Agriculture Committee on May 6th, 2021

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you.

In his opening remarks, Mr. Barlow explained the situation in his own riding on a turkey farm where the family woke up early in the morning and found 30 protestors on site. If this bill were law right now, how would the CFIA go about investigating such an occurrence?

It seems like you would have to have peace officers on hand to detain everyone and then you'd have to devote some significant resources to conducting an investigation.

Are the standards of proof in this bill...? How would you go about proving that an offence had occurred under the provisions of this bill?

[Kelvin Mathuik]

Mr. Chair, on the member's question, you ask a very big, loaded question for us. Obviously we are trained on the causal review of cases to really get to a result of what the circumstances were.

To your point, this would represent a very fundamental shift for the agency, its role and its mandate. If this bill were passed, we would be asked to become peace officers with all of the details, training, authorities, policies and procedures that would be needed to actually act as police officers on the detainment of the scene and to conduct the investigative process.

Certainly it adds tremendous complexity. It would fundamentally shift the role of the agency on the health and well-being of animals and its overall disease management that we do within the agency.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Thank you for that.

Given the CFIA's current resources across Canada, what ability do you have to respond in a timely fashion to some of the most rural farming properties that exist out there?

[Kelvin Mathuik]

Mr. Chair, this is another excellent question.

When we look at the geography of Canada, a very vast country in which the rural population lives in our most geographically vast area, you are absolutely correct. The agency would have to significantly increase its staff complement and would have to think geographically about where we position our officers, staff and investigators to conduct what this bill is asking of us, if it were passed.

We would therefore have to make a pretty big investment in upping our staff complement, skilling them, and positioning them across the country in order to be very responsive on any one issue that might come to light relative to trespassing and resulting biosecurity issues.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

If Bill C-205 were to become law, is there any other agency that can be tasked with enforcing the Health of Animals Act, or does it always have to be the CFIA?

[Kelvin Mathuik]

The CFIA is the responsible authority under the Health of Animals Act. If we were to go to the notion of biosecurity, of course we work very closely with our provincial partners and territorial governments around the authorities they have within the context of their health of animals acts and trespassing or other provincial statutes.

We work very collaboratively with them now, because if ultimately there is a disease outbreak, we want to be sure what is really involved, and if there is a federal responsibility on a reportable disease, then of course, under the Health of Animals Act CFIA would have to take responsibility to manage that particular disease outbreak on that particular farm. This would include avian influenza, BSE, or African swine fever.

[Alistair MacGregor, NDP, Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC]

Finally, Bill C-205 makes reference to an enclosed place or building in which animals are kept. There's been some talk about what would happen if protesters entered a farm but did not enter the building.

Are there problems, when you try to do your investigations, concerning whether the protesters came anywhere close to animals in order to possibly transfer a disease?

[Kelvin Mathuik]

Mr. Chair, to the member's question, this is an interesting situation. Of course, timeliness would be important to reaching that conclusion about protesters being outside or inside the barn and whether there was some actual situation of biosecurity issues resulting in a potential spread of disease.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Mathuik.

Thank you, Mr. MacGregor.

Now, for the five-minute round, we'll go to Mr. Epp.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks for the testimony from the officials.

I'll start with background. We had some material showing that 43 charges were laid under the Health of Animals Act in 2018; two under the act and three under the regulations in 2019; and 12 in 2020. That is a precipitous decline.

Can you comment on the nature of those charges in general and why the decline occurred?

[Dr. Jaspinder Komal]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll try to answer this question.

Those charges would involve, as Kelvin talked about, humane transportation, for example, or cases in which the animal treatment is not being done properly at the slaughter plant. We have provisions in the act for issuing monetary penalties, and most of the 43 will be under those circumstances.

Humane transportation, under health of animals welfare, is a federal responsibility. The on-farm responsibility comes under provincial jurisdiction. The federal abattoirs are also a federal responsibility. It is there that our inspectors can issue the penalties.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

It seems, from the way you answered, that the number of charges does act as a deterrent to bad behaviour. That is the intent, as I understand it, of this bill as well.

Can you talk about farm biosecurity standards? My understanding is that on their own they don't carry the force of law. Would the passage of Bill C-205 not provide the force of law to trespassing with the potential of breaching farm biosecurity standards?

[Dr. Jaspinder Komal]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To the question from the member, yes, biosecurity is a strong tool to prevent diseases. As I explained in my answer to the other question, we are there to support the development and implementation of biosecurity measures. It is a provincial producer's responsibility to implement them and enforce them.

We will only go and look at biosecurity issues if there's a regulated disease, because that is under the purview of our federal government. As agriculture is a shared responsibility, many of the diseases are managed by the provincial government. We manage the diseases that are regulated or that are not present in Canada. In other words, we prevent the diseases from entering the national borders. That's where our responsibility for trade comes in. Biosecurity is a good tool, but the implementation and enforcement of them are under provincial and producer responsibility.

[Dave Epp, Conservative, Chatham-Kent—Leamington, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Chair, I'm going to turn over my remaining time to my colleague Mr. Lehoux.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'm going to continue along the same lines as the honourable member.

As far as implementation is concerned, CFIA deals with everything related to food safety, but wouldn't it be possible for provincial authorities and police to work together more closely, including those in Quebec and Ontario but also the RCMP? When authorities are called in to deal with an incident affecting a farm business, the level of co-operation should be greater, to ensure the legislation that is passed is truly worthwhile.

Do you think the level of co-operation between provincial authorities and police should be greater?

[Dr. Jaspinder Komal]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

To the member's question, yes, collaboration—co-operation—is a key and the principle that we work under every day when we are working at dealing with any agriculture issues. We do look at what are our responsibilities and how we divide them. As I said, there are certain diseases that provinces are managing and there are other diseases that the federal government is managing.

By enacting this into the Health of Animals Act, I think it is going to confuse the responsibilities that are already clear. Then it will have a bit of a difficulty for people to think where to go. Should they go under provincial legislation to enforce this? Or should they go to the national legislation or to the peace officers?

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

In that case, Mr. Komal, it would probably be useful to hear your view on what role CFIA should play vis-à-vis existing regulations in each of the provinces and how the various players should coordinate their efforts. Otherwise, we will get nowhere.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Unfortunately, you're out of time. Perhaps Mr. Komal could answer that later.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Lehoux.

Now we have Mr. Louis for five minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Louis.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you.

Thank you to all of our panellists and witnesses for being here, and thank you for your work.

I know that we're talking today about the CFIA being responsible for the enforcement of the Health of Animals Act and regulations, and I know we all agree that strong biosecurity measures are essential to protect our farmers, our food supply and our animal health and well-being.

As we've mentioned in the past year and today, protecting animal welfare is a shared responsibility between governments, and I believe you mentioned that provinces have jurisdiction on the farm. Existing legislation, whether it's under the Criminal Code, as we discussed, or provincial law or civil law that already exists for trespassing and unlawful entry.... Laws are usually meant to change things, so I'm not sure how it's clear what gap we're trying to fix, because a number of provinces—including mine, Ontario—have these laws. Would federal law, in your opinion, then supersede the existing provincial laws and also supersede the local and regional laws that exist?

[Dr. Jaspinder Komal]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The federal laws are there when there is an issue of interprovincial or national or international jurisdiction that we need to look at in the context of trade.

When it comes to things within the province, especially in agriculture on the farm, it would be provincial jurisdiction, as you mentioned, and as I mentioned before.

Enacting these provisions in the Health of Animals Act would not supersede the provincial law. I am not a lawyer and I stand to be corrected, but the way it is written, the strength will not be there because we'll have to prove beyond doubt that somebody has committed an activity that caused the disease and breached biosecurity.

In that context I think it's better that the trespassing laws are there from the provincial perspective to protect those kinds of activities.

Thank you.

[Tim Louis, Liberal, Kitchener—Conestoga, ON]

Thank you for clearing that up.

Then maybe you, or one of the other panellists, can expand on how a CFIA official would be able to prove an intent to threaten biosecurity in the case of an already unlawful activity, given that they would be called in well afterwards—as we've established—and possibly even accompanied by a local peace officer? How would you be able to prove this intent to threaten biosecurity?

[Dr. Jaspinder Komal]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll ask if Mary-Jane wants to take this question.

[Dr. Mary-Jane Ireland]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I think this is one area where the member's question gives us the concept that it would create some serious enforcement challenges for the CFIA.

The offence would be very difficult to prosecute, we think. The way the proposed amendment is worded would require the Crown to have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the trespasser understood the risk of disease transmission resulting from entering the premises, and deliberately acted in disregard of the knowledge, or was reckless in regard to that risk.

It is going to make it exceptionally hard to hold anyone accountable, as merely raising a reasonable doubt that the person knew or even suspected the risk would likely result in an acquittal.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.