Agriculture Committee on Aug. 19th, 2008

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

On another point of order, I think what we see here is the fear that government members are trying to instill in witnesses before this committee.

Speak out, and speak publicly. We appreciate that.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

That's not a point of order.

I'll tell witnesses that because you are appearing before a parliamentary committee you are protected. You have parliamentary privilege while you're at committee. You are expected to exercise judgment and restraint in representing your personal views at committee, but we do ask that you answer the questions with your fullest intent.

And for your information, the broadcast is within the parliamentary precinct. We're not getting broadcast outside of the parliamentary system at this point in time.

Madam Bennett, you have the floor.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

First, Mr. Roberts, you wanted to add to Madam Demers' answer.

[Chris Roberts]

Thank you.

Very quickly, the issue of the specific details of this case are being discussed, debated, and deliberated in the appropriate context: the grievance and arbitration process. What brings us here is the larger public interest issue surrounding the substance, not the specifics of Mr. Pomerleau's case.

That's all I wanted to say.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Thank you.

Madame Demers, in the spring you came to visit with a number of members of Parliament on the Hill to express your concern, as you had said in your remarks, about your scientists and the people you represent being worried about the capacity of the agency and other places to be able to fulfill, as I think you said today, the expectations of Canadians in maintaining what we all know has been, until now, the safest system in the world.

Also, having been at a meeting in Washington where a representative of the FDA very frankly said to us that he only had the capacity to inspect 1% of the products coming into his country, and I think, as our colleague Monsieur Bellavance said yesterday, the problems we have in Canada seem to have pretty well come from a situation that moved to a way of self-regulation or to an audit-based verification system instead of actually direct inspection.

Unlike my colleague Mr. Komarnicki, I would like your advice as to who you think we should call before this committee in terms of what scientists would be able to speak and what scientists would not be able to speak, as we heard yesterday. Who could give us the best possible assessment of the risk that could be placed in terms of the health of Canadians if these changes that have been articulated in the secret document take place in the future?

I think as we heard clearly yesterday, people were able to look at us and say there have been no cuts. But this document was laying out a plan to change the total system in Canada to one that has already proved to be a bad experiment in the United States of America.

So I would like to know, Madame Demers, what your scientists are saying in terms of the capacity now to do their job as it is, and what they are also saying in terms of their ability—it sounded like one-armed paperhangers—to do what they believe Canadians want them to do.

The letter from Wayne Wouters seems to be very important, as well as the secret document. Is there any way you could find those documents and table them at our committee while we seem to be waiting for the government to do that?

[Michèle Demers]

I'll answer your second question first.

I do not have the document. I returned the copy of the document I had, along with all of the e-mails of the 20 people who received the document electronically, confirming thereby that the document had been deleted from the systems and/or shredded, because that's what I asked them to do.

I brought all of this information to Carole Swan at the CFIA as a gesture of good faith, to say, look, we realize this document is sensitive; therefore, this is what we have done in order to control the dissemination of the document, and nobody has gone public with it; nobody has done anything with it.

So I can't give you a copy of the document. The agency could, and the government could, but not me.

The other question was with respect to the concerns of the scientists I represent, who have, for a good number of years, raised a flag about the dilution of their roles. The example they gave to me was of the meat certification processes, whereby instead of their having hands-on monitoring of meats that are exported, they have to monitor from a distance and approve the meats on paper; it's like their ticking a box for what somebody else has certified. You should ask for the minutes of the labour management committee meetings at the CFIA, where the veterinarians repeatedly said, we will refuse to do export certifications if we continue to not have a hands-on approach certifying these products as safe. That's been a long-standing issue with the veterinarians. That's one issue.

With the gas stunning of the birds, there was an issue in Halifax or Dartmouth a year or so ago, where they introduced a new process, and they couldn't guarantee that no dead birds made it into the food process. So the institute raised a stink and went to see the manager. I personally went to see them and said, this does not make sense; if there is a risk that one dead bird makes it into the food chain, there could be serious ramifications. I'm not a scientist, but I represent the professional interests of the veterinarians who raised that issue with me. They did a whole turnaround within a couple of weeks to redo this process so that it would be safer.

You know, I'm like the watchdog. I'm not supposed to be the watchdog for CFIA; they're supposed to have people there who are telling them, and they're supposed to listen to their experts, when issues come forward that have risks for food safety.

So there are all kinds of things happening for efficiency purposes and changing the way inspection is being done, regardless of the document and what is being proposed to further this direction that has been implemented already.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you very much. The time has expired.

Mr. Del Mastro.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Demers, maybe you could complete the following statement for me: “Every public servant explicitly and formally agrees to maintain a public trust by signing a security declaration. However, as they may see fit, they may broadcast an e-mail of a confidential document to whose who they feel appropriate, subject to the following circumstances.”

Could you complete that form? When should they override that and send out a broadcast e-mail of a confidential document that would be acceptable? Can you give me some conditions where that would be a good idea?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

A broadcast e-mail?

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

That's what we've heard witness of, Ms. Bennett.

[Michèle Demers]

As Mr. Roberts stated earlier about the fact that all of the circumstances around this are being discussed and represented in front of the Public Service Staff Relations Board in defence of Mr. Pomerleau, I don't think this is the appropriate forum to discuss this.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Okay, so you can't really complete that. Therefore, they should always maintain the public trust and follow their agreement, subject to the security declaration. I think that's what I just heard from you.

Additionally, if the document says “Confidential” on the cover page only, if I tear that cover page off, should I therefore assume that everything behind that is no longer confidential? Or if it says “Confidential” on a folder and I dump everything out of the folder, can I therefore assume that everything that fell out of the folder is no longer confidential?

[Michèle Demers]

I think the process and policy are that each page has to be marked confidential in order for a document to be appropriately marked.

The document in question wasn't even marked at all. It was just the cover page of the Treasury Board letter that was marked confidential.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Right.

I guess there are a couple of things I'd note, Mr. Chair.

Obviously we've heard that there was a confidential document disseminated to various individuals. I'd like to know, did you provide a copy of that to Mr. Easter, or have you had discussions with Mr. Easter? Has anybody in your organization had discussions with him about that?

[Michèle Demers]

I met Mr. Easter for the first time in my life this morning when he walked in and I was here already.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

So when he indicated that he'd had discussions with the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, it wouldn't be accurate?

[Michèle Demers]

Well, it could have been someone in my organization, but not me.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

On a point of order, go back to the record and you will see that what I stated was that my office had discussions with people at PIPSC to see if they would be able to come to today's meeting. So go to the record instead of trying to fear-monger.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

That's not a point of order, but we'll definitely check on that.

Mr. Del Mastro.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

So neither you nor anybody in your office further disseminated that document to, say, Mr. Easter or other members of the opposition?

[Michèle Demers]

Absolutely not.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

So if they have it, you didn't send it to them?

[Michèle Demers]

I didn't, for sure.

[Dean Del Mastro, Conservative, Peterborough, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Chair, I'd submit that the only reason we're here today is that we have the Liberal Party trying to flog a dead horse with a carbon tax that no farmer I've met has been supportive of.

[An hon. member]

Get back to the topic.