Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on March 31st, 2009

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

We agree, and we support the motion in terms of getting all the information. It's our understanding that the minister's office has been asked and is preparing the material for the subcommittee. I think it's been mentioned that it will happen as soon as we can get the package put together. I don't know when that will be, but we have a motion now that sets out our timeline for this subcommittee.

As I said, we will be supporting it, and just to follow up with Mr. Allen, it is being prepared as we sit here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Easter.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I will speak in favour of the motion, Mr. Chair. I believe we need to know the paper trail within the Prime Minister's Office as well. If we have to handle that by a separate motion, we can do so another time. We know that a lot of the discussions were in fact with the Prime Minister's Office and we know that Ms. Weatherill doesn't really have the authority to investigate either the minister or the Prime Minister's Office. We will consider whether to put a motion forward specific to that area.

Rather than complicate it, I'll say on this motion that we're certainly supportive of it. There is a two-week break coming up. I expect that we would want the material supplied to this committee prior to the meeting on the 20th.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Is there further discussion on the motion?

Mr. Anderson.

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

Mr. Chair, if the opposition wants to make informal request for these kinds of things and want to come to us away from the meeting, we're willing to sit down and talk to them and try to accommodate them. I don't know that we need to go to formal motions on a lot of these requests. If they feel they need to, they can do it, but certainly we'd be willing to try to work with them on these issues.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

If there is no further discussion, I'll call the question.

(Motion agreed to)

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

The clerk has brought up the list of witnesses. Our main motion doesn't deal with the order, but I think the instructions are pretty clear to the clerk and me, when it comes to scheduling, that we want to hear all these witnesses. We have the timeframe in the motion. I know there's been some discussion about having the minister here, and I believe that's in the works as well.

Mr. Easter is first, and then Mr. Allen.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chair, I understand that we had discussions; the minister can't be here on April 20, and it may be a little later in the month. He's at the G8 or wherever he may be. We understand that, but in the initial week we really have about six hours each day, and we need to think about how many we can do in a meeting. We've all had experience at committees and we certainly need the time. There are seven of us on this committee, so we need the time to be able to question the witnesses appropriately.

With regard to the meetings on April 20 and April 22, since the minister is not available, in the initial week we certainly need to have the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Ms. Swan, Brian Evans, and other officials. We need Ms. Weatherill early on as well, in order to find out where she is going in terms of her investigation and to have an indication of what road she is on. As well, early on we should meet with Michael McCain on the listeriosis side, and probably Bob Kingston or somebody from the union.

We really need to hear from those people early on, and probably officials from the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food as well. The minister won't be here until later in the month, but we need to hear from them early.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You are suggesting, Wayne, that you'd like to have some department officials before we see the minister. Is that what I'm hearing?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chair, for the first couple of meetings in terms of the background information on where the government was relative to the listeriosis issue, we should have CFIA on its overall responsibility for food safety and food inspections in this country. Then in the initial meetings we need to have some of the key players. Those include the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food; CFIA; Ms. Weatherill, who is doing the investigation; Bob Kingston; and Michael McCain. Those are the people who can set the stage for other witnesses who will be added later for the broader issue of food safety. No doubt those witnesses will raise questions on others we may need to bring in.

One I missed would be people from the Health Canada.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Good.

I have Mr. Allen and then Mr. Anderson.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Although I have no disagreement with Mr. Easter around the basic format, I did put together a work plan. I thought we could use it not necessarily in its totality, but it might give us a sense of framework. Obviously we can move it around. There are some names beside dates as we progress through the meeting dates. Some of it is actually in line with what Wayne said, in the sense that we thought Minister Ritz would be the first person, but clearly his scheduling isn't going to make that happen, so we would shift that around.

This would give us a template, if you will. It's not cast in stone and it wasn't meant to be. It was simply meant to take a look at how we want to format this so that we actually have a work plan to work from. Of course I am very amenable as to where we want to slot folks and how we want to categorize it so that we can move forward.

I'm pleased to hear from the other side, from Mr. Anderson and Mr. Shipley, that we all want to move forward. They are saying that. This was not meant to say how it should be, nor is it my intent to say so. It is simply a template into which we can put some names. I am hearing Mr. Easter repeat some of the names that are actually in those slots.

To be honest with you, I took this template from what Mr. Atamanenko did at the agriculture committee when he formulated a template as well. When I saw Alex make a work template, I thought it was a pretty good idea. I remember the conversation at agriculture when the chair said we could shift one thing and move another.

That is why this isn't meant to be cast in stone. It's not presented as a motion. Obviously it's a work template that we can all give input to and use to see if we can get ourselves on track, so that we're not going from meeting to meeting asking if we are calling this person or that person next week.

That is what this was intended to do, and that's why I'm sharing it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

On that matter, Mr. Allen, it's fine as long as the clerk's and my hands aren't tied. You know what happens sometimes when you go to get somebody and they can't come. If we could have a generalization and an idea of who the committee would like to hear first, my idea over the two weeks is to work with the clerk to have him set up the first four meetings for the first two weeks and, when we come back for the first one, maybe discuss it a little more. I've seen before that sometimes things change, and your thought about someone you might think would be a good witness or somebody you might want to see in the third week could change in that time.

Does that sound half reasonable?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I absolutely concur with it, Mr. Chair. The reason I referred to Mr. Atamanenko is that I believe those were his exact words to you, as chair of the main agriculture committee. I remember your explanation then and I concur with that explanation.

I think that's fair. Things do change and are fluid, just as when we informally met yesterday with Mr. Lemieux about how we would structure the meetings of the committee. We might have two, or one extended one, based on everyone's availability, in the sense that we all want to make sure we get the work done.

That's why I said this isn't written in stone; this is a very fluid document. It simply gives us the template to slot things in. I'm very amendable to the fact—you're right—that there may be some folks who will say they'd rather have this person than that one. As we move through the schedule, we could indeed do that, and that's the whole intent. I'm certainly not looking to tie your hands or put one hand behind your back, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Anderson.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I agree with Mr. Easter and with Mr. Allen for the most part in what they're asking. I think government expects requests like this. I'm told that the CFIA, the Public Health Agency, and Health Canada officials can be available on the 20th and 22nd, and that the minister, who is going to be away until after the 20th, is willing to come on the 29th, if the committee is willing to have him at that point. I think we have a kind of general work plan for those first few meetings, if people want to do it.

I also have a question for the other committee members. Do we want to do our planning in camera or in public? If we're going to do it in public, then we'll all need to come prepared to do that. It's up to the committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Am I to take it, then, that the clerk and I can use this as a guideline?

Mr. Bellavance and then Mr. Easter.

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

Does the subcommittee follow the same rule as the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes. I was going to speak to that right after this.

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

I didn't think I would have to bring this up again, after several years as a member of this committee, but we have received some documents in only one official language, in this case, in English. They were not circulated to us by the clerk, but rather by a Member's assistant. This schedule is useful to our work. I understand very well the intent of this document, but I would like to be spared having to remind people that all documents must be circulated in both official languages.

We're not off to a good start.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

André, this didn't come from the clerk.

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

I realize that, and I did not blame the clerk either. I'm merely asking that we comply with this operating rule.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay, that's fair enough.

Mr. Allen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I take Mr. Bellavance's point. He's absolutely correct that it should have been in both official languages. I certainly take responsibility for that, Mr. Chair. It did not come through you or the clerk. It should have been done, but for our haste to try to get things together very quickly. Unfortunately, I'm still unilingual, albeit trying very hard to become bilingual. But that's going to be a challenge for a little guy like me who came from Glasgow; it's not necessarily going to happen overnight.

We'll do our best to do that. I assure Mr. Bellavance that any documents we prepare from my office will go through the clerk, so that they can be in both official languages. I sincerely apologize to Mr. Bellavance for not having that done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay.