Health Committee on June 17th, 2020

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

From your answer, I gather that you're still waiting for the government to respond with substantial funding. We are talking about billions of dollars in financial support, after all.

Ms. Robinson, what food supply problems should we expect come the fall?

[Mary Robinson]

I'm sorry, the interpreter changed. I missed the question.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Chair, did you stop the clock?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Yes. Please go ahead. I'll make an allowance for the time.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

What should we expect in the fall as far as the food supply goes?

[Mary Robinson]

The fall is certainly a great unknown. The uncertainty of what's going to happen if we....

I'm hearing French.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Chair, there's no French interpretation.

[Tamara Jansen, Conservative, Cloverdale—Langley City, BC]

I'm also hearing French. I'm on the English channel and I'm hearing French.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Ms. Robinson, are you on the English channel at the bottom of the screen?

[Mary Robinson]

Yes. I think Ms. Jansen is having the same experience as me. Every time I speak, I hear French.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Okay.

Monsieur Desilets, are you on the French channel?

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Yes, I'm on the French channel.

Would you like me to repeat the question? I'm not sure whether you heard it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Maybe I'll ask Madam Clerk to verify that interpretation is working correctly.

[Mary Robinson]

I have heard the question.

[The Clerk of the Committee, Ms. Erica Pereira]

Mr. Chair, we should be—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Madam Clerk, I think your bandwidth has kind of gone. I can't hear what you're saying.

[Mary Robinson]

The kids are playing the games.

[The Clerk]

We should be good to go, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you.

Monsieur Desilets, please go ahead with your question. We'll give it one more try.

[Luc Desilets, Bloc, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Very well.

My question is for Ms. Robinson.

What should we expect this summer as far as the food supply is concerned?

[Mary Robinson]

I believe the channels are switched because I'm hearing only the French.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

I heard the French as well. It was a very good question, though.

[Mary Robinson]

Okay, the question is the same as it's been.

It's difficult to forecast what the food supply is going to look like in the summer and in the fall. A great deal of the uncertainty has to do with access to labour. There's also great uncertainty with regard to how COVID is going to impact food supply chains. If we see an interruption in processing, that will cause issues. Generally, we hope for the best and plan for the worst.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ron McKinnon]

Thank you, Mr. Desilets.

We now move on to Mr. Davies.

Mr. Davies, you may go ahead. You have six minutes.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being with us.

Mr. Murphy, this is from a news release issued by the Agriculture Union, on May 11:

Under threat of discipline, CFIA instructed some of its non-meat inspection staff to train up as “instant” meat inspectors to be deployed to potentially COVID-19 infected meat slaughter plants, whether they want to work there or not.

Could you inform this committee how many non-meat inspection staff have been redeployed as “instant” meat inspectors?