This was a provincial slaughterhouse, but we are in a major crisis. The fact is we have a regional food economy. Small producers are unable to sell products to other provinces, say Manitoba sausage to Ontario or Quebec cheese to another province. There is continual interference in this area. We are talking about making smart regulations to move massive amounts across the U.S. border. However, within Canada, the CFIA has acted as a stop for a number of areas where we could open up our domestic agricultural trade and people could benefit.
The CFIA backgrounder talks about improved border enforcement tools, the creation of the Canada Border Services Agency and some of the CFIA regulatory powers will be transferred to that.
In light of some of the concerns that we are hearing over the U.S. homeland security act and the continual interference on Canadian sovereignty, we have to raise serious questions about handing over these powers to the United States and the potential of limiting our own CFIA inspectors here.
There are some other serious concerns in terms of our foreign inspection arrangements, that we recognize certificates of inspection issued by inspection providers recognized by the agency. Perhaps I am not reading this properly, and I would not doubt that, but are we talking about the ability of the CFIA to download responsibility to other contractors or to accept U.S. recommendations simply carte blanche? If that is the case, we will have serious questions.
In talking about foreign inspection arrangements on imports, the bill states, “In exercising its responsibility the agency may enter into arrangements with a foreign government, a foreign government agency or a foreign government organization respecting the importation of regulated products into Canada if the agency is satisfied that the legal requirements”, blah, blah, blah.
What we are talking about is streamlining our regulatory processes with the United States. Again, we have set certain standards that Canadians trust. In terms of trying to integrate a North American market, we always know that our standards will be lowered to meet their standards.
In terms of the BSE crisis, I am very concerned about this, because Canadians have pushed for, and we are continuing to push for, very strong cattle policies. We have not seen similar support from the United States on that.
We talk about the issue that food safety should not be negotiable. Yet clause 11, which deals with foreign inspections, says that we will rely on the results of inspections conducted by other agencies, other departments. I think the United States would agree with this, but again, how does the Canadian consumer react to this?
There is one other area I will touch on tonight, because this will be going back to committee and we will be looking at a lot of the aspects. We were given a slide show presentation on paper. We do not get real slide shows any more; we just get the paper. The government members talked about bringing in a complaints mechanism relating to public health and safety. Of course, that sounds like a motherhood issue and we should all support that.
The question I asked at the time, and I have not heard an answer, was what about whistleblower legislation? It should be enshrined for people who bring forth concerns, civil servants such as the Health Canada officials who raised serious concerns about regulatory processes in Canada and it resulted in their being fired. That is shameful. That sets the lowest standard possible. If we are talking about any kind of complaints mechanism, we should be talking about protecting our own civil servants and scientists from Health Canada or from CFIA who come forward with legitimate concerns which may impact upon the health of Canadians.
Before the bill goes any further, I would like to see that kind of language put in very clearly.