Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on March 25th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

This notice of motion was placed by Mr. Anderson.

Would you like to read that into the record, Mr. Anderson?

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I can do that. It states:

That the Subcommittee adopt the following schedule to guide its studies:

The meetings of the Subcommittee on--

I think, Mr. Chair, that an amended motion was sent in that had March 31 as the first date. It continues:

--April 22, April 29, May 6, May 13, May 27, and June 3 be used to call witnesses to discuss issues relating to food safety; and

The meetings of the Subcommittee on June 10 and 17 be used to prepare a final report to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food on these studies; and

That June 17 be the final meeting of this Subcommittee; and

That the final report of the Subcommittee to the Standing Committee include a request that this report be tabled with the House of Commons prior to June 24, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Anderson.

Prior to asking for discussion on the motion, I just want to point out that the House is scheduled to sit until June 23. In order for this report to come out, it would have to be, first of all, passed by the subcommittee and then go to the main committee before we are able to have it presented in the House. As we can all see, this is a tight timeline, so I thought I should point out those dates.

Is there any discussion on the motion?

Mr. Allen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have an amendment to the motion. I believe the clerk will provide copies for everyone, because it is a fairly substantive amendment.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

It's not April 1; it's March 31.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I will correct it as I read it into the record, Mr. Chair, in regard to the date of April 1 being March 31.

The motion would now read:

The meetings should be held in room 269 West Block, 253D Centre Block, or 237 Centre Block in the hours following the closure of the House from approximately 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. This could be extended from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. if the number of witnesses warranted the extension.

The meetings of the Subcommittee on March 31, April 22, April 29, May 6, May 13, May 27 and June 3 be used to call witnesses to discuss the issues relating to the Listeriosis Crisis of 2008. The fall meetings of the Subcommittee of October 7, October 21, October 28, November 4, November 18, November 25, and December 2 are used to call witnesses to discuss issues relating to food safety.

The meeting of the Subcommittee on June 10 be used to prepare an interim report with recommendations to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food on these studies; and

That the interim report with recommendations of the Subcommittee to the Standing Committee include a request that this report be tabled with the House of Commons on or prior to June 18, 2009.

That the proposed meeting of the Subcommittee on December 9 be used to prepare a final report with recommendations to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food on these studies.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You've heard the amendment. The clerk and I were just in discussion here. If somebody wants to speak to it....

We're just wondering if the intent totally changes the motion, Mr. Allen. This may be a new motion. The clerk is just looking at that.

Is there discussion on the motion?

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I'm okay for the moment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I think we would make the argument that this is different enough from the original motion so as to constitute a new motion. There's very little that is similar other than some of the dates, so I would expect we'd be able to see that would be the case.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We could. I'm just reading through this again.

Mr. Easter, did you have a comment?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I think we need clarification first, Mr. Chair, on whether it changes the intent or not, so that we know what motion we're dealing with.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

That's fair enough.

Would you give us just a second here?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Yes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

The first part of the motion is certainly eligible. It comes in there and it lays out times.

There is an addition to the amendment that changes the original motion from a report to an interim report and then adds to it a final report to the House in the fall, by December 9.

Having discussed this with the clerk, I say the amendment is admissible. There are parts of it that are duplication, but I can understand why Mr. Allen doesn't change anything in there.

Part of the original motion said March 31 instead of April 1. Are you okay with changing that as a friendly amendment?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Yes, for sure.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

We're open for discussion on the motion.

Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Chair, I'm actually slightly disgusted or perturbed that we're starting off the committee on this foot. We had had some informal discussion with the opposition that we would be taking a look at the motion as we had presented it. I'm surprised to come here today to find what I would call major amendments.

I think the changes in this motion go beyond what the agriculture committee itself tasked this committee with doing. I think we're going to request that you take it back to the agriculture committee and see if this actually fits within the boundaries of what the agriculture committee itself has given us as our task here. I'm going to make that request. I don't know procedurally what we need to do to have that happen. Certainly this goes in a different direction, and in a much narrower direction, than what the agriculture committee obviously intended when it passed the motion. I have it here, and I'll read it out.

That, given the Listeriosis crisis that occurred last summer, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food establish a Subcommittee on Food Safety....

It clearly says here that this is to be targeted to food safety, taking the listeriosis crisis into consideration. I would make that argument. I would like to have you check with the clerk and determine whether this is actually within the bounds of what the standing committee assigned as a task to this committee.

I'm also concerned that the opposition didn't come to us and talk to us about this ahead of time. Actually, I think Mr. Allen asked Mr. Easter prior to the meeting starting whether he should let us know about the amendment, and Mr. Easter's answer was no. It's disappointing to me that if we're going to change this in such a major way, in a number of ways, that they would not have come to talk to us.

I think we also had some very informal discussions about when the meetings would be. We're under the impression that 6:30 to 8:30 would be a time slot that we could provide on Wednesday night. Now we're talking about 7 until 10, or 6 to 10 actually. Then we're also talking about extending meetings right through the fall, which again is another proposal that has been made without any consultation at all. We're talking about going from seven meetings to fifteen meetings without having had any discussion with us about this at all. We're not very happy with that. We're not going to be able to support this motion.

Clearly, as well, it's very strange that we talk about an interim report being made and then an interim report being tabled in the House of Commons. I'm not sure that I've ever seen that before. Typically the reports that are tabled are actually substantive and conclusive and include the full work of the committee. I think we're actually denigrating the work of the committee here to say that we're going to come with one report, and then we're going to come back months later and try to put that report into another report so that we finally have what they call a final report.

Mr. Chair, I think Mr. Allen should maybe reconsider here. Our original motion I think is pretty direct. It talks about the food safety, and certainly within that, from the witness list that we would be putting forward--and I'm sure the witness list that the opposition will be putting forward--we're going to take a good look at the listeriosis issue and the crisis that took place last summer. I think our motion actually has enough in it that this committee probably can do a good job of studying the issue.

I'd like to let some of the other folks here have an opportunity to discuss the motion, but I think I'll probably want to talk to it a little bit later here as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Bellavance.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

In my opinion, the subcommittee has the final say. Therefore, Mr. Anderson's suggestion to have the Agriculture Committee deal with tabling this amendment is not necessary, because the subcommittee has just elected a chair. The clerk may correct me if I am wrong, but my impression is that we are now autonomous and able to operate on our own. If we decide to discuss a motion and any amendments made to it, it is the subcommittee's decision.

The proposed amendment does not come as a surprise, for the simple reason that I myself had raised the problem created by a subcommittee in charge of discussing food safety. We cast our net very wide and we strayed far from the original intent, which was to discuss the listeriosis crisis. That was recorded in the blues. I had raised my doubts about that. Out of solidarity, we agreed to use the words "food safety", but that covers a lot of ground. If we simply plan an agenda that takes us until June 17 to discuss food safety, we have not resolved the issue. I even said that we run the risk of avoiding it entirely.

The amendment tabled by my colleague Malcolm will allow us to discuss the listeriosis crisis in very focused meetings. The Conservative Party has rightly emphasized the importance of talking about food safety in its entirety. I believe it was Mr. Lemieux who said that. Adding another aspect to the subcommittee's workload, dealing essentially with food safety, we resolve the problem that I raised. I am comfortable with this way of proceeding.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Allen, and then Mr. Shipley.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I know from talking over the past number of months to my colleague Mr. Atamanenko--who actually proposed the first resolution at the agriculture committee about having a subcommittee--that he was quite clear in the spirit and intent of what he wanted to do, which was to develop a subcommittee to study listeriosis. And, quite rightly, the Conservatives said that's very important. I remember being at the committee and hearing them say that, which is absolutely fair in spirit and intent, because I think we all believe it's an extremely serious matter. They also wanted to talk about food safety in general, which is an important topic to study; there's no question it is.

But because of the nature of this particular outbreak of listeriosis last year, where 20 people lost their lives to the disease, to bulk it in and put it under one umbrella, to give it what I would consider to be short shrift and not look at it in a wholesome and fulsome way, would be to suggest to folks that we don't take it as seriously as we did.

The reason we moved it out of the agriculture committee, Mr. Chair, was because initially the schedule talked about two meetings at the agriculture committee. I know you're chair there, and you're doing an admirable job in allowing us to have a subcommittee. The reason for having the subcommittee was Mr. Atamanenko's request, and the amendment the Conservatives made was to study food safety as well. The spirit of that initial attempt by Mr. Atamanenko to have this committee formed, which has come to fruition through his attempts, was indeed relayed in this amendment to the specific resolution that's before us. That's why that amendment was made, to bring to fruition the spirit and intent of Mr. Atamanenko's motion that the agriculture committee send it here to a subcommittee, and that's exactly what I've done here, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Shipley.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was at those meetings when we actually had a long, long debate and discussion about this. So was Mr. Allen, if I remember correctly. He was sitting at the table.

This motion before us takes us away from the actual discussion we had around the table. We wanted to focus on listeriosis—which is a food safety issue. It was actually part of my discussion at the meeting, why we needed to look at the whole issue of how listeriosis and food safety fit in.

Mr. Allen, you talked about studying food safety as well. Actually, that wasn't the case; it was part of the discussion of listeriosis, which is a food safety issue. When the committee talked about this, it ended up with this unanimous resolution.

When we came forward with an amendment on a date, or whatever, for this motion—which has actually been out there and has been talked about—I couldn't believe it after the thorough and long discussion we'd had. I find it unfortunate. I wanted to come here to talk about listeriosis; I also want to talk about food safety, because you can't talk about one without the other.

I wanted to be on this committee to move ahead and get a thorough review done, not only of listeriosis but also of the food safety part of it—which might have been its cause—so that we could get together with a thorough report by June 18, or whatever that day is, so we can get this before Parliament prior to our summer break.

We have people who are interested in the agricultural component of it, we have people who are interested clearly in the health component of it, and we have people who will come forward as witnesses. I've seen a list of the potential names of organizations that would come forward, and I believe you can't just separate it without talking about the whole food safety issue.

I guess we could politicize this, but I don't think that's what Canadians want. I don't think the people in Canada who are going to be listening to this and reading about it are going to be saying, how come you're only talking about one? If we have a food safety issue that includes listeriosis, then let's talk about that at this subcommittee. I think we've been charged with that responsibility, outside of the general Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. I think it's actually restricting us before the Canadian people and their expectations of this committee's due diligence.

What if it were something else that happened in terms of food safety other than listeriosis? Would we just forget about it? I don't think so. I think Ms. Bennett is here because of her sincere concern about health issues, and so it should be for all of us. Agriculture and the production of food are paramount in terms of food safety. This is about a processing part that caused an issue in terms of food safety—at least that's what we think it may be.

I take this motion as restricting what we actually want to accomplish, and it certainly wasn't what the agriculture and agrifood committee unanimously agreed to when we passed the motion to establish this subcommittee. We thought about having the whole agriculture committee discuss this. But we determined that on this particular issue of food safety—which includes listeriosis—we should set up a subcommittee. We agreed with that, and we have agreed to move ahead.

I can't support this motion, which is going to take us away into next winter. It would almost imply that we've set up another committee that's going to continue now for however long, through the summer and into the next fall maybe, with this agenda. It will take us into next fall and likely up to Christmas.

We're going to have the press saying, “What are these guys doing? I thought this was an issue that required some immediate action?”

That, to me, folks, is not about immediate action. It's about an opportunity to politicize something that I don't think the Canadian people want to see.

I just don't understand why we can't deal with this issue thoroughly and completely in the timeline provided and get the report to Parliament before our summer break. That's what I would continue to support. I can't support this type of a motion, I'm sorry to say.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Just before I move on with the speakers list, there's one thing I'd note about the discussion here. The original motion from the parent committee or head committee, or whatever you want to call it, was to study food safety.

This motion definitely goes away from that. I don't know whether or not we can do that. But it certainly is a question I didn't think of a few minutes ago.

Anyway, I'm going to go to our next speaker while we think about that.

Mr. Easter.