Agriculture Committee on Feb. 12th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Next on the list is Mr. Eyking.

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

My suggestion at the beginning was to do it this way, and I'm glad we're back on track. Mr. Chairman, my compliments to you for getting this back on track. It's very important that we get this done first. Then everything else will flow from that.

I'm not going to comment more, other than to say I'm in favour of the motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Lemieux.

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

I'll go back to my amendment. The motion is that given the listeriosis crisis that occurred last summer, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food establish a subcommittee on food safety.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Is everybody clear on the amendment? Mr. Hoback, do you want the floor?

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

No, that's fine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Atamanenko.

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

I tend to agree with what Pierre has said. If we have a committee devoted to food safety, which brings up the past and goes into the future based on the tragedy that happened, we could probably get some really good results for Canadians out of this.

I personally don't see a problem with changing that, unless some of my other colleagues have some comments. It would give the committee a mandate to decide who to pull in for witnesses and where to start. It would be left up to them. On the surface it sounds like a very good way to go.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I don't have a problem with adding the words “food safety”, Mr. Chair. I would support the amendment because I think the intention of the subcommittee is to use the case of listeriosis. I think it's a wake-up call to show us that there's something wrong in the system. That's not just looking back. We are looking ahead. The reason we have to do this, to be quite blunt about it, is the Prime Minister's investigation. Our understanding, when the Prime Minister first talked about an inquiry was that it would be an inquiry that had some teeth in it. Well, Ms. Weatherill has no teeth. She has no power to subpoena witnesses, no power to get documents, and no power to investigate the PMO or the office of the minister who was in charge. So that's why it becomes necessary for this committee.

I have a question on it as well. Maybe Alex can clarify this.

As I see it, this would be a committee of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food with all the powers outlined here. But calling it a subcommittee means it might be fully the same committee or it might be based on whip decisions. Some people also subbed into this committee from health, but both committees would operate...I don't want to say in parallel exactly, but I think the intent here is to do the work on food safety but also not slow down the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food in all the other things it has to do. If we have people doing both, it means they're going to be having a heck of a lot more meetings. That's fine with me, because I think it's an important issue.

I think the agriculture committee needs to be in control of the committee, because CFIA is under agriculture. Members from the health committee could be subbed into this committee to assist. Am I right on that?

[A voice]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We'll have Mr. Bellavance first and then Mr. Atamanenko.

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

I may be playing devil's advocate, but Mr. Lemieux's suggestion, that I agree with completely, is to broaden the mandate and to deal in general with food safety and food security. However, if we establish a subcommittee with a broader mandate than that of the listeriosis issue, and if we undertake the type of investigation that Ms. Weatherill did not carry out, then we may lose sight of the issue. Witnesses will speak to us about everything but listeriosis and we may end up having to meet more frequently than if we had concentrated our efforts on that specific issue.

Personally, I see our work as a follow-up to what I began last August, when we had union officials and Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials speak to us about the changes the government wanted to make. We are always being told that extra officers and inspectors are being hired, that we have realized that there has been a move—and this is happening with pilot projects—to privatize these inspections more and more, etc. What happened was the whole listeriosis crisis.

I think this specific issue will be work enough. We should not increase the scope of the mandate by much. I also think that the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food could have other meetings to deal with food safety in general. Perhaps I am wrong, but it is my feeling that if the mandate becomes to broad, our study will go on for too long. I do not mind having several meetings. I, myself am particularly interested in an investigation. Quite frankly, I would like to do the investigation that Ms. Weatherill will not do into listeriosis.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Storseth.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to make a couple of points.

Maybe I shouldn't start out with a partisan point, but first, the fact of the matter is that I think we need to set the record straight. Sheila Weatherill is a very well respected professional in the health care field from my province. She ran the Capital Health Authority. If Mr. Easter has these concerns, maybe he should have her here and ask if she has the same concerns before we start ramping up subcommittees and all of these other committees.

The second point, Mr. Chair, is a technical one. Just to be proficient, J-F is right with this motion, but it should read, “pursuant to Standing Order 108(1)(b)”. I think that is the exact way it should read. If Mr. Atamanenko wants to have that as a friendly amendment, that's fine.

To the point of Mr. Easter, I think there is a concern here, at least on my behalf. Wayne, I think you're giving up control of this investigation when you develop a subcommittee in the manner in which Mr. Atamanenko is trying to develop it. If you read Standing Order 108(1)(b), it does clearly say that the subcommittee will have all the powers of the standing committee, which means the power to broaden this as much as it wants and the power to look at whatever it wants. I think it's very important that if we're going to have this investigation--or whatever you want to call it--done, it should be done by the standing committee.

Now, if you want it to have a specific mandate, really, you need to have it under a joint committee or something else, which obviously needs to come from the House leaders' offices. But by creating a subcommittee under Standing Order 108(1)(b), you are going to leave open the opportunity—and this goes Mr. Bellavance's point as well—to expand this beyond where you want it to go. Also, the agriculture committee will lose full control of this, because this subcommittee will have the power to present directly to the House without coming to us first.

I think we want to keep this within the agriculture committee. I think that's how our committee has traditionally done a lot of these things; for example, on product of Canada labelling. A lot of the stuff we've done we've tried to keep within the agriculture committee. Whether that means extra meetings or not, I'm not going to go there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I have Mr. Atamanenko, then Mr. Hoback, then Mr. Shipley, then Mr. Bellavance again.

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

I have a couple of comments. The way the motion reads, it's my understanding, Brian, that the subcommittee would not have the power to report to the House. That's according to--

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

If you don't mind, I can read you Standing Order 108(1)(b). It says:

Standing Committees shall be empowered to create subcommittees of which the membership may be drawn from among both the list of members and the list of associate members provided for in Standing Order 104, who shall be deemed to be members of that committee for the purposes of this Standing Order.

Therefore, you have to go to Standing Order 108(1)(a), which says:

Standing committees shall be severally empowered to examine and enquire into all such matters as may be referred to them by the House, to report from time to time...

It clearly shows they have the ability to report to the House without coming to us. That's my concern, because I think you want it to come here first, right?

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

With regard to who reports or who doesn't report to the House, a subcommittee will obviously be influenced by this committee. Some of us may be sitting on this committee. We will be driving the agenda, together with our colleagues from the health committee, so I don't see that as a concern.

Whether the subcommittee be called the subcommittee on food safety or the subcommittee on listeriosis, once again I think the immediate area of discussion will be listeriosis, because that's the reason we're forming it. We can move on to broaden its mandate, so to speak, as we start here. All these things will come up.

As for how it's formed, I think maybe we should get Jean-François to give us a brief understanding of why it's worded as it is, as we did back and forth on the phone the other day. I wouldn't mind if we could do that now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I do know from discussions with the clerk—and he can certainly clarify this if I don't have it exactly right—that he tried to draft this motion on a broad basis.

As a note for Mr. Storseth, and maybe for everybody, a subcommittee can never report directly to the House. On top of that, it states at the end of the motion here that this is not part of it. This may or may not satisfy the concern, but I think it's pretty clear in the motion.

Next I have Mr. Hoback.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Yes, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to go back and agree with Mr. Easter. The CFIA is part of Agriculture. I know what Mr. Bellavance is saying about how he'd like to drive into this case specifically. But as a committee, can we not do both at the same time? Can we not do a review of the food safety system and, at the same time, look back at where the food safety system didn't work and evaluate why it didn't work, and have that part?

I'm really concerned about this going to subcommittee. I think this is something the agriculture committee should do itself, because it gives everybody in this room a chance to be part of that work. And it is all agriculture related. When you go to food safety, that's an agriculture issue; the CFIA is under the Department of Agriculture. As Mr. Easter said, I think we should try to keep it here. I don't know if we need a subcommittee.

Regardless of that, Mr. Chair, I think we have to go back to the amendment itself and decide the context. Are we going to stick to a study on just listeriosis, or can we agree on a context of food safety and then proceed from there?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Shipley.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just to follow up with my colleague, I think when we're looking at the issues that were on our list here, if we do not take the context of the motion.... And it has been amended. I believe Mr. Atamanenko agrees to the changing of the wording to “given the listeriosis crisis that occurred”, and then “establish a subcommittee on food safety”. I think you can't do one without the other, you can't do that. It would not only not serve this committee, but it certainly would not serve the people of Canada, as they will be looking at this report. You should never delve into something without developing what's going to happen, how we're going to move forward, because we do not want this to happen again.

I would ask that this be dealt with at this committee. When we look down at our first report of the six issues we have, obviously this one is sitting at number one. If it were number five, then I guess it would not have the same priority. The subcommittee in its deliberations obviously said this is significant not only to Canada but also to this committee. It would seem to me that it deserves the attention of the full committee looking at the listeriosis issue, all the things that happened with it. Also, we cannot just stop the dropping of the axe at a point without looking at: what have we done; what are we going to do; what should we do, if we have not? If I were a Canadian reading this report and found it stopped without looking at the recommendations, I'd think we had not served the Canadian people right.

My recommendation, Mr. Chair, would be to support the inclusion of the amendment Alex has agreed to, but that this be a full committee report. Obviously it carries that significance in terms of the priorities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We are basically discussing the amendment to the motion.

Mr. Atamanenko, you indicated support for this. Are you accepting this as a friendly amendment that would change your original motion, so we'd be debating or discussing the actual amended motion then?

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

If I understand correctly, the amendment would be to substitute the second word “listeriosis” with “food safety”. Is that correct?

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

Correct. Yes, that's my amendment.