Evidence of meeting #34 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was producers.
A recording is available from Parliament.
10:35 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Farm Financial Programs Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food
It was at 25%. As soon as we finish processing the initial payments, only then will we be able to know what the percentage will be for...but there is money left for the final. We just don't know what the percentage will be until we're finished processing the last 500 that came in recently.
Thank you.
10:35 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food
Mr. Easter, with respect to the second question, I don't have that information. So perhaps if you'd allow me, we would provide a written response to that.
With respect to the third question on tying of food aid, I think the government has announced, as you have referred to, the complete untying of Canadian food aid, with the objective of increasing its responsiveness and efficiency—
10:40 a.m.
Assistant Deputy Minister, Strategic Policy Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food
I understand that American food aid is 100% tied. I think there are proposals in Washington to take it to 25% untied, but at the moment, it's either 100% or 90% untied, I'm not quite sure which.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
To be fair to the other committee members, we have to keep rolling along here. So if you want to take three to four minutes to ask your questions and only leave one or two for the response, we're not going to get all the answers.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
Mr. Atamanenko talked about the funding. I think it's the second or third time he's asked about that funding, but we know that it has in fact increased over previous years. One of the nicest parts about it was the announcement the Prime Minister made in December of $113 million for a food and consumer safety action plan. I would think it would have quite an impact on you people carrying out your mandate.
Maybe it's a little early to ask this, but can you give me some feedback on how you envision that $113 million is going to impact your carrying out your business to increase food and consumer safety for our consumers?
10:40 a.m.
Executive Vice-President, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Mr. Chairman, I will just ask Mr. White to provide the breakdown of that $113 million, and then I'd like to provide an overview of the implementation plan and how the money will be expended.
10:40 a.m.
Vice-President, Finance, Administration and Information Technology, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Mr. Chair, the $113 million in budget 2008 was for two years and for the entire plan. That averages out to about $55 million a year. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency's component of that in year one is $23 million out of $55 million, and it moves up to $39 million out of $55 million in the second year. So that clarifies our portion of those numbers.
10:40 a.m.
Executive Vice-President, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Mr. Chairman, within the food and consumer safety action plan, we have allocated the funding on a proactive basis and have developed work plans against several priority areas.
The first is in terms of active prevention, including better understanding of food safety risks, with investments over time to allow us to better analyze, with other partners—Health Canada, and the Public Health Agency of Canada, and globally—information gathered through the marketplace and through our sampling and testing programs on how we can become most effective in expending those moneys for the best protection of Canadians and global consumers. And we'll be working with industry to minimize food safety risks, so that we can adjust our program to be less prescriptive and have less oversight, recognizing that industry has their quality management-based systems and their production for bringing quality food to the marketplace; and working specifically to better identify importers and foreign authorities, and to work offshore as well, to make sure that product arriving at our borders meets Canadian standards.
We will also be investing also in the area of “Product of Canada” labelling, which has been discussed extensively over the past period of time by this committee. We have allocated money for that, both in terms of consumer outreach and awareness, as well as enforcement verification activities, as those are adjusted.
The second major area is in targeted oversight, specifically looking at import food safety, working with the Canada Border Services Agency and others in terms of the timing and the types of blitzes that we will be taking to verify against our surveillance objectives and residue monitoring plans to ensure that our requirements are being met. And we'll be enhancing with industry the identification of those high risk foods that potentially carry a greater risk into the marketplace, issues that would affect babies, young children, or aged populations that may be even more compromised
Finally, Mr. Chairman, the third area is rapid response. Again, I think Canada has a world-class food recall system that does identify risks when they are identified in the marketplace. I think it's worthy to note for the committee that the vast majority of our recalls are on a proactive advisory basis, in the absence of actual confirmation of human health requirements or impacts; but at the same time, we'll be working with industry to identify hazards that may somehow have worked through the system, to get them out of the marketplace before they become public health risks.
Finally, Mr. Chair, the last area is broader-based communication with consumers, recognizing again that food safety is a shared accountability, starting with inputs and producers right through the system to distribution and retail, while recognizing consumers' role in food safety as well.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
Guy Lauzon Conservative Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON
In summary, it can allay Mr. Atamanenko's concerns. In fact, our food is going to be even more safe than it was previously.
10:40 a.m.
Executive Vice-President, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
I think Canada's food stacks up against any country in the world.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
10:40 a.m.
Executive Vice-President, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
We will keep it there against increasing threats and, again, to rising international standards.
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
10:40 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
For the committee's information, there is a motion to adjourn debate on a concurrence motion in the House. It's a 30-minute bell. Votes are at 11:10.
My duty, according to the standing orders, is to “suspend the meeting when the bells are sounded to call in the Members to a recorded division, unless there is unanimous consent of the members of the committee to continue to sit”.
10:45 a.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
It will be at 11:10.
We have roughly 10 minutes left to go. If we don't have unanimous consent, then we have to come back after votes. I'm just suspending the meeting.
10:45 a.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
It's for ten minutes after eleven, guys. My God, the votes never start on time.
