Debates of May 14th, 2009

Agriculture and Agri-food--Main Estimates, 2009-10

[The Chair, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

Order. I am going to have to cut off the hon. member to allow the minister a few seconds for a very brief response.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Chair, it is always dangerous to make a blanket statement that everybody is in trouble. That is not the case. There is a growing number of livestock producers who are actually seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. I know that is a well-worn cliché, but it is absolutely true.

There are some problems in the hog sector. We continue to work with that sector and with the provinces and territories to come up with a program that will not be challenged, that will serve their best interests, and continue to open those markets for them.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Chair, I will be sharing my time with the member for Avalon and the member for Malpeque.

I would like to review four areas with the minister. The first one is organic food.

As the minister is aware, there are divergent standards between what Canada requires and what the Americans require. I am wondering if the minister has any plans to do something about that to bring some form of harmonization so that first of all, we know that what is coming into our country is actually certified as organic and second, that we are able to export and help our producers bring those products to the United States.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

That is a great question, Mr. Chair, because the organic sector is growing. We are looking at standardization of those rules and regulations. We have just developed a new organic logo, working with the affected producers. We are moving ahead with a new benchmark. This whole idea of self-accreditation is no longer on the table, and we are asking that of our import-export situations as well.

What we need is a level playing field in organics, the same as we see in other industries. We will continue to work with our import sector, as well as our export sector, to make sure that there is accreditation that is based on sound science and continues to serve the industry and consumers well.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Chair, continuing with organics, I am also interested in making sure that there is meaningful supervision to ensure that people do not just slap labels on products and call them organic.

What I would like to know is whether the minister thinks what we currently have is adequate and what might be considered for the future.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Chair, we will continue to work with industry on that particular situation. We want to make sure that what is labelled organic can be proved to be organic, and we will continue to work with the industry to that end.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Chair, I want to discuss the health of food items, and specifically animals with respect to hormones. In Canada, we allow the use of bovine growth hormones, which are banned in the EU. My question is, what is the most recent scientific information that the Canadian government has in terms of the use of growth hormones in animals in Canada and specifically how they relate to food consumption and health issues?

Subject to what the minister might tell the House in terms of what the most recent studies are, my next question will be, will the minister commission a recent study to actually show, based on the most recent scientific evidence possible, and frankly, capabilities, what is healthy, what is not healthy and what we should be allowing at this stage by way of growth hormones in any type of animal for consumption?

[The Chair, Conservative, Andrew Scheer]

I should remind members again to address their remarks through the chair and not directly to members.

The hon. minister.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Chair, we do not want to leave you out. We know you are important here.

These are great questions from the member for Brampton West. We actually have an implant system for animal hormones. I know the EU talks about hormones. We have actually banned rBST, and so on. The Americans have not; we have. The arguments were just levelled in our favour with the EU ban, because we have been able to prove that we do not use what it says we did.

That said, everything we allow or not allow is based on sound scientific testing. We continue to do that on a case-by-case basis, depending on what pops up. We constantly commission scientific studies to look for the impacts of those types of situations. I am sure we could provide a list of websites, or whatever, to check. I see Dr. Evans nodding his head. We could get those, should the member require them.

They are peer reviewed. We recognize what the Americans have done, and they recognize what we have done. We work in collaboration with the EU, and so on. It is a global situation. That said, we want to make sure that the highest standards are what is recognized here in Canada.

We proved that point with the EU just lately, so we will actually have some money coming back to our livestock sector, because it held us out of its markets with some unsubstantiated scientific facts that were not true.

[Andrew Kania, Liberal, Brampton West, ON]

Mr. Chair, in addition, I have similar questions with respect to the use of antibiotics in animals.

When people go to the grocery store, they will see some producers advertise specifically “no use of antibiotics”, but other producers use them. I am wondering what the most recent scientific evidence that we are relying upon as Canadians happens to be in terms of what is safe or not safe, whether we should be allowing these antibiotics, and whether there is some form of deleterious effect that is occurring in the population with respect to perhaps humans not having the benefit of these various antibiotics because we are getting them in our food. So perhaps we are not able to get the same medical benefits from them.

I am not a scientist, I am a lawyer, but I am wondering whether we should be considering this.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Chair, we are crossing the line into what is more in Health Canada's bailiwick than mine. Certainly I could take that under advisement and forward it on to my colleague, the Minister of Health.

That said, everything that is done in Canada is based on scientific studies beforehand. We are not reactive in those situations. We want to make sure that the antibiotics used have no side effects or concerns whatsoever. We continue to make sure that our standard of care is beyond what is required.

Residue levels are monitored constantly. They are upgraded and standardized by Health Canada, as well as CFIA.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Chair, earlier this evening the minister talked about keeping promises and that being a hallmark.

I have a question. In the last election, the Conservative Party promised to cut the excise tax on diesel by 2¢. It was not in budget 2009. It would be a great time to move forward with this for farmers and fishermen. When should we expect the implementation of that?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Chair, we have actually done two things. Since then, we have cut the GST by 2¢, which is more than what we had pledged to do when it comes to fuel, simply by taking off the GST. We have since started working towards taking half the excise tax away on diesel fuel and we will continue to work on the rest.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Chair, this question is on the listeriosis crisis around election time. In regard to the handwritten notes that were tabled as documents with the subcommittee in reference to the PCO and the PMO, how frequent were the communications with the minister and the PMO and PCO?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Chair, the committee received everything it asked for, and we are happy to do that. I can assure the hon. member that we had organizational meetings twice a day, I believe, where all the affected groups he has mentioned were included.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Chair, my next question to the minister is this: How often did the minister receive input from the PMO in reference to communications on the outbreak?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Chair, there were no specific references to communications. Certainly we worked with public health, Health Canada, the PMO, PCO, my department, CFIA, and so on. As I said, it was twice a day. In the morning we analyzed what had come in overnight, and by noon we analyzed what had happened that day. The reporting structure was from the provinces, not us, so we had to do constant updates. Then we went out and met the press, pardon that pun, every day at about four o'clock. Dr. Evans was there every day with me as well.

We constantly had discussions around how to communicate to make sure that we were assuring Canadians that it was under control, that we were working towards that. Of course, we had statistics we had to relay each day, and we continued to do that.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Chair, in those handwritten notes about the outbreak, it was referred to that this was an election issue. What was meant by that?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Chair, I do not know who took those notes, but that never crossed my mind.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Chair, I am going to move on to the altered inspection reports. The minister told the media and others that he did not monitor the day-to-day operations of the CFIA. Could the minister please explain that?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Chair, I do not. I handled this question at committee. Cameron Prince, the director of operations for CFIA, did answer that question in that there were two inspectors involved on the plant floor. When the audit was done some months later, they went back and compared with the two inspectors and put everything down on one sheet. As he said, it was not a change or alteration of any kind; it was to make sure that all the information was on one sheet.

[Scott Andrews, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Mr. Chair, when the outbreak occurred and all this was going on, the minister was having day-to-day communications with PCO and the PMO. However, he did not have contact with the CFIA. Is that correct?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Chair, no, not at all. We were all in the same room, around the boardroom table, discussing the issues and how we would move forward, what types of notification we would give to Canadians and how to assure them that the recall processes were going on. We made sure Canadians knew which products we were looking for and in which areas of the country. We got out as much information as we possibly could on a day-by-day basis.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chair, I have another question on listeriosis. The rendition given by the hon. member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex leaves many open questions about environmental testing, but I will only ask one.

In a question from the parliamentary secretary at committee, and I quote:

In 2005...mandatory environmental testing was removed. Is that correct?

Dr. Evans replied:

At no time was there mandatory requirements for industry to do environmental testing.

The rendition from the hon. member for Lambton—Kent—Middlesex and the answer from Dr. Evans do not match. One is incorrect. Could the minister tell us which one it is?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Chair, the hon. member for Malpeque is being a little bit mischievous, and he is quite good at it. What Dr. Evans said was that industry never was required to do mandatory testing, government was, and it was the government testing that was cancelled under the Liberal government.