As it finishes (yawn) its long awaited report on the agricultural value chain, the House of Commons agriculture committee is looking for a new purpose.
There are many relevant issues to take up with a concise set of focused hearings and a report produced before the issue is history, but here is a modest proposal for the hard-working MPs on the committee.
How is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency doing, does it have the right mandate, does it have enough funding and staffing, is there too much public, political and media attention on inspectors on the food line and not enough on the processes CFIA administers?
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Agriculture minister Gerry Ritz has promised a review of the sorry XL episode through his internally appointed food safety advisory committee, vowing its report will be made public.
That falls far short of what is necessary as consumers hear wild claims from union accusers and political opponents and questionable defences from government defenders like Ritz.
So more light needs to be shone on this issue of food safety for the sake of the 33 million consumers who do not live on the farm.
First, I would recommend a rather public review by the fictional Food System Crisis Management Communications Committee (FSCMCC) about how not to handle a food safety crisis. It might be called the Nilsson/Ritz/CFIA paradigm of what not to do.
Secondly, I would suggest the Commons agriculture committee dedicate itself to this issue, quickly and decisively. Conservative members, set aside your government ass-covering tendency; opposition members, forget exaggerated attacks about Ritz being indifferent to food safety or food inspection being turned over to the companies and bore down on the facts.
The opposition in the House of Commons is calling for Ritz to resign. That is not going to happen.
The opposition is calling for Ritz to call an open-ended public inquiry into the XL episode and the government culpability in the affair. That is not going to happen.
But there is a parliamentary body that actually could conduct a public inquiry. It is called the House of Commons Standing Committee on Agriculture and it has the full power to call witnesses, to compel witnesses to appear, to demand documents and reach whatever conclusions it wants with a demand that the government respond within 45 days.
Who knew?
So here are the questions it could demand of witnesses:
- Is our food safety system robust and credible or is it flawed?
- What are the CFIA staffing levels, where are the inspectors, are they front line, have government cuts hurt, are companies self-regulating and can consumers really count on CFIA inspections to guarantee safe food on the shelves?
- Should the CFIA, which has a role of both inspecting and promoting Canadian food safety, be part of Agriculture Canada or Health Canada? Is there a conflict now?
The Conservatives argue that new food safety legislation is the answer.
From a consumer listening to wildly divergent claims including union allegations of unsafe and dirty plants and workers pushed too hard to ensure proper handling, new legislation is not reassuring.
The Commons agriculture committee could set aside its partisan divisions and bore into this.
If it wanted to.
