No.
Evidence of meeting #1 for Subcommittee on Food Safety in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Evidence of meeting #1 for Subcommittee on Food Safety in the 40th Parliament, 2nd session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was chair.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Okay, then I misunderstood what I heard. So you're okay with the food safety part?
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Ms. Bennett, you have to settle down, please. I think we need to treat each other with respect here.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Ms. Bennett, you don't have the floor.
Order. Again, for the last time.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
The impression Mr. Bellavance left with me was that he did not want to study food safety in a general sense.
Conservative
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
So he did want to study food safety in a general sense.
Conservative
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Because that's exactly what we want to do. We want to study food safety in the context of listeriosis.
That's what has been given to us, as an assignment, by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. That was passed unanimously by the agriculture committee. I assume Mr. Bellavance was there and certainly supported it.
It says to “establish a Subcommittee on Food Safety” in the context of listeriosis. We're willing to do that. I've made that point a couple of times, and Mr. Allen doesn't want me to repeat that.
But we want to get to work on this committee. We want to study food safety, and we want to study listeriosis in the context of the Canadian food safety system.
Mr. Chair, we can't take it outside that context. Right? If you take a look at what's going on with food safety in Canada and the specifics of the listeriosis outbreak last summer, obviously you have to take a look at it in the context of--
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
You have to look at it in the context of food safety.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
That's what I'm saying.
We need to take a look at that, and our schedule is an appropriate and reasonable way to take a look at those issues in that context. Certainly, seven meetings times two should be enough to cover almost any issue, unless we're not doing our job properly. I hope if we have a couple of days to talk about this we'll be able to come to some sort of agreement that will get us under way next week. I would be willing to sit down with the opposition—and I know Mr. Shipley would as well—to try to find some middle ground so that we can begin to move this process ahead quickly. We need to find a reasonable alternative to what's been going on.
I'd like to come back to an important notion: if we don't want to abide by the directions that we've been given, then we have the opportunity to go outside and ask for some other direction or authority from the main committee. Maybe this way a motion similar to the amendment we got today could be found in order. Typically, our motion as it's put forward here is directly in line with what has been given to us by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. There is certainly nothing about it that would run contrary to the mandate that we've been given. I think this offers an easier way to move ahead. It's better than trying to expand the mandate, trying to find a different mandate without going back to the committee for an understanding of what they really meant when they gave us the directions to establish a subcommittee on food safety.
We would like to get this resolved next week. Next Tuesday, we want to be able to pass the motions we need to proceed and begin our hearings. Some of this we're going to have to do in the next day or two, probably away from this table, if we want to try to move ahead immediately. But it's the government's intent and the government's desire that we get to this as quickly as possible.
