Mr. Speaker, on February 20 in this House I asked a pertinent question of the Hon. Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food concerning the sheep disease scrapie.
Before proceeding, I would like to reassure all of the members of this House that scrapie does not cause any human health problems. The problem that it does cause is for the farmer, as generally the whole flock has to be destroyed.
In the few minutes available to me, I would like to touch on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, on carcass disposal procedures, and on compensation.
First of all, the new food inspection agency. It must be kept in mind that this agency was created out of thin air by this government. Since it began operations on January 1, 1997, barely 16 months ago—call it happenstance if you will—the number of flocks infected by scrapie has been rising to such an extent that one wonders whether the cuts affecting inspection do not bear a direct relationship to that increase. The reason I say this is that, when the flock at the Lennoxville research station in the riding of Sherbrooke was dispersed, the government saw fit to release sheep infected with scrapie into circulation. That is serious.
The agency must now be asking serious questions as to how the carcasses were disposed of on February 16, five weeks ago. An order was passed here in Ottawa to have the agency pay the costs of this disposal. I thought the carcasses were to be incinerated but I was wrong. Since the decision was made to pay, the carcasses are being collected by the thousands and deposited in regional landfill sites. Often this creates problems with runoff water, and our government tolerates or organizes this sort of animal disposal.
Finally, compensation falls far short. The government must sit down with the sheep producers. In this regard, I would like to pay tribute to the availability and especially the knowledge of three producers. They are Georges Pharand, Réjean Raymond and Giovanni Lebel, all from the lower St. Lawrence. They met in camera with the Standing Committee on Agriculture and were no doubt a valuable source of information for all committee members.
I am obviously impatient to hear the government's response to these three questions.