Agriculture Committee on March 4th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Mr. Lauzon, we're going to give you your five minutes, and then we're going to move to motions.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you very much.

I appreciate you folks being here.

Ms. Wing, in your opening comments you spoke about BSE, which of course was very devastating to our cattle industry. You also talked about how you have worked hard, and the CFIA has worked hard, in the last four years bringing that back. I think you mentioned that 33 markets have been partially restored.

I'm just wondering what the plan is here. Do you have plans for the coming year on how we're going to increase that and be even more effective?

[Sandra Wing]

Yes, of course, we have plans. We work very closely with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada on the trade promotion. Their responsibility is for the trade promotion, and work very closely with industry.

The role of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is more in technical market access. But we do have teams who are negotiating with Mexico, with China, with Japan, and with others to ensure that there are no technical impediments to access in those markets and that we're meeting international standards.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I think that's critical. Our minister is really dedicated to opening up more markets and increasing our world market share. I think the CFIA should be trying to do everything possible to help him, with whatever assistance, to make that happen. Our producers are telling us that's part of the solution as well, to grow our markets.

This might be a loaded question, but you should be able to answer this, and I'll give you an opportunity to do so. How do you think CFIA has improved, for example over the last five years? What are you doing that's more efficient now than over the last number of years?

[Sandra Wing]

Now, that's a very hard one for me, given that I'm fairly new to the agency.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

It seems Mr. Prince is keen to answer that.

[Cameron Prince]

In fairness to my colleague Sandra, she's only been with the agency a short period of time. Some of these things go back historically, and Gord and I have been around for a while.

I think the agency is quite proud of what we've done in our fairly short history of ten years. You asked about the last five years. I think one of the big improvements we've made is that although issues don't come out about....

People are confused sometimes about our regulatory frameworks and so on, but I think we've done a better job of reaching out to our stakeholders. I think we consult better. That's very important, because we do important work for Canadians, and it's important that our main stakeholders understand where we're coming from.

We've done a better job in terms of using our inspection resources. We've modernized some of our inspection programs. We've moved to outcome-based types of programs. Rather than being very prescriptive and saying “That wall must be so high and it must be painted white”, we're saying “This has to be clean, and it has to be a suitable environment for manufacturing food”, and that kind of thing.

I think it's a constant challenge, but we're always modernizing, trying to be as efficient as possible, use taxpayers' dollars as efficiently as we possibly can.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

I guess what we're saying is that, as Mr. Boshcoff said, we're applying a little more common sense recently than maybe we had in the past. It's not only the--

[Cameron Prince]

We're very aware of the need to explain what we're doing, to communicate to our stakeholders, to help them to understand why we have to do certain things that may impact on them.

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

When you said that you consult with the people who are applying the rules, I think you used the magic words there: they are ones who have to live with the rules. I think that's really critical, and I'm heartened to see that you're implementing that philosophy.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'm good.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you.

I want to thank the witnesses for appearing. You are free to leave the table.

We're going to vote on the supplementary estimates. If you have your books with you, it's on page 92.

AGRICULTURE AND AGRI-FOOD Department Vote 1b--Operating expenditures and the payment to each member of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada who is a Minister without Portfolio or a Minister of State who does not preside over a Ministry of State of a salary not to exceed the salary paid to Ministers of State who preside over Ministries of State under the Salaries Act, as adjusted pursuant to the Parliament of Canada Act and pro rata for any period of less than a year and, pursuant to paragraph 29.1(2)(a) of the Financial Administration Act, authority to expend revenues received from, and to offset expenditures incurred in the fiscal year for, collaborative research agreements and research services, the grazing and breeding activities of the Community Pastures Program and the administration of the Canadian Agricultural Income Stabilization program--To authorize the transfer of $43,620,457 from Agriculture and Agri-Food Vote 10, and $175,000 from Western Economic Diversification Vote 1, Appropriation Act No. 2, 2007-2008 for the purposes of this Vote..........$1

(Vote 1b agreed to)

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

We wish it was more, but we would go with that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Okay, now to votes 5b, 10b, 12b, and 30b.

Department

Vote 5b--Capital expenditures--To authorize the transfer of $2,174,489 from Agriculture and Agri-Food Vote 10, Appropriation Act No. 2, 2007-2008 for the purposes of this Vote..........$1

Vote 10b--The grants listed in the Estimates and contributions--To authorize the transfer of $550,000 from Natural Resources Vote 10, Appropriation Act No. 2, 2007-2008 for the purposes of this Vote..........$1

Vote 12b--To write-off the projected net drawdown authority used by the Canadian Pari-Mutuel Agency Revolving Fund of up to $500,000 effective March 31, 2008..........$1

Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Vote 30b--Operating expenditures and contributions--To authorize the transfer of $586,000 from Public Works and Government Services Vote 1, Appropriation Act No. 2, 2007-2008 for the purposes of this Vote and to provide a further amount of..........$17,241,667

(Votes 5b, 10b, 12b, and 30b agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Shall I report supplementary estimates B back to the House?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

We have a couple of housekeeping things.

First is high input costs for farmers. I need somebody to propose that the budget of the committee, in the amount of $29,800, for the study of high input costs for farmers be adopted.

So moved by Wayne Easter.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Just so you know, we want to encourage members to submit their witness lists for “Product of Canada”, which will be our next study. We want to get going on that when we get back from our break, so get your lists in to Jean-François so he can start lining that up during the break week.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

We have two parliamentary secretaries here at the moment. Maybe one of them can answer. Who is ultimately responsible for the “Product of Canada” definition? Is it Industry? Is it Agriculture? Does anybody know?

[Guy Lauzon, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

That's a good question.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

David, do you know?

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

It's Agriculture, isn't it?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I ask because I've been asked myself and I don't know the answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

According to Jean-Denis, it's Industry.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Industry—that's what I thought, probably.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

That's where the legislation lies.

We have a motion before us from Mr. Easter. I think it's been circulated.