Agriculture committee  Thank you, Dr. Ireland. It's always great to have you at the committee. We appreciate your testimony. Colleagues, we have time for one round for sure. I'll try to do a second round; we'll see how the timing goes. We may have to tighten them up a little bit to make sure that we get that second round in.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Ms. Labchuk. We appreciate your submission. Now we will turn to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. I don't know if it's going to be Dr. Ireland. We'll start with you for five minutes. Go ahead, please.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, Dr. Lazare. I appreciate your comments. Now we will move to Ms. Labchuk from Animal Justice for five minutes.

Agriculture committee  I call this meeting to order. Welcome to meeting number 74 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food. There are a few reminders about today's meeting. This will be taking place in a hybrid format. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website.

Agriculture committee  Okay, I will be really quick. As Mr. Johns noted, we did do a study on mental health. We tried to have mental health as part of this bill as well. That would have been a money part of it, so we had to remove that as part of this PMB. I just want to reiterate how important that aspect of this legislation is.

Agriculture committee  I'm not sure if you were here for my testimony, but the research we've done now in the United States shows that these activist groups are fundraising $900 million a year. PETA actually went from $60 million to $80 million in fundraising revenue last year. When I look at the trespassing laws, in many cases these are a $100 fine and then you carry on.

Agriculture committee  How am I doing?

Agriculture committee  Thanks, Mr. Chair. Thanks to all the witnesses for being here. Ms. Reynolds, I want to ask you a question going on some of the stats you gave in your testimony, which are quite stark. I lived through this with BSE more than 20 years ago. We lost something like 3,000 ranches. It cost upward of $10 billion.

Agriculture committee  Thank you. I'm going to ask a question similar to Monsieur Perron's, but I'm going to get the English answer, if that's okay, Monsieur Perron. It was a good question. Certainly the number one question we get from our colleagues is this: If there are provincial trespassing laws in place, why is this necessary?

Agriculture committee  As I said, Mr. Perron, I hope that when protesters are coming on farm and doing these types of activities, they may not understand the catastrophic consequences of what they potentially could be causing. I really hope that's the case, because if it's not the case, I think this is even worse.

Agriculture committee  I understand the concern there, but the whistle-blower is there lawfully, so he or she would not be included in this legislation, because they are there lawfully. This is about someone who is there unlawfully. That is the distinction.

Agriculture committee  Yes, it would. It would include those other facilities as well.

Agriculture committee  Yes, they're not hiding what they're doing. They want as much attention as possible when they are doing these things. They are filming it. When that happened on the Tschetter farm, it wasn't the Tschetter family who phoned the RCMP. It was the protesters who phoned the RCMP. They said they were trespassing illegally on a farm and asked the RCMP to come protect them.

Agriculture committee  Farmers feel like victims no one is standing up for. This is their livelihood. They care for these animals as if they are members of their family. With the blood, sweat and tears they put into this, they feel that they should be protected, not victims.

Agriculture committee  It's any individual. We highlighted two aspects as part of this bill. One is a little bit of a new direction, I'd say. The first is that we want to ensure that those protesters who come on farm are held accountable. We also want to ensure that the groups that organize or encourage this type of behaviour are also held accountable.