Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to contribute to this evening's debate on the avian flu.
Over the past 12 months we have gone through various experiences in Canada with agriculture-related diseases that affect our livestock. We all know about mad cow disease, which is still causing major problems throughout Canada, including in Quebec, some 4,000 km from the source of the disease. Farmers are paying the price for a disease that, in my opinion, was not so serious and existed very far away from the major herds in Quebec.
Avian flu is a highly contagious disease and is transmitted to birds in general, including wild and domestic birds, and even those kept as pets. It should be noted that this disease is not easily transmitted to humans.
When such an epidemic strikes, it is essential to prevent the public from panicking, thinking that it poses a risk to humans. Avian influenza could be contracted by humans only through close contact with birds, for example by individuals working in poultry houses or with poultry, thereby increasing their risk of contracting the virus. There are only one or two cases where humans have contracted avian influenza. So, it is important that the public knows that there is no cause for panic here.
At the same time, it is important to take all the necessary measures to control this disease. People in Vancouver and British Colombia are not responsible for the outbreak of this disease, but I think that we must congratulate them for taking the necessary precautions to prevent the disease from spreading any further.
Thirty-one farms are said to be affected. Despite the precautions, we see just how easy it is for the disease to spread from farm to farm, particularly among poultry farms. I heard comments, for example, about the way poultry carcasses were buried or burned, and people mentioned the risk of crows and wild animals carrying and spreading the disease, causing more serious problems.
I personally had the opportunity to work in this field; I used to inspect such farms. I can tell you that one can never be too careful about contact between farms. The minister said that it is absolutely essential for visitors to take all the necessary precautions, and I fully agree. The cars and trucks driven by those needing to visit such farms must be inspected. It is absolutely essential that the necessary efforts be made so that, at that level, the disease is not spread within a riding or outside it.
Enormous damage has already been done. We can imagine what this means for poultry farmers who have to slaughter their entire stock and sterilize all their equipment.
This is a fairly considerable loss of revenue, a major financial loss. I hope that the minister will look to providing assistance for these people, who are not responsible for such an epidemic in their area.
Often people think that there is substantial assistance when there is reimbursement of the value of a slaughtered bird. I can tell you from experience that this is not true. When birds are slaughtered, it is often in a quarantine situation and so a great deal of expense is incurred to ensure that the entire farm and its surroundings are sterilized. This is a very expensive undertaking.
As I said, people ought not to panic in this case because this is a disease rarely transmitted to humans. The necessary precautions must be taken, however, to ensure farms are inspected.
I would like to congratulate the minister in this instance, because action was taken quickly enough that the disease is so far limited to only one region of British Columbia. In fact, all 31 affected farms are in the same area.
Had the same been done, or had there been perhaps a little less panic about mad cow, the burden on the taxpayer would have been far less.
As I have already said, Quebec producers have suffered, and are still suffering, financially because of one mad cow 4,000 km away. That time they did not deal with only the area in which there was an epidemic and so the whole country suffered.
Now, at least where avian flu is concerned, they do know how to monitor the situation, so the rest of the industry will not suffer if all necessary precautions are taken. Precautions must be taken, and we can never take too many if we want other countries to continue to trade with us. Let us keep in mind how heavy the cost was in the case of mad cow, because the border was closed down.
We know that the entire poultry production is quota-driven. This is what is called supply management. Because of the 19 million chickens to be slaughtered—and we hope that is as high as the number will go—there will be a shortage, and we will have to accept imports. Caution is in order, however, because the entire supply management system cannot be made to suffer from the presence of this disease in one part of the country. This is why the import licences for poultry must be temporary ones.
What the farmer fears is that the border will open to quota-free imports and that this will become a habit. We will be very tough about this. The Bloc Quebecois agrees with quota-free imports for replacing the losses, but not if this creates a poultry shortage here. Nonetheless, this needs to be limited to this case exclusively, in other words, temporary permits need to be granted.
In my opinion, with specialization in agriculture and the huge size of farms, the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food should, in the future, be more cautious and increase the number of inspectors and surveillance of farms.
Farmers need to be encouraged to conduct their own surveillance in order to limit as much as possible epidemics that could be extremely serious for all large-scale cattle or poultry farmers. I am certain that inspecting farms and taking precautions to contain diseases such as this one will prevent epidemics that could be extremely serious for all farmers.
Sometimes when I would visit farms with 100,000 chickens, or 20,000, 25,000 or 30,000 turkeys, I would say to myself that it would be catastrophic if ever we had to cull all this poultry because of a disease that might spread across the country. We know this type of poultry breeding exists throughout the country.
We have to applaud the fact that the current threat was limited only to the Fraser Valley in British Columbia. All the stakeholders who have to work in agriculture must take extreme precautions to ensure that there is as little risk as possible of epidemic in the future.
I am pleased that we are having this debate tonight because this is a major problem. Naturally, I call upon the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to help those who are suffering the impact of the avian flu. We are ready to offer our assistance in replacing the destroyed birds by imports as far as possible. Nevertheless, as I was saying, the import permits must be temporary.
The minister replied earlier to some of the questions I had. I was wondering, for example, what would happen if someone had to destroy a flock of very expensive animals, such as emus. I do not know if there are any in the region affected by this disease, but here in Quebec there are several farms that raise these extremely expensive birds, which can cost many hundreds of dollars each.
In such a case, do we have the necessary provisions to compensate producers if, unfortunately, such farms were affected by this disease? The birds would have to be slaughtered if that happened.
Perhaps we will have an opportunity to ask a few more questions of the minister. Right now, however, people are living with insecurity. They wonder what will happen if a similar disease were to strike farms raising specialized fowl whose unit value is infinitely greater than that of a chicken or a turkey.
We were speaking about geese earlier. I know that in Quebec—and perhaps not only in Quebec—there are emus and ostriches that cost around $1,000 each. Can we guarantee that we will help these producers or the producers in the region where fowl are being destroyed, if they have that kind of farm?
I thank you for proposing this debate this evening. I think it is an extremely important one. We expect the minister to take precautions to pay the producers who are facing this disease, but we also want him to take the opportunity, perhaps, to add some inspectors and veterinarians. With the quality and the large scale of our farms, we must take the precaution of increasing safety so that no catastrophe occurs, which could be disastrous for all of Quebec and Canadian agriculture.
