Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on March 25th, 2009

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

--that the exciting part for me was that I get to be here, Mr. Chair--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Do you have a point of order, Ms. Bennett? What's your point of order?

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

Yes. He is not speaking to the motion that he has proposed. It's only about the schedule and the unbelievable fact that he thinks the work will be done by June 17. I understand that the parent committee had suggested four meetings and therefore it was proposed that there needed to be a subcommittee because that would not be enough. His motion speaks to only seven meetings, and they think the meeting will be over by June 17. So if the member wants to speak, then he should speak to the schedule.

But we won't be able to--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Ms. Bennett, you don't have a point of order, and something that I probably should have said to Mr. Bellavance is that I'm sure Mr. Anderson is going to get to the point. He just indicated that he was, so let's hear him.

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

If it's about the schedule, Mr. Chair, not the makeup of the committee.

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

It's certainly unfortunate that Ms. Bennett isn't the chair of the committee, Mr. Chair, because she certainly seems to have strong opinions about how it should be run.

Nevertheless, I think it's important that we do talk about the subcommittee and about the schedule. But what I'm excited about is actually being able to be here, and to be on the subcommittee and talking about the schedule, because it's been a while since I've been able to be on an agriculture committee with Mr. Easter and Mr. Bellavance. Actually, this brings back a lot of memories of things we've worked on together, and I should maybe talk about some of those just out of a sense of nostalgia.

Mr. Chair, I'd like you to check and see if I'm allowed to make an amendment to my own motion. Perhaps you could check with the clerk and see if that's possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I don't think I have to check with the clerk. I believe it's admissible.

No, it isn't. I stand to be corrected.

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

I'm just wondering, Mr. Chair, whether it would probably be a good thing, in terms of this schedule as well, that it be taken back to the main committee to be discussed. We've mentioned that the opposition should take their motion back to the committee, but it might be advisable to take this motion that we've made back to the main committee and then to have the committee confirm whether that's what they would like to see or not. If I could make that motion, I would certainly do that, I think.

Is Mr. Shipley on the speaking list as well, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes, he is. I do have Ms. Bennett before him.

But it's already been clarified that you can't make an amendment. Are you trying to make a separate amendment?

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

No, I'm not going to make an amendment. You've told me I couldn't do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay.

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

Anyhow, Mr. Chair, in my discussions about the motion here, I did want to point out, through Marleau and Montpetit, some of the responsibilities of the committee with respect to the motion and with respect to the general activity of the committee, as well as to deal specifically with this motion.

It's interesting that the main committees can establish subcommittees, but only if they are empowered to do so by the orders of reference that establish them. Certainly the primary committee, the House of Commons agriculture committee, has done that, so we're able to have those established.

There's some discussion, of course, in Marleau and Montpetit about the liaison committees and what roles they play as well. Certainly they have a limited mandate, but often are empowered to create subcommittees that then could bring forward issues such as those we're dealing with today. I think they as well actually have the ability to draw their membership both from the main committee and from a list of associate members.

Mr. Chair, I'd like to continue and talk about the fact that committees often have to establish subcommittees in order to deal with agenda and procedure. I think a number of people here have been on the subcommittee on procedure for the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. Certainly, I think that subcommittee must have worked better than this one does, or we certainly wouldn't have gotten even this far on this issue.

There's often a steering committee in charge of setting the agenda. It might have been good, actually, if this subcommittee had had a steering committee of some sort before today so that some of this stuff could have been resolved. I feel a bit bad about the fact that you met with a couple of the opposition members who thought they were generally in agreement with what was being proposed here today, but then we got to the meeting today and found out that this motion that we brought forward does not seem to meet the requirements they want for the schedule over the next few months.

The mandates of the subcommittees, of course, are received by the main committee. We've talked about that a fair amount today. All of us have talked about that. I assume Mr. Shipley wants to talk about it again a little bit later, but again, I would just mention that it was clear from the direction from the main committee that this is to deal with food safety. That is what our schedule reads: that the witnesses are to discuss issues relating to food safety. Certainly, the subcommittee has been set up to do that. That's what this motion deals with as it comes forward.

Obviously, by practice, subcommittees are struck in every session and they will continue in operation until the end of the session unless they come to the end of their mandate. Again, that brings us back to this motion today, because when would the end of this subcommittee be? What we have suggested is pretty clearly a fairly tight timeline, but one that I've already acknowledged, and between now and June we'd be willing to put other meetings in here if the opposition needed them. Mr. Allen, in his motion that was ruled out of order, had talked about us having four-hour meetings, so I would assume that seven four-hour meetings are similar to 14 two-hour meetings.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

A point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

A point of order, Mr. Allen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My honourable colleague has just made the statement that you ruled my motion out of order. I believe what you said was that the amendment I put forward was out of order, and indeed, if I wished to move it as a motion, it would be in order. I believe my honourable colleague is incorrect when he states that you have ruled it out of order. The amendment, for sure, you have said is out of order, but not the motion if I so intend to introduce that as a motion. Is that not correct?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I ruled your amendment out of order because of the part I discussed earlier on food safety, so if you're asking me if I did rule the amendment out of order, yes, I did.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

No, what I'm asking is.... The honourable member said that you ruled my motion out of order. What I'm saying is--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I ruled your amendment out of order.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

That's correct, and indeed that can stand alone as a motion and would be deemed to be ruled in order.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Allen, any member of this committee can bring forth a motion at any time.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I appreciate the clarity, Mr. Chair. And for clarity's sake, what I'm saying is that the honourable member across the way, from the government side, has said that you have ruled it out of order. I'd like you to actually for the record state that this is incorrect. It was his statement that my motion was out of order, ruled by you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You didn't have a motion, you had an amendment, and I ruled the amendment out of order.

You have the floor, Mr. Anderson.

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

I can correct that, Mr. Chairman.

I admit that I was confused, but maybe it was because at the top of Mr. Allen's amendment, he wrote the word “motion”. I feel terrible that I would have said that you ruled his motion out of order when you didn't rule it either in order or out of order. He did present it as an amendment, that's right; I guess I was confused by the fact that at the top of his page, which he brought here today, he called it a motion. In my enthusiasm, I misspoke. I called it a motion, when certainly it was an amendment that was ruled out of order.

It's unfortunate that he's broken my train of thought. I may have to cover some of the same ground in order to get it back.

I think I was talking about the fact that we have a lot of meetings scheduled. In the amendment that was ruled out of order, Mr. Allen had suggested that we could have meetings from 6 o'clock until 10 o'clock. To my mind, if we had our seven meetings and they were running four hours, that's equivalent to 14 meetings. That's a lot of meetings on one subject. I don't know if we've spent that much time on hardly any subjects. But it would certainly give us the opportunity to give a full airing to this issue. Then we would be able to prepare, by June 10 to June 17, a final report to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

Actually, I think perhaps that might be the compromise that would enable us to move ahead here. If the opposition were to come over and discuss with Mr. Shipley the fact that they'd be willing to settle for those seven meetings and run them longer, I think we would probably find that very acceptable. We could likely move on here.

The way they have it set up now, it's basically open-ended. They've changed the direction. Their suggestions change--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Anderson, we're talking about your motion.

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

I'm talking about my schedule, but I think I need to compare it to the options that have been presented, Mr. Chair. It's not a pretty thing. I know that. But I think we need to make some positive suggestions here.

I did have to look at what they presented. Were they to come and suggest that we do the seven meetings we've suggested and that those meetings be longer than a typical meeting--Mr. Shipley is as enthused as I am about this committee, and he wants to get moving as well--we would certainly be able to start next week, on March 31, and get moving along.

Hopefully, at some point, the opposition members will come to their senses. We want to get this report done. That's the important thing. This situation happened last summer. Obviously it was an important series of events across this country. It's important that we take a look at what happened, at what went well, and at what can be improved. Certainly we want to do that. But I don't see any reason, as I think Mr. Shipley pointed out earlier, to take until December 9, 2009, to do a report on something that happened in the summer of 2008. That just doesn't make any sense, unless, again, somebody is trying to play tricks. And as Mr. Easter has already admitted, the opposition started off that way. We're willing to try to trust them, because we want to move this thing ahead and do a good job on it. But certainly they're not off to a good start in terms of trying to get us on side with them.

Again, it seems to make sense to me, Mr. Chair, that we could start on March 31. We could start next week. We could move from there and then meet April 22, April 29, May 6, May 13, May 27, and June 3. If those meetings were all extended, we'd certainly be able to get in the same number of hours that were being proposed by the opposition. We could come back, get that report done, and certainly have it done by the end of the session.

There's nothing precluding the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, in the fall, after Ms. Weatherill's report comes in and after this report comes in, if they want to take a look at it, from coming back to it. I'm not sure that it's this subcommittee's responsibility to spend nine months looking at a report that should be done as soon as possible, and possibly could be done by June or by the time we get out of here in the summertime. I notice that even some of the opposition members seem to be shaking their heads and thinking that this is probably a reasonable expectation.

Again, the opposition controls the numbers at the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, and if they want to do something more on this in the fall, they would certainly be able to do it. But the way this has been presented today looks as if it's more about politics and trying to lever this issue for some political gain than about the opposition being interested in really finding out the facts related to what happened over the last few years.

It would be good to have that report on June 17.

Another thing that would be really good would be to actually have a unanimous report. I've been able, on a number of committees, to be part of a discussion that's resulted in a unanimous report. I think that if we could get through this in a positive atmosphere, we might be able to come to the end of the road as soon as possible, preferably in June, so that the government could take forward the recommendations from this subcommittee--I guess the recommendations will come from the standing committee--and improve the food safety system in this country by utilizing them and putting them in place.

No, I'm not done yet. I'm just getting a little drink of water here, Mr. Easter. We want to continue, of course.

Again, I'm comparing our schedule to the one that may be proposed here in the future, and I'm thinking that there's certainly nothing we wouldn't be willing to discuss about the whole issue of listeriosis. There are other food safety issues, obviously, as well. But it's in our interest to try to keep the focus on the events of last summer, because the purpose of this is really to learn from what happened and to try to put in place better protection for Canadians.

I'm glad that we have made the recommendation that we're just going to do a final report, because, again, the suggestion that we might have an interim report in June and come back to a final report in December just doesn't make any sense at all to me.

Again, I'd make the point that we want this thing to get done. Why don't we just pick June as the finishing date and get this report done? As I mentioned, the agriculture committee can then make a decision about whether they want to do a broader study or a narrower study. There's certainly nothing stopping them from doing that.

I don't think I've actually ever seen that an interim report has been presented, and then six months later somebody has come back with a report that substantially changes it. I understand, as Ms. Bennett said, that one of the reasons for doing that is that they want to make sure they include Sheila Weatherill's report in this report. That may be a good thing, because clearly Ms. Weatherill has a ton of experience in this field, she's been given free rein to do a thorough investigation, and certainly I think that the outcome of that report is probably going to be a good one.

We would like to see this thing done as quickly as possible. I don't know if the opposition is willing to extend meetings through April, May, and June in order to get the equivalent of these 14 meetings in, but that might be a way of resolving the issue that we have here today, and we might be able to get moving ahead on this thing.

Actually, I want to come back a bit to talking about the subcommittee, in light of this schedule as well, because certainly the orders of reference we've received from the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food limit what this subcommittee can do. And I think, Mr. Chair, you've already made that clear.

I would actually be concerned, Mr. Chair, if the suggestion that was turned down today--the amendment that was ruled out of order today--came back as a motion and was found to be in order. It seems to me that, again, the agriculture committee has given us one mandate. I don't see anywhere in Marleau and Montpetit or in the documents and the breakdown that subcommittees have the ability to wander off on an independent path. It's not there. It says that the subcommittees receive their mandate through the order of reference that has been given by the main committee. The motion was adopted by the main committee. That limits the subcommittee to being strictly within the boundaries of the order of reference that has come from the main committee.