Agriculture Committee on Feb. 12th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

This motion is before us. If you wanted to change basically to what Mr. Easter is suggesting, then this motion would have to be defeated and a new motion come forward.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

No, we can amend it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Easter has a point of order.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I do think there needs to be more discussion. What I was trying to get to was that we should have a discussion before we make a motion so that we're pretty well on the same wavelength.

I know that some people are suggesting they still would like to see a subcommittee. I'm okay either way. I don't care whether it's the full committee and substituting people in, just as long as that committee, whichever one it is, has the authority to do a complete job of the study. And that means a heck of a lot more meetings.

In my view, it could be done as a full committee if that authority to have more meetings is there, or it could be done as a subcommittee as well. The key point is that there needs to be the authority to have enough meetings to deal with the issue without taking away too much from our regular committee work.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

The reason I suggested voting on the motion was that the questioners around the table have basically changed direction. I'd like to keep the agenda moving. There's a lot more to this subcommittee report than just the listeriosis. There are a number of other ones.

So unless you indicate that you want to put forth an amendment to this motion again to deal with Mr. Easter's suggestion, which I don't have at this point, then we're still with the motion. It's just to try to get something done here. We seem to be going nowhere.

Mr. Atamanenko, you're out of order on this list, but I'm going to give you that because it was your motion.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

I don't know what you're thinking of here, Wayne. I think we're all on the same page. We want to do something to get to the bottom of this and to look at food safety. The reason I proposed the subcommittee is that we have things we have to address here. We have COOL, we have the cattle industry, and we have competitiveness and program review. There are all sorts of pressing issues that people in agriculture and farmers want us to address.

We can't address listeriosis or food safety in two or three meetings. This may have to continue for a number of months. Already this program takes us into June at the steering committee. We need to have a separate committee, and I don't care what it's called or who does it. I agree with Brian that it has to be the in the same proportions as here, with a chair from the government. That's what we have to do to get this going.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I was giving you an in as I thought you might have a point of order on the suggestion. We're still on the motion. I'm going to go back to my list of speakers.

Mr. Eyking, you're up next.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

I'd like to say a few things for the record here, colleagues. At the end of the day, 20 people died here this summer. We owe it to the lives of those people and their families to get to the bottom of what happened. When we were in the steering committee, listeriosis was number one, and we all agreed we have to get to the bottom of what happened and why it happened.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I don't think there's any disagreement.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

There's no disagreement. André is concerned, and he is right to be. Let's not start watering down the wine here. If we're going to get away from a subcommittee, I'm expecting that we're going to have almost 10 meetings, with five or six on listeriosis and four on food safety. That's what it's going to take to do this job right. We all have to realize that if we're not going to have a subcommittee, we're going to be into this for a while.

I have no problem with that, but it has to be the priority, and it has to be done right. If we're going to go in that direction, we had all better realize that this is not going to be done in one or two meetings. That's just so we know, if we're going to drop the subcommittee issue.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Storseth, you have the floor.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I'm not on, am I?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes, you are; but if not, we'll go to Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

To speak to what Mr. Eyking just said, as long as common sense prevails and goals are met.... I don't think anybody in this committee wants to waste time doing an exploration of something that will go on and on. However, in the same breath, we want to get to the bottom of listeriosis and come up with some constructive recommendations that move our food safety forward. I think exploring listeriosis and what happened is part of the report on food safety. I think we're accomplishing that with the amendment that was just done.

I guess the question here is where it would be best to do this work. Is it in a subcommittee on its own, or is it actually here in this committee? Whose purview is this actually within? We've been arguing right now that it is within the purview of the agriculture department, so then should the agriculture committee not take this on? I'm just asking the question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Easter, I had you on next. Do you have anything further?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

No, I was on. However, could you clarify this, sir: is there a motion on right now?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes, we're dealing with the original motion as amended, which changed the wording from “listeriosis” to “food safety”.

Okay, I'm going to call the motion.

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

Chair, could we have five minutes or three minutes here just to sort this out?

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I think it would be relevant to everybody if Mr. Easter and Mr. Lemieux had a chance to sit down. That way, when we come out of this, everybody knows the direction we're going in, so we don't have another half-hour discussion when we come out of this. I think it could be resolved in five minutes or even two minutes.

I move that we suspend the meeting for two minutes, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I have two options. I can do that or, if not, have an amendment proposed. However, I'm going to allow five minutes, and hopefully when we come back we can get something done.

The meeting is suspended for five minutes. I'm going to be calling you back at 12:13.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I call the meeting back to the order.

I guess everyone realizes that I gave you an extra five minutes because I was hoping that an agreement was going to come about. I'm not sure whether it has. Unless directed otherwise, we have the motion on the....

Mr. Storseth.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

I'd like to make an amendment to the motion, as I had discussed earlier, about the composition of the committee. If you want me to reread it, I can. I withdrew it because Mr. Easter said we were going to go with the full committee.

If we're going to do this, I think it's important that we establish what the composition of the subcommittee is going to be, so I would move that amendment.

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

If I may, Mr. Chair, on a point of order, there is a type of motion here, which started with Alex and ended up with Pierre adding food safety, which had the technical stuff that you had, right? I think that's the kind of motion we're looking at, isn't it?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We have a motion--

[Mark Eyking, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

I know, but is that where we're going?