Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, members of the committee.
I am Christian Lacasse and I am a farmer in the Bellechasse region in Quebec. I am the vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture.
First, I would like to congratulate you on your election, Mr. Chair. I wish you success in your new responsibilities.
To begin with, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture supports the bill in principle. For several years, food safety and traceability have been matters of great importance to farmers in Canada.
As well, you are undoubtedly aware that farmers have been involved in food safety programs, through their farm organizations, for the last 20 years or so, since the early 1990s. Their goal has been to improve their practices and their control measures, to ensure that farm commodities are of very high quality. I think this speaks well of the commitment farmers made to this objective some years ago now. These food safety programs are based on national standards, but they could be applied globally.
We have also worked with Agriculture Canada and the Food Inspection Agency since 1998 to ensure that the food safety programs used by farmers on the farm and at other stages in the process meet global requirements, both in administrative terms and in relation to the various controls. It is important to note that together, these food safety programs cover 99% of primary agricultural production. This means that all production is now covered by these food safety programs.
In addition, these programs attest to the high degree of sensitivity to food safety that farmers have developed. As producers, our objective is to be able to meet consumer demand, whether here or abroad, by supplying very high-quality products. Over the years, Canada has distinguished itself well in that regard.
We do still have some concerns about the bill, however. I will list a few of them.
First, it seems that producers will require a licence to export, that is, to send their animals or commodities to other provinces. On the other hand, producers who do not need to send their commodities to another province, since there are processing establishments in their own province, do not need to obtain a licence.
We would note the same problem for the prevention and inspection mechanisms. Producers who have to send their animals to other provinces must undergo additional inspections. We would seriously question this. We hope that regardless of the province they are in, farmers will be treated equally. We hope they do not have to obtain additional licences or undergo further inspections just because there are no processing establishments in their province.
Our second concern relates to traceability. You know that farmers, with other partners, have been in the vanguard when it comes to implementing traceability systems. We are not questioning this objective or these approaches. I think traceability is a very important factor in ensuring that we are on top of the situation and have good control mechanisms. The bill provides new powers relating to traceability, but they are not clear. The bill is lacking in precision. We would like to have more information and clarification.
The traceability systems put in place create an administrative burden for producers. I reiterate that we are not opposed to traceability, but it has to be arranged so that these systems do not make too many additional demands on farmers.
Last but not least, there is the question of access to certain confidential information. The bill says that inspectors could have access to computers on farms. I would remind you that these computers contain a lot of confidential information that is not related to food safety. We hope that access to information by way of the computers on farms will be limited and will always be justified. This is also a business issue for farmers, since their farms are businesses operating in competition. We would therefore like assurances that this information will remain confidential.
In summary, the Canadian Federation of Agriculture supports the objective of greater harmonization of the various inspection platforms. We support the objective of greater consistency in the performance of inspection activities. We support the inclusion of new offences for tampering with a food commodity, threats to render a food commodity injurious to health, and so on. I think these are among the deterrent elements that are needed in the act.
We are particularly pleased to see the provisions that will establish a level playing field with foreign competitors. We have been raising the question of reciprocity in standards for many years. We hope the passage of this bill will bring about new tools to control imports that do not meet Canada's requirements.
As a final point, I would say again that we support the objectives of this bill. However, this bill is going to lead to reform of the regulations, and we do not, at present, know what the various elements of the reform will be. The regulations are what will enable us to determine whether the bill, or the reform, is satisfactory, whether it enables us to achieve our goals, and whether it is responsive to the concerns we have raised. We do not know what that reform will consist of, but we hope to know that as quickly as possible and to be brought into the process, so that the broad objectives of the reform will make it genuinely possible for us to achieve our objectives, and for Canadian food commodities to continue to be in the vanguard when it comes to food safety.
Thank you.