Bill S-11 (Historical)

Safe Food for Canadians Act

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

This enactment modernizes the regulatory system for food commodities.

Safe Food for Canadians Act

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

Mr. Speaker, quite a few things come to mind. I am new to the agriculture file. I have been here for about seven months so I am learning a lot and visiting a lot of farms.

We have a lot of rules and regulations in Canada and I know our producers and farmers work hard to meet these standards. However, when something like this happens, it is sad because they have done everything. When there are problems at the meat transformation plant after they bring in their animals that really hurts the producers. It also hurts when we try to sell our meat abroad in other countries. This has a big domino effect. We need to focus on having a healthy environment.

I have worked in restaurants. I have been a manager and I know the responsibility to create a good workplace environment. We need to have trust and transparency, and we saw a lot of problems with that in the XL Foods fall-out recently.

We have a lot to do and this bill is a step in the right direction, but when we are going to do something why not do it right? This bill will pass no matter what, and I will vote for it, but why not add our amendments? Why not make it as full and as good as it can be? We should give it our all.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for her speech and her work as deputy agriculture and agri-food critic.

I was very glad to hear her talk about the amendments that were proposed and unfortunately rejected at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. One of those amendments consisted in creating a workplace where workers feel safe and able to report any potential breaches where working conditions are difficult and where 4,000 animals might be slaughtered in one day. That is a lot.

How does she explain that the government rejected an amendment that would have created conditions conducive to the protection and safety of food?

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

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for her question.

It is very important, because what we saw at XL Foods revealed a major lack of transparency. I felt like I was working in the dark because we kept asking questions, but we never got any answers. Where is the ministerial accountability of the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food? I do not think he had any then.

We must protect whistleblowers at processing plants. The Conservatives justified their position by saying that this was not necessary since it already exists in the Criminal Code and that is enough. After seeing what we saw, we know that it is not enough. People felt very vulnerable. They were not comfortable saying that they saw a problem and that something needed to be done.

Whistleblower protection would help them. It would create a healthier, more transparent environment. That is exactly what we need when it comes to food safety: transparency and safety.

We must stand up for our workers with the proposed amendments.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to ask a couple of questions. I was on the committee when the Weatherill report was put together, in which 57 recommendations were made, and the government has now moved on them, as we know.

I am on the international trade committee right now. Just after the XL issue, the committee heard from delegates from Japan and some government people. We are working to build a trade agreement with Japan but, as we all know, Japan requires and demands premium products.

The XL Foods issue just occurred. How does that affect Canada's reputation on the world stage? Canadians recognize that we have some of the safest food in the world and that there is a process in place that ensures our food is safe. When I asked if this was a detriment to us in terms of moving forward, the answer was that it was not because we have a safe food program in place. It is a positive thing when talking about international trade.

I am wondering if the member would comment. Canada is looked at as a leader and the member is saying that it is not. She seems to be concerned that we do not have safe food in Canada.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his question.

In Canada, we have strict rules. Our food safety system is good, but without a doubt nothing is perfect in life. In light of what happened at XL Foods, I believe that there was a problem at the plant, a problem at CFIA and perhaps also a problem with the number of inspectors. There were a number of problems. However, it is obvious that there was a lack of transparency. We do not know what happened. I believe we have lessons to learn from what happened at XL Foods. We can do better. It was an important lesson. So why not accept our amendments in order to do better?

Our food safety system is good, but we want it to be better. The opposition members are the only ones speaking today. I believe we had a few questions from the Conservatives, which is good, but why are they not talking about this important bill?

If this is a concern for them, I would like them to talk about this important food safety bill that affects all Canadians.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I have read the bill that the government has named the safe food for Canadians act. I also took the time to read the Library of Parliament briefing notes that were made available in association with the bill for the assistance and guidance of the committee. I read the explanation of the bill through clause-by-clause analysis and also the House notes prepared by my colleague, the member of Parliament for Welland, who I should stop and recognize and pay tribute to for the work he has done in representing the interests of Canadians in the pursuit of true safe food for Canadians legislation. It might give them some comfort to know that there are committed advocates on the opposition benches who are seeking to address the lamentable situation of the food inspection regime in this country.

Having gone through those various stages of familiarizing myself with the bill, the first and most striking thing is something that has not come up at all in any of the speeches. I even listened to the rather vapid platitudes of the parliamentary secretary in the speech that he made regarding the bill, but no one has pointed out the elephant in the room and that is the front page, the cover of Bill S-11. Any member of Parliament in this place who considers himself or herself a true democrat, surely should be offended by the fact that we are standing here today at this late hour on Monday afternoon in Ottawa in the House of Commons, in the elected chamber, dealing with a piece of legislation that comes from the unelected, undemocratic, unaccountable chamber, the Senate of Canada.

No one elected senators to make legislation for Canadians. I argue they have no right to generate legislation from the other chamber. I argue that as members of Parliament if we had any dignity or self-respect, we would bar the legislation at the gates of the door here. We would ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to block them, to tie the doors and stop the introduction of pieces of legislation such as this into the chamber because it has no business being here. Senators have no right.

If there ever were any semblance of utility to that place, if we could even believe at any given time that there was some value to the Senate of Canada, they forfeited that in the last Parliament when they unilaterally and arbitrarily, I would argue, jettisoned two of the most worthy pieces of legislation I have ever had the honour to work on in this chamber. One of them was the only piece of climate change legislation in the Parliament of Canada, a western, developed nation with no position on climate change. Through five years of laborious negotiation and give-and-take, we passed a piece of climate legislation through the House—

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. The hon. Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification on a point of order.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, do you think that has relevance to food safety? I would ask you to please use your own discretion and judgment on this.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Members will know that members presenting speeches in the House are given a great deal of liberty in terms of how they wish to draw these arguments in respect of relevance to the bill before the House. I am sure that the member for Winnipeg Centre will be coming around to the point of relevance of the bill in due course.

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I was simply pointing out the origin of the bill by the unelected, undemocratic, unaccountable Senate. No one chose them to create legislation on behalf of the Canadian people. No one gave them the right. In fact I question what they do over there. All I ever see of them in are parliamentary friendship committees. They seem to clutter up every parliamentary friendship committee like a bunch of globe-trotting quasi-diplomats, gallivanting around the world on behalf of Canada, trying to pretend that they are actually—

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. The hon. minister of state on the same point of order.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, that rant had nothing to do with food safety. It was a point the member wanted to make on the Senate, obviously, but I wanted to know if you could rethink your last judgment.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

As members know, members are afforded a great deal of liberty. The member for Winnipeg Centre clearly is making some points with respect to the origins of the bill that is before the House. He will surely, I am certain in the time that has been provided him, draw those ideas and relevance to the question that is actually before the House.

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I intend to address the relative merits of the bill, but I wanted to first point out the origin of the bill.

The Conservatives appointed the party president to the Senate, then the chief campaign manager of their election, then the chief fundraiser and then the communications director. The entire Conservative war room is now sitting in the Senate doing purely partisan work and the Canadian taxpayer is paying for it and their staff and their travel privileges. It is an atrocity. It is atrocious that the House of Commons does not rise up and finally deal with Senate reform because it is an international embarrassment.

As I said, the Conservatives lost any credibility when they killed the climate change bill without a single witness being heard and without a single hour of debate in that chamber. It took five years to get it through the House of Commons through careful delicate negotiations and it passed at all stages in the House of Commons.

In fact, that is the direction things are supposed to go. We develop the legislation, the Senate is allowed to check it for spelling mistakes and then we get it back. We do not deal with its legislation, it deals with our legislation.

The best thing to do with legislation like this that has an “S” on the front is to tear it up and throw it in the air. That is all it is good for.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague who raised a very important point.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture pointed out that this is an important bill, a good bill, and that food safety and inspection are a priority for this government.

In my colleague's opinion, if this is such a priority for the government, why is this bill called Bill S-11?