Agriculture Committee on Nov. 29th, 2012

[Peter Everson]

Oh, I'm sorry. It refers to an executive position: a director, an executive director, a vice-president, etc.

There's been reduction of routine administrative functions associated with those other reductions. There's been some streamlining in accounting operations. There have been a variety of steps to reduce the overall administrative cost of the department.

The president mentioned our relationship with agriculture. Some of them are very basic changes. For example, we are located physically in the same headquarters building and we identified that there'd be an opportunity to save. We simply merged how we did building security.

They're not particularly dramatic. It's just a steadfast movement to reduce the overall cost.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Okay.

He also mentioned $3.3 million for shared services between CFIA and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, which is different from the $24 million. Can you explain that?

[Peter Everson]

That's correct.

It's a series of things. We share now a single chief informatics officer, so it's one executive for both departments. We are beginning to merge some of our services, such as the help desk in our Moncton office, and it's not one way, either; that's important. We are sharing services with the agriculture department. Sometimes we're taking over services and providing them to the department, and sometimes they're taking them over and providing services to us.

There are other areas in which we're looking for savings. We're both running an HR process, what we call fast-track staffing, to deal with simple low-risk staffing transactions in Moncton. We're merging that. The savings are modest in each case, but they reduce the overall cost and they add up.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

On the Wheat Board windup and the $184.2 million that has been allocated for that, I know that at the time of the windup there were certain moneys that were retained by the Canadian Wheat Board from the pooled funds. They retained earnings for future applications. I think it was close to $200 million. Is this $184.2 million in addition to those sums that were retained right at the Canadian Wheat Board?

[Greg Meredith]

I'll just make a small point of clarification. The board didn't retain any pooled earnings. From the pool, probably in January or February, you'll see final payments go out, and the board won't retain any moneys that would have been in those pools for farmers. What you're referring to is what they call their contingency fund.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Right.

[Greg Meredith]

That is made up of moneys that are earned on cash trading and futures trading. In other words, the farmers have already been paid the complete price for their wheat, and the board makes a bit more money off of it either in futures trading or in the cash market. That amounted to about $140 million at the end of the year. I'd have to get back to the clerk with the precise number, but it was in the range of $140 million to $150 million.

The $184 million has to do with costs that were directly the result of the policy decision to remove the single desk. As the minister mentioned, the principle behind that is that the farmers who were participating in the pools would not have to pay those costs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

I have to go to Mr. Lemieux.

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

Thanks very much, Chair.

I'd like to use a bit of my time to make a comment.

I was just out in the corridor listening to media interviews with my opposition colleagues, and I was listening to the tone of questioning from the opposition regarding food safety and the CTV report. Chair, I would just ask my opposition colleagues to not be reckless in their comments and to be responsible in their handling of this situation.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair.

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

It's my five minutes, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Go ahead, Mr. Allen, on a point of order.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

As much as I always welcome the comments of my friend across the way, lecturing or hectoring us about our individual behaviour isn't really appropriate in committee. It's one thing to disagree with me, but telling me that I'm actually not doing what I'm supposed to be doing or that somehow I'm behaving in a certain way is, I believe, not appropriate behaviour for this particular committee or to the witnesses.

Quite frankly, Chair, if he disagrees with me, that's fine, but I don't think it is within the purview of this committee to tell me how I should behave. It's like saying, “I don't like the way you dressed today.” It's slighty inappropriate, I would think, for the parliamentary secretary to suggest that he should tell us how to behave. My mother tells me how to behave. I listen to her.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

It is not a point of order, but a point of debate.

Go ahead, Mr. Lemieux.

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

Thanks, Chair.

I will just pick up where I left off. I'm actually focusing these points in a particular area. It's not about how Mr. Allen dresses.

The point, Mr. Chair, is that when the opposition is imprudent and reckless with their comments, it undermines the entire food safety system. In fact, their points do not reflect reality.

I think we had an excellent discussion here when we had the minister. We asked very pertinent and pointed questions about the food safety system. What we heard, and certainly what I heard, was that there is a stringent food safety process in place and that there were many inaccuracies in the article. We spent 20 to 25 minutes on an exchange between various MPs and various parties on these points about food safety and the importance of it in the processing system.

Mr. Chair, I meet with the industry. I know that my colleagues on all sides of this table meet with the industry. They are concerned that these types of comments, if they are reckless and imprudent, undermine the commitment of processors and producers to food safety and to producing top-quality food for Canadians. They undermine their hard work and their commitment, and they're not based on reality. They're based on scoring political hits.

I've been an MP for a while. I understand that the opposition needs to score political hits. I get that, but they have to be careful, Chair, not to undermine the industry, not to undermine the processors, and not to undermine the confidence of Canadians in a robust food safety system. Those are the answers we heard today to multiple questions posed by multiple MPs from multiple parties.

That's the comment I wanted to make, Chair. I think it's an important comment. I make it on my behalf, but I also make it on behalf of producers and food processors I have met and spoken with throughout these last couple of months who have expressed that very same concern to me.

On a question, Chair, I would like to ask our witnesses about the Safe Food for Canadians Act. This is a significant legislative update of our food safety regime. Our food safety regime has been rated world class. There was a report on OECD countries that said that Canada has a superior food safety system. I believe that Canadians have confidence in that system, although it is a system that can always be improved. No one should ever stand still on this file.

We had some good discussion here. We had good witnesses come in front of the committee when we were reviewing the Safe Food for Canadians Act. Now that we have CFIA here, I'm wondering if you can explain to the committee how the Safe Food for Canadians Act will help the CFIA in the work it does and how it interfaces with industry, particularly the food processing industry.

[Paul Mayers]

The Safe Food for Canadians Act is an important advancement. CFIA was certainly delighted with the opportunity to modernize the statutes with the support of this committee.

What the Safe Food for Canadians Act does is provide to the CFIA important authorities. They allow us to strengthen and modernize our food safety approaches and to take advantage of some best practices that other countries have begun to employ. Through the authorities that strengthen inspector powers and broaden our ability to have consequences for behaviours that are misaligned with our food safety intent, the agency will be able, in our view, to more aggressively and more quickly respond to issues when they emerge. Examples are the authorities that relate to the traceability of food and the enhanced inspection powers the act provides.

As an agency, we have become seized with the act having received royal assent. In terms of the work we now must do at the regulatory end, we will be working with regulated parties, consumer organizations, and other stakeholders in a consultative process to elaborate on the regulations that will support the intent expressed in the act so that we can fully take advantage of the innovations the Safe Food for Canadians Act presents.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Allen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Let me thank my colleague across the way for his intervention and his description. I would use the word “reckless”, perhaps not towards him but towards what actually happened to XL when it had the largest beef recall in Canadian history. I'd say that was somewhat reckless.

However, one needs to put things in context, it seems, Chair. It's like opening up the door in the winter and saying, “I think the chill just blew through.” My friend across the way has suggested that our behaviour is such that we shouldn't mention these things, that we should just close an eye. It sounds like Monty Python's old tale of nudge, nudge, wink, wink, let's not bother.

The reality is that we had a listeriosis outbreak in 2008 that killed 23 Canadians. We then embarked on two studies, one of which was by this Parliament and actually came out of this committee. My good friend Alex Atamanenko proposed that we have a subcommittee to study that very event, and we did, and came forward with a number of recommendations. The government decided in its wisdom that we'd also do a study at the same time. They asked Sheila Weatherill to come in and do it and then accepted the recommendations that she brought forward. We argued that recommendation 7 still hasn't been fully implemented, and according to Carole Swan, they didn't do an audit. Sheila Weatherill was very explicit about that.

Then we come to this year and we have the largest recall of meat in this country's history. My friend across the way would say you really shouldn't say too much about that. You should really be quiet and be nice.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Go ahead, Mr. Hoback, on a point of order.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I think my colleague was very clear. He was basically saying to learn the facts and understand the processes before you comment on it.

[An hon. member]

And then be responsible.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

That's all we're asking: that they be—

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Thanks for the advice, too, but it's not a point of order.

Go ahead, Mr. Allen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I welcome the points of order from my friends across the way, which aren't, just as mine wasn't, and correctly so.

The chair's allowed to rule, and some of us have to learn by his rulings. We'll learn how to put proper points of order forward in the future—all of us, I hope.

At the end of the day, for the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture to suggest the way to actually fix the system, because clearly the system hasn't been fixed yet....

I think Mr. Mayers might actually agree with me, especially after what we just witnessed in the last number of months at the XL plant in Brooks, Alberta. My friend suggests that somehow we should just not speak too often or too harshly, because that may affect everything. Yes, it has an effect on it, but I would say, through you, Chair, with the greatest of respect to my colleagues across the way, that the greatest impact isn't whether I say words, but the effect of what happens when a processor link in the value chain fails to do what it needs to do. That's exactly what happened in Brooks, Alberta. They failed, miserably so, to the point where they are now the largest meat recall in this country's history.

Mr. Mayers, do you actually think the system failed? Did you think it was successful, or do we need to do better?