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.
Conservative
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Peggy Nash
We're scheduled to finish the rotation with these witnesses, whenever we finish that up.
Conservative
Brian Jean Conservative Fort McMurray—Athabasca, AB
I'm sorry, Madam Chair, but when a notice goes out, it has specific timeframes. It doesn't say finishing the round of questions. It says a specific time, and I think mine says it goes until 9. I was wondering if that is indeed the situation or if you require unanimous consent to continue, or indeed if—there are a lot of questions.
I'm just curious, Madam Chair, because my understanding of the system is we go until a specific time as scheduled.
NDP
The Vice-Chair NDP Peggy Nash
Yes, I guess the confusion is that we had a discussion with the chair and he said we will go through the rotation. I guess the discussion didn't happen with others on the committee. Let me—sorry, Mr. Marston.
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
I'd just like to add that for normal processes at committees, if we're interrupted or delayed by votes or in starting, we kind of add that on the end. Are we not going to do that?
Liberal
Conservative
Shelly Glover Conservative Saint Boniface, MB
I will second the motion from Mr. Simms, with the caveat that those who already have other appointments be free to leave, and that there be no motions put before the committee, should we not have the quorum, etc. Those who want to stay can stay, but I can only stay until 9:30.
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Mr. Kingston, are you now or have you ever been a member of the NDP? I'm just kidding. I just couldn't resist that one. We have to lighten up.
The problem is that we have a wealth of expertise here that we can't begin to tap into even when we're not squabbling among ourselves.
Sir, the president of the CFIA is going to have the power to issue licences to external people.
Mr. Holmes, you might want to get in on this, too.
We're concerned about what impact that could have. Do you have a sense of the types of qualifications that should be there? Is there any evidence that they are there to protect our environment and our crops?
National President, Agriculture Union
I am also a certified lead auditor—ISO lead auditor. I have helped develop many programs that would allow third parties to deliver. There's a required amount of oversight, because the Canadian government stamp still goes on what happens.
The problem with CFIA making these decisions in the context of cutbacks is that they are designed programs, and all they are doing is counting the bodies they are removing and not counting the ones they will need for the oversight. For example, in terms of not taking power away from the inspectors who are involved in that program, yes, there is power being taken away from them, because they are gone; they were all cut. There is a requirement to do auditing, to check licences and make sure they are appropriate—check the credentials of the people who are going to be delivering the service. They don't have the capacity to do that. That's—
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
One other concern to us too, sir, is institutional memory. I presume the people caught because of contracts will be the junior people leaving.
National President, Agriculture Union
That's not the way it works. There's no such thing as seniority in the—
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
The reason I said that is because my hope would have been that the junior people are apprenticing with more senior folks in this particular skill, if we're losing the expertise. Now you're telling me there's potential to lose front-line people.
National President, Agriculture Union
All the people who have been delivering this program are gone. The folks who are going to be taking it over as a third party are supposed to have a process in place. It's an accreditation program and you build safety mechanisms into the monitoring process. There's not anybody to do that; that's the problem.
It's similar to the importer licensing program they're bringing in. They envision over 10,000 licensees. The only people who were doing specific monitoring of imports were people doing it for meat shipments, and they're gone as well. In fact, CFIA senior executives posed the question,“If we're not doing it for some other commodities, why should we do it for meat? So goodbye.”
NDP
Wayne Marston NDP Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON
Again, sir, you say meat shipments. Do you mean we're having meat coming into the country that is not going to be inspected? Are we going to be relying on the home country to inspect it for us?
National President, Agriculture Union
Correct. Yes, we already do that. What we did was target shipments to make sure that if we had bad actors, we could follow up and increase surveillance. Those people who did that targeting and monitoring of the track records are history.
NDP
