Madam Speaker, I am pleased to make what will probably be the final presentation on this bill for tonight. I really want to speak to this bill because I have some very serious concerns about it.
This bill would broaden and enhance the powers of the CFIA, especially the top brass in the CFIA. Most of the people on the ground are excellent people, very capable and really do a great service for Canadians in providing food safety. Unfortunately, the top bureaucrats simply are not like that. They interfere way too often and they have proven that they can hurt business and food safety. They can really be a negative body when it comes to providing agriculture production. For that reason, I will not support this bill.
Part of the intent of the bill is certainly something that I desire and that my party desires. We would like to consolidate and modernize the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the responsibilities that it has. However, until such time that we see clearly that the top bureaucrats are reigned in and made to work for Canadians rather than to protect their own interests and to protect some possible difficulty they would have in facing the consequences of decisions they make, I will not support any legislation which will give them more power.
In fact, when the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was presented as a concept by the government back in 1995, I opposed it and my party opposed it. We opposed it for the very reason that establishing an agency presented us with some concern that there would not be proper ministerial control of that body, and that bureaucrats could get out of control. Eight years of operating under the CFIA has demonstrated that it was a very legitimate concern. It has happened and has led to some very disastrous consequences for Canadian farmers in particular.
There are four different issues that I want to tie in with this presentation, by pointing out that the top brass of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency are simply providing unreasonable barriers to Canadian farmers.
The first is the packer issue. If we look at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's people on the ground, most of them have behaved admirably through this period where we desperately need new packers to start up. However, again and again, the top brass in Ottawa, people who really do not know what is going on in western Canada or across Ontario or Quebec, have interfered with good decisions made by people on the ground.
This is truly a bureaucracy out of control. As a result, we had to fight with the top brass of the CFIA kicking, scratching and shouting to even get the Blue Mountain Packers operating. All the CFIA people on the ground indicated this should go quickly. It took months for it to finally happen.
We desperately need at least two more packers, but two more that are well on their way to being built, so that we can have the packing capacity we need to deal with this BSE crisis. We need to process our beef right here in this country instead of exporting live animals to the United States. The CFIA has provided roadblocks for these packers that are completely unacceptable. It will continue to do so until the bureaucrats here in Ottawa are reigned in. Until we see a different attitude on the part of the top brass in the CFIA, I cannot support any broadening or enhancement of their powers.
The second issue comes from two different small business people in my constituency who want to import beef products from the United States. They have been doing this for several years. They have come a long way toward building up very successful import businesses. These are products they could not get in Canada, although I hope that will change over the next few months. There is no reason at all that we could not be producing these products in Canada, but that is another story.
Both of these people have had their businesses destroyed due to unreasonable intrusion by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. In spite of my efforts and efforts of others to get the CFIA to look at this in a reasonable fashion and to back off from unreasonable interference. It has interfered to the point that these people have, in effect, gone out of business. They cannot continue to make a profit operating like this.
The third area where the CFIA is intervening and interfering, in a way that is negatively impacting farmers and business in this country, is in the area of interprovincial trade and agriculture products in particular. It is a matter of empire building and protecting an empire which has led to this problem.
We all know that provincial meat inspectors are as good as any federal inspectors anywhere in the country. Alberta meat inspectors are trained with the same standards as the federal inspectors. Why on earth can we not have provincial inspectors inspecting beef at small plants across the country and then exporting that beef to anywhere else in the country, not out of the country? We need the federal inspection regime for exports.
We need to have free movement of beef within our country for farmers to deal effectively with the BSE problem. Yet, here we are complaining that we cannot get free trade with the United States because there is unreasonable interference in moving our live animals and some animal parts to the United States. That is a problem, and it is unreasonable the way the United States has held that up. But it is shameful that we cannot get beef moving freely within our own country.
It is costing farmers their farms. It is costing plants because they could expand and become much better businesses, and create even more jobs than they are creating right now in our local communities. That is holding them back. I blame the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to a large degree and its empire protection. I blame it for the fact that we still have no free movement of meat products across this country. That is unbelievable. That is the third area.
I have heard unreasonable talk and unreasonable action coming from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. That is another thing that leads me to believe that it should not have its powers expanded until the top bureaucrats are reigned in.
I want to repeat again that many of the employees at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency are truly marvellous employees. They provide a great service for Canadians by inspecting various agricultural products and ensure a safe food supply. It is the people at the top who are to blame, the people who are locked away in some room here in Ottawa and cannot understand what is going on. Rather than face a tough decision, they put decisions off that cost farmers unbelievably and also cost consumers because those decisions drive up prices.
There is a fourth area and one that I was involved in quite closely. It involves certain elk herds in Alberta and Saskatchewan which were destroyed when chronic wasting disease came along a few years ago.
I have talked on several occasions with the Ferrances and McAllisters, who own elk farms in Alberta and Saskatchewan. They understood the need for their herds to be destroyed. It was tough on them, but they did not argue with that. They argued with the disgusting way that the CFIA carried this out. I must admit that they were absolutely right on.
CFIA put restrictions on the production of other livestock such as bison or cattle on these farms. It told these farmers that they simply could not produce any ruminant livestock in spite of the fact that there was no evidence that chronic wasting disease could spread to other animals. The CFIA told them this in spite of the fact that the McAllisters and Ferrances went to great cost and great effort, and spent probably $100,000 cleaning up the land so that they could put other livestock on it. After they went to that expense, then and only then, the CFIA stepped in and said they could not produce bison or cattle or any other livestock on that land. That was wrong.
As a result of those heavy-handed actions and poor judgment on the part of the top brass in CFIA, I am not going to support this legislation. I do not believe my party will either and I hope other members will do the same.