The Senate is expected to approve new food safety legislation next week and federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said it is needed to make food companies play by the rules.
The legislation, Bill S-11, was approved by the Senate agriculture committee Oct. 4 and is expected to receive final Senate approval before being sent to the House of Commons for debate and final approval beginning in late October.
Senators, on a motion from Manitoba Conservative Don Plett, amended the bill last week to require a review of the legislation every five years to make sure the government is putting enough resources into the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
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The legislation would tighten food safety rules by requiring companies to pass inspection information and testing date to the CFIA in a “timely manner” and requiring that all food importers be licensed and monitored and that a mandatory traceability system be implemented for the food industry.
The Conservative majority on the committee rejected a proposal from Saskatchewan Liberal senator Bob Peterson that the audit be done by the federal auditor general.
Last week, while under daily attack for government delays in closing the Brooks, Alta., XL Foods plant two weeks after the Americans closed the border because of E. coli, agriculture minister Gerry Ritz and other Conservatives placed the blame on XL, its delay in sending pertinent information to CFIA and the need for stronger food safety legislation.
The new legislation tabled in June must be passed quickly when it gets to the House of Commons, Ritz said Oct. 4.
“It gives us more robust powers, a more timely way to assess the paperwork and we will continue to move forward in that vein,” he said in the House of Commons. “Let us get it passed.”
CFIA president George Da Pont said in an Oct. 3 news conference in Calgary that existing legislation is one reason why CFIA was slow in confirming the contamination and closing the plant.
Bob Kingston, president of the agriculture union of the Public Sector Alliance of Canada, quickly said Da Pont was wrong.
“The current legislation forces companies to make information available,” he said in an Oct. 3 interview. “I don’t know why he said that.”
On Oct. 4, Da Pont acknowledged that the Meat Act does require companies to provide information to the government on testing results.
“The problem is that there is no provision that we get it in a timely way and that’s what the issue is here so that’s why the provisions of S-11 are very important because they would set in place a stronger measure for use to demand and obtain the documentation much faster than we can now,” he said.
