Mr. Speaker, I rise in this House today to point out something that seems obvious to me and that seems obvious to most Canadians, but that the government appears not to know anything about.
The Conservative government and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food learned absolutely nothing from the listeriosis crisis in 2008. Many numbers have been thrown about here and there since the beginning of the debate and the beginning of the crisis. They say that 700 new inspectors have been hired, that $51 million has been made available in the budget and that six new inspectors were hired at the XL Foods plant, the site of the latest E. coli bacterial contamination.
A number of opposition members used their time to destroy and demolish these myths. This is what I too will be doing during my speech. It is worth taking the time to clarify the situation, because unlike the opposition, the government seems obsessed with confusing the issue.
The budget cuts in the 2012 budget were the main reason why we voted against the budget. In fact, we should remember that the NDP voted against the 2012 budget because it contained budget cuts amounting to $56 million and the elimination of important positions in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Back in April, journalists reported that 825 people had received a notice saying that their position at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was in danger. Not all the people affected were inspectors; some of them worked in administrative positions. However, some inspectors did receive notices. As of April 13, we knew that 59 inspectors assigned to meat inspection had already been laid off and it was possible that another 30 or 40 inspectors would also be laid off in the months to come. So some meat inspection positions had in fact already been eliminated.
The government says that 700 inspector positions have been created. The Conservatives repeated this number again today, a month after the beginning of the debate on the issue. This is unbelievable. It is clear and it has been noted that none of these positions were created in the slaughter plants. Two hundred of these inspectors were assigned to the review of invasive species, about 300 were assigned to technological controls, which has nothing to do with on-site inspections, and 170 were assigned to meat inspection in processing plants, not slaughter plants. Remember that XL Foods was a slaughter plant. So saying that 700 positions were created is nothing but hogwash.
This is now a matter of government accountability. This is a matter of transparency and accountability, and the government and the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food are refusing to live up to their responsibilities.
When the layoffs were announced and when it became known that some employees had received a notice of that kind, journalists started asking questions, including Sarah Schmidt of Postmedia News, Jason Fekete and other journalists. They wanted to know where the notices had been sent and which positions were going to be eliminated or were likely to be eliminated. They wanted to know whether the people involved were veterinarians, seed inspectors or inspectors working in slaughterhouses and processing plants. Despite repeated requests, including requests to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and to the minister’s office, they never got any answers. They did not obtain any answers to their questions.
In terms of the $51 million the Conservatives boast about investing, what they are not saying is that this money was meant to renew the programs that were started after that listeriosis crisis, in the processing plants. Another thing they are not saying is that the money was divided among three budgets. One part went to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, another part went to the Public Health Agency of Canada and the last part went to Health Canada. It was meant to ensure that the programs set up in the wake of the listeriosis crisis would not be eliminated. These are not new programs that have been created, but rather existing programs that have been maintained.
However, the Conservatives went ahead with cuts in the order of $56 million in the 2012 budget. It was clear; it was set out in black and white: $56 million was cut from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency budget. That led to the lay-offs of 59 meat inspectors on plant floors.
Now we should talk about ministerial accountability, because this is the reason why we are here today. We are here to discuss the accountability of the minister. The NDP is calling on the Minister of Agriculture to resign, because he has not done his job.
Since the beginning of the crisis, 15 people have fallen ill and to date there have been 16 recalls of contaminated meat. In the chronology put out by the Conservatives and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, on September 13, 2012, U.S. authorities took away XL Foods’ export permit because they had detected E. coli bacteria. Nonetheless, meat continued to be produced at the plant and, despite what the minister told us, wound up on grocery store shelves and in Canadians' refrigerators for another two weeks, until September 27.
The minister has said he was not to blame right from the start. Back in the early days of the crisis, he blamed just about everyone else. He began by blaming the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and then he blamed the opposition, the media and just about anyone but himself. The Prime Minister did the same: he said that his Minister of Agriculture had done nothing wrong.
What is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, if not a crown corporation, an independent agency of the government that reports to Parliament and to the members? It is an agency that reports directly to the Minister of Agriculture. According to the principle of ministerial accountability, the Minister of Agriculture must take the blame for what happened. He must take the blame because, despite what he says, he has the authority to instruct this agency to take direct measures, because the agency reports to him. In everything that the Conservative government has said to date during this debate, that is the key element that it is trying to make us forget.
There are some crucial facts. We want Canadians to have confidence in the current food inspection system. That is our sincerest wish. It is hard to have complete confidence in this system when the government talks about 700 net new inspectors, but that number does not apply to the XL Foods plant, and when it talks about injecting new money that is being used only to maintain existing programs that would otherwise have been dropped.
It is hard to have confidence in the government when it fails to mention important facts related to XL Foods in particular. Indeed, there are 46 inspectors at the plant, and the government told us it hired six new inspectors, but it failed to tell us that those inspectors were hired to fill vacancies. No new positions were created. People were hired to fill positions that had been left vacant for a long time by the Conservative government. The government is trying to cover its backside by shifting the blame and playing the public relations game.
I want to quickly come back to XL Foods and the 46 inspectors. There are two important facts that we must not overlook that are part of the current problem, which must be addressed by the minister. The first is that the 46 inspectors are not on the floor at all times. There are two shifts of 23 people. The XL Foods plant increased its production significantly. The Conservative government even gave the plant funding so that it could speed up its production. It now processes between 4,000 and 5,000 head of cattle, but there are still only 46 inspectors, or two shifts of 23 inspectors. In that context, one inspector can evaluate roughly four head of cattle a minute.
It is clear to us, but I would like to know whether it is clear to the government that speeding up production without increasing the inspection capacity is a recipe for an E. coli outbreak and could result in future outbreaks and tainted meat problems.
The government must answer this question. The minister is refusing to do so and that is why we are calling for his resignation.
