Food safety legislation passes | Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz wants work to begin quickly on creating new regulations
Legislation aimed at strengthening the food inspection system and food safety received unanimous House of Commons approval last week.
Now, the nitty-gritty work of creating regulations begins.
The regulations, months from being completed, will define how the legislation directly affects industries subject to Canadian Food Inspection Agency authority.
During committee hearings, several supportive industry groups called for amendments that they said would make the bill better for their industry.
In several cases, witnesses argued that the bill could eliminate jobs in import-export businesses.
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In all cases, the Conservative majority said legislative amendments were not necessary.
Any tweaking could come in de-tailed regulations needed to implement the bill’s principles.
On Nov. 20, as Bill S-11 was poised to pass through the House of Commons in a 280-0 vote, agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said creating the regulations begins now and it will be done in consultation with industry.
“We want to get these new regulations into play as quickly as we possibly can, but we will certainly do it in consultation with the industry,” he told a news conference.
Ritz said the act, already approved by the Senate when it reached the Commons, will modernize and strengthen the powers of the CFIA.
Opposition MPs, while supporting the legislation, were critical of the Conservative government for refusing to allow amendments and for pushing the legislation through committee with limited hearings and no recognition of criticisms.
Liberal agriculture critic Frank Valeriote in particular objected to arguments from Ritz that the new food safety and inspection rules would have given the CFIA more power to avert the E. coli meat contamination incident at the XL Foods plant in Brooks, Alta.
“There are some aspects of the bill that will make food safer,” Valeriote told reporters.
“But I’m not convinced that it’s going to be any safer than it is under our current system, particularly with respect to meat, because the Meat Inspection Act provides all the necessary mandate they need.”
He said the problem at XL was not legislative powers but a food inspection “culture” in the plant that led to slack supervision and “sloppiness.”
Although the legislation calls for an audit of CFIA resources in five years, opposition MPs also demanded an amendment to have a third-party audit now. The government rejected the proposal.
“Doing an audit now would give us a benchmark of where we are and where we’re going to start from,” said New Democrat agriculture critic Malcolm Allen. “In five years, we would know if we were better, worse or the same and whether we need as many inspectors.”
During House of Commons debate on the bill, agriculture parliamentary secretary Pierre Lemieux said the proposed amendments were unnecessary.
“The expert legal advice offered to our government was that these amendments were not necessary at best and would be an encumbrance to the CFIA and the food safety system at worst,” he said.
“When it comes to the safety of Canadians and their food, our government listens to the experts.”
Critics said the rejection of all amendments from opposition MPs, who supported the bill, was an indication of the arrogance of a majority Conservative government.
