Mr. Chair, I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak in the House on such an important issue. Without a doubt, BSE has affected every Canadian in one way or another.
Certainly once Canadians found out about a cow testing positive for BSE the public sought assurances that their food supply was still safe. It was, and the government has taken steps to make sure it stays that way. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the agency responsible for food safety in Canada, has been implementing BSE safeguards since 1989, well before the disease emerged in this part of the world. These proactive measures detected BSE and kept it out of our food supply.
Members may recall that after the infected animal was found the agency took immediate steps to quarantine locations and conduct detailed feed trace-backs and trace-forward investigations. No additional animals were found to be infected. This was very encouraging news. It told us that the investment we made in BSE safeguards over the years had worked as designed to protect Canadian food safety and animal health.
Last December, the CFIA worked very closely with its American counterpart to identify the origin of the cow in Washington State that was found to be infected. Again, the agency was quick and was able to trace the cow back to a farm in Alberta.
This discovery of the second case did not mean that the disease was spreading. It served to confirm our suspicions that there was probably a previously undetected low presence of BSE in North America.
After detecting this first case, the government's first priority was to protect public health. Within weeks, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Health Canada had developed a nationwide program to require that specified risk material, SRM, be removed from all animals slaughtered in Canada. SRMs are tissues that in infected cattle have the potential to harbour BSE agent. This action keeps BSE from entering our food supply and is internationally recognized as the most effective measure that can be taken to protect public health from BSE.
Once food safety was protected, the government focused its attention on animal health safeguards. We increased our surveillance activities, because if there are indeed animals in Canada with BSE, we want to find them. We expanded our capacity for doing more BSE tests. We are also enhancing measures for the national database that identifies cattle through ear tags.
In terms of eradicating BSE, the most important step Canada can take is to enhance animal feed controls. Feed controls are internationally recognized as critical measures to eliminate BSE from the animal population. That is why on July 9, 2004, the government announced that it intends to require the removal of bovine SRM from the animal feed chain.
Doing so will add an additional level of security to Canada's current feed ban, which has prohibited feeding cattle with ruminant materials such as SRM since 1997. All the evidence indicates that existing feed controls continue to limit BSE spread, but we recognize that measures are necessary to prevent human error, which could result in inadvertent exposure of cattle to prohibited materials. Doing so will diminish the effect of potential cross-contamination of ruminant animal feeds that could occur as feed is produced and distributed, as well as any inappropriate on-farm use.
Based on risk analyses, taking this action will more quickly eliminate the incidence of BSE in North America by preventing future disease development. Enhancing our feed ban aligns with the recommendation of an international panel of experts that reviewed our BSE situation last July. The agency, together with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and Health Canada, has consulted with the feed industry, provincial and territorial representatives and counterparts from the Food and Drug Administration.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is moving ahead as quickly as possible with these changes, but this is not a minor adjustment that can be implemented overnight. The regulatory proposal must be practical and verifiable. Removal of SRMs from feed will impact numerous stakeholders and jurisdictions. A certain amount of time is needed to properly develop this complex measure.
When BSE emerged in Canada, it brought potential new threats to human and animal health. Today the food supply remains safe and measures are in place to keep Canadian cattle healthy. Nonetheless, we recognize that even the best systems can be strengthened and, based on our commitment to continuous improvement and enhancement, these are on the way. Canadians can be confident that the elimination of BSE remains key to government priorities.