The ag committee denied opposition push for more time to review changes
The Conservative majority on the House of Commons agriculture committee has rejected an opposition motion that public hearings on sweeping food safety legislation be extended by a week.
The committee has held one public session with agriculture minister Gerry Ritz and Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials and two sessions with invited industry and consumer representatives.
This week it moves to clause-by-clause study of Bill S-11, preparing to possibly send the bill back to the Commons for final reading as early as Nov. 8.
On Nov. 1, after largely supportive industry witnesses urged the committee to pass the Safe Food for Canadians Act but with amendments to clarify some of the bill’s provisions, Liberal MP Frank Valeriote suggested the committee add two hearing days to allow opposition MPs to prepare proposed amendments reflecting witness views.
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“We have only until tomorrow to prepare, submit for translation and get the amendments to you and we’re hearing witnesses on the eve of the day those amendments have to be submitted, which is logistically impossible to do,” he told committee chair Merv Tweed.
He said witnesses proposed amendments, and government officials should be called back to explain if they would be acceptable and if not, why not.
Later, Valeriote said he was not trying to obstruct or hold up the legislation.
“I just think we have to get it right and we should not just ignore witness proposals for some clarifying amendments.”
Conservative MPs had told witnesses they should trust the government to introduce regulations to fix the problems that they saw, but first the legislation had to pass.
Witnesses with proposed changes said they would rather see the wording of proposed changes and a guarantee they would be enacted before accepting a promise of change after the legislation is locked in.
Under Conservative-imposed rules, discussion of the proposal for extension of hearings took place in private Nov. 1.
The motion was defeated but there is no public record of the vote tally or Conservative MP arguments against extended hearings on witness proposals.
MPs are prohibited from publicly discussing details of private committee meetings.
Tweed said he simply was following the rules when he moved the discussion of “house business” into a closed-door session.
The bill will strengthen CFIA’s ability to oversee the safety of imported food, mandate enforcement of a national food traceability system when it is developed and beef up a requirement that packing plants must provide food safety information demanded by the agency quickly and in a useable form.
Ritz and agency officials say part of the root cause of this fall’s E. coli contamination at the XL Food plant in Brooks, Alta., was a delay in receiving and digesting information from the plant about its food safety practices, which in the end were found to be inadequate. They say S-11 will help avert that problem in future.
All opposition parties have pledged to support the bill.
Representatives from groups such as the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, Canadian Meat Council, Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Retail Council of Canada and Dairy Farmers of Canada said the legislation was important and helpful in ensuring and being seen to ensure food safety.
However, many also had suggestions for improvements to make future rules more clear or in the case of food importers, to avert unintended consequences they said could cost Canadian manufacturing jobs.
Heading into this week’s committee hearings, the Conservatives had indicated no willingness to see the legislation amended.
