIA's refusal to say how many of the recommendations of the review were acted upon, I have called upon the Minister of Agriculture to publicly state what steps he has taken to address the numerous concerns outlined in this review. To this day I have had absolutely no response from the minister's office.

The safety of Canada's food supply demands the minister's prompt and decisive action in this regard, so I ask the minister again to stop hiding behind this internal review and publicly state what steps he has taken to address the many concerns outlined in this critical report.

With regard to Bill C-27, the CFIA has stated that this bill will enhance consumer protection by addressing new and emerging threats to the safety and security of human, animal and plant health.

It is important to note that this bill fails to ensure necessary protection for our Canadian livestock producers facing potential new and emerging threats. While we can all agree that consumer protection is essential, we must not forget the threats that face the farm.

This Liberal government currently has no concrete action plan--

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food (Rural Development)]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to begin debate today on Bill C-27, the proposed Canada Food Inspection Agency enforcement act. The objective of the bill is to enhance the protection of Canada's food supply and animal and plant resources by modernizing, consolidating and enhancing the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's inspection and enforcement authorities.

The House would find it useful to consider this bill as a second step in a three part process. The first step was the creation of the Canada Food Inspection Agency in 1997. It brought together under one agency the responsibilities to administer and enforce 13 federal acts and their respective regulations. Of these 13, 10 have provisions for inspection and enforcement.

The second step today is included in this bill, which is the modernization and consolidation of our enforcement and inspection legislation.

In the future we will begin work on the third step which will involve the modernization, consolidation and enhancement of a regulatory base as part of an overall government move toward smart regulation.

In the meantime, we must take this step to address inconsistencies and gaps between the powers and authorities that were brought together when the CFIA undertook responsibility for the various patchwork of legislation within its mandate. At present, in certain cases, we have an antiquated and inconsistent approach to inspection and enforcement activities. This bill would l change that. It would modernize, consolidate and enhance our inspection and enforcement powers to meet present and future needs.

I would like to assure the House that the bill would not alter the basic structure of the regime we have put in place. It would not change, expand or diminish the minister's authority or that of the Minister of Health. The Minister of Health remains responsible for setting policies and standards for food safety and nutritional quality. Through the CFIA, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada will continue to be responsible for enforcing these standards, as well as setting and enforcing other standards, such as those for animal and plant health.

What the bill would do is it would enhance, modernize and consolidate current inspection and enforcement authorities.

Members who were present in 1999 will recall Bill C-80, the Canada Food Safety and Inspection Act, which died on the order paper when Parliament was prorogued that October. It too sought to consolidate the federal inspection and enforcement authorities. Members may recall that we consulted widely with stakeholders in preparation for Bill C-80. Those who were consulted included consumers, producers, industry, the provinces and the territories. Although this initiative is not Bill C-80, it does include similar enforcement and inspection authorities to those contained in the previous Bill C-80, which were generally supported by stakeholders.

For example, Canadian industry associations have been requesting several of the proposed authorities, such as a provision prohibiting a person from tampering with, threatening to tamper with or falsely claiming to tamper with products. This bill would allow the CFIA to address, for instance, the issue of injection of cyanide into turkeys. Industry has also been asking for a “hold and test” provision similar to that contained in United States legislation. Both industry and producers have been asking that domestic and imported products be subjected to the same regulatory requirements thereby creating a level playing field. This legislation would do that.

In the past, the CFIA has faced some criticism from members of Parliament, standing committees and stakeholders for its outdated and inconsistent inspection and enforcement authorities. This legislative proposal addresses those issues.

The bill addresses several inconsistencies in the current patchwork of legislation which the CFIA relies on to deliver its mandate. It would provide new and enhanced enforcement and inspection powers and authorities, thereby streamlining existing powers and authorities.

The bill would give all inspectors the same powers. Currently, because they are governed by different acts, inspectors responsible for fertilizers have different authorities from those who inspect meat. These are different, again, from those who inspect fish, or feed or seed.

We want to strengthen the authority to administer food, agricultural and aquatic commodities, agricultural inputs, animal and plant legislation by giving all inspectors the same arsenal of inspection and enforcement powers that they need to do their job, ensuring, therefore, the integrity of our food supply and animal and plant resource base upon which safe food depends. We want every inspector to have recourse to the entire group of powers available.

The bill would reduce overlap and duplication of inspection enforcement authorities. For example, some inspectors now have the authority to examine records but not copy them, while others do not have the authority to examine or copy records. The proposed authorities would allow inspectors to be guided by a single piece of enforcement and inspection legislation, resulting in consistent inspection and enforcement activities throughout the system.

With the bill, all inspectors would have the same authority to stop the operation of equipment used to prepare a product or a production line in order to carry out an inspection. All inspectors would have the same authority for seizure, detention and forfeiture, and the authority to conduct searches and administer oaths.

The bill would also bring inspectors' powers in line with modern information technology. Innovations, such as telewarrants and the use of electronic information, would allow inspectors to more effectively and efficiently do their job.

The bill includes enhanced enforcement and inspection authorities needed to protect Canada's food supply and animal and plant resource base from such dangers as toxic substances, animal pathogens and viruses such as anthrax or ebola. The bill would enhance this ability by licensing persons to contain, use and dispose of animal pathogens, animal disease agents, toxic substances, veterinary biologics and plant pests.

The bill helps to create similar authorities and powers to that of our largest trading partner, the United States. The Canadian and U.S. economies are highly integrated. There are many similarities between our regulatory objectives and systems but we need to modernize our system. The bill contains a number of powers and authorities similar to those contained in the recent United States legislation.

Finally, the bill consolidates and modernizes a number of inspection and enforcement related regulation making authorities that currently exist in the CFIA's legislation. It also adds new regulation making authorities to support provisions contained in the bill. Among these are the requirements to keep records, the establishment of quality management systems and a formal mechanism to address complaints respecting public health and safety issues.

These detailed regulations would be phased in and subject to standard regulatory process, specifically open and transparent consultations with stakeholders.

I am sure my colleagues on both sides of the House would welcome this new legislation. It would enable the CFIA to keep pace with and respond to new and emerging issues, and allow the CFIA to better deliver on its mandate of food safety, animal health and plant protection.

Canada's food inspection system is important to both producers and consumers. For as much as globalization and knowledge-based production have changed the food industry over the years, two things have not changed: Canada's reputation as a source of high quality foods and the right of Canadians to food that is safe, healthy and nutritious.

Canada has one of the best food inspection systems in the world and the proposed Canadian Food Inspection Agency enforcement act is designed to make a good system even better. I hope members will see that as correct and support the bill in its entirety.

[Lucienne Robillard, Liberal, for the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Mr. Speaker, I move:

That Bill C-27, an act to regulate and prohibit certain activities related to food and other products to which the acts under the administration of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency apply and to provide for the administration and enforcement of those acts and to amend other acts in consequence, be referred forthwith to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

Remote Sensing Space Systems Act

[The Acting Speaker (Hon. Jean Augustine)]

I declare the motion carried. Accordingly, the bill stands referred to the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

(Motion agreed to, bill read the second time and referred to a committee)

(Bill C-27. On the Order: Government Orders)

November 26, 2004--the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food--Second reading and reference to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food of Bill C-27, an act to regulate and prohibit certain activities related to food and other products to which the acts under the administration of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency apply and to provide for the administration and enforcement of those acts and to amend other acts in consequence.

Business of the House

[Tony Valeri, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, we will continue this afternoon with the opposition motion.

Tomorrow we will commence with the third reading debate of Bill C-5, the learning bonds legislation. When that is completed, we will return to the second reading debate of Bill C-22, the social development bill. We will then return to the second reading debate of Bill C-9, the Quebec development bill; followed by second reading of Bill C-25, respecting RADARSAT; reference to committee before second reading of Bill C-27, the food inspection bill; and second reading of Bill C-26, the border services bill.

On Monday and Tuesday we will start with report stage and third reading of Bill C-14, the Tlicho bill, before going back to unfinished business.

Pursuant to Standing Order 53(1) a take note debate on credit cards will take place on Tuesday evening, December 7.

The business on Wednesday will be second reading of a bill to be introduced tomorrow respecting parliamentary compensation.

Next Thursday shall be an allotted day.

Finally, the government made a commitment to Canadians to treat compensation of parliamentarians separately and apart from that of judges. It is quite logical to take that step in an independent bill that deals only with the compensation of parliamentarians and to deal with the question of judges in a subsequent bill.

The hon. member seems to suggest that parliamentarians and judges should be treated exactly the same. We think that Canadians recognize that their respective duties, tenure and roles are quite different and that in fact they should be dealt with differently and separately. That is why we will be introducing the bill on MP compensation and dealing with it next week.

Supply

[Roger Gaudet, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Mr. Speaker I will be sharing my time with the member for Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot.

As long as the Government of Quebec does not take its place at the international negotiating tables and does not have control over agricultural policy, there will be a very high risk of Ottawa's putting Quebec's agriculture out of business by giving priority to grain producers of the west at the expense of Quebec.

One mad cow found in Alberta in 2003 resulted in an embargo by the Americans. Despite the American president's rhetoric, this week, the borders remain closed. The federal government was unable to convince the United States to reopen them.

Eighteen months after the closure of American frontiers, the federal government has still not been able to convince Washington to reopen them to live cattle. The Prime Minister who promised improved relations with the United States, has still not delivered one year after coming into power. Our cattlemen will remain in a precarious situation for many months to come.

The crisis caused in Quebec by this situation is a real tragedy for a whole generation of cattlemen, and many among them see the future with pessimism. Radio-Canada's Le Point had a report on suicides among cattle producers in Quebec. The support announced on September 10 was readily used to help cattlemen in Alberta, where the provincial government invested large amounts of money. However, Quebec's cattle producers are still waiting for support from the Liberal government.

Farmers and their representatives are watching us in this House and in various legislative assemblies, in particular the National Assembly. Christian Lacasse, first vice-president of the UPA, said that the solution to this crisis is a governmental responsibility. He declared earlier this week, and I quote: “Our society cannot tolerate those profiteers, like this individual, who is profiting from the situation at the expense of agricultural workers, who are almost starving”.

The mad cow crisis has affected Quebec. It should never have, because Quebec's cattlemen have long subjected themselves to rules more stringent that those of Canada, in order to keep herds healthy and have products of the highest quality. If Quebec controlled its own borders and health policy as a sovereign state, it would not be affected by the American embargo today.

What is more, since the majority of farmers affected are dairy producers who sell cull for meat, the federal program is inappropriate.

Dairy farmers are culling 25% of their herds annually, and only receiving compensation on 16% from the federal program, which is seriously inadequate. As we have said, the current situation is particularly frustrating for Quebec producers, who have had stricter rules for themselves than in the rest of Canada for a long time.

Last week, the minister introduced Bill C-27 to regulate and prohibit certain activities related to food inspection. This act seems to be at last moving Canada toward the adoption of practices along the same lines as those in place in Quebec for a long time, such strict practices that we were able to avoid the mad cow crisis. Yet the minister, who claims to have presented some long term solutions does nothing to protect our producers in the event of another discovery of a case of mad cow.

Quebec's cattle tagging system has long been superior to Canadian practices. Tagging cattle for tracing purposes was implemented in Canada and in Quebec at the same time. Quebec producers had until June 2002 to tag their cattle. The main differences between Canada and Quebec are as follows. In Quebec, every event is noted: birth, death, attendance at an agricultural fair, sale to a breeder and so on. In Canada, only birth and death information are gathered, nothing in between.

If Canada had been divided into health areas, Quebec's animal hygiene practices would have enabled it to escape the U.S. ban on Canadian beef. We truly believe that. Moreover, Maple Leaf Foods President and CEO Michael McCain has recently spoken out in favour of dividing Canada into areas for animal health purposes.

The mad cow problem should have been regionalized and not spread across Canada for no reason. When the problem appeared in France, for example, Italy did not panic. The Italians, however, are much closer geographically to the French than Albertans are to Quebeckers.

Why make Quebec pay for a situation that, at first glance, does not concern it? When a single case of BSE was diagnosed in Canada, all the provinces were affected by the ban placed by our foreign partners. The American ban on all ruminants hit particularly hard, because the States is our principal purchaser.

You might say the lifting of the ban by Hong Kong this week is a sign that the federal government is finally doing something.

However, how many cattle farmers have been suffering for the more than a year and a half now? How many more will give up before our principal partner, our neighbour to the south, finally opens its borders to animals over 30 months of age—in other words to cull, which affects Quebec primarily?

Despite the minister's bill to prevent such a problem from happening again, the Bloc Québécois believes that Ottawa must soon talk to Quebec about decentralizing the entire food inspection system and dividing Canada into several health regions. This would spare Quebec farmers a similar crisis in the future. It would also allow Quebec to promote the excellence of its practices.

The Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food was supposed to address various UPA authorities gathered in Quebec City in a few minutes. However, rather than meet with the UPA members, he is here in Ottawa. A true captain never abandons his ship, but he has just abandoned all the farmers in Quebec, Ontario and the other provinces.

The minister recently took a 16-hour flight to Japan, but he cannot even go to Quebec City to announce solutions he intends to apply to this major crisis, which affects a large number of Quebec farmers and their families. It takes 55 minutes to get from Ottawa to Quebec City.

Perhaps he could have explained to them why Ottawa was so generous with farmers in Ontario and Alberta and gave nothing but crumbs to farmers in Quebec. I do not want to hear about the $366 million again. The government should go to Quebec and ask the farmers whether they have the $366 million in their pockets. For the farmers in Quebec, that kind of money is nothing.

The minister said several times that he provided $366 million in aid to Quebec farmers. According to the Fédération des producteurs de bovins, only $90 million has been received from Ottawa since the beginning of the crisis. If we add the federal compensation and the $60 million received from Quebec City, the farmers still assumed losses of $241 million after compensation.

That speech by the minister would have been the best possible opportunity to make an announcement that some of the demands of Quebec and Quebec farmers would be met. These farmers, who are in the midst of an unprecedented crisis, are only asking for a fair price. What Quebec producers are asking for is to live, not just survive.

Observers at the 80th annual congress of the Union des producteurs agricoles, which has been going on since Tuesday in Quebec City, tell us that this annual meeting is taking place in a climate of negotiations—negotiations taking place outside the congress.

Our representatives are there, including our agriculture and agri-food critic, the hon. member for Châteauguay—Saint-Constant. We have heard that there is a lot of negotiating going on at the congress. The Quebec minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food and her federal counterpart have had many meetings with the various stakeholders, trying to find solutions to the problems afflicting our farmers and breeders.

This is a serious enough crisis that the Premier of Quebec has intervened for the first time in the mad cow issue and its negative impact on the incomes of 25,000 Quebec producers.

Speaking to journalists on Tuesday concerning his relations with Ottawa on this issue, the Premier of Quebec said, and I quote:

We will not wait forever, of course. When the time comes, the government will draw its own conclusions and we will not exclude any avenues that would help us achieve a sustainable solution.

He also added:

—the government would prefer a negotiated solution, with an agreement that is binding on the federal government, but we will act alone if necessary.

All indications are that by the end of the day we will have some news from the various levels of government regarding the solutions Ottawa is going to propose to assist Quebec producers.

Still, we are not looking for flashy solutions. The producers want real solutions to the real problems of this real crisis. It will take months to return to a fairly normal situation after everyone agrees what the solutions should be.

Let us remember that Alberta, together with the federal government, has injected large amounts of money to solve the problems of its beef cattle producers. Can the voters of Quebec expect the same largesse from Ottawa? We will soon find out.

Canadian Food Inspection Agency Enforcement Act

[Andy Mitchell, Liberal, Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-27, an act to regulate and prohibit certain activities related to food and other products to which the acts under the administration of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency apply and to provide for the administration and enforcement of those acts and to amend other acts in consequence.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)