Frank Valeriote

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, October 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the two-week delay in issuing a recall on meat contaminated with E. coli clearly shows that the Conservatives' cuts to food safety are putting Canadians at risk.

Despite repeated questions last week asking the Minister of Agriculture who Canadians can rely on to be responsible for their food safety, the only clear answer we received was that the Conservatives were not interested in providing the necessary resources to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to prevent food-borne illnesses.

The Conservative government has created a vacuum through budget and program cuts and changes that have left the industry to police itself and Canadians responsible for their own food safety. It is endangering the health and safety of countless Canadians, threatening our ability to keep borders open to Canadian produce and trade and imperiling vulnerable farmers who have just started to get back on their feet after the BSE crisis.

On September 3, U.S. food inspectors at the border stopped a shipment of beef trimmings from XL Foods plant in Brooks, Alberta, and discovered E. coli 0157. American inspectors informed us of the contamination on September 4, two weeks before the Conservative government notified Canadians that contaminated meat was in the food supply and on store shelves across the country.

In the meantime, on September 13, still three days before the CFIA issued its first recall on meat from XL Foods, U.S. food safety inspectors delisted the XL Foods facility, preventing it from shipping food across the border. It took 13 days after becoming aware of contamination for the CFIA to finally issue a recall, which has since been expanded multiple times and now covers over 250 products. It does not take two weeks to do a confirming test for E. coli. It takes days.

When I asked the minister last week about the delay, he trivialized the issue, a brave choice given his unfortunate reaction to the listeria contamination that claimed the lives of seven Canadians in 2008 on his watch. The minister misled the public by stating that none of the meat had made it into the food supply. Clearly, he could not prove that. Food had been leaving that facility for weeks and it was only when the Americans caught our food safety lapses that a hold was placed on the meat. Now there are at least four people in Alberta who are sick.

The minister said that the recall took two weeks because of testing. That is preposterous. There is no way, as I said, that it should have taken two weeks to get a confirmation. Perhaps he should ask the 90 biologists who lost their jobs through these cuts whether we would be in a better position to protect Canada's food safety if the Conservatives had provided the necessary resources to our inspection officials.

The minister refuses to explain when he became aware of the problem with XL Foods. Why did it take a sudden crisis for the government to even realize how serious a problem there was at XL Foods, which has led to one of the largest recalls in Canadian history?

We cannot blame the inspectors. They are doing the best they can with limited resources. By removing resources and relaxing regulations, the Conservatives are creating a powder keg wherein we have a facility with inspectors who are not all trained on the compliance verification system and those who do not know are not getting all the information.

Clearly, workers were not sanitizing their stations or the meat properly. Inspectors lost the ability to keep an eye on this when the government started handing over more and more oversight to the industry itself.

It was clear from the report issued by the CFIA on September 24 that the plant was not in compliance with a substantial number of standards and requirements, prompting the agency to then shut the doors until it could come into compliance. This does not happen overnight. We are talking about considerable time where self-regulation allowed the plant to get sloppy and, when processors get sloppy, people get sick.

Dr. Richard Arsenault, director of the CFIA meat inspection program, said:

We need to do a better job of managing this data and finding these trends ahead of time...as opposed to having to respond to a crisis like this.

If the agency is already worried, how will it manage under further cuts?

[Food Safety, September 26th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, U.S. inspectors caught E. coli contaminated meat at the border on September 3. U.S. inspectors had to inform our food inspection agency that we were shipping contaminated meat. It took the CFIA two weeks to notify Canadians. The recall keeps expanding. The U.S. has banned imports of XL Foods beef and we just learned people are getting sick in Edmonton from XL steaks.

Clearly, Conservative cuts are hurting food safety and trade. Will the minister tell us if we should continue to rely on Americans for our food safety and will he stop trivializing the risk?

[Government Programs, September 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the government itself acknowledges the long-standing success of this program. There is absolutely no legitimate excuse that can defend the cutting of such a vital, widely used program. It cannot deny that by cutting front-line service provision through Service Canada it is asking Canadians to go online for programs and applications, and yet it cut access to computers and the Internet.

While we are a more technologically savvy country than even a decade ago, removing access for the remaining most vulnerable Canadians is unacceptable.

There are still over 300 uses a day of the public access computers at the Guelph Public Library, tens of thousands across Canada. There are still too many rural communities in Canada where connectivity is an issue. We must stop isolating Canadians. I call on the government to do the right thing and restore the community access program. It is still needed.

[Government Programs, September 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, in a shocking and ill-advised decision earlier this year, Conservatives cancelled the community access program, an incredibly successful resource across rural and urban communities for Canadians with little or no access to a computer or the Internet.

The community access program gave funding to community centres and libraries to provide public terminals with Internet access as well as to offer skills training for their effective use. Initially this program was geared toward rural communities but grew to address the digital divide experienced by rural and urban Canadians alike, especially vulnerable Canadians who might not have access to a computer or the Internet.

In my riding of Guelph, our public library received $6,800 annually to support 34 public access computers that were used daily by over 300 Guelphites. Communities from Newfoundland and Labrador to British Columbia and throughout the north received similar support.

There are so few elements of everyday life that no longer require a computer or access to the Internet, yet there are still tens of thousands of Canadians who cannot afford to have a computer at home, cannot afford regular Internet access, live in an area without reliable connectivity or are not technologically savvy.

Public libraries and other community access sites are the only sources for computer access for more than 25% of Canadians. These men and women rely on the computers and the access and assistance available to them when they go to the public library. Without this funding, how are libraries, especially those in smaller communities where the need may be greater, able to maintain these vital services for users?

Not through one large action but through many incremental yet significant cuts and changes, Conservatives are telling Canadians, “You are on your own”.

Take, for instance, a young man or woman seeking employment through the Government of Canada's job bank. Previously they knew that if they had no computer or no means to access the web, they could pop down to the library or to certain communities centres, not anymore.

What about the extensive cuts in the budget that took front-line personnel out of communities across the country and shuttered the doors of Service Canada offices?

Canadians seeking services, from getting birth certificates to employment insurance, are now one step further removed than before. Online applications are fine if a person has access to a computer, but what about those who do not? Abandoned are vulnerable Canadians who are more likely to require government services in the first place. How about Canadians in rural communities without full connectivity who are already isolated from these services to begin with?

The same for cuts to VIA Rail in Guelph. Removing staff means bookings previously made at the train station will now need to be made online. I have had many senior citizens approach me, concerned because they either do not have a computer or they are not technologically savvy. Once, they might have gone to the train station. This will end. Alternatively, they might have gone to the Guelph public library where there are others around to give them a hand. This too will end.

Cutting both front-line personnel and removing additional assistance for accessibility is only isolating Canadians. Cutting the community access program is the epitome of the mean-spirited, ill-conceived policies we have come to expect from the Conservatives. However, I hold out hope that the government, realizing the error of its ways, might still have its conversion on the road to Damascus and reinstate this essential and successful program.

[Food Safety, September 25th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, just last night Conservatives were celebrating cuts to CFIA and hundreds of staff affected by their budget.

It turns out our food safety agency waited two weeks to issue a notice about beef contaminated with E. coli from XL Foods, and only finally issued it after American inspectors caught it.

We warned that Conservative cuts to food inspection would leave us dangerously exposed. Clearly it was not just backroom administrative cuts.

I ask the minister this. Who is responsible for our food safety now that his cuts have removed vital inspectors? Is it the Americans, or XL Foods?

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, September 24th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am sure Canadians would feel more assured of the parliamentary secretary's response if they were not the same tired talking points that fail to address real and serious concerns.

What did he say? He said no changes will be made that will put the health of Canadians at risk. These are the same old talking points.

He says the government has hired more inspectors. Never has the government come to committee and explained the actual number of hirings. In fact, there are 234 fewer inspectors. The parliamentary secretary did not tell us that the OECD report was before all of these proposed government cuts.

The secretive Conservative government makes changes, hopes no one will notice, and then when asked for information that it is legally obliged to present, obfuscates and refuses.

Conservatives label anyone critical of their agenda, just as he has done of me or anyone who questions their actions, as being an enemy of their agenda.

Turns of phrase and talking points are thin gruel when it comes to legitimate concerns about the safety and security of our food. Until the government becomes less concerned with feeding us lines, I am sad to say we are on our own when it comes to getting the facts.

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, September 24th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, if the Conservative government made anything clear through its 500-page kitchen sink budget omnibus bill, it was that transparency was its enemy, despite years of lip service, and good, beneficial, public policy-making was a victim of blind ideology that will leave Canadians individually responsible for regulating, monitoring and protecting the health and safety of their loved ones.

In a move lacking comprehension, the Conservatives particularly targeted the budget of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The budget cut funding by $56.1 million and slashed 234 full-time positions. Never mind that the Weatherill report, on the heels of the listeriosis tragedy, called for 170 inspectors to be added. The government seems to believe that food-borne threats have a shelf life of their own and it can now slash the department. At least this was its answer when it was asked how it could cut the funding dedicated to dealing with monitoring listeria.

Senior management at the CFIA made it clear during an employee town hall that these cuts would have a measurable impact. They told CFIA staff that it was impossible to cut 10% of the budget and not deal with the front line.

Conservatives also suspended key elements of a consumer protection program, completely ignorant of concerned Canadians with nutritional restrictions or specific food allergies. We know what dietary restrictions are important for Canadians suffering from heart disease, diabetes or other ailments and what sort of diet can prevent debilitating illness.

Just prior to when I asked this question, Postmedia ran an article that clearly demonstrated instances of our biggest food brands drastically understating quantities of harmful nutrients while inversely exaggerating health benefits. Of the 600 products tested by the CFIA, more than half had inaccurate or inconsistent labels, with some off by as much as 90%.

Meanwhile, Conservatives think that a mother of a child with celiac disease should be responsible for determining the label's accuracy. To add insult to injury, Conservatives also feel a simple web-based portal should be sufficient for that same mother to seek enforcement not through the government but from the offending company.

Cuts like this have been made before by a Conservative government and they resulted in tragedy when seven people died and hundreds of others became seriously ill from E. coli in Walkerton, Ontario.

The Conservatives refuse to acknowledge that food-borne illness targets the most vulnerable among us in our communities. Seniors and children are hit the hardest. These are the very people we must be working harder to protect. Instead, the top line of Conservative budget cuts is, “Good luck—you're on your own”.

Let us look at what they are doing to trans fats. Health and nutrition experts have been clear that cutting trans fats from Canadian food would not only be immediately better for our health but it would save taxpayers nearly $9 billion over the next 20 years. In 2007, when the Conservatives could not afford to be blindly ideological, they listened to these experts and promised to reduce trans fat usage within two years through monitoring and regulation. However, this summer they not only quietly scrapped limits on trans fats but are now removing monitoring.

On this side, we stand for good government, government that takes seriously its role of protecting the public. I know there are members opposite in the Conservative ranks who do not wish to see another tragedy born from lax inspection of food.

Will the government finally take health and safety seriously and restore the regulations in staffing essential to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency?

[International Plowing Match and Rural Expo, September 24th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, though it has been lacking all summer, a lot of rain on the opening day of the International Plowing Match and Rural Expo, and afterward, did not dampen the spirits of thousands of farmers, exhibitors, participants and even politicians who attended from across Canada and around the world.

Over the course of five days, tens of thousands of visitors experienced the best that rural and agricultural business in Canada has to offer, including food processing, technology and alternate energy generation, as well as witnessing the plowing competition, a classic demonstration of efficiency, productivity and soil management.

On behalf of our caucus and the Liberal Party, many of whom attended, I would like to congratulate the organizers of this, the 99th International Plowing Match, as well as their generous hosts, the community of Roseville, Ontario, on an incredibly hospitable, educational and fun celebration of rural life in Canada.

[Petitions, September 21st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to submit a petition signed by hundreds of concerned residents of southwestern Ontario, a significant number from Guelph, who add their voices to the thousands across Canada calling on the House of Commons to urge the government to exclude all sub-federal governments and their public agencies, including municipalities, from any Canada-EU procurement agreement.

As it stands, CETA negotiations include government procurement, including projects at the provincial and municipal levels. Municipalities such as Guelph and many others across Canada have passed formal resolutions forwarded to the government expressing their concern that they will lose the right to have independent procurement policies--

[Business of Supply, September 20th, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the member for Kings—Hants put it best some time ago when he said we have a finance minister who cannot add and a prime minister who can only divide. I read that one journalist recently said we have a prime minister who is de-confederating Confederation. He continues to subsidize the oil industry with over a billion dollars of assistance and yet he threatens small fishers in the Maritimes by changing the policy on fishers that would allow them to continue to fish not competitively with large industry.

Could the member speak about the value of meeting, by reflecting on former prime ministers who have met with premiers and resolved a lot of things that were ailing in our country?