Agriculture Committee on April 30th, 2009

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

No.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Well, maybe it's not, but I'm just saying the sooner we go, Chair, the better. Particularly given that this is a very pertinent subject, the more time we're able to give to the clerk to make necessary arrangements, the better. So you might want to see if we do have unanimous consent to discuss this.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Just so everyone is clear, I did indicate to Mr. Bellavance when I came in that I have to be in the House shortly, and I was going to ask him to take the chair.

Is there unanimous consent to deal with it today?

[Some hon. members]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

All in favour of the motion?

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

This is just for clarification, Mr. Chair.

The previous motion we passed. I do believe, though, that we still need to request the U.S. embassy, if we can, to come before the committee—and our officials as well—because it is a committee with presentations on the record, and therefore that's important. I agree 100% with this motion, and it is important that we do it fairly urgently on this issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Bellavance.

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

I was a member of the agriculture committee—I cannot longer remember exactly which year any more—and we went to the United States, to Washington, to talk about this. We had a very busy day and all we talked about was country of origin labelling.

It seems to me that the way in which it is presented is vague. Given the cost of committee travel, I would like to have other things to discuss with American parliamentarians.

When we went before, we had a briefing session with someone from the American department of agriculture. We met Ambassador Michael Wilson. We were still on a mission, though, which I was not able to finish myself. But those who stayed the next day obtained good information and had interesting meetings and discussions.

This motion, saying that we are going to travel and talk about something or other, may be a bit hasty in the sense that we have asked people to come to the committee to talk about the same things. If we go to the United States to talk about them, I would find it a little...

In other words, I do not disagree with the spirit of the motion, but I would like us to fine-tune it. It also seems to have come up a little suddenly today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Just on your comments, Mr. Bellavance, because it will take some time to actually get this organized, it sounds already as if the break week isn't going to work. I know it wouldn't work for me because I'm already committed. So what I'm saying, I guess, is that I think there's lots of opportunity to have that discussion and add to it. I'm not speaking for the committee or my government, but personally I think what you're saying makes sense, to do as much as we possibly can while we're there.

Mr. Lemieux.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

First of all, on the travel dates, we'll have to decide upon that as a committee. I just threw that out there; obviously there's more discussion required.

To answer Mr. Easter's comment about his motion, we voted on it; it stands, absolutely. We should have the U.S. embassy officials in front of the committee. I think that's advantageous to us as a committee. In fact, before we go down to the United States, I would say that would be advantageous.

To Monsieur Bellavance's comments, Chair, COOL is a driving issue right now in the red meat sector. One of the concerns I have is that if we broaden the meetings, we in fact lessen our focus. I think we should be focused on COOL and the impact on our red meat sector. If we're going to go down and talk about a whole range of subjects, then COOL becomes one of many subjects we are there to discuss.

We've had the red meat sector in front of us. I've been out doing round tables, as I mentioned, as has the minister. We're receiving very clear signals that the red meat sector is being definitely impacted. I think we should focus our efforts. We're there to talk business. We're there to talk about COOL. Other subjects? We can discuss that later if you want to tackle it later, but I just don't want to dilute the intensity and the importance of COOL when we're down there.

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, André Bellavance]

Are there any more comments? Are we ready to vote?

(Motion agreed to.)

We have passed the budget, we have done everything else, so we will meet again at the next meeting.

This meeting is adjourned.