The House of Commons agriculture committee will convene for extraordinary summer hearings into reports that the federal government has approved reduction in some food inspection programs of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter said the committee majority of Liberal, Bloc Québécois and NDP MPs agree that the government should have to explain and defend itself.
“We have enough members asking for it to make it happen and I expect it in August,” he said. “It has been (three) weeks since the first news stories revealed the plans to cut back inspection and the government still has not made its plan public or tried to justify or explain the cutbacks and their impact.”
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Media reports on the still-secret decision last autumn to reduce CFIA costs by $75 million over three years said the savings would come by allowing packing plants and feed mills to do their own inspections and by ending payments to cattle producers who turn their animals over to the agency for BSE testing.
Easter said this appears to contradict prime minister Stephen Harper’s commitment to improve food safety regulations.
“Turning more of the inspection over to the companies is the last thing we should be doing,” said the Prince Edward Island MP. “Where have we ever seen self-regulation work? When industry is in an economic downturn, companies will cut corners to save money and I think that raises real food safety concerns.”
He said companies also would pass added costs on either to producers or consumers.
Easter vowed to use the committee hearings to force the Conservative government to release details of the plan, approved but not yet published because of what one story said were government concerns about “significant communications risks.”
Liberal public health critic Carolyn Bennett said the government should worry more about health risks and less about communications risks.
However, a CFIA official has said the moves are not being made to save money. Any savings will be reinvested in the agency, said Freeman Libby.
He said the agency is refocusing its priorities in compliance with the government’s food safety plan announced late last year by Harper.
The proposed cuts in CFIA inspections follow a government-wide program review aimed at saving money by dropping activities that are unnecessary or could be done by others.
