Agriculture Committee on June 17th, 2021

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

I call the meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 40 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Wednesday, March 10, 2021, and the motion adopted by the committee on May 11, 2021, the committee is commencing the clause-by-clause consideration of Bill C-205, an act to amend the Health of Animals Act.

Today's meeting is taking place in a hybrid format pursuant to the House order of January 25, 2021. Therefore, members may be attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. So you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking rather than the entirety of the committee.

I will take this opportunity to remind all participants in this meeting that taking screenshots or photos of your screen is not permitted.

To ensure an orderly meeting, I would like to outline a few rules to follow.

Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. If you are on the video conference, please click on the microphone icon to unmute your mike. For those in the room, your microphone will be controlled as normal by the proceedings and verification officer. Just a reminder that all comments by members and witnesses should be addressed through the chair. When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute.

For the clause-by-clause consideration, we have some people from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for assistance if we need them. We will have them as resources if we have questions.

We have Dr. Jaspinder Komal, vice-president, science branch, chief veterinary officer and World Organisation for Animal Health delegate for Canada.

Welcome, Dr. Komal.

Also, we have Jane Dudley, senior counsel, agriculture and food inspection legal services.

Ms. Dudley, thank you for joining us.

With that, we shall start the clause-by-clause consideration.

(On clause 1)

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. MacGregor, would you like to address NDP-1 on the first clause?

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

Yes, Chair. Thank you so much. I formally move NDP-1 as an amendment to Bill C-205.

It's a relatively simple amendment to the first clause of the bill, whereby we are replacing line 6 on page 1 so that it would read “No person shall”. It's essentially removing the words “without lawful authority or excuse”.

The reason I am moving this amendment to Bill C-205 is that I've been struggling throughout the proceedings on this bill between the terms “trespass” and “biosecurity”. We've heard witnesses at one point or another say this bill is meant to address trespassing on farms. Others have said no, it's meant to address biosecurity. We've had some witnesses say that it does both.

I want to make it very clear that I think any intrusion on private property needs to be condemned. We know the ill effects it has on farmers and the ill effects it has on animals, but I want this bill to stay in its federal lane. It has to stay in its federal lane.

The federal government has very clear jurisdiction through the federal criminal law power in addressing biosecurity, but it does not have the jurisdiction to address crimes against property. Under our Constitution, that is very clearly a provincial power. Under Canadian law, animals are considered property, so any crimes against animals are considered a property matter. Trespass on property is a provincial matter.

We cannot intrude on the constitutional jurisdiction of the provinces. It's very clearly laid out under section 92.13 that property and civil rights are under the domain of provincial legislatures.

The reason I am proposing this amendment is to make Bill C-205 apply to everyone equally, so that if you are a farmer or farm employee, if you are a transport driver or if you are a protester, if you violate the biosecurity protocols in place on a farm, this law applies equally to you. That's the main essence of my putting it forward.

I'll direct committee members to the brief submitted by Dr. Jodi Lazare. She mentioned that the bill as originally written might run into some constitutional conundrums, but she did say that if we had a law that applied to everyone who enters a farm to those most likely to threaten biosecurity by transmitting disease amongst animals, that would be more likely to survive constitutional scrutiny, whereas in its current form this amendment might not survive a constitutional challenge in court.

The brief we received from Animal Justice went into a lot of detail on page 4 about how most of the risks to biosecurity have come from farm workers or from transports, from people who have gone from farm to farm. That's where most of the risk has actually come from, which has been properly documented. They did say that prudent regulatory measures to address biosecurity should focus on the gaps and failures within the sector, which again is another argument in favour of making this apply equally to everyone.

Also, Dr. Brian Evans, during his appearance before the committee on June 3, went into a lot of detail about how some of the more serious outbreaks in our country's history have been caused by workers who were not following the proper biosecurity concerns. That was the day I was having Internet connectivity issues, so I had to go back through the testimony as written in Hansard.

I'll wrap up there. This is really just my attempt to keep this bill within its federal lane and to not in any way intrude on provincial jurisdiction over trespass.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Alistair, thank you very much for explaining in such detail the rationale behind your amendment.

I know there is a hand raised, but I just want to let our members know that if we move this amendment, it cannot be amended again. Probably down the road there are other amendments along the same line. It cannot be re-amended.

[Jacques Maziade, Legislative Clerk]

I just want to clarify. It's if the amendment is adopted—

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

If it is adopted. I'm sorry.

[Jacques Maziade]

LIB-1 will not be able to be moved if NDP-1 is adopted.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Exactly, thank you so much for—

[Jacques Maziade]

No problem.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

—pointing that out just to make sure.

Mr. Steinley, go ahead.

[Warren Steinley, Conservative, Regina—Lewvan, SK]

Thank you very much.

Mr. MacGregor, thank you for your well-thought-out amendment.

I have a couple of questions, and perhaps counsel can help.

I believe this bill has gone through legal counsel, and there haven't been any concerns about the constitutionality of it. Despite what Dr. Lazare would have said, I think this has gone through all of the proper channels, and there isn't a constitutional issue with it. That should alleviate one of your concerns, Mr. MacGregor.

We did have a lot of stakeholders liking this part of the amendment, saying that there are people who have the ability to come on and off the farms, and they go through the proper biosecurity, whether they be truck drivers or visitors. I know lots of the dairy farmers and the poultry farmers said they do have biosecurity measures in place when visitors do come. I think that has some sway where a lot of stakeholders did want “without lawful authority or excuse” in there.

The other reason that I think it should stay in is that there have been some concerns by CFIA and others that it is too broad. This amendment would make it an even broader statement of who can come and go on farms. I think having this part in there does narrow that definition a bit, and would make it easer to make sure that is properly enforceable.

Those would be some of my comments, but as always, I appreciate feedback from other members on the committee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. Epp, go ahead.

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

This is just further to what MP Steinley was saying, and this goes back to the constitutionality of it. My understanding is that this phrase is not a made-up phrase by our colleague, but it is actually a phrase used in law and used in other federal acts, which backs up the case made that it is perhaps quite clear from a constitutional perspective. I wanted to add that point.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Epp.

Mr. Perron, you have the floor.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

First, I have no objection to this amendment. That said, my party held several consultations before suggesting any changes. We considered some changes, but, each time, we were told that it could change how the Health of Animals Act is applied. We considered whether or not we should touch the proposed section 9.1. We were told that it was better to leave it as is, with the wording “without lawful authority or excuse.”

I'm not really opposed to the amendment, but I'm wondering, if those words are taken out, does that mean that someone who had the authority to do so could be charged later?

I'm sure my colleagues remember what we have heard from various witnesses who were concerned about there being no inspections. I'm thinking, for example, of inspectors from the Quebec ministry of agriculture, fisheries and food, who might have lawful authority or excuse.

My question is for Mr. MacGregor. Has his party dug into this aspect of the issue?

Based on the discussions and opinions that I have had, everyone said that the proposed wording should be left in place. So I would like my colleague to convince me that his amendment is appropriate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Perron.

By the way, I would like to mention that Jacques Maziade is here to answer questions that deal more specifically with the legislative aspect.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

He could also enlighten us on the question I just asked, but I would like to hear Mr. MacGregor's answer first.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Mr. Maziade, do you want to add anything to that?

[Jacques Maziade]

I would just like to say to Mr. Perron that I will be able to answer questions related to parliamentary procedure. If he wants to ask a question of a legal nature, Ms. Dudley, who is a lawyer, could better enlighten him in that regard.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Ms. Dudley, do you have an answer for Mr. Perron?

[Jane Dudley, Senior Counsel, Agriculture and Food Inspection Legal Services, Canadian Food Inspection Agency]

My apologies. I'm not used to the headphones.

I've never done this before.

As you know, as a government lawyer I'm not permitted to speak to any legal advice that's been issued by the Department of Justice. Of course, you have your own counsel. I'm just pointing this out to say that I'm here to provide assistance to the committee in any way that I can, but there are real restraints on what I can say, and to provide a constitutional law interpretation is not something I'm permitted to do, unfortunately.

[Yves Perron, Bloc, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Let me rephrase my concern more specifically.

Would removing this part of the proposed wording diminish the ability to enforce the act? Are you able to answer that question?

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Is that something you could...?

[Jane Dudley]

Well, I'm not supposed to give opinions. It might make it easier to enforce, but I think that's something that really needs to be examined by the committee's legal counsel.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Madam Dudley.

We have a few hands raised.

Mr. Blois, do you have some comments?