Evidence of meeting #65 for Finance in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was spectrum.
A video is available from Parliament.
9:20 p.m.
Conservative
9:20 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
Mr. Zedel, how do you feel about oil and gas development offshore?
9:20 p.m.
Prof. Len Zedel
It's almost a political question.
9:20 p.m.
Prof. Len Zedel
I have concerns. Sometimes I feel that we'll get to a point where we can no longer afford the risks. We're drilling in the Orphan Basin now. That's 2,000 metres deep in an area where icebergs occur. It's just upping the ante. How far we are prepared to go, I don't know.
I wouldn't say I'm not pro-offshore oil development. I monitor the industry expressing my concerns about that. I hope that answers the question.
9:20 p.m.
Conservative
Mark Adler Conservative York Centre, ON
It does. That's what I was expecting.
Chair, I'm happy with that.
9:20 p.m.
Conservative
9:20 p.m.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Mr. Kingston, I'm reading an article, and my colleague mentioned there will be some issues with respect to security, with respect to health issues, and how to protect consumers with this bill. Could you expand on that and let us know whether or not we should be worried?
9:20 p.m.
National President, Agriculture Union
There are many aspects of what's going on with this particular budget that may, and probably will, affect consumers.
For example, the question was asked in CFIA that if we're not doing something for all other products, why should we do it for meat. It was about monitoring and targeting problem suppliers. The answer was simple, except they presumed there was no answer, so they went on to just cut it.
The answer is that meat is huge in volume and huge in risk. There's no food commodity that poses a more serious risk to humans than meat does. It's as simple as that. The program that was in place, which has been disbanded now, was never the subject of consultation with anybody, not to mention the Canadian public. That is one that puts Canadians at risk.
There is the issue of label verification, nutrition facts, etc. If you in any way need that information, for example, if you're diabetic or a celiac and you rely on that information for life and death decisions every day—those programs are all being cut.
I've heard them say they're not being cut, that they're still doing that, but if you talk to the inspectors, they haven't been doing it for two years. They were told to stop doing this two years ago, pending the evolution of this budget, which would can it forever. Again, it was not subject to public debate.
There are big concerns.
I'm not sure that the people who made the decision understand what they decided on. In fact, I reported recently about totally conflicting viewpoints between the minister and senior executives in CFIA. If what the minister said was correct, that's great, because he believed that these things weren't being touched. The senior executives of CFIA were going around the country telling all the staff the exact opposite as they were cutting them.
That's an issue. It's one of the reasons we asked for a meeting with the minister. I think he needs to know this stuff.
9:25 p.m.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
You mentioned the labelling issue. What's going to happen now with the bill?
9:25 p.m.
National President, Agriculture Union
It's buyer beware. There will be some policing of labels going on, but nothing like what happened in the past.
The federal government has responsibility for label integrity and verification, and that goes right down to restaurant menus. That program was also shelved about a year and a half ago. They were told at the time that it was going to be reviewed and reintroduced, but instead, they're now being told that it's never coming back. These have implications for safety for Canadians, for sure.
9:25 p.m.
NDP
9:25 p.m.
National President, Agriculture Union
That's correct. They're putting in more regulations, but they don't have anybody to enforce them.
9:25 p.m.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
How many inspectors have they cut with this bill? Do you know?
9:25 p.m.
National President, Agriculture Union
Right now there are about 100. In terms of total population, there have been 310 so far. Some of them are different classifications, but they still monitor imports.
The reason I say the regulation is better not being there than being there is because the good players, and there are many really good actors, including the small abattoirs, by the way, and we do have a plan for that, are penalized. What happens is that they follow the regulation, but they see that some of their competitors don't. Then it gets a reputation as a bad regulation, but really, it's about bad enforcement.
9:25 p.m.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Thank you very much.
Mr. Weir, just for the record, you're here for the United Steelworkers. How many members do you represent?
9:25 p.m.
Economist, United Steelworkers
We have approximately 200,000 members in Canada, and we would have at least twice that many in the United States.
9:25 p.m.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Just for the record, you are here on behalf of the United Steelworkers.
9:25 p.m.
Economist, United Steelworkers
Yes, absolutely. I consulted with our national director for Canada, Ken Neumann, and he asked me to present on behalf of the union.
9:25 p.m.
NDP
Hoang Mai NDP Brossard—La Prairie, QC
Mr. Bergevin, you are a charitable organization. We've heard the Minister of the Environment say that charitable organizations are laundering money. Do you agree with that?
9:25 p.m.
Senior Policy Analyst, C.D. Howe Institute
Well, there are perhaps some instances of that, but that's not a subject I'm very familiar with, so I would prefer not to comment.
9:25 p.m.
Conservative
9:25 p.m.
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would also like to thank all the witnesses. As Ms. Nash said, we are tired. We have been working on this for a number of days.
I would like to correct the record again. That's kind of my job here.
A couple of things that have been said by Mr. Kingston don't really portray the complete picture.
For example, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has recently posted their annual update of staff numbers on their website. It shows clearly that there has been an increase of 32 people over the last year. Since 2006, when we took office, there's been an increase of 700 people.
Just as quite often another party in this place says 750,000 net new jobs somehow is a cut in jobs in this country, the math does not add up. I do have to correct Mr. Kingston because I think it's unfair when the whole picture is not portrayed.
Federal CFIA inspectors were doing provincial inspections, and now they are being transferred to be provincial employees. That is not a cut, which is what Mr. Kingston is suggesting in his numbers. That is a transfer of responsibility. There has been no change other than the transfer of responsibility. The federal CFIA inspectors are going to be provincial employees doing exactly the same job. That is not a cut. That is a transfer.
Aside from that, there has also got to be consideration for the fact that the export food safety certificates, which Mr. Kingston failed to explain, are as a result of a deal between Canada and the United States. We have accredited inspectors who do exactly the same work, who do exactly the same monitoring, who are accredited the same way. They both issue those certificates. One hundred per cent of the imports on either side are inspected exactly the same way by qualified personnel. Unfortunately, it's very misleading what Mr. Kingston has said.
Having said all of that, I thought it was very, very important when he said that money is important. I want to remind Canadians when it comes to the CFIA that $100 million was provided in the last budget for food safety, which unfortunately the opposition parties voted against. This year there's an increase of $51 million for food safety. We already have an indication that the opposition parties are going to be voting against that.
I did want to very clearly correct the record because it is not fair when only half the picture is portrayed.
I do want to talk about high-risk inspections as well, which is very important. When we're talking about meat, this government has done a lot of work to make sure that this is looked at. When it comes to inspections, they are risk based. That is how they are done.
A higher risk area, like meat, absolutely is going to have some clear and consistent and regular checking. In every slaughterhouse every single day there are inspectors. Not only that, inspectors were doing a check every day and then a veterinarian was double-checking, duplicating to sign it off. This government believes we ought to reduce some duplication, but we are going to ensure that those high-risk areas are continually monitored.
Then we have the low-risk areas, for example, when we're talking about dried, processed or canned foods, that kind of thing. They probably don't require the same extent of inspection as the meat.
