Debates of Nov. 19th, 2012

Safe Food for Canadians Act

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I was simply pointing out the origin of the bill by the unelected, undemocratic, unaccountable Senate. No one chose them to create legislation on behalf of the Canadian people. No one gave them the right. In fact I question what they do over there. All I ever see of them in are parliamentary friendship committees. They seem to clutter up every parliamentary friendship committee like a bunch of globe-trotting quasi-diplomats, gallivanting around the world on behalf of Canada, trying to pretend that they are actually—

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. The hon. minister of state on the same point of order.

[Lynne Yelich, Conservative, Blackstrap, SK]

Mr. Speaker, that rant had nothing to do with food safety. It was a point the member wanted to make on the Senate, obviously, but I wanted to know if you could rethink your last judgment.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

As members know, members are afforded a great deal of liberty. The member for Winnipeg Centre clearly is making some points with respect to the origins of the bill that is before the House. He will surely, I am certain in the time that has been provided him, draw those ideas and relevance to the question that is actually before the House.

The hon. member for Winnipeg Centre.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I intend to address the relative merits of the bill, but I wanted to first point out the origin of the bill.

The Conservatives appointed the party president to the Senate, then the chief campaign manager of their election, then the chief fundraiser and then the communications director. The entire Conservative war room is now sitting in the Senate doing purely partisan work and the Canadian taxpayer is paying for it and their staff and their travel privileges. It is an atrocity. It is atrocious that the House of Commons does not rise up and finally deal with Senate reform because it is an international embarrassment.

As I said, the Conservatives lost any credibility when they killed the climate change bill without a single witness being heard and without a single hour of debate in that chamber. It took five years to get it through the House of Commons through careful delicate negotiations and it passed at all stages in the House of Commons.

In fact, that is the direction things are supposed to go. We develop the legislation, the Senate is allowed to check it for spelling mistakes and then we get it back. We do not deal with its legislation, it deals with our legislation.

The best thing to do with legislation like this that has an “S” on the front is to tear it up and throw it in the air. That is all it is good for.

[Hélène LeBlanc, NDP, LaSalle—Émard, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague who raised a very important point.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture pointed out that this is an important bill, a good bill, and that food safety and inspection are a priority for this government.

In my colleague's opinion, if this is such a priority for the government, why is this bill called Bill S-11?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for recognizing and acknowledging the fundamental problem I was trying to address in the limited time that I had.

The problem is that those guys are running roughshod over everything that is good and decent about our parliamentary democracy. In the one case, they are sliding legislation in from the Senate or through private members' business when the convention has it, and in fact our Westminster parliamentary democracy has it, that legislation originates in Parliament with the full scrutiny and oversight of the Canadian people subject to rigorous debate and subject to amendment to accommodate the legitimate concerns of the official opposition and the other opposition parties.

I do not care who one is, nobody has a monopoly on good ideas.

The Conservatives won a razor thin majority with 38% of the vote, of those who chose to vote. Some say that in fact they stole that election through election fraud and that they have no mandate to govern whatsoever. However, that is yet to be proven and I am not alleging anything of the sort.

Tradition dictates and in fact this fragile construct of our Westminster parliamentary democracy depends on the accommodation of legitimate concerns brought forward by the opposition through amendments to legislation. We brought 11 legitimate amendments to the table at committee. How many did the Conservatives allow? Not one. In fact, they have never allowed a single amendment to any legislation in the 41st Parliament.

[Laurin Liu, NDP, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of democracy, I would like to thank the hon. member for his very passionate speech.

This afternoon, we noticed that, with the exception of one Conservative member, only NDP members rose in the House to speak.

I am wondering why the Conservative members did not rise in the House to participate in the debate. Is it because they cut the CFIA's budget by $56.1 million? I think we have to ask ourselves that question.

The hon. member also mentioned the amendments that we proposed in committee. One of those amendments pertained to the average 5% fine imposed by the CFIA. The NDP proposed that the maximum penalty be increased to $5 million, which would have greatly improved this bill.

Can the hon. member comment on the NDP's proposals?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, it is quite true that the government moved hastily in getting through the analysis of this bill because its positions would not stand up to true rigorous scrutiny and oversight otherwise. Many of the amendments that we brought forward would have improved and enhanced the legislation and made it the best possible.

When we are dealing with a subject matter such as food safety, it is incumbent on the ruling party to make sure that the bill is as good as it could possibly be. The 62% of the population who voted for the opposition members had some legitimate points of view to bring to the table that they wanted accommodated.

The Conservatives are making a serious mistake, a serious oversight, by saying that no one else has any contribution to make to anything that we ever do in this Parliament, even a single amendment to a single piece of legislation. It is absurd to think that they have all of the ideas on the side of the angels on all these issues. We had a legitimate contribution to make with eleven meaningful amendments and Liberals with four, which would have enhanced the bill and made it better.

If the Conservatives learned to play nice we would have better legislation. Vigorous debate would have tested the mettle of their arguments—

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord.

[Jonathan Tremblay, NDP, Montmorency—Charlevoix—Haute-Côte-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, as many of my colleagues have mentioned, very few Conservatives rose in the House to defend their bill or to ask the official opposition questions.

What is more, this bill originated in the Senate. We must therefore wonder who is working for whom, and who is in charge of strategy when it comes to bills.

I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about that.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, as I said, the Conservatives are running roughshod over everything that is good and decent about our parliamentary democracy. They are cutting a swath through tradition, precedent and so forth by asking the Senate to check their bills.

We in the House generate the legislation. The people of Canada elected us for the express purpose of generating legislation in this chamber. The Senate is allowed to check the spelling and make sure it does not offend the Constitution in any way and can send it back for a modest amendment if it sees fit. It does not get to write the legislation. That is not normal. I do not want the people of Canada to think that is normal or right, or that it can even serve the interests of Canadians.

The other piece of legislation that the Senate unilaterally and arbitrarily killed, which is why I believe the other chamber has lost any credibility whatsoever, is the drugs for Africa bill. The Stephen Lewis Foundation and the Grandmothers Advocacy Network to get generic drugs to Africa—

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order. Questions and comments. We usually try to keep the time for responses about the same time.

The hon. member for Sudbury.

[Glenn Thibeault, NDP, Sudbury, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his impassioned speech, questions and answers.

In listening to the debate we heard that eleven amendments were presented by our party and four by the Liberals. The opposition was coming up with ideas to try to make the bill work better for Canadians. Instead what we have is a bill from the Senate, and we know how the member feels about the Senate.

However, when talking about food security and food safety, we also wonder about the loss of the Wheat Board. There was no sober second thought from that other place when it trashed that.

I would like to hear my hon. colleague's comments.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That is a good point, Mr. Speaker. The Conservatives unilaterally, arbitrarily, absolutely cancelled one of the most significant and important pieces of legislation to come out of the Commons in a decade, the climate change bill.

It was Jack Layton's bill. He actually gave it to that ungrateful guy from Thunder Bay North. He let that guy from Thunder Bay handle it because he was so pouty and it gave him something to do so it was not in Jack's name, but it was Jack Layton's bill.

It hurts me to this day to see the Conservatives trample all over five years work and committed improvements. Back in the days when Parliament used to work, we worked hard to make that good legislation. They abused their authority and, I argue, lost any right to enjoy any credibility of the Canadian people.

Imagine the Conservatives appointing their party president and the campaign manager. Hacks and flacks and bagmen is what it has come down to, doing purely partisan work. The Conservatives have long strayed from any credible, legitimate function and role. They are more a hindrance than a help. They are an obstacle to democracy. They do not enhance democracy in any way. They are a barrier to democracy. We should not be—

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Berthier—Maskinongé.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague's speech was powerful and moving. He is always a pleasure to listen to and his points are very valid. I find it hard sometimes being heckled and laughed at by the Conservatives. It is not always a fun thing.

Could my colleague speak to ministerial responsibility, what happened with XL Foods and what happened afterward?

I found there was a huge lack of transparency and communication on the part of the government. Could my colleague elaborate on how important it is to be transparent, honest and open, especially when it comes to the safety of Canadians every day?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Perhaps, Mr. Speaker, this is what has led to the heightened level choleric in this debate. It is the subject matter of the bill that we are dealing with today.

We are talking about the Canadian food safety act. We are talking about what we put on our children's' plates. We want to be able to ensure that as a western developed nation, we can trust the health and the safety of the food we eat. Therefore, it is particularly galling to lose any opportunity to have meaningful input, debate and witnesses being heard.

We could not hear from a single witness at the XL Foods plant, the workers at the actual plant who may have had some guidance to offer as to the day-to-day operations of the plant that could benefit from the oversight of members of the House of Commons.

It was flawed legislation by its very origins, the fact that it came from the other place. The process was then flawed. The parliamentary secretary keeps saying that we could have met as many times as we wanted. When the motion was put forward to extend committee hearings, it was defeated. I do not know what kind of Orwellian doublespeak those guys—

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

Order, please. That will conclude the period for questions and comments.

Resuming debate. Is the House ready for the question?

[Some hon. members]

Question.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

No.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

All those in favour of the motion will please say yea.

[Some hon. members]

Yea.

[The Acting Speaker, Bruce Stanton]

All those opposed will please say nay.