Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on March 25th, 2009

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I was at the committee meeting where the original motion was passed, and it was my understanding that listeriosis and what happened last year would be a part of this study.

Let's put the motion in committee in the context of what we were talking about at the time. In fact, if memory serves, the initial words of the motion were, “Following the listeriosis crisis of last year, that the subcommittee be appointed to...”, and then the various amendments came forward and we ended up with “food safety” as one of the terms.

It's well to put into context why the discussion and the motion was put forward. If you go back to my remarks—I think you'll find them in the minutes—we were of the understanding that the Prime Minister was going to call a fairly major inquiry. What he did instead was call an investigator who, as I said before, has no authority to subpoena witnesses, demand documents, or to investigate the minister's office or the PMO. In fact, this investigator reports to the very minister who's responsible for the CFIA, and he decides whether the report will be made public.

Now that we've seen our terms of reference, it's even worse. These terms of reference state that we're to “ensure that where there is reliable information that could affect individuals or organizations if the Independent Investigator was to make use of this information in her report....” It then goes on to say “that the concerned individuals or organizations will have an opportunity to review the portion of the report that may affect them and that their views will be sought before the report is finalized”.

I'm sure everybody has the terms of reference.

So you have an investigator who's interviewing people. They can have legal counsel when they're interviewed, they can refuse to answer questions, and they can decide whether or not they like what's in the report. This is after a listeriosis crisis that cost 20 lives in this country. That's the context we debated this in, so listeriosis was a part of the food safety issue.

There are already 47 people on the potential witness list, so this is going to take some time. One of the problems with putting everything in a motion is that it locks us very tight. There may be some evenings that we can meet from 6:30 to 12; there may be some meetings that you have to work from 6:30 to 8:30. I think we should have that flexibility. As I understand the amendment put forward by Mr. Allen, it moves us towards handling the whole issue. We would use the initial stages to deal with the listeriosis issue. We would then prepare an interim report that would go to Parliament and to Ms. Weatherill. She is going to report a little later. It makes sense to get this out of the way. There will also be stuff related to food safety during those discussions, and then we can get into the broader food safety issues in the fall.

The other thing we should do—and I don't know when we can do it—is tour the plant that was involved, together with some of the smaller plants. To study the broader issue of food safety, we should also tour a port to see how CFIA inspects products coming in from China, or wherever it may be. In addition, maybe we should look at some HACCP operations on farms. We may have to do that on our own in the summertime and then complete the study in the fall.

So I'm certainly in favour of the amendment. It makes sense to me to go that way, so that we could deal effectively with listeriosis in the beginning, but a lot of the information we hear there will also relate to the broader issue of food safety.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thanks, Mr. Easter.

This is something we didn't have when we ruled at the start about the amendment. We based it on what was in front of us that Mr. Allen gave us, and the motion was presented by Mr. Anderson. I'm going to read to you a copy of the motion that came out of the committee, which was a directive. I think at the end of it you will agree that this amendment totally changes the intent. There's nothing wrong with it coming forth, but it would have to come forth as a motion and not an amendment.

That, given the Listeriosis crisis that occurred last summer, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food establish a Subcommittee on Food Safety; and that the members of the subcommittee be named after the usual consultations with the Whips; the composition of the Sub-Committee be proportionally the same as that of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food with the Chair being a member of the government, and that the subcommittee be granted all of the powers of the Committee pursuant to Standing Order 108(1) except the power to report directly to the House.

The key in this and the reason I have to rule out this amendment and that it has to be a separate motion is the fact that the agriculture and agrifood committee established a subcommittee on food safety. That was the motion passed. Therefore, I have to rule that. If I had had this at the start, I would have ruled that.

We're back to the original motion. It doesn't mean it can't be amended.

Ms. Bennett, you are next on the list.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

I would suggest, Mr. Chair, that my intervention would probably have been better before your ruling, in that I don't hear anything in that motion that precludes us organizing our work in the way that is described in this motion. It means we actually do have to take the lessons from the listeriosis crisis and then look at the bigger issue of food safety as is described in this motion.

I see this motion as a work plan embedded in a motion, which makes perfect sense in that there is the urgency of the lessons learned from last year. There's also the need, as my colleague explained, to be able to call the witnesses Ms. Weatherill may not have access to, ask for the documents she may not have access to, and do a proper piece of work on the thing that precipitated the need in Canada to have an examination of food safety in its biggest context. I believe it makes perfect sense in terms of Mr. Allen's motion for us to do that piece of work first, the lessons learned piece, then hopefully the government will let us see Ms. Weatherill's report when it is released in June or July.

At the same time, the health committee is looking at four sessions, at least, on “Towards a Comprehensive Food Policy for Canada” in May or June. Then in the fall we can do the proper piece of work of the recommendations of this committee going forward as to what we need to do to actually reassure Canadians that they have, once again, the safest food system in the world. I think there is nothing in this motion that goes against what was the delegation from the parent committee to this group.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Are you referring to Mr. Anderson's motion?

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

No, I'm saying that Mr. Allen's motion—

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay. We can, in due time, come to that motion. We have a motion on the table, Ms. Bennett.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

I'm actually challenging your ruling, if that's what I'm doing, saying there is nothing in the motion that you said was to do with food safety that doesn't allow this committee to divide up its work in a certain way, doing first things first, and then looking forward. The work that is described in this motion is the proper scientific way you would go about looking into something. You would look back at the lessons learned and then look forward into what we can do better. It makes perfect sense to me that this is totally in keeping with what the motion from the parent committee asked us.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Ms. Bennett, your point is taken and noted, but the amendment—

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

You've already made up your mind.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

The facts state it's the part about food safety; it's deliberately stroked out. It's what I have, and it's not a laughing matter. It's stroked out and replaced with listeriosis. I'm not debating whether one or the other is right, but the fact is that the motion, which I just read to you from the main committee, was a subcommittee on food safety, and this changes the intent.

As I said, if you want you can bring this motion, or Mr. Allen can bring it up, but it's not allowable as an amendment.

I even see Mr. Easter nodding his head.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

I'm saying that listeriosis is a part of food safety. This is a work plan. We will do this part of the work first and then the other part of the work looking forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I'm not here to debate you on that. I'm just pointing it out.

Mr. Easter, and then Mr. Anderson.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I was going to ask a question, Mr. Chair, but I think I answered the question myself when I looked at the amendment. Is your ruling based on an interim report to the committee--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

No.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

--or is it based on the words “food safety”?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

It's based on the part about food safety, which is the main.... You heard the reading. It's not on the other; it's on that point there, totally--

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Okay. I have an amendment to the amendment. How about--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

No. You can't amend the amendment because the amendment is no longer an amendment. If you want to make an amendment to Mr. Anderson's motion, that is....

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Well, it should discuss the issues as to how the listeriosis crisis of 2008 affects the food safety in Canada. We can have that as the interim report. We can put food safety back in, if you want.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Do you want to prepare an amendment?

In the meantime, Mr. Anderson, you have the floor.

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

Mr. Chair, I want to point out something that we didn't have when I first spoke. It talks about subcommittees and their mandates.

I want to read some of this for members, because it's going to confirm, for those who don't know, that what you've done is absolutely correct. It states, “Sub-committees receive their mandates in the order of reference adopted by the main committee”. I'll probably come back to this later. Then it states, “Subcommittees possess only those powers which are conferred on them by the main committee”.

I think that backs up exactly what you've said here. The opposition has now decided that they want to completely change the direction and the schedule of what was agreed to at the agriculture committee.

You've made a wise decision here. To my mind, we came here to work together to do this study on food safety, which would have included listeriosis. I don't know why the opposition hasn't come to us and had some conversations with us about it. If they wanted something completely different from what we had agreed on, we would have been willing to sit down and talk to them. I don't know if their intent is to poison the well before we even start here, but it certainly seems like that.

The government has been interested in having these hearings. We have been serious. In spite of Mr. Easter's statements, Sheila Weatherill is doing an investigation. I think if you were to talk to her, she would say that there have been no roadblocks in any way, shape, or form put in the way of her investigation. Certainly, that's moving ahead.

It's interesting. While Mr. Easter is saying he needs to reject it and it needs to be thrown out, Ms. Bennett just said that we want to wait until after Ms. Weatherill's report comes before we do our report. One seems to be giving it a ton of credibility; the other is saying that it doesn't--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

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

Do I still have the floor?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes, you do.

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

Okay. I wasn't sure, because I didn't get it there before.

Anyhow, one says this report isn't worth considering, while the other thinks it's so important that we need to have it before we can possibly finish our work. I think if it's that important, perhaps they should consider waiting until after the report is in before we even begin our study, because certainly she'll have done quite a bit of work on this.