Mr. Speaker, of course, I am going to support this bill, but once again, it does not go far enough.
This is a very important bill. It affects Canadians across the country because we eat every day. In Canada, one in eight jobs is related to agriculture. With regard to the markets, it is a multi-million dollar industry. We must therefore protect Canada's food safety system. Yes, this debate is important and the amendments that we proposed in committee were really good, but I was disappointed in the way that this took place. Yet, here we are today.
Bill S-11 is a first step in the right direction to improve and modernize the food safety system, and the NDP has been calling for the modernization of this legislation since Sheila Weatherill's report was published in 2009. However, Canadians need the government to invest more resources in the food safety system, rather than just streamlining the regulations. Although we support the content of this bill, we do not think that it goes far enough.
The witnesses who appeared before the Senate committee that conducted a more in-depth examination of this bill said that the bill would not have prevented the E. coli outbreak at the XL Foods plant in Brooks, Alberta. Although the NDP believes that this bill is essential to improving Canada's food safety, we also believe that passing this bill without taking into account the amendments proposed by the opposition once again demonstrates the government's ill will. This is nothing new. We see it here almost everyday.
Every day, we represent our constituents here in Ottawa, and we are proud to do so. They are the ones who voted for us. We are here because of them. So, each day, I try to do my best to stand up for their interests. This seems only natural. However, I get the distinct impression that the members opposite often forget this basic principle. I will explain why.
Let me begin with a brief review of the facts. On October 17, the safe food for Canadians act, Bill S-11, was passed by the Senate. The purpose of this bill is to increase the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's resources and tools. At the beginning of the month, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food did a clause-by-clause review of the bill. As a member of that committee, I am very disappointed with this government's attitude toward this bill.
Today, the parliamentary secretary talked about this bill and all the good things that will come out of it, but it is the opposition MPs who keep talking. The parliamentary secretary was the only government representative to speak in favour of this bill. We have done our homework. All the witnesses who came to committee worked hard and shared their time and expertise with us. We worked very hard to propose constructive amendments, but, unfortunately, none of them were adopted. That is very disappointing, because the primary purpose of this bill is to ensure optimal food safety for all Canadians.
I would like to talk about some of the suggestions we made in committee. We thought it was important to add whistleblower protection measures that take into account the fact that the Criminal Code authorizes these types of measures. Allow me to begin by saying that other acts of Parliament explicitly present protection measures for whistleblowers that go beyond those in the Criminal Code, which is a good thing.
The purpose of this protection is to allow employees to come forward and feel secure—I repeat, feel secure—with this idea that they can tell inspectors things that they may not be able to see. In the case of XL Foods, we heard that this could have helped them.
During the latest tainted beef crisis, the largest beef recall in Canadian history, the workers said that they were aware of what was happening and knew that things were happening in a way that they did not believe was right, but because they felt vulnerable, they did not dare blow the whistle.
That is why we want whistleblower protection. I think we need to have a closer look at that. It is a standard model that can apply to many statutes that are enacted.
Accordingly, people can feel comfortable coming forward with a reasonable complaint, a complaint that has merit and that can be addressed in a way so that they do not feel their employment or their advancement is jeopardized, or any of the other things that people might feel vulnerable about.
We believe that in the case of XL Foods, such a measure would have limited the damage or perhaps even prevented the situation altogether.
That is the rationale for whistleblower protection.
I think this proposal made a lot of sense. It did not take anything away from the bill. On the contrary, it contributed something and enhanced the bill's effectiveness.
I really would have liked to see some openness on the part of the government, my Conservative colleagues. I like when we work together. I think it is important to do so here in the House. I would have liked us to work toward the same end: to improve a bill that is so important to food safety and consumer protection.
Year after year, on the Conservatives' watch, the number of food inspectors has decreased. Meanwhile, the food industry is more and more at risk.
At the committee stage, we proposed an amendment that called for an immediate audit as soon as the bill came into force. Clearly, food safety systems need to be reviewed regularly. We simply cannot allow another E. coli outbreak in the next five years. Unfortunately, the Conservative members of the committee voted against that amendment. It is really too bad, because in five years, we will have no basis for comparison. I think this is a waste of time.
If we do so now, if we create a basis and carry on, I think this will help us. This will be an improvement, not something that will harm the bill. The amendments we proposed made positive changes to the bill.
I would like to draw your attention to an excerpt from the testimony that Bob Kingston, national president of the Agriculture Union, gave before the Senate committee on October 2. I would like to point out that Mr. Kingston has 25 years of experience as an inspector and 15 years of experience as a supervisor, so he is someone who knows his stuff. He said:
I urge the committee to amend this bill to make such a review mandatory. I do note that an amendment has been put forward by the government, but it does not require a resource audit of the CFIA until five years after the bill becomes law. It is sort of like crossing your fingers and hoping nothing bad happens for five years. We already know that the CFIA has a problem; do not wait for another outbreak before addressing it.
We thus proposed several amendments to strengthen the bill. We never opposed this bill. Our sole objective was to strengthen and improve Bill S-11 by making clarifications and giving it more teeth.
We also asked for a mechanism related to stakeholders who represent the public interest on the arbitration board. We want to strike a balance between the interests of companies and the defence of public health.
It is a way for all voices to be represented and defended when it comes to food safety. Our amendment was rejected without any discussion, questions or explanation.
Another important amendment that we proposed asked that, on the coming into force of this section, the minister undertake an audit that includes an assessment of the resources allocated to the administration and enforcement of this act in order to get baseline information to be applied to reviews undertaken every five years. We need a basis for comparison right away, otherwise we will have to wait 10 years, which is a long time, before we can see the effects of these changes.
Bob Kingston also said:
If we are not careful, the successful enactment of Bill S-11, as well as the CFIA's new inspection modernization initiative, could fall victim to these pressures, as did the compliance verification system, or CVS, before them.
If you cast your memories back to the summer of 2008, just months before the Maple Leaf Foods outbreak, you will remember that the CFIA had just launched CVS. Without a serious pilot phase and before any lessons learned in development could be implemented, the agency had no idea how many inspectors were needed to do the job under CVS or what skills and training they might require.
That is what Sheila Weatherill recommended in her report on the 2008 listeriosis crisis, and that is what we asked for following the E. coli crisis. Unfortunately, we will have to continue asking because the Conservatives rejected that amendment.
Following the E. coli crisis this fall, members on both sides of the House knew that we would have to take action to ensure that this does not happen again. The Conservatives tried to make us believe that Bill S-11 was a solution. I have already said that I completely disagree. This bill does not go far enough and does not address a major problem at CFIA: the budget cuts that are forcing food inspectors to do their job with fewer resources.
When we discussed Bill S-11 at second reading stage, I informed my Conservative colleagues that we would move amendments in the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food. I had hoped that, in committee, with the evidence of expert witnesses and the time to concentrate on each clause, we could have a constructive, positive and honest discussion that would improve the bill. When I arrived here 18 months ago—time passes so quickly—I was somewhat naive. I believed that we would work together to improve things for Canadians. We were elected to protect the interests of Canadians, and I honestly believed that we would work together. That is not at all the case. It happens once in a while, but it all depends. On this file, it is not at all the case.
We moved a number of reasonable amendments that would have improved food safety in Canada, mainly by providing more clarity, preventing conflicts of interest, deterring companies' risky behaviour and providing more protection for CFIA workers and inspectors.
Since I have five minutes remaining, I will talk about the people who support our position, since there are many. The Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food dedicated three meetings to examining Bill S-11, and since we did not have enough time to bring in witnesses, I often had to refer to what happened in the Senate.
If Bill S-11 had first gone to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-food, it would have been our pleasure to study it.
I will briefly explain what we want. But before I do that, I would like to say something about the crisis at XL Foods. We are not the ones who discovered the E. coli bacteria; it was the United States. It has mandatory testing that can detect the bacteria, which is not the case here in Canada.
Why does Canada not have that mandatory testing? I do not know, but that is something we are looking at.
I will now briefly explain what we want.
We want a comprehensive audit of the compliance verification system, as recommended by Sheila Weatherill.
We also want measures to adequately protect workers at meat processing plants who sound the alarm. We want to ensure that whistleblowers are protected.
We want to ensure that the CFIA has adequate resources and that it has the authority and independence it needs to do its job.
We want to strengthen the traceability requirements for meat, fish, fruit, vegetables—for all fresh foods.
We also want better and more transparent monitoring. During the E. coli crisis, there was a huge lack of transparency with respect to XL Foods, which was disappointing. We noted a lot of problems. In the House, we asked questions about XL Foods in order to understand what had happened, what would be done and what would be the future of the CFIA, but it was very hard to get answers. I think that transparency is very important, especially when it comes to food safety in Canada.
Although I did not talk about it, the question of labelling is also important. More and more, people want to know where their food comes from. They are increasingly curious about and interested in their food. Better oversight of labelling is therefore very important.
Those were our concerns.
Another person who agreed with our amendments was Neil Peacock, a member of the National Farmers Union board and a cattle producer from Sexsmith, Alberta. He remembers the 22 people who died and the 57 people who got sick during the listeriosis crisis in 2008 at Maple Leaf Foods. He wonders if the situation at XL Foods is not further proof that food safety and sovereignty in Canada are in danger.
I think there are lessons to be learned from all this. Yes, there were problems. Yes, perhaps some mistakes were made. However, I am thinking about the future, and Bill S-11, which I have right here, is a good bill if we bring in the amendments. We proposed 11 amendments, which I think are all good.
I am a little disappointed, but we will continue to think about the future.
