moved:
That this House do now adjourn.
Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time today with the member for Brandon—Souris.
I want to say how pleased we are that the Speaker granted my request, and I know there were requests by members of the Canadian Alliance and other parties, for the debate this evening on the threat to Canada posed by bovine spongiform encephalopathy, BSE, better known as mad cow disease.
The recent discovery of a cow infected with BSE in Alberta is troubling. However thus far it is, thankfully, only a single case. The evidence indicates that the animal never entered the food chain for human consumption. The number of farms in quarantine in Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia is so far not an indication of further cases but rather a testament to the speed with which officials are attempting to understand, decipher and deal with this one isolated case of BSE.
The very fact that the case was detected is a testament to the good work of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Province of Alberta. I commend the quick, efficient and dedicated work of all those officials involved in responding to this incident. Too often we forget and undervalue the tremendous work of people who work in the public interest and who are called to come forth in times of emergency. These people did that and they performed exceptionally well in this case.
However the reason so many members of the House sought an emergency debate is that we need to know precisely what the federal government intends to do now. It has the opportunity tonight to come and tell Parliament and the people.
Canada's beef industry is one of the largest in the world, second only to Australia and the United States, earning around $8 billion a year. Many individual Canadians face serious financial challenges as a result of the concerns generated by BSE.
No one here wants to play games of jurisdiction and I would implore the federal government not to get involved in any of those. Canada is a federal state and we have made that federalism work. We continue to be a world leader in health and safety standards. Canada's record of herd health is beyond reproach. We have earned a strong international reputation as the provider of the safest and highest quality beef in the world.
It is obvious that the magnitude of the threat posed by BSE is much bigger than simply one cow in one herd in Alberta. The Prime Minister--and I understand he did it to minimize to concern--runs the risk of minimizing the size of the problem by talking as though it is only one cow. What is at issue here is the highly valued and hard-earned international reputation of an essential multi-billion dollar Canadian industry.
The top five importers of Canadian beef, the United States, Mexico, Japan, South Korean and Taiwan, have now closed their borders to our exports. Other countries are following suit. These actions are costing the industry an estimated $6.3 million a day.
More broadly speaking, this case of BSE will have wide implications across the Canadian economy. Related food, transportation, hospitality and tourism industries are also threatened by potential damage from mad cow disease and the damaged reputation that this find has generated. Some estimates have placed that damage in many billions of dollars.
Quick action must be taken to protect our reputation and restore the much deserved confidence in the Canadian beef industry.
The first action that must be taken is to ensure that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has the resources and the capacities to conduct a timely and thorough investigation into this incident of BSE. The government must quickly trace any cattle or calves that may have come into contact with BSE and/or with feed made from the remains of cattle or calves.
The Progressive Conservative Party has long called for additional resources for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The government needs to respond quickly to the agency's request for more funding for tracing and containment efforts.
Federal coordination is essential to ensure that all the facts are known, the history of the animal in question has been traced, any other potential cases have been tracked down and the incident of BSE has been completely contained and eliminated.
Questions need to be asked as to whether there is any way to improve federal coordination.
Questions need to be asked as to whether there is any way to improve federal coordination. Are there any improvements that can be made to our national standards and the degree of consistency in food safety from jurisdiction to jurisdiction? Should there be further prohibitions on the use of animal remains from being used as animal feed or should high risk animal parts, such as brains or spinal cords, be banned from any human or animal consumption?
Questions should be asked about whether the current amount of inspectors and labs is sufficient. While some additional funding has been added in recent years, some labs have had their capacities reduced and pathologists are in shorter supply. Alberta agriculture's chief provincial veterinarian has estimated that between $6 million and $10 million are needed to fully restore inspection facilities.
Canada needs to examine whether our current food and agriculture emergency response system, known as FAERS, is as comprehensive and efficient as it should be. There are, however, no set criteria that need to be met in order to enact that response system and emergency actions remain up to the discretion of the minister. Under what specific criteria will the minister decide what emergency measures are necessary in this case? I hope he will be in the House tonight to spell those measures out.
I want to come to the question of compensation. In response to the ice storm that ravaged Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick in 1998, the federal government contributed more than $717 million to counteract more than $1 billion in damage. The federal government should be prepared to compensate and protect industries whose business is damaged and whose reputation is tarnished as a result of BSE.
I should make the point that existing programs will not be enough. Existing emergency assistance programs, apart from taking too long to kick in, will not in the aggregate deal with the concerns and the problems that this is bound to cause in the industry across the country. Certainly programs of support in agriculture itself are not enough. The Prime Minister and the government should stop pretending that there is some money out there waiting to be called upon by individuals. What they need to do instead is very clearly and quickly ante up for people whose livelihoods may be devastated and severely affected in these cases.
We have seen what happened in SARS. In SARS the economic victims are people largely in the greater Toronto area who are people often of low incomes, people often operating small businesses, people not able to deal with this sudden attack upon their livelihood that came from the SARS case. The same thing applies in the cattle industry.
Today my colleague from Perth made the point about the layoff of some 100 people in Guelph. There are problems of that kind across the country and those simply must be addressed. There can be no playing around on the question of compensation.
Once the situation is under control and the major immediate questions have been answered, the government must take the lead in securing the Canadian beef industry's access to foreign markets. A concerted effort must be made to counteract any damage that has been done to our reputation abroad.
Obviously one area where the government has to move immediately to restore confidence is the United States. As the largest client of our beef industry, 40% of Canadian beef exports go to the United States. Another large segment of our exports traverse the U.S. en route to Mexico, our second biggest client.
We should, by the way, speaking of the United States, not to be offensive or combative, we should note the intervention of Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota. His intervention demonstrates that some Americans are prepared to exploit a crisis and misrepresent the facts to promote their own interests. In that context it is worth noting that between 1996-2002 several states in the United States, including Colorado, Kansas, Montana, South Dakota, have faced the challenge of chronic wasting disease in wild deer and elk. The Americans have also faced their own interstate bans such as the recent Ohio ban on importing deer and elk from Wisconsin.
This is a serious problem that needs to be addressed seriously on both sides of the border and it should not be exploited by Senator Dorgan or by anyone else.
The United States and all of Canada's customers have a right to demand assurances that Canadian beef is safe and the highest of quality. We must prove those assurances on the facts. We can work with the Americans and our other trading partners to avoid further drawn out border disputes that threaten an essential Canadian industry.
The Prime Minister should be involved in this issue directly. He should be talking directly to the President of the United States and making it clear that it is in both countries' interests to deal with the concerns raised by this discovery.
The government must assure that the free flow of goods across the border will resume and that the restrictions on Canadian beef are removed as soon as possible.
I see the signal that my time has expired. I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for your attention and I thank the House for granting this emergency debate on what is undoubtedly a very serious problem that must be addressed in the country.