Agriculture Committee on Feb. 15th, 2012

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

I invite you to say that outside the room. A reporter is here who I'm sure would love to ask you that question.

I want to move on to the budget. On some of the budget increases we've seen, listening to you speak it's all doom and gloom. Yet for the record, in budget 2011 we committed an additional $100 million over five years to the CFIA to improve food inspection capacity. We put aside $67 million to support development of food safety and traceability systems, and $223 million has been invested in the food safety action plan by CFIA. If I look at the budget from 2006 to 2011 for CFIA, in 2006 it was $662 million, and now it's $778 million.

Parliament approves these budget increases. Conservatives voted for them, but not all MPs did. Opposition party MPs did not vote for them. I'd like to know your thoughts on MPs, who I know are concerned about food safety, not voting for such increases to food safety.

[Bob Kingston]

Quite frankly, I would have to know what exactly was before the House during the vote and what it was coupled with.

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

Well, no, what about the food safety side? What are your thoughts on the food safety increases?

[Bob Kingston]

Any increases to food safety in the budget I would fully support, of course. Again, it would depend on how they were couched.

In terms of the doom and gloom, what I was asking is please be careful when you are considering the research budgeting coming up in the next budget. In terms of some of the moneys that have been provided to CFIA over the years, including the $100 million that was committed, I believe that about $17 million was actually dealt with in the first two years out of five, which doesn't quite mathematically square with the idea that you get five years to spend $100 million, but we'll see.

A lot of that money is for one-time initiatives such as the study going on of inspection modernization—not to actually modernize, just to look at it. What comes out of that, we'll have to wait and see, but if you actually take a look at what they are forecasting on their own website, in terms of moneys and staff available, if you follow the projections that they've put on their own website, they're going to end up with fewer resources than they had prior to the listeria outbreak.

I don't generate these numbers. They're on their website.

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

Right, but I've read a number of your press releases over time. I've got one here that comes from January. I would classify it as alarmist. You're talking about the government potentially playing roulette with the health of Canadians. You use other terminology like that. You make it sound as if you are part of the budget process and you know where the cuts are, how much they're going to be. And even today, when we're talking about Growing Forward, you're saying the new Growing Forward 2 funding structure concerns you. What funding structure? Are you on an inside loop that I'm not on and my colleagues aren't on?

This is a consultation process. We are starting consultations for Growing Forward 2. There is no funding structure. There are no decisions that have been made for Growing Forward 2. We are consulting. And yet to hear you speak, you would think that you were on some sort of inside track here, had all the facts, and you've got basically all knowledge of what's going to transpire.

I would say you don't. You're guessing. Will you admit that you're guessing at this? You don't know.

[Bob Kingston]

Well, first of all, I'd admit we're all guessing at what it's going to look like when the--

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Sorry, Mr. Chair. Aren't we supposed to talk about consumer demand? I don't think this is any part of our discussion today.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Well, I think that--

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

You have to explain this to me, because this is not consumer demand we're talking about now.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes, but I believe the questions are directed to comments that Mr. Kingston has made.

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

That's what it is.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Yes, but this is not about consumer demand.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Then I guess I should have reminded him sooner then.

Anyway, there's no point of order.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

Okay. I just want to understand.

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

Normally we are on topic, but Mr. Kingston's comments were off topic, so I'm now pursuing a line of questioning on what he said to us as a committee.

[Jean Rousseau, NDP, Compton—Stanstead, QC]

But isn't that a personal vendetta?

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

No. He raised it. It was raised in front of committee. It was testimony in front of committee.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that when I read through these press releases, I find them alarmist, and they're actually not very complimentary to the inspectors you represent, because they certainly leave the impression that the inspectors are not doing their job, and I think that's not fair to the inspectors. They're working hard; they're applying themselves to improve food safety here in Canada. And I would say it's not just me saying this as a government member. There are reports that have been issued.

For example, there was a report on the OECD countries, on food safety, that said: “Canada is one of the best-performing countries in the 2010 Food Safety Performance World Ranking Study. Its overall grade was superior--earning it a place among the top-tier countries.” There are other good quotes from other reports.

Mr. Kingston, given that you're representing food inspectors, I would think you would want to present both sides of a picture and basically compliment the inspectors on contributing in a significant way to such a statement as this in a third-party report.

I've got no problem with raising a couple of objections or concerns, no problem with that, but the way in which you're going about it is alarmist, and I think it unduly alarms Canadians when in fact we have third-party reports that are saying our food safety system is a good food safety system. It's not perfect, but it has seen improvement over the years.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Lemieux.

We'll now move to Mr. Valeriote, for five minutes.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

He didn't get a chance to answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

He wasn't asked a question. Mr. Lemieux was making a point.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Well, you'll have plenty of time to answer, because I'm going to ask you myself.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Frank, if I could, just for a second....

Mr. Rousseau, our topic is on meeting consumer demands. Of course food safety is part of that system, and Mr. Kingston was, I think we could all agree, criticizing that, so I think we're on the topic.

Mr. Valeriote.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I think that food safety is a question of marketing, and everyone who has been before this committee, including Carla Ventin, has said so.

Frankly, in response to Mr. Lemieux, I am alarmed. Those aren't alarmist comments. I'm alarmed simply because I too felt that there was an amount of vagueness and evasiveness in the answers we received on Tuesday, and I'll say that outside of this committee as well.

I was at a food town-hall in Guelph, which Mr. Fraser was at, about a month ago, and food safety was an issue. There are 224 people who've been cut, and we're still not told how many of those will be inspectors. Some $21 million will be cut. Somehow we're told that if you cut something out of the budget with respect to food safety, it must mean that we've reached the target, reached the mark. But I'm not convinced of that at all. It concerns me to learn that only 2% of our imported food is inspected, as compared with 100% of exported food. That's the very issue that we have to tackle here.

Mr. Kingston, I invite you to continue your comments.

[Bob Kingston]

The percentages apply to all agricultural commodities, not just food, but they're pretty accurate with respect to the food sector.

As to the funding and how that is related to consumerism, consumers are looking for more food produced and processed in Canada. The concern was that Canada might lose its world-leading status, achieved because of the research done over the years, and that we might have to rely more on imports. That was a problem, and that's when I got into the import part of it.

As for being alarmist, for those who don't remember, the original government plan was to strip full-time inspection out of the slaughter plants and the processing plants. That would have meant an extreme loss in inspection activity in the food business. So I don't think it's alarmist to bring it to people's attention that cuts will be harmful to food safety. By the way, you can find out about this on our “food safety first” website under the “secret documents” heading.

When CVS was introduced, we told the agency that there were problems with it. Turning to self-regulation always brings with it an element of risk, human nature being what it is. Sure enough, something happened. Nothing we've said has been fabricated, and we are still greatly concerned that even though numbers have increased in certain areas the agency is still trying to negotiate lower standards with their trading partners instead of higher standards. That is a fact, and that is going on as we speak. That is why they wanted to cut the budget as of March 31, for the money put aside for the listeria.

So it's a simple fact. You may not like it, but consumers should be alarmed, because you should be shooting for the best, not the cheapest. That's our view.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Evan, you talked about buying local. I remember going to the Toronto Food Terminal, when I was a kid, and picking up food and bringing it back to Guelph and delivering it to all the stores. I know that St. Joseph's Hospital in Guelph tries to buy local in a vigorous way, as does the University of Guelph.

Do you have models for the committee or for the minister that local farmers could deploy to facilitate buying local and getting food in bulk to people like St. Joe's Hospital, the University of Guelph, and other institutions?