Public Safety Committee on June 9th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Does anyone else have a question?

Ms. Thi Lac, did you have a brief question?

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I want to thank the witnesses for being with us here this afternoon.

You said in your presentation that your revenues and crops had declined by virtually 85% in the past 10 years. I have that information, but I'm missing one figure.

Can you tell me how many producers there were in 1988 and how many there are now? Is that number rising? Is it falling?

[Fred Neukamm]

The number of quota owners has dropped by about 500.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

What was the total number?

[Fred Neukamm]

In 1998 there were 1,600 distinct family units who owned quota. Today that's roughly 1,073. In total we have roughly 1,559, but that includes husbands and wives who may individually hold quota. But in terms of distinct family units, it has dropped by over 500 since 1998.

Part of that is because of the consolidation that happened. As long as there was some profitability left in production, we were managing things internally. I would expand my business by buying up my neighbour's quota and infrastructure. We can no longer do that. So part of the drop was just internal consolidation, and part of it is as a result of the quota exit program from 2005, which resulted in, I believe, 230 of our growers accessing that program, surrendering their quota, and leaving production.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

In 2006, the RCMP recorded six times more contraband cigarette seizures than in 2001.

Do you think that's because of an increase in contraband cigarettes or better law enforcement?

I'm a bit surprised by your statement that your association passed on 28 tips on illegal activities to the RCMP and that nothing unfortunately came of them. The RCMP says it made six times more contraband cigarette seizures in 2006 than in 2001.

How do you explain that, please?

[Linda Vandendriessche]

First of all, I have to find out where they're seized.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

That will have to be the final question.

[Fred Neukamm]

Maybe just to clarify the issue, the tips that we were speaking to were specific about illegal off-farm sales. Those were the tips that have not resulted in any convictions. But I believe it is factual that the number of seizures—which I believe to be seizures of cigarettes in transit, or illegal smoke houses, as they call them—by Canadian border services are up.

I believe it's correct that those seizure levels are up. I don't have any evidence to suggest one thing or another, but first, I believe it's because there is more contraband; and secondly, I do believe they're more successful in catching them. So it's a combination.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Thank you very much for appearing before the committee. We appreciate your testimony, and I think you've made your case very clearly.

We'll continue with our meeting now as our witnesses leave.

Mr. Brown, you had a point of order or point of privilege. Maybe you can explain.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I reluctantly bring this up. I'm bringing forward to the committee as a point of privilege an article in today's Globe and Mail referring to the study on tasers.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Hang on a minute. There's too much noise in the background. We'll ask our members from the government side and from the opposition side to conclude their handshakes here.

I'd like to bring this meeting back to order. Mr. MacKenzie and Monsieur Ménard, please, let's resume the meeting here.

We'll go in camera shortly, but for now, Mr. Brown has an issue he'd like to raise.

Continue, Mr. Brown.

[Gord Brown, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

As I said, I reluctantly bring forward to the committee this point of privilege in regard to the article in today's Globe and Mail referring to the study we spent many hours on. We've travelled to the western coast of Canada to undertake part of this study.

I'm trying to do this so that I'm not going to confirm or deny or lend any credibility to the article, but it refers in the article—and of course I believe everything that I read in the papers—to someone who is “a source close to a report expected as early as this week”. It talks about someone “who spoke on condition of anonymity”.

I bring this up because I had a similar situation about a year and half ago where I inadvertently discussed something with a reporter, and I then had to apologize to the House. One of the members of this committee at the time, the member for Windsor--Tecumseh, quickly went to the House of Commons to talk about his privilege being breached.

I bring this up more because we've spent a lot of time on this report, and it is quite disappointing for members to not have the ability, when the report is released, to have their say on it when others are talking about it beforehand. So if in fact the comments in the article were true and did reflect what went on in this committee, someone who is party to this study was then discussing it with reporters.

So I don't know where we go from here. I really want to bring it to your attention, Mr. Chair, to ensure that members don't do this after all the work that has been brought into it. I understand first-hand that members can inadvertently breach other members' privilege, but it was this committee that dealt with this, and you would hope that wouldn't be the case.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

You can gather--if the article is to be believed--that whoever did it, did it knowingly, because they wanted to remain anonymous. I think that's a little different from maybe inadvertently leaking something.

The other change that has taken place is that we now have staff present. That was a change we made at this committee. Maybe we'll have to reverse that; I don't know.

Ms. Barnes.

[Sue Barnes, Liberal, London West, ON]

Actually, that was going to be my point. I was so disappointed to see this. But as I read the article, it didn't point to a member of the committee; it pointed to a close source to the committee.

I think we will have the discussion, although I don't think we need to have it now. I certainly feel it's wrong. We should not allow it to happen.

I'm certainly very much thinking that we're going to restrict this to a very closed room in future.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Are there any other comments?

Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I feel that I have to comment now, after all that. It would be in the best interest of which staff member to do that? I don't think there should be a cloud on the staff. For those of us sitting around the table, if it is a staff problem then we should talk to our staff about it, but I don't know that the staff regularly talk to the press.

So I would just like to say that I, for one, don't want the staff to have fingers pointed at them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

No, and I was not indicating in any way that this is what happened. I have no idea what happened.

Ms. Thi Lac.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Far be it from me to point the finger at employees. Often, when journalists want to talk about an MP, they say: “An MP has revealed...” However, if they say, “A source close to the committee...,” you can't exclude the possibility that it's an MP. Often, when the source, even an anonymous source, is an MP or committee member, journalists talk about an MP. They cite that person as “a member of the committee” or “an MP”. It's important to draw that distinction.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Ms. Priddy.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Many people are being asked this question now by reporters, saying whatever they're saying, which I hope is nothing. I think a number of people are being asked about this as well in the interviews they're doing. I would seek your advice--just so that we are all consistent--on how far we go in saying nothing. Do we just not speak to it? Do we say that it's in confidence, or that we haven't seen the report, etc.? Since some of us will be on the same panel today, we at least will know what each other is saying.

I just want us to be consistent on this. I love consistency.... Well, I don't actually love consistency, but in this case I do.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Seeing as you asked for my advice, I'll give it: nothing means nothing. I really think that's the reason we have in camera meetings, so that we can openly discuss this and we don't have to worry about somebody reporting what somebody else's position was or what took place. The minute we allow.... I mean, you can't allow anything to be divulged from an in camera meeting. The report will come out, and then we will be free to talk about it.

[Penny Priddy, NDP, Surrey North, BC]

I don't disagree. After ten years in a provincial cabinet and a little bit of time here, I've had it happen a number of times. I just wanted to check it out with folks.

[The Chair, Conservative, Garry Breitkreuz]

Right.

Mr. Dosanjh.

[Ujjal Dosanjh, Liberal, Vancouver South, BC]

I was asked as well in the scrum. I expressed my personal view. I didn't say if the committee draft was ready or not. I just spoke to the media about what I think should happen, that's all.