44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 1, 2023 11:00AM
moved that Bill C-275, An Act to amend the Health of Animals Act (biosecurity on farms), be read the second time and referred to a committee.
He said: Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to speak to my private member's bill.
I have always been taught that if at first we do not succeed, try and try again. I was honoured to have the support of every party in the House in the previous Parliament for my private member's bill, but, unfortunately, an election was called and it died on the Order Paper. Therefore, I am pleased to bring this forward once again on behalf of some of my constituents and farm families across Canada.
I will start my presentation speaking about a family in my riding.
In 2019, I received a call from a farm family in the southern part of my riding that owned a free-range turkey farm. The family members were distraught about what they were supposed to do with a number of protesters who had trespassed on their farm near Fort Macleod. They really had no understanding of what was taking place or what they did to deserve this.
I would ask members how they would feel if they woke up in the morning, went to check their animals, opened the barn and saw 45 protesters trying to take their turkeys off the property. The Tschetter family was really quite distraught. They did not know how to handle this and what to expect. This raised concerns with me about the protection not only of private property, but the biosecurity of those animals and the mental health of that family.
Less than two weeks before, many of these same protesters were on a hog operation in Abbotsford, B.C., where the Binnendyk family had a similar issue. The wife phoned her husband and son to tell them that there were more than 200 protesters in their family's breeding barn. Those protesters, and probably unbeknownst to them, did not understand the very strict biosecurity protocols that farm families had to follow. Those protesters may very well not have realized that they could have been carrying a virus or pest from one farm, the hog farm in Abbotsford, B.C., to a turkey farm in southern Alberta. We have very strict protocols on farms, and they are there for a reason, which is to protect the biosecurity and the health of those animals.
However, not only did the protesters put those animals at risk, but they had a very serious impact on those families. Even when I speak to members of the Tschetter today, they are still upset about what occurred on their farm and are still hesitant when they check their barns.
Calvin Binnendyk, whose hog farm in Abbotsford was impacted, said “I had quite a few sleepless nights, and it was rough on my family, especially my wife, even though she doesn’t even work in the barn. She took it really hard, and she still has a hard time sleeping to this day.” This is three years after that occurrence on their farm.
It is because of these two elements that I bring forward this private member's bill, which would amend the Health of Animals Act.
Bill C-275 proposes to make it an offence to enter, without lawful authority or excuse, a place in which animals are kept if doing so could result in the exposure of animals to disease or toxic substance capable of affecting or contaminating those animals. Simply put, this amendment would apply existing penalties within the act to people who trespass on farm property and facilities where animals are kept.
There is a key element to this as well. This would add a very significant fine to those organizations that encourage this type of behaviour. There is no question that those organizations, which, up to this point, are very unlikely to be held accountable, are fundraising off these actions. They videotape those trespassers and protesters who come onto a farm and they fundraise off that. In case of the farm family in Abbotsford, B.C., many of the pictures and videos that they were showing, according to the court case, never happened on that farm at all. They were staged and, in some cases, allegedly faked.
However, I want to state very clearly for everyone in the House and those listening at home what this legislation would not do.
The bill would not, in any way, disallow protesters from protesting on public property about the issues that they are passionate about and that are important to them. They can hold those rallies and protests outside the farm gate, but there has to be a line in the sand. When they cross that line onto private property and put the health of animals at risk as well as the mental health of our farm families at risk, there has to be a line there. There have to be strict rules in place to deter that action.
The bill would also not stop whistle-blowers from bringing forward cases if they witness practices that jeopardize the safety and welfare of farmers. Canadian farmers and ranchers have the moral and legal obligation to look after their animals. In fact, farmers and their employees are obligated to report any inappropriate actions and any wrongdoing they see happening on a farm, especially because this is a highly regulated atmosphere. They must follow strict codes when it comes to the health, safety and welfare of their farm animals.
I know the members in the House are well aware that there have been numerous actions of protesters on farms. It is becoming more and more daring and reckless.
Only two months ago, an animal rights activist group hung three dead pigs from an overpass in Montreal. I understand this did not happen on a farm, but imagine if one of those pigs had fallen off that overpass and onto the windshield of a passing car? That just symbolizes the extreme lengths that some of these activist groups are willing to go. Again, where did they get those pigs? Were they taken off a farm? They killed them. I do not think that is really protecting the health and welfare of animals.
I know we are going to get some questions about whether we are wading into provincial jurisdiction. Some provinces have implemented something similar. I am proud to say that they were modelled after the legislation I brought forward in the previous Parliament. However, less than half of the provinces and territories have something like this on their books, which shows the federal government and the federal legislators have a leadership role to indicate that there is a line that cannot be crossed.
What this really focuses on is the biosecurity risk and the health of our animals. We saw what COVID did to Canada's economy, a human-borne virus. It devastated not only our economy but economies around the world. Imagine what a similar animal-borne pandemic would do to Canada's agriculture industry. Right now we are experiencing that with avian flu and chicken and egg producers across Canada.
In 2014, in the Fraser Valley, we had 10 farms that had an Al outbreaks and more than 200,000 birds were euthanized.
in 2004, we had a highly pathogenic strain that led to the slaughter of 17 million farm birds. Before that outbreak was eventually brought under control it cost producers $380 million.
We are going through a similar experience right now, where 7.5 million domestic birds across B.C. Alberta, Ontario, Quebec and Saskatchewan have had to be euthanized.
We know that it is only an amount of time before our next concern, and that is African swine fever. This has killed more than half the pigs in China and is spreading to the Asia-Pacific, Central Asia, Eastern Europe and even the Dominican Republic. It is at our doorstep and we have to take precautions to ensure that our producers are protected. If African swine fever were to occur in Canada, it would have a $24 billion economic hit to Canada's pork industry. More than 45,000 people are employed in that industry and 70% of our $4.25-billion industry is exported around the world.
Whether we are prepared to deal with ASF or avian flu is something the agriculture committee will very seriously look into soon, and the threat of transmission is very real. Again, I cannot stress this enough. I know that if any of my colleagues here have toured a chicken farm, or an egg hatchery or a pork operation, they know the protocols that have to be taken, such as putting on a hazmat suit, washing one's boots, putting on booties and a hair-net. If anyone has gone to an animal processing facility, it is very similar. There are very strict protocols and they are there for a reason.
I think that, in many cases, protesters are not willingly putting the biosecurity of those farms at risk but they do not understand the protocols that are in place, which every farm family follows very closely. Those animals are their livelihood and they want to ensure they are treated well. I think all of us in the House understand that. If we can take proactive measures to ensure that these types of animal pandemics do not occur, we want to do that. It is one tool that we are able to use.
We cannot make the same mistake with a potential outbreak on a ranch or farm in Canada. We must take every precaution and use every tool in our took box to ensure we protect our farm families. We know that agriculture and agri-food is going to be a critical pillar of our economy moving forward. To ensure that it can reach its full potential, our farm families need to know that the Government of Canada and the House of Commons stand with them, will protect them and put these measures in place.
Strengthening the biosecurity measures for trespassers is something farmers, ranchers, food processors and farm groups across the country all support. In fact, I have letters from dozens of agriculture and stakeholders groups that are strongly in support of this legislation. I am glad to hear that the Minister of Agriculture has also spoken out, saying the actions of extremist groups protesting on dairy farms are unacceptable, and it is a concern for her. That is good to hear.
We have the support of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, for example, which said, “The CFA supports in principle, and encourages, [this] private member's bill to support Canadian farmers who have been negatively impacted by activism. We believe that the introduction of this bill is an important and necessary step in the right direction.”
The Canadian Dairy Farmers of Canada said that Canadian dairy farmers were committed to the best care of our herds and were fully engaged in adhering to the highest standards of animal welfare, food quality and biosecurity, and that the amendments proposed by me to the Health of Animals Act would further protect the health and security of our animals.
As I said, the bill would not prohibit peaceful protesting by those groups that want to make a statement on animal welfare, and I appreciate that, but it would ensure the security on our farms and help with the mental health of Canadian farm families.
I hope members in the House will continue to support this legislation, as they did in the previous Parliament. It is very important that we send a leadership message that we support our farm families, that we understand the importance of biosecurity on farms and the protocols that are in place, and that we will protect the mental health of our farm families.
I am speaking especially of families like the Binnendyks and the Tschetters that work hard every single day. These are family generational farms that do all they can to protect their animals, but they also grow high-quality food for Canadian families and food that is exported around the world, helping us feed the world as well. They understand the steps they must take to protect their animals, but they do not understand when protesters cross the line onto private property and, in many cases, do not understand what they do.
I look forward to engaging with my colleagues as we work together to address this very important issue of protecting Canada's food supply, protecting our supply chain and standing up for Canadian farm families.
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Mr. Speaker, this is important legislation. It is also an important occasion to educate people about biosecurity measures on farms. I know I cannot walk into a chicken barn without practically putting on a hazmat suit because of biosecurity concerns, especially in a season when we are dealing with avian flu.
It is Mental Health Week this week. I want to ask the hon. member whether he has heard from farmers on how stressful it can be sometimes with the threat of having protesters on their farms, or family businesses.
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Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt, especially on the Tschetter farm, for example, that it is doing everything right. It is a free-range turkey farm, yet the protesters still chose its farm, because it is off a main highway, to do their protesting. We know that farmers deal with a number of variables that are out of their control, commodity prices, weather, all of these things, and then add on the potential of protesters coming onto their farms.
Imagine waking up one morning, going into the living room and looking outside, and there are protesters trying to take the family dog because they do not feel it is being treated properly. How would we react? This is exactly what is going on. The protesters are walking into a farmer's backyard and causing extreme mental stress for the family.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Foothills for his very important bill.
Obviously, we will work with him to make this bill effective and enforceable, including by focusing it on biosecurity, as he said so well in his speech.
The member spoke about mental health, as did our Liberal colleague just now. This issue is extremely important. Right now, farmers are struggling, especially under the pressures of high inflation.
To round out this bill, does he think that the government should take steps to boost cash flow on farms to make sure that our farm businesses survive, especially the businesses of the next generation?
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Mr. Speaker, I support the principle of this legislation, but I do believe it needs further scrutiny when it comes to committee. Is my colleague from Foothills aware that there was an Animal Justice report from 2021 that looked at disease outbreaks and biosecurity failures on Canadian farms? It listed hundreds of these incidents, and they were all from authorized personnel on farms.
He knows this version of the legislation is not the same as the version that was reported back to the House in the previous Parliament. There is a reference to being on the farm with “lawful authority or excuse”. I am wondering if the member for Foothills can explain the discrepancy, given that we have so many biosecurity failures from authorized personnel. If we are serious about biosecurity, should we not be concentrating on making it applicable to everyone who is on a farm, to ensure they are following the standard protocols?
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Mr. Speaker, the member brings up a very good point. Many Canadians do not understand the decades of work that goes into building up the genetics, whether it is beef, pork or in the feathers' barns. It is not something one can replace overnight. We are certainly seeing that with the avian flu, where it is taking months to get the numbers back up. When it comes to bovine spongiform encephalopathy in Alberta, or BSE, many of those farms are 20 years past and still have not built up their herd numbers from 25 years ago. It sometimes takes a generation to get the genetics back to where it was.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to be standing in the House to give my remarks with respect to Bill C-275, an act to amend the Health of Animals Act, biosecurity on farms. This was introduced by the member for Foothills. I will add to my colleague's comments to say that it is a pleasure to work with the member on the agriculture committee.
Despite what the public sees in question period, we, as members of all parties, actually do get along with each other. I find some of our most rewarding work happens at committee, specifically the agriculture committee, which bucks the trend of many committees because, whatever political party one may be a member of, we all represent farmers, and we all have their interests at heart.
This is the member's second attempt. The first was in the previous Parliament with Bill C-205. I last had the opportunity to debate that legislation at second reading in late 2020. Here we are in 2023, and it may not be the most efficient process, but we had the journey of the previous bill interrupted by an unnecessary election at the time.
Let us get to the purported why of this bill, which centres on biosecurity. We know there are many diseases that pose a risk to farm animals. They include African swine fever; bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE; foot and mouth disease; and avian flu. Many of these diseases do keep our researchers and scientists up at night. I recently had a conversation with the deans council of agriculture and veterinary schools across Canada. They are leading some of the efforts in looking at these diseases, and they are quite concerned, particularly with avian influenza.
Generally speaking, biosecurity at the farm level can be defined as management practices that allow producers to prevent the movement of disease-causing agents onto and off of their operations because, if one farm operator does notice an outbreak of disease, they want to contain that to prevent its spread to other farms. Generally speaking, there are three key principles: isolation, traffic control and sanitation. With Bill C-275, we are mainly looking at the principle of traffic control: controlling who is coming into contact with on-farm animals.
We know that visitors to farms can unknowingly bring harmful agents. They can bring them via contaminated clothing and footwear, with equipment and with their vehicles.
I will talk about some of my personal experiences. In my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, I have had the pleasure of visiting local farms, including Farmer Ben's Eggs and Lockwood Farms, which are both egg-producing operations. I keep a small flock of chickens on my property. I raise my own chickens, and I like to eat the eggs from them. With the dangers of avian influenza, I was not allowed to come into contact with my own birds for the space of an entire week before visiting a commercial operation, and of course, I had to take very strict measures with my footwear before I was allowed anywhere near the birds.
In a previous life, I used to be a tree planter in the interior of British Columbia. I was planting trees on the Douglas Lake Ranch, a ranch near Merritt, British Columbia, which, of course, is the largest working cattle ranch in B.C. The ranch has such vast properties that many of them are harvested in timber operations. Before our tree-planting operation was allowed anywhere onto the property, we had to have all of our vehicles sanitized to make sure that there was no danger of foot and mouth disease being transferred to the operation.
This just gives members a sense of the operations that are currently in place. I know this is replicated in farms across the country, but these are operations that I have personally witnessed and had to partake in.
Now let us get to the what. We have an existing federal statute, the Health of Animals Act. It is primarily responsible for diseases and toxic substances that may affect animals, or be transmitted by animals to persons, and it looks at their protection. In existing sections of the statute, there are provisions that deal with the concealment of the existence of a reportable disease, the keeping of diseased animals, bringing diseased animals to market, and selling or disposing of diseased animals. That is the current state of some of the existing sections of the federal legislation and what they are hoping to achieve.
Bill C-275 seeks to amend the existing Health of Animals Act by adding a proposed section 9.1. I will read the key section: “No person shall, without lawful authority or excuse, enter a building or other enclosed place in which animals are kept, or take in any animal or thing, knowing that or being reckless as to whether entering such a place or taking in the animal or thing could result in the exposure of the animals to a disease or toxic substance that is capable of affecting or contaminating them.” Of course, further on in the bill, there is a new series of penalties for individuals and groups that would violate this new section, consistent with existing provisions of the Health of Animals Act.
I also want to take some time during my speech to outline some of the concerns, because we would not be doing our job as parliamentarians if we did not look at both sides of the argument, and I think this is what our committee really needs to take into account. There are animal rights groups that feel that the legislation represents what they call “ag-gag” legislation, meaning they feel that they are going to be silenced or prevented from taking actions they deem to be in the best interest of farm animals.
As other speakers have outlined, if the bill is about stopping trespassing and not about shoring up biosecurity, it would be unconstitutional, because we all know that, under our current Constitution Act, jurisdiction over property and civil rights belongs firmly within the provincial realm. We do not want to interfere with the rights of provincial legislatures to make such laws. Of course, as I referenced in my question, there is an Animal Justice report from 2021 that lists hundreds of incidents of failures of biosecurity that were all by authorized personnel associated with the afflicted farms. I will repeat that. All of those incidents came from people who were on the property with lawful authority and excuse. I want to quote from that report:
Despite the risk to farms, animals, and the economy posed by disease outbreaks, biosecurity on farms is not comprehensively regulated at the federal level. The CFIA publishes voluntary biosecurity guidelines for some animal farming sectors, developed in cooperation with industry and government. Adherence to these standards is not a legal requirement. Provincial legislation varies, and tends to empower officials to respond to existing biosecurity hazards instead of prescribing rules that farmers must follow to prevent disease outbreaks.
These are some of the items we have to take into account when we are examining the bill.
I want to conclude by saying that, as New Democrats, we absolutely do support animal welfare. I fact, I was personally proud to support petition e-4190, which collected more than 36,000 signatures and is calling for the Liberals to honour their campaign promise of banning the live export of horses for slaughter. That is something the agriculture minister has still not met in her mandate letter, and we committed, through several elections, to updating the health of animal regulations and to making sure we modernize animal welfare legislation.
That being said, I want to very clearly state that I support farmers and I support their rights to be free from trespass. I know, not only from personal experience but also from my five years in this role as agriculture critic, that farmers are good people. They want to treat their animals well during their lives. Based on the witness testimony we heard at the agriculture committee, there is fairly strong support for a measure like Bill C-275.
I do want to note that protesters can legally get close to farms, not on the property, and it is in their interest to call for more accountability. I also want to note that on-farm employees who witness any instances of abuse to livestock could not be silenced by provisions of the bill. In fact, we do want that measure of internal accountability.
I want to say to the member for Foothills that, while I do support the legislation in principle, more work does need to be done at committee. I want to make sure that biosecurity measures would, in fact, apply to everyone and that we would not be intruding on provincial jurisdiction over trespass laws. I look forward to sending the bill to committee for further work.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank all of the members of the House of Commons for having another wonderful debate on an important piece of legislation, which is about biosecurity on our farms across Canada. Before I begin, the member for Foothills is not only a gentleman, a scholar and a pretty good hockey player for a dude in his 50s, but he has also always brought forward some really excellent legislation that directly relates to a problem in my great riding of Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon.
A number of years ago, the Binnendyk farm on Harris Road, which is less than 10 minutes from where I live, received national attention when protesters entered the farm illegally. To put it bluntly, this was very hard on the Binnendyk family. Another member, from the Liberal Party, mentioned that it is Mental Health Week. Well, when the illegal protesters came onto the farm, that had a lasting, negative impact on this family and on the way Canadians may perceive the work that farmers do on their behalf.
I know that many people, like me and many other members of the House of Commons, love pork. Pork products are amazing. The pork industry in British Columbia, in the Fraser Valley, where I live, has taken a lot of blows. The Binnendyk farm is one of the last remaining farms in the most productive agricultural area in all of Canada. During these past years, activists, not only on the Binnendyks' farm, but we heard about the Schetter Farm in the Foothills riding as well, have entered farm properties across Canada to denounce the living conditions of animals. In response, farm groups have expressed concerns over these incidents and are calling on the government to find ways to address this problem, because food security matters, a safe food supply matters and this is what we are here to achieve today.
Agricultural “biosecurity” refers to “those practices that prevent or mitigate disease from entering, spreading within, or being released from operations that may contain livestock.” At the farm level, “biosecurity” alludes to, perhaps, a series of managing practices designed to minimize, prevent or control the introduction of infectious diseases onto a farm, spread within a farm production operation and export of the disease agents beyond the farm that may have an adverse effect on the economy, environment and human health. A farm environment can significantly affect the spread or prevention of disease on the farm. As such, facility design, layout and traffic patterns on a farm have significant influence on the effectiveness and the efficiency of a farm-level biosecurity plan. For that reason, farm-level biosecurity plans generally include, among other things, measures to control access to certain areas on a farm.
Members of the House who, like me, have experience spending a lot of time on the farm, and my mom was a farmer, know that there were not, when I was a kid, biosecurity measures like we have today. Because of diseases, which have originated in the Fraser Valley in some cases, farmers have had to adapt to agricultural practices in the 21st century, and rightfully so, because Canadians depend on our farmers to create a safe, secure and reliable source of food that is nutritious and keeps us, as a population, healthy. The federal Health of Animals Act and its regulations, the health of animals regulations, do set out certain provisions, but they do not set out all the biosecurity provisions we need. The bill before us today would address that, in good faith, to keep our farmers safe.
Let us go back to talking about the Binnendyks and the protest that took place. I was texting them when we were having the debate earlier this morning. They said that if I could raise one thing in the House of Commons, they would want it to be that they felt that, although some people were convicted, the organization that allowed Ms. Soranno to undertake her activities should have been accountable too. I will note that there was no remorse by those convicted by our justice system for the actions they took. That is problematic. That is why we need this bill today. In fact, even during the core proceedings or after, the protesters went to the SPCA because they did not like the way that the SPCA made a decision about the Binnendyk Farm, one that did not go according to their narrative.
We need laws that protect our farmers. Importantly, we also need to change perceptions about how food production takes place in Canada. That is why this bill is so important today. I would say to the Binnendyk family that, as their MP, I hear them. We are trying to make sure that what happened to them never happens again on a farm and that there are real penalties for those who willingly enter private property without justification and put up fake videos about what farmers are doing on their agricultural property. We want to put an end to that.
Frankly, I remember I had a conversation after the incident took place on the farm with the Binnendyks' cousin Richard Schutte. He told me, as the MP for Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon, that the Binnendyk farm would probably be the last farm that animal activists would want to pick on, as the Binnendyks have invested all of their livelihood into producing safe food for Canadian families. To my knowledge, they are the last-standing hog farmers on Matsqui Prairie, and they work day and night to provide a safe and secure source of food for my constituents and Canadians around this country.
I am pleased to hear that we have unanimity in the House of Commons to get the bill to committee stage, that members of Parliament are going to work in good faith to improve biosecurity, and that, as a result, our farmers are going to feel a little more protected and a little more heard.
More broadly, in the Fraser Valley, we have been dealing with other sources of biosecurity issues. There are major concerns about avian influenza. I see the work agricultural producers in the poultry sector have to do in order to completely manage their operations with respect to access to their farm and the way animals are transported between farms and processing facilities. We need bills like this one to become law to provide the assurances our producers need to do their job effectively on behalf of all Canadians. One example is that, in 2004, an avian flu event led to a 30% increase in international poultry prices. If we have another serious incident like that, we could see the price of pork, beef or chicken go up 30% or 40%. We need these protections in place. We need to do more to stop infectious disease outbreaks and make sure our producers have the tools required to do their job effectively.
I am thankful for the opportunity to speak to this bill today. When I got elected, I made a promise that I would stand up on this bill. I thank the member for Foothills for bringing it forward. This is a concrete measure that agricultural producers in Mission—Matsqui—Fraser Canyon and across Canada have asked for, and I am pleased to stand in support of it today.
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Mr. Speaker, on behalf of all the egg farming families of Berthier—Maskinongé and Quebec, I would like to congratulate the Egg Farmers of Canada on its 50th anniversary.
I would also like to call attention to its commitment to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, as our egg farmers join the fight against climate change.
Our supply management system ensures that farmers have the income and capacity they need to reinvest in their operation when our market grows. It also promotes land use and food resilience. The more family farms there are, the more villages will flourish.
For the Egg Farmers of Canada, this 50th anniversary is a chance to spotlight innovative practices and effective management. To celebrate this anniversary, let us protect supply management by passing Bill C‑282. No gift could be more welcome.
Long live the Egg Farmers of Canada, and long live supply management.
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