Mr. Speaker, it gives me pleasure to take part in this debate. I will share my time with the hon. member for Champlain, who is our deputy critic for agriculture.
I believe it is extremely important to have this debate this evening to make the public aware of the seriousness of foot and mouth disease, but also to ask it not to push the panic button. While it is important to discuss this issue, the expression emergency debate is somewhat out of proportion with what is going on in Canada right now.
I must begin by congratulating the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. We have met with representatives in the standing committee on agriculture and will be meeting them again later this week.
The authorities' decision to send back to England the ship containing the British army's equipment is reassuring. There is cause for some considerable concern that Great Britain has not taken all the measures we wanted to see taken when it sent its army over here. We had clearly asked for everything to be cleaned but it neglected to do its cleanup.
Someone made the comment to me today that we could have let them do it here, that it was not worth turning the ship back. But if they had done so, there was a risk of our facilities getting contaminated in the process. It was therefore justified for us to turn the ship back, to do its cleanup back in the UK.
I would even go so far as to say that this might raise questions about the British army's lack of social conscience and about whether it might not be better to cancel the entire exercise altogether since it will be held in the very heart of cattle country, in western Canada.
We have also been reassured by the explanations given by the people from the agency about how Canada, Mexico and the United States have tested their emergency plan. All this has been reassuring. And when we look as well at the American plan, we realize that our experts are in contact with each other and that every means must be taken to prevent the disease from reaching here.
What can be done to eradicate this disease should a case present itself? I hope that will never happen, but if there were to be a case, a series of measures would occur, up to and including isolating the farm or establishing a safety perimeter or slaughtering herds, if necessary. As members can see, there is a plan on paper that provides for a series of measures in the event of an emergency.
It is also important to know that, at the moment, a drama is unfolding in Europe, which requires extreme sensitivity.
I have had the experience of a terrible drama in my own riding with another type of disease known as scrapie. Livestock at home was particularly affected by this disease. I was present at meetings with families, parents and their children who were supposed to follow in their footsteps, who had to decide to allow the agency to come and slaughter an entire herd of sheep.
We have no idea of the human dramas occurring at the moment. Having seen it up close, I know that when they have to kill an entire herd people have no more income and no more animals. If they do get compensation to replace the animals, they do not necessarily get an income for the time it takes to build up their livestock.
According to information I obtained, people in Europe are experiencing real human tragedies. Some are even committing suicide because they just do not know what they are going to do.
We must think about that aspect of the problem. So far we have heard about prophylactic measures to protect health or to eradicate the outbreak but we have not heard much about the human dimension.
We should immediately set up a plan to help these people, to support them should we have to reach the same conclusion as with scrapie in sheep.
It is important to realize that the government has also taken a very interesting measure. The last outbreak in Canada was in 1952. Now they have a new word, or at least a word that I did not know before, namely the term “epizooty”, which is more accurate. Chances are that those who were veterinarians in 1952 have all retired since.
It was an excellent idea on the part of the Canadian government to send young veterinarians to help their colleagues in Great Britain, thus allowing them to gain some experience and see firsthand the effects of that disease. This means they will be more familiar with it, better able to diagnose and identify it, and take the necessary measures to act more quickly.
When people study the theory but never see these diseases firsthand, they do their best, but if they have the opportunity—what an unfortunate term, in this case—to be in a situation like the one experienced by our veterinarians in Great Britain, they gain some valuable experience. We hope they never have to use it here, but if they do they will have it.
Where does this disease come from? It would be quite hard to say where it comes from. Apparently, according to the data we have, it came from Japan, passing through Mongolia and Russia before ending up in Great Britain. The British government took measures but they were not enough. The disease passed into France, Holland and other countries, probably.
The Canadian government has measures planned. I think what counts is that everyone living in Canada realizes that it is a matter of individual responsibility to keep this disease out, by being reasonable, prudent, following the guidelines given, for instance, not bringing food back from Europe, and properly disinfecting things when they come back. Each person must feel a part of the operation.
I know some farmers who have taken very interesting measures. For example, they have refused to let interns come to their farms this summer because they do not want to take risks. They have changed their practices. Now they meet suppliers in their kitchens, rather than let them come to the barn. There are all sorts of very practical and very simple measures that can be taken in order to take a part in preventing this disease.