Mr. Speaker, today we are debating an extremely important bill. In my beautiful riding of Rimouski-Témiscouata, and more specifically in Notre-Dame-du-Lac in Témiscouata, there is a big slaughterhouse for pigs.
Recently, the owners wanted to expand the facility to increase production. They wanted to increase the number of nurseries, and their plans sort of clashed with the Quebec legislation, which is very strict in this regard. Quebec cleaned up this sector a long time ago.
The important thing is to be able to guarantee to the public that food inspectors can do their work professionally, and with the proper safeguards to prevent any problem.
In Quebec, we had an inquiry on the tainted meat scandal. Incidentally, it was around that time that we got to know people who have since become great politicians in Quebec, including Mr. Bouchard and Mr. Chevrette. Following this episode, we decided that such an incident should never happen again. This is why we developed legislation which guarantees to the public that the work is done extremely well.
I think that the inspection of food should come under provincial jurisdiction. In February, the government pledged, in its speech from the throne, to do its utmost to eliminate overlap, duplication and useless spending. Since the federal government is getting involved in an area which, we feel, comes under provincial jurisdiction, it is headed in the wrong direction and should leave this responsibility to the provinces.
It is also very important to make sure the integrity and the competence of those hired to do this work can never be questioned. What is being proposed is an agency outside the government, but whose president would be appointed by the government. This president would select his own board members, hire his own staff and so on. The whole process would take place outside the scope of the Public Service Employment Act. If you establish an institution in this fashion, you are gambling as to who will be in control.
We can see it clearly in the case of certain other organizations. The government must keep its distance, remain at arm's length as they say in English. Unfortunately, I cannot think of the French word. There must be some distance between the government and the organizations in question. However, to move from that to creating agencies and skirting the Public Service Employment Act is a bit disconcerting.
The Minister of Canadian Heritage did exactly the same thing. She created the ICO, the Information Canada Office. One of the deputy ministers at Heritage Canada became its director, and its employees do not come under the public service legislation. It makes you wonder where we are headed. The government says: "We have to cut costs, so, over a three year period, 45,000 public servants across Canada are going to be laid off". What is the government doing? It turns around and says: "We will need an office or a board here, an agency over there". And then, when new organizations are created, their staff is not subject to the Public Service Employment Act.
What raises concern is that new employees will be hired, but they will still be paid with taxpayers' money. Twenty million dollars were taken from the heritage budget to subsidize the ICO. But in that case, we no longer have any control. To a question I put to the minister, she answered: "Well, the hon. member opposite only has to check on the Internet and she will find everything she needs to know about the ICO". I have used the Internet several times and I am sorry to tell you that, if everyone surfing the Internet relies on the ICO for information on Canada, they will be sorry, because there are only about four pages on Canada, and most of it is propaganda and not information. Apart from the fact that the population of Canada hit the 30 million mark last summer, there is not much factual data to be found on the ICO site.
So we have an office that was set up. A director was appointed. He was given the authority to hire people and spend $20 million, without being subject to any public service quality control measure. The exact same thing is being done here with this agency. What is likely to happen with a quasi-government agency? Unfortunately, we could see a lot of party politics, favouritism and patronage. We will go back to the old system: "If you vote for me, you will have a job, a position in the agency, in the office, in some other organization. Support my government and my party". This is the first risk.
We also risk having people who are almost in private sector, outside of government but not quite, but hired prcatically on the same basis as private businesses, people who, as we have seen in many sectors, inflate the bills and invent items that do not exist.
We hear these days of what is happening at the space agency. We would have a lot to say about that. The government says: "Come on, there is nothing to worry about", when in fact we are losing control of public funds. For the public, this is discouraging because it is like shifting money from one pocket to the other and saying that we saved something in the process. But if we really look at the figures, we realize that there are no savings because even if we have cut employees in the heritage department, we have created
the office and given it $20 million. We may have cut positions in the agriculture department but at the same time we have created an agency that will control food quality, with all the very real risks involved.
And then, there will be court cases. Who will be hired as lawyers? Not federal employees. We will hire our friends. A Liberal government will hire Liberals. A Conservative government will hire Conservatives. And a Reform government will hire Reformers. Friends will be hired to go before the courts.
I think the public is not being fooled. They know what is going on. People understand that the government does not save much except at their expense, that it reduces its support to the less fortunate while it tries to set up official organizations that will allow it to continue to spend taxpayers' money.
Therefore, I urge the government to carefully review our amendments, which are very important in assuring Canadians that, in the future, there will be no more political patronage and wasting of money and that the new food inspection procedures will be in their best interest.
