Fin Donnelly

[Petitions, December 10th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition on Canada's leading freshwater research station, the ELA.

The petitioners recognize that fresh water is essential for life and vital to the social, spiritual and economic well-being of Canadians.

They therefore call on the Government of Canada to recognize the importance of the ELA to Canada's mandate to study, preserve and protect aquatic ecosystems and to continue to staff and provide financial resources to the ELA at current or higher levels of commitment.

[Petitions, November 28th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to present a petition signed by thousands of Canadians who wish to save the ELA, Canada's leading freshwater research station.

The ELA provides essential scientific knowledge for the development of national and international policies that ensure the future health of fresh waters and their associated aboriginal, commercial and recreational fisheries. The petitioners call upon the Government of Canada to reverse the decision to close the ELA research station and to continue to staff and provide financial resources to the ELA at the current or higher level of commitment.

[Petitions, November 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition from thousands of petitioners who call upon the government to save the ELA, Canada's leading freshwater research station. The ELA provides essential scientific knowledge for the development of national and international policies that ensure the future health of freshwater resources and their associated aboriginal, commercial and recreational fisheries.

The petitioners call upon the government to reverse the decision to close the ELA research station and to continue to staff and provide financial resources to the ELA at the current or higher levels of commitment.

[Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, November 22nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague raises an excellent point about what first nations face on reserve and even off reserve, which goes to the heart of the matter. In terms of on reserve, it is basic fundamental principles and conditions that are at stake here. What has been addressed, whether it is education, housing, clean water or infrastructure, are basic common issues that are related to the underpinning of what we are talking about.

Further, the efforts to remedy the serious problem of matrimonial property rights must be guided by the three principles that I previously mentioned: recognition of first nation jurisdiction; access to justice dispute resolution and remedies; and addressing underlying issues such as access to housing and economic security, which my good friend mentioned.

[Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, November 22nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, in fact I did reference four previous studies over a period of time that identified a number of recommendations and that has been quite a problem. Those recommendations, as I pointed out in my speech, have actually not been implemented. They have not been listened to and the first nations women who were part of previous testimony have commented about how they are not feeling listened to and that their recommendations are not being heard.

I referenced those four reports. What was concluded was that if the government had actually listened to the consultations it would not implement Bill S-2, this incarnation of the legislation, because of a lack of financial resources to support first nation governments, a lack of funding for lawyers, a lack of funding to account for limited geographic access to provincial courts and a lack of on-reserve housing and land mass, which would be necessary to give spouses separate homes on reserve.

[Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, November 22nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I sincerely appreciated the speech from the member for Manicouagan and his direct experience with the first nations' life and living conditions. It adds a lot to this debate.

I also want to take time to acknowledge our critic for Indian and northern affairs, the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan, who has done excellent work in the past and also adds a lot to this debate and this discussion.

Today we are talking here about Bill S-2, an act concerning matrimonial real property on first nations reserve lands. It makes changes to the Indian Act to allow for provincial family law to apply on reserves in the event of a matrimonial breakdown or the death of a spouse or common-law partner.

There is a legal vacuum concerning real property on reserves due to the jurisdictional divide, wherein provinces and territories have jurisdiction over property and civil rights within the provinces, and the federal government has jurisdiction to legislate “Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians” under section 91.24.

The Indian Act does not provide for a division of MRP upon marriage breakdown, and first nations jurisdiction is not explicitly recognized by Canada. This has led to major legal cases, such as Derrickson v. Derrickson, 1986, and Paul v. Paul, also 1986, which were dismissed by provincial courts because the provincial laws cannot apply to lands on an Indian reserve. Thus, there is this legislative gap.

Bill S-2 is the fourth iteration of similar legislation that the Conservatives have tried to pass since 2008, and the NDP has opposed every time it has come forward for debate.

There have been five parliamentary studies that have been conducted on MRP: A Hard Bed to Lie In by the Senate in 2003; Still Waiting by the Senate in 2004; Arm-in-Arm by the aboriginal affairs and northern development committee in 2005; the report by the status of women committee in 2006; and a ministerial report by Wendy Grant-John in 2006.

I just want to mention the latter, which stated that no consensus has been found regarding legislation that could apply to MRP. Among other things, it recommended that concurrent jurisdictional models be used where first nation law was paramount and that the government needed to identify the real costs of implementing provincial legislation on reserves.

All previous bills, and now Bill S-2, neglect almost all of the recommendations made by all of the aforementioned reports.

The Conservatives are trying to say that the recommendations from the 2006 ministerial report by Wendy Grant-John are being implemented, but that is absolutely not the case.

There is no question that this issue needs to be addressed. However, the Conservatives are trying to pass a law that appears to be in favour of first nations women's rights while ignoring the voices of first nations women themselves. They are fast-tracking legislation without addressing all the relevant non-legislative problems that first nations women and families have identified.

The Conservatives are not interested in a fulsome discussion of the bill or any first nations issues. They want to hastily enact a bad law just so they can say they have done something.

The problem requires a comprehensive response led by first nations. This approach must address family support services; more on-reserve housing and shelters; police support services; building first nations capacity to resolve disputes; solutions to land management issues; and resolutions of matters relating to citizenship, residency and Indian status.

Bill S-2 is an insincere and overly simplistic attempt to rectify a complex problem that was brought about by the Indian Act.

The Assembly of First Nations facilitated a dialogue, which identified three broad principles that are key to addressing matrimonial rights and interests on reserve. I will identify those: recognition of first nation jurisdiction; access to justice, dispute resolution and remedies; and finally, addressing underlying issues such as access to housing and economic security.

Based on these principles, I would like to take a closer look at two important themes that underpin the position of the New Democrats on Bill S-2: the absence of meaningful consultation with first nations; and the need to address the non-legislative problems surrounding the issue of matrimonial property rights.

I will turn to what others had to say on this in elaborating on meaningful consultation and non-legislative problems.

Ellen Gabriel, the former president of the Quebec Native Women's Association and AFN grand chief candidate, said:

It is reprehensible that the Government of Canada is so eager to pass legislation [that seriously impacts the collective human rights of Indigenous peoples] without adequate consultations which requires the free, prior and informed consent of Aboriginal peoples.

This is a growing trend of the Conservatives thrusting legislation upon Canadians without first consulting.

For example, the fisheries and oceans committee studied several clauses of Bill C-45, including a clause relating to the definition of what constituted an aboriginal fishery. There was an absence of consultation with first nations. It was only a one-way dialogue.

I will offer another quote from Stuart Wuttke from the Assembly of First Nations. He said at the fisheries and oceans committee:

—we feel if there's consultation and accommodation with respect to first nation interests, there may be a balanced approach. We would definitely prefer that, and we would recommend that consultation and accommodation take place in order to alleviate any potential problems that may exist in the future.

Consultation allows a legislative to find a balanced approach that serves the best interests of all stakeholders and to alleviate any potential problems that may exist in the future. For example, if the government had properly consulted on Bill C-38, it probably would not have found itself making so many amendments now in bill C-45.

According to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, to which Canada is a signatory, consultation requires consent. While Canada has conducted limited consultation, no consent was given by rights holders. Therefore, if we endorse Bill S-2, we will be in violation of article 32 of the UNDRIP, which ensures free, prior and informed consent of any matter relating to the lands or welfare of the rights holders.

I will further add what other first nation women are saying. The Native Women's Association of Canada says:

NWAC is being told by its members that the MRP legislation is too prescriptive and does not adequately support Indigenous legal systems. As well, no financial resources will be allotted to support First Nations Governments to actually implement the legislation, if it were to get passed.

The NWAC testified at the Senate hearings on Bill S-2 and said the following:

—our women and population and constituents have repeatedly told us 12 months is not a sufficient transition period if this bill were to go ahead. First Nations are dealing with governments that are already overloaded with many socio-economic issues.

We are looking at a longer-term plan: two years, five years and ten years. Those are the types of plans that need to be developed in cooperation with First Nations, not government designing it and having patchwork input from First Nations. You will have a holey quilt, if you will. Too many resources will also be spent, and it will not be a satisfactory result for anyone.

We would rather take the time, do it right and stop pushing ahead in a rush to have a quick resolution that might not be a good one for anyone.

The image of a holey quilt is a good one and identifies the need for co-operation with first nations that the government should have.

About Bill S-4, which was a previous incarnation of Bill S-2, Pam Palmater, a professor of aboriginal law at Ryerson, said:

The Minister also said that Aboriginal women are in need of “immediate protection”. If the Minister actually listened to the voices of Aboriginal women, he would have heard that Aboriginal women do not want Bill S-4 as it is currently drafted. He would also have heard that what they do want is gender equality addressed in all of Canada's legislative initiatives....

[Safe Food for Canadians Act, November 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, that is a very good question. It is part of an amendment that we as New Democrats put forward in committee. We wanted to see an independent audit system implemented immediately.

This is a reasonable request. I am not sure why the Conservative government would resist or refuse this very reasonable request to having an independent audit system take a look at how the system is operating. This would be good information that would benefit not only the government, but it would also benefit the department and Canadians in terms of food safety and food inspection, knowing they had a good system that operated properly.

This is obviously not the case. This tragedy led to the largest beef recall in Canadian history. This must be averted. One way is by having independent information and oversight.

[Safe Food for Canadians Act, November 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, these cuts are in fact having direct impacts.

When we look at the food security issue in our country, we can see that these cuts have a direct impact. As the member mentioned, when we are talking about, for example, our fisheries industry, we are seeing the impacts to departments trying to carry out the good work, for instance enforcement. That is being hampered by fewer and fewer resources.

We are not alone in our comments in our criticizing of the government. Let me quote Bob Kingston, the president of the Agriculture Union. He says:

—CFIA did not have resources in place to fully understand what was going on in that plant at the time....After all, the minister has assured everyone that there are more inspectors working at that plant than ever. You will be interested to know that in the XL plant, only a small portion of the inspectors are actually trained in CVS.

He goes on to point out more concerns that are as a result of fewer resources.

[Safe Food for Canadians Act, November 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Joliette.

I rise today to speak to Bill S-11, An Act respecting food commodities, including their inspection, their safety, their labelling and advertising, their import, export and interprovincial trade, the establishment of standards for them, the registration or licensing of persons who perform certain activities related to them, the establishment of standards governing establishments where those activities are performed and the registration of establishments where those activities are performed.

The bill would streamline a range of existing food safety legislation under one act. Among other legislation, it would repeal and replace the Fish Inspection Act, the Meat Inspection Act, the Canada Agricultural Products Act and the food provisions under the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act.

Bill S-11 would raise the potential maximum fine for food safety infractions to $5 million, a 20-fold increase over previous maximum fines. This of questionable value, given that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency does not have a rigorous history of enforcing fining of companies due to limited resources. In 2011, no fines exceeded 20% of the maximum fine.

The bill would streamline inspectors' powers and procedures for all types of food. Previously, these were different according to whether the product was fish, meat or another agricultural product.

The bill would provide for the availability of official certification for exported foods and also would require food importers to comply with the licensing regime. It would allow the CFIA to suspend or revoke the licence of an importee instead of prosecuting for non-compliance. This could provide for more timely response in the advent of international recall.

The bill would allow for traceability requirements to be introduced through regulation at a later date. The New Democrats support enhanced traceability, particularly for meat, fish and fresh produce in the advent of a recall.

Finally, the bill includes a prohibition against tampering with products or selling products that might risk the health of Canadians or that have been subjected to a recall.

However, we in the NDP have some concerns with this bill.

It would provide a new due diligence defence that could significantly insulate companies from taking responsibility for any risk. This could diminish the Canadian public's confidence in our food supply and undermine the European Union's confidence in our exports. The United Kingdom recently rejected similar legislation for this reason.

It would do nothing to protect workers in meat processing plants with regard to whistle-blowing protection.

It also would include provisions that may inadvertently disallow certain products for Canadian export. The proposal to incorporate by reference standards could permit conflicts of interest to influence policy making and could abdicate government oversight entirely in some cases. There is no clause to address possible material conflicts of interest.

It would also do nothing to address problems with fraudulent nutrition information, despite the enormous health and financial toll of nutrition-related illness. The CFIA considers irregularities in nutrition labelling to be lower priority quality issues, not health and safety issues. According to the fines information published on CFIA's website for the period of January 2010 to September 2012, not a single fine was levied for inaccurate nutritional information on food labels, despite the fact that at least two of CFIA's own product sampling surveys demonstrated significant widespread inaccuracies in nutrition information provided in pre-packaged foods and restaurant websites and brochures.

By streamlining inspectors' powers for all types of food, there is concern that inspectors will have insufficient knowledge and/or experience to undertake this task. There are very different products with very different hazards associated with them.

The bill would create an internal review mechanism that regulated parties could use to seek review of certain inspection decisions or deal with complaints, rather than the current judicial review process. This should be monitored for transparency with resources given to public interest interveners.

Finally, the bill would give the minister power to grant, suspend and revoke non-transferable licences or registration for persons and establishments as well as any conditions that the minister might choose to prescribe. This represents more centralized power in the hands of the minister.

Let me talk about cuts to the CFIA budget in 2012. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency report on plans and priorities signed and tabled by the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food himself on May 8, says, “Planned Spending is declining by approximately $46.6 million and 314 FTE's from 2012-13 to 2014-15--REF-CFIA Report on Plans and Priorities”. This comes from section 1.51 the financial resources and human resources CFIA report on plans and priorities.

The Conservatives like to say that they have invested $100 million additional funds to the CFIA. That claim is false. The $100 million is projected over five years and only $18 million have actually been allocated this year. In budget 2012 the next three-year outlook for food safety indicates a projected cut of $56.1 million.

Let me turn to auditing the CFIA compliance verification system, CVS. New Democrats believe that the CFIA processes such as the central verification system, need to be audited immediately. Bill S-11 was amended in the Senate so that a CFIA audit was required within five years of its coming into force, but this is not enough. Given repeated failures in the food safety system, we cannot wait five years. This is why we put forward an amendment at committee stage that would require an immediate audit in order to get baseline information to be applied in future reviews. Unfortunately, the Conservative members of the committee voted against it.

In January 2009, Sheila Weatherill was appointed by the Prime Minister to investigate what led to the listeriosis outbreak that left 22 people dead during the summer of 2008 and recommended how to avoid a similar tragedy. The compliance verification system was a new pilot inspection program adopted by the CFIA in 2005. Weatherill found that the CVS was flawed and was in need of “critical improvements related to its design, planning, and implementation”. She also found the CVS was “implemented without a detailed assessment of the resources available to take on these new tasks”.

In the aftermath of the 2008 disaster, it was discovered that Maple Leaf was under no obligation to report to the CFIA test results showing contamination in the plant. In a system which increasingly relies on companies to police themselves, this shortcoming was not addressed.

XL Foods, one of the biggest meat processors in the country, had also ignored this requirement to notify CFIA of test results. The CFIA does not have the resources in place to fully understand what was going on in that plant.

Important pieces of the Weatherill report were never fully adopted by the government, including a substantive internal audit that addressed CVS, the pilot reporting system being used for food inspectors during the Walkerton crisis that continues to be used today. A financial audit of the CFIA was completed by PricewaterhouseCoopers, but it did not address the systems and the processes recommended by the Weatherill report.

There is much more I could say about the resources to the CFIA, on penalties that one would say are adequate but not enforced, and on further resources. However, let me summarize what we are looking for.

New Democrats have a serious number of concerns with the bill, however, we support the bill moving to third reading. We know the Conservatives need to accept responsibility for gutting food safety resources. They have been proponents of increased self-regulation. Inspectors look at paperwork, not at meat. This is a direct result of fewer resources provided to CFIA, and we are seeing those consequences now.

There should be no super events that catch us unaware. Given the increased complexity and centralization of the food system and greater volumes handled by any single facility, resources for food inspection should be increased to ensure the safety of Canadians.

[Safe Food for Canadians Act, November 19th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Agriculture insists that this legislation will provide inspectors with the power to get information from companies in a more timely fashion.

Is it not true, I ask my hon. colleague, that the powers have always existed under section 13 of the Meat Inspection Act? Could my hon. colleague comment on that.