I am sorry, Mr. Speaker.
The safety of the Canadian people must be given the highest consideration in our decision-making process. Unfortunately, the idea that a looming election or possible election interfered with straightforward communications with the people of Canada raises very serious questions in terms of what the public deserved and needed to know at that time.
We need much greater coordination between our food safety bodies. It was very concerning to us today in the subcommittee on food safety to realize that Ontario has come forward with only one report at this time. Canada has three separate reports: one from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, one from the Public Health Agency of Canada, and one from Health Canada. The reports themselves conflict with one another. Now we have an inquiry set up by the Prime Minister that reports directly to the minister who seems to have been implicated in this shoddy response.
President Obama has tasked his secretaries of health and agriculture with reviewing every federal law that has to do with food safety.
In a time when such comprehensive efforts are being undertaken across the border, what is preventing us from taking an extensive look at our own food safety framework? Since we import a great deal of foodstuffs from the United States, we also must put more effort into the harmonization of regulations. Working together with American food safety officials can only make it stronger.
The questions that have been raised already are very concerning to those on the subcommittee. We have only begun our important work and already it seems that the government of the day is interfering.
We had asked that there be at least six hours, twice a week, from April 20 until this time. I am sorry to report to the House that out of a possible 54 hours that the committee should have met, we have only met 27 times. Extraordinarily important ministers like Minister Clement, Minister Aglukkaq have not appeared--