44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 10, 2024 10:00AM
- May/10/24 10:29:10 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. minister for his speech. I want him to know that I was deeply moved and shocked by the story of what he experienced when he was younger. It reminds us of the importance of fighting against all forms of violence, all forms of sexual violence, especially against children. I was very moved and I hope that this type of trauma will never happen to anyone ever again.
Now, with respect to the bill, I commend the minister's openness to collaborating with Quebec and the provinces. He is saying all the right things. In reality, however, based on the way the bill is drafted, it is paternalistic Ottawa that is dictating what its priorities are and disregarding the model that Quebec has in place for pharmacare, which is meeting the most urgent needs. There is no coordination. There was no advance planning. We saw the same thing with dental insurance. Ottawa is giving $2 billion to Sun Life for management fees alone, while we have a public system in Quebec. The minister could have sat down and discussed how to coordinate this. He also talked about the importance of keeping the public health care system, yet he chronically underfunds the health care systems by covering 20% of the cost, when it should be 35%.
Why is there such a huge gap between the benevolent rhetoric and the actions that undermine the system in Quebec and the provinces?
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- May/10/24 10:30:38 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I certainly appreciate my colleague's question, because it is important.
Regarding the first example, I can talk a bit about the bilateral health agreements. This is a good example of collaboration where we were able to establish common indicators across the country without imposing any directives. It is not about telling Quebec what to do. No, that is not the case at all. Rather, it is about being able to measure progress in our health care system across the country based on data. Yes, this applies in Quebec, but it also applies across the country. That is important. I hope such a system could be possible one day on a global scale.
The agreement specified that this really was a Quebec jurisdiction. I respect that enormously. That is why it is Quebec's plan. We are here to support the plan and to provide funding. It is important to communicate how federal money will be used, but it is really up to Quebec.
As far as oral health care is concerned, there is tremendous need right now. That is why it is essential to act today to ensure that Quebeckers can receive this care now. Then we can find a common solution.
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Madam Speaker, I listened attentively to what the health minister was saying, so I am glad to be the first person to rise on my side to maybe provide a rebuttal and also to reset the debate, because the debate is not directly about Bill C-64; it is about a programming motion.
When I listened to the minister's speech, I also had the time to compare it to his speech that he gave at second reading. The same three anecdotes he raised today were raised then. Two of the three are completely misleading, and one was a very personal experience of his that he raised, which is his right as a member and a minister.
However, this is about a programming motion that would guillotine debate in the House. It would order a committee of the House to basically consider a bill within 10 hours, a bill that would have profound impact on the structure of Canada's health care systems, plural because they are systems. Quebec has a different system than Alberta, than British Columbia, than Saskatchewan and than other provinces in Canada.
We know from much research that has already been done by CIHI, The Conference Board of Canada, Statistics Canada, and CLHIA, which is the life insurance trade association, that 97.2% of Canadians already have access or are eligible for access to an insurance benefit plan of some sort. I know that in my home province, we have Blue Cross, which is usually the insurer of last resort that provides a lot of the services that the minister talked about.
The worst part of all is that we would be programming a committee of the House to study what essentially amounts to a pamphlet of legislation. The minister talked about finding common ground and solutions. I have also heard other members of Parliament talk about how important committee work is to them. Now we would basically be guillotining and gag ordering a specific committee of the House, the Standing Committee on Health, to do its work in 10 hours.
That is why I asked a question for the health minister on why he felt the need to exclude himself from having to come to testify before the health committee. One would think that he would put himself before the members at committee and answer all of their questions on the reasoning behind C-64 and the wisdom of it, because it is not a national pharmacare plan. That is not what it would do. It would cover two very small areas of medicine.
I will note that in the minister's second reading speech about Bill C-64, he had all of one sentence devoted to rare disease drugs and rare disease patients, typically the source of the most expensive therapies, the most expensive drugs, on an individual basis, not on a broad basis. Typically most drug plans in the provinces, whether private or public, spend the most on things like the very basic medication for infections. Medications like amoxicillin or penicillin and variations thereof are the ones that are quite expensive because people get a lot of infections, so it it just a question of volume in those situations.
There is a lot of medication out there that is expensive because it is brand new; it is coming onto the market for the first time. Recently I learned about a new oncology drug that is going to be made available in the United States, but it is cutting-edge, specialized medicine made for the individual patient. The drug comes with a few tens of thousands of dollars of cost associated with its delivery. There will be some cancer centres in Canada that will not be able to have it available for patients, but it will be available to other patients in other parts of Canada. Oncology drugs would not be covered under the plan.
There would actually be nothing covered in the plan except for those two areas of medications, which are very specific ones as well. Like I said, there would be nothing for rare disease patients. The minister talked, in his original speech at second reading, though not today, about the $1.5 billion being devoted to rare disease drugs. That announcement was made in 2019, yet only now has some of the spending gone out, not to cover drug costs but to cover things like the creation of rare disease registries to get foundations, universities and private organizations to start up a rare disease registry specific to one individual drug.
There is often a problem in how the Liberals propose things. They say something, make claims, and then it takes years before anything actually happens. As an example, in 2019 there was an announcement. In 2024, still not a single rare disease drug has been covered by the $1.5 billion. It took five years of waiting. Rare disease patients cannot wait. In fact it was the Liberal government that cancelled the original rare disease strategy in 2016. At that time, the president of the Canadian Organizations for Rare Disorders, Durhane Wong-Rieger, said that it was the kiss of death for patients with rare diseases.
She is a literal ball of energy and an amazing woman, an amazing advocate for patients with rare diseases. This was in 2016. It took the government three years just to announce funding and five years after that to roll out a single dollar. Now the government wants to convince us that it needs to expedite Bill C-64 by programming and ordering the Standing Committee on Health to consider certain things but not others.
I will go through the programming motion, since the minister did not feel the need to even explain why this was necessary. He repeated, essentially, his second reading speech on why we need to expedite this so quickly. There were three days of debate in the House before there was a vote at the Senate and in the Standing Committee on Health. I looked at the work the Standing Committee on Health had done. It did not even have the chance to consider the bill. That is how quickly the government is now programming what is going on.
The first line of this programming motion is very simple: “the committee shall have the first priority for the use of House resources for the committee meetings”. It seems quite reasonable that it would be given first right to interpretation, rooms and catering services if the committee is expected to sit for hours and hours on end. I guess a programming motion would have to have that in it.
The second part is, “the committee shall meet between 3:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. on the two further sitting days following the adoption of this order to gather evidence from witnesses, provided that any meeting on a Friday may start at 12:00 p.m. for a duration of not more than five hours”. Essentially, that is saying there will be two more meetings of the Standing Committee on Health and 10 hours of testimony. There are countless members in the House who will say that, during consideration of a bill, witnesses will testify, explain an idea or perhaps a missing amendment or particular line in a bill between the French and the English, which happens on a fairly regular basis. They either do not match, do not make sense or there could be more added to a bill to clarify or constrain a bill. Ten hours is simply not enough for a bill that would have such a substantive impact.
According to the health minister, the Liberals are going to celebrate a bill with such a substantive and profound impact as some great achievement. I do not believe that. I believe this is a pamphlet. This is not national pharmacare. There is no spending associated with this bill. Every one of my constituents back home knows there is no spending associated with this bill. If the Liberals keep ramming the bill through at this pace and it passes through the Senate at some point in the future, not one single drug will be paid for through this legislation because there are no dollars associated with it. There is no, what we call, ministerial warrant from the Minister of Finance connected to this bill. There will be no medication paid for through this particular bill. That is why I do not understand why this programming motion is of such necessity when the committee has not even had a chance to consider it.
I understand perhaps it would be easier to tell Conservatives, members of the Bloc and independent members that they are slowing down the committee's work, that they are not allowing the committee to proceed with witness testimony or consider the contents of the bill, but that has not even happened yet. We have not even had a chance to invite witnesses to explain to us their views on the contents of the bill.
When the minister talks about finding common ground and solutions, he accuses the Conservatives of being against it. Of course we are against it. We voted against the bill, but that doesn't mean we cannot improve an F product and make it maybe an F+ product. I know that is not a grade in universities or colleges in Canada, but we can always make something terrible a little less terrible. This is essentially, like I said, a pamphlet. For me, it was easier to vote against it because I saw nothing for patients with rare diseases. That is not a surprise to anyone in this place.
I remember the original debate on an NDP private member's bill, which I believe was Bill C-340, if memory serves. It was on national pharmacare. At least the title was on national pharmacare, not the contents. It was put forward by the member for Vancouver Kingsway. He and I debated it for most of the day. I was all about access for patients with rare diseases, and I said that was why I could not vote for that bill at the time.
It is not a big surprise to many members of the House and members of the other place that I would be against a bill that has has a title of national pharmacare, but would not do anything for patients with rare diseases. Members know of a personal anecdote I have mentioned many times in the House. I have three living kids with a rare disease called Alport syndrome. One daughter passed away very young, at 39 days old, with a different rare disease. I always joke with my friends in the rare disease community that I am due. I should probably play the lottery as I would I have a decent chance of winning because both of those conditions are rare.
In the case of my living kids, it is a rare disease of the kidneys, CKD, a chronic kidney condition. In the case of my youngest daughter who passed away, she had Patau syndrome, which is a chromosomal condition and very, very rare.
If one knows a child with Down syndrome, one should hug them. They are very special little kids. My daughter had a condition that is considered much worse than Down's. Down's is survivable. There are a lot of very sweet kids who live with Down syndrome, and their families are made incredibly happy by them because they are sweet into the teen years, into their twenties, thirties and forties. One never has to go through those teenage years, as I am going through right now with one of my kids, where suddenly, as the dad, I know nothing and they know everything, which is okay. I will go through this three times in my life.
I will move on to the next part of the programming motion, which reads, “all amendments be submitted to the clerk of the committee by 4:00 p.m. on the second sitting day following the adoption of this order”.
We are quite fortunate there was unlimited time provided, I believe, for the first two speakers on a programming motion. Perhaps members are surprised I would rise on this, but I intend to use this time to explain why I do not like the programming motion and the defects with Bill C-64, and to remind the minister about what the summary of his own legislation says that it does, because it is the complete opposite of what the minister just explained to the House. It is the complete opposite from his second reading speech as well, so members can stay tuned for that part.
On these amendments, we are fortunate because we have a constituency week coming up. I can guarantee many of us will be sitting down and working with patient advocacy groups. We will be going to our stakeholder groups and meeting with our constituents. I have a few who have emailed me on this subject. I will be finding useful amendments to this bill that would improve it in my eyes and in the eyes of my constituents. We have the time.
Had we had a sitting week coming up, had there not been unlimited time for the first speaker on the official opposition side, we could have been rushed to provide amendments by 4 p.m. after the first day. That is an incredibly low amount of time considering this first came to the House February 29 and then the last vote was on April 16 before it was sent to the committee.
Doing a programming motion like this, or a gag order to the committee, is wrong. I do not agree with programming motions. I believe I voted against nearly all of them that ever came through the House. I believe the health minister was also the House leader at one point when Motion No. 16 was being moved through the House. There was also a previous one, and I believe it was a member for Waterloo who moved Motion No. 6, which would have programmed how committees work in the Standing Orders forevermore for the Houses.
I cannot base our opposition or our support for any particular motions and programming motions on good faith coming from that side because I simply do not believe the cabinet, the front-benchers. I do not believe them. There are many good-hearted backbenchers in the Liberal benches. They are easier to work with, I find, than those on the front bench. The front bench I just do not trust. I do not trust the front-benchers to do the right thing for Canadians. In fact, Canadians do not trust them. If we look at the polls, there is about a 20-point disparity, depending on which poll we consider, between what the government is polling at and what the official opposition is polling at.
I will move on to the next point, which reads, “amendments filed by independent members shall be deemed to have been proposed during the clause-by clause consideration of the bill”. I actually do not have a problem with that. Independent members should be treated like every other member of the House, especially during considerations of bills.
Now comes the next one, which gets gets quite technical:
the committee shall meet at 3:30 p.m., on the third sitting day following the adoption of this order to consider the bill at clause-by-clause, or 12:00 p.m. if on a Friday, and if the committee has not completed the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill by 8:30 p.m., or 5:00 p.m. if on a Friday, all remaining amendments submitted to the committee shall be deemed moved, the Chair shall put the question, forthwith and successively without further debate on all remaining clauses, amendments submitted to the committee as well as each and every question necessary to dispose of the clause-by-clause consideration of the bill, and the committee shall not adjourn the meeting until it has disposed of the bill...
This means that, once the 10 hours of testimony are done, once that particular portion of the committee's work is done, every single amendment has to be voted on immediately, with no debate for amendments. In those 10 hours, if witness testimony takes five or six or seven hours, we then have a few hours left over to consider and debate amendments. We could not even persuade the other side of the wisdom of the amendment. This is so profoundly wrong. I see this programming motion all the time when it comes to omnibus budget bills.
I will remind the House that the Liberal platforms in 2015 and 2019 promised not to do omnibus budget bills, yet they have done them repeatedly, over and over again. In fact, in Liberal budget 2023, they had section changes to clauses 500 to 504 on natural health products. That has nothing to do with the budget. There are no spending items related to it, but it was a regulatory expansion to apply rules for pharmaceuticals directly onto natural health products.
It caught a lot of people by surprise, including myself, that in a budget bill, which sometimes has hundreds of pages, one would do such a thing. They basically clip what they usually do at the finance committee, and now they have dropped it and ordered the Standing Committee on Health to do it in one particular way, in their way, their preferred way, with no debate on any amendments.
Why should one allow backbenchers from any of our political parties to freely consider the judgment and the argument being made by another member of another political party, individually or on behalf of their political movement, on the wisdom of a particular amendment to a government bill? I know, it would be shocking to even have that consideration.
It would be even more shocking for some members of the government benches to know that I have voted for government amendments at committee. I know. I hear “shame” from my side of the benches, but it happens. Sometimes they have a good idea. I am willing to consider good ideas. I am willing to. I have been on several committees over my time, from foreign affairs to finance to the Standing Joint Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations. I am on the immigration committee and the Canada-China committee now, the select committee. I will vote for reasonable amendments. I will even talk to my own side to try to convince them if there is a reasonable, logical amendment that makes sense. Sometimes there is an argument made by a member of another party that actually makes sense. This section prevents that. There will be no debate on amendments. One is just supposed to vote on them.
Of course, what will happen is that there will be a question of having a recorded division on every single one of those votes. This means the committee will continue, likely, late into an evening, because it is basically programmed. To demonstrate that this is wrong and should not be done, I am fairly sure that there will be members of the committee who will want a recorded division on every single item so that we can go back to it later with our errors and mistakes and illogical situations that arise because two sections perhaps conflict with each other. This type of amendment process, clause by clause, is incredibly important, and we now will not be allowed to be given this opportunity.
The sixth portion of this guillotine gag order on the Standing Committee on Health says:
a member of the committee may report the bill to the House by depositing it with the Clerk of the House, who shall notify the House leaders of the recognized parties and independent members, and if the House stands adjourned, the report shall be deemed to have been duly presented to the House during the previous sitting for the purpose of Standing Order 76.1(1)
This is a fairly reasonable amendment that is often provided by members in other committees to make sure that, when reporting on a bill, the House leaders are informed, typically to go on the Notice Paper. I do not have a direct issue with this particular portion, apart from the fact that this is a programming motion, a gag order, that is going to guillotine a committee of the House without that committee even having had the chance to consider a bill.
The next section is section (b). It says:
not more than five hours shall be allotted to the consideration of the bill at report stage, and at the expiry of the time provided for the consideration of the said stage of the bill, or when no member rises to speak, whichever is earlier, any proceedings before the House shall be interrupted, and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the said stage of the bill shall be put forthwith and successively, without further debate or amendment, and, if a recorded division is requested, the vote shall not be deferred...
It continues. There is another one, but I am going to stop right here. This essentially means that, when amendments come back from committee, they are sometimes ruled out of order. They cannot be considered at committee but they can be considered by the House because the House has control of its committees, and the House can decide whether certain amendments can be voted on. Those are typically then submitted to the Speaker.
This essentially says that this process will also be guillotined after five hours. I know they love gag orders. I know they love to guillotine debate. My hope is, too, that during this debate on the programming motion, they do not gag order the gag order. I would hate to see that. It would be like a double gagging of the orders of the House and really limiting debate.
They have done it before. They have done it on Bill C-7 and Bill C-14, the two medical assistance in dying bills. At different stages of those bill, they both programmed and then shut down debate on them. I have seen, plenty of times, allocation motions being moved by cabinet to force bills through the process on matters of conscience.
It is not as if they are technical bills where perhaps there is timeline the Liberals need to reach and where, for the proper administration of government, they can perhaps make an argument they can stand on, but for matters of conscience, to guillotine debate is wrong. In this particular case, I would say that this is not a matter of conscience. I think this is about administration of government services and what the contents of the bill are actually about versus what they are not about. When the Liberals impose a guillotine with time allocation and force the closure of debate, the major disadvantage to Canadians is that they cannot prepare themselves. They cannot organize themselves when they are opposed to particular ideas and when they want to ask questions like, “Why is my rare disease, my health condition or MS not covered in this bill? Why is diabetes covered?”
I know a lot of diabetics, and I am not picking on them directly. I am just asking a simple question. The most common rare disease is multiple sclerosis, or MS. A lot of people in my family have it, as well as friends, colleagues and co-workers. There are spouses of members on this side who have it. Therefore, why is that particular condition, and its medication, which is expensive medication, not in this particular piece of legislation?
It is a choice the government made, so why can we not debate that choice the government has made for those two particular conditions and the medications associated with them? If they are being covered, why not others? There are so many other types of medications, such as the most common ones: penicillin, amoxicillin and all the variations of the “-cillins”, because there are so many of them. Why are they not covered in this particular piece of legislation?
On this programming motion, should we put forward such an amendment to be considered at committee? If it is deemed non-votable at committee, why can it not be considered at report stage?
I guess I will only get through the programming motions, and I will have to come back later to finish talking about Bill C-64 and some of the things the minister said, as well as my concerns with the PMPRB, CADTH, pCPA and the entire architecture of drug approval in Canada.
The motion reads, “not more than one sitting day shall be allotted to the consideration of the bill at the third reading stage, and 15 minutes before the expiry of the time provided for Government Orders”, and it goes on like that, which basically means that there will be one day for final speeches, and then it will be done and sent to the other place. It is wrong to ram through a bill in this method, with bad faith being shown by the health minister, claiming that we were opposing it and not willing to consider things, when he has never bothered to listen.
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- May/10/24 11:08:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after nine years of this Liberal government and nine inflationary deficit budgets, this Liberal government is not worth the cost.
This is especially true considering that, unfortunately, it can rely on the Bloc Québécois's support. Yes, the Bloc Québécois voted in favour of $500 billion in budget appropriations. That means $500 billion in centralizing spending, and the Bloc Québécois said yes. It also means $500 billion in inflationary spending, and the Bloc Québécois said yes.
As a result, Quebeckers and Canadians are paying more for everything.
Yesterday, in the Quebec National Assembly, the leader of the Parti Québécois condemned the Liberal government's mismanagement of public funds. The Liberal Party's governance is so inept that it has become an argument in support of Quebec's independence. Things are not going well. I would like to remind the leader of the Parti Québécois, who forgot to mention it yesterday, that the Bloc Québécois voted for $500 billion in budgetary appropriations.
When will this Prime Minister, who is being propped up by the Bloc Québécois, stop wasting money? When will this government finally govern responsibly?
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- May/10/24 11:22:48 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague talks about responsible management. Are people aware that, during his entire term as minister responsible for housing, the Conservative leader built six affordable housing units across the entire country, while in the riding of my colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles alone, 222 affordable housing units have been built in recent years? Many more are on the way thanks to the historic agreement that we signed with the Government of Quebec.
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- May/10/24 11:25:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, on this side of the House, we have always been there for francophones in Canada and Quebec. I find it very interesting to see my Bloc Québécois colleagues acting like they are the only ones who care about the French fact. They appear a little bothered by the fact that our government, which includes my colleague from Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, all Liberal members from Quebec and even our entire caucus, is defending the French fact in Quebec and across Canada. We are the only government—
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- May/10/24 11:25:56 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the Liberal member from Glengarry—Prescott—Russell spent his 15 minutes of fame denying the decline of French in Quebec. It is an odd choice at a time when the Commissioner of Official Languages notes that it is from my colleague's region along the Ottawa river that he receives the most complaints, including from federal public servants who are unable to work in French. The commissioner said, “The complaints my office has received...attest to the fact that a number of federal institutions do not take their language obligations seriously.”
If the Liberals are not taking the future of French seriously, then why would the federal government?
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- May/10/24 11:35:12 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, our colleague is talking about sound management. Does she know that, over his entire term as minister responsible for housing, the Conservative leader created only six affordable housing units across the country?
When he was the minister responsible for housing, the Conservative leader created six affordable housing units, while 205 affordable housing units were built in my colleague from Bellechasse—Les Etchemins—Lévis's riding in recent months. Many more are coming thanks to the agreement that we signed with the Government of Quebec for 8,000 affordable housing units. That will enable the municipality of Lévis and other municipalities in Quebec—
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- May/10/24 11:36:25 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am so happy to have another chance to talk about the 205 affordable housing units we have been able to create with the support of the Quebec government, thanks to the leadership of the Lévis community. That is 205 affordable housing units created in my colleague's riding in just a few months. Many more are on the way.
Unfortunately, that is not such good news for the Conservative leader who, during his entire term, created six affordable housing units across the country.
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- May/10/24 11:52:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, for 117 days, the federal government has been ignoring its civilian employees at Quebec's military bases, who are on strike. The government cannot ignore them anymore, because their representatives from Saint‑Jean, Bagotville and Valcartier are here today.
They are here to ask why Quebeckers have the lowest salaries in Canada, why Quebeckers are treated like second-class workers and why the Liberals have been ignoring them for 117 days now.
Will the government standardize the pay scale and stop discriminating against Quebec defence employees?
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- May/10/24 11:53:52 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, historically speaking, most of the armed forces' civilian employees in Quebec have been women.
They are rightfully asking why the federal government discriminates against them. For example, they are rightfully asking why a financial assistant in Bagotville gets paid $10 less an hour than an assistant doing the same job in Ottawa. The striking workers are rightfully demanding equal treatment across all bases. At a time when the armed forces are struggling to recruit, they should be demonstrating that they respect their employees.
The striking workers are returning to the table. They are ready. They will be tabling a counter-offer at 3:30 pm. Will the defence department finally listen to them?
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- May/10/24 11:55:08 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after nine years of this Bloc-Liberal government, the housing crisis is reaching unparalleled proportions. This July 1 will go down in history, but for all the wrong reasons. The crisis is not limited to large urban centres. It affects the regions as well.
An article published in this morning's La Presse says that Quebec's association of police chiefs has noticed a significant rise in homelessness. This sad state of affairs results from insufficient housing and a rising cost of living.
When will this government, backed by the Bloc Québécois, stop announcing programs that simply add to the bureaucracy instead of ensuring that housing gets built in the regions too?
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- May/10/24 11:58:32 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my colleague, for whom I have a great deal of respect. He is an involved and important person in the Quebec City area. I thank him for telling us about Nathalie. There are many other Nathalies in the Quebec City area who need help from the Canadian government. Life is tough in Quebec City in 2024. That is why we need a government that invests, not a Leader of the Opposition who insults. Relationships, in both private and political life, are based on respect.
Does he consider insulting Quebec municipalities, including our own municipality, a sign of respect?
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- May/10/24 1:25:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this motion calls once again for federal interference into municipal and provincial regulations. Whether we are talking about supply chain losses or waste-related losses, for the most part the rules for managing these products and food donations fall under the jurisdiction of the provinces and the municipalities, the jurisdiction of Quebec and the provinces.
What is more, despite the fact that this motion has good intentions, most of the initiatives it proposes are already being implemented by the Government of Quebec, but also by the federal government through its food policy for Canada.
I am going to say a few words about waste. It is not limited to unused products and food that is thrown out by consumers. We are also talking about losses identified at every stage of the supply chain. Food waste includes waste as we understand it, plus the losses.
A UN report released in 2021 shows that Canada is the undisputed champion of waste. I will quote an article that talks about this report:
According to the study, every Canadian throws out...175 pounds of food a year, or...44 pounds more than the average American.
In 2019, three million tonnes of food ended up in the garbage in Canada.
The UN Environment Programme report estimates that nearly a billion tonnes of food was wasted in the world in 2019....
Let us now look more closely at the points in the motion.
First, it proposes to “establish a National Food Waste Hierarchy”. The waste hierarchy ranks the actions that need to be taken to reduce or avoid waste in order of priority. This is an important step, but one that has already been taken, particularly through the work and the research funded by the Quebec government and Recyc-Québec.
Second, it proposes to “align municipal and provincial regulations concerning food waste reduction and food donations”. Third, it proposes to “lead efforts to reduce the adverse environmental impact of unused food resources”. Fourth, it proposes to “establish protocols and partnerships to facilitate food redistribution and rescue efforts”. These last three points are obviously a logical extension of the first. It makes sense to come up with the most appropriate solutions and then find a way to apply them.
However, most of the laws and regulations governing food waste fall under the jurisdiction of the Quebec and provincial governments. Once again, the intention behind this motion is yet another example of the centralizing, Ottawa-knows-best attitude. It implies that the relationship between the federal and provincial governments is hierarchical, not complementary. This interpretation of federalism is a reason in itself to oppose this motion, even though it is well intentioned. Let us set the record straight.
Quebec and the provinces handle all of this by working together with municipalities and with the businesses and organizations involved in the production, processing, sale or donation of food products. While agriculture is a shared jurisdiction, resource and land management, processing and marketing within the province are Quebec's responsibility. The federal government helps with the development and funding of certain risk management, research and interprovincial and international trade programs. As for waste itself, municipal regulations, not federal ones, govern the management of residual materials and certain food donation and sharing projects. Similarly, Quebec is responsible for enforcing environmental and sanitation laws.
The federal government has a role to play in labelling in general and in food safety when it comes to importing or exporting. However, in the context of this broader issue of waste, Ottawa has no concrete role to play.
I want to come back to the points of the motion itself. Fifth, it proposes to “identify policy and fiscal incentives to reduce food waste”. Sixth, it proposes to “raise public awareness regarding food waste, food insecurity, and associated government initiatives”.
The federal government could try doing these two things. However, it would have to take into account the specifics and initiatives of communities that already have programs in place, like in Quebec. We have seen examples in several other sectors where the federal government believes it is helping, but it is actually making things more complicated by creating overlapping programs and unilaterally adding criteria that are not adapted to every situation. It will have to take into account the established environmental rules, the community structure and the connections already made by the groups.
Let us now look at the food policy for Canada. The implementation of this policy was announced in budget 2019. It was included in the mandate letter for the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food that same year. I will read from the mandate letter:
Lead work across government to move forward with the new Food Policy for Canada introduced in Budget 2019. This policy has four areas of near-term action, including: [h]elp Canadian communities access healthy food; [m]ake Canadian food the top choice at home and abroad; [s]upport food security in northern and indigenous communities; and [r]educe food waste.
Obviously, Canada's food policy is very vague. It offers guidelines, and frankly, that is a good thing. For example, the 2019-24 policy aims to achieve six outcomes.
The first outcome is vibrant communities. The policy talks about innovative community-led initiatives that “contribute to vibrant and resilient communities that support individuals and households facing immediate and long term food-related challenges by providing culturally diverse solutions in an inclusive manner”. The style smacks of government policy writing. The federal government has been directly involved with organizations since last year through the local food infrastructure fund, or LFIF. This program lacked sufficient funding when it was created, so the government tweaked its terms along the way.
The second outcome is increased connections within food systems. The policy states that “[i]ncreased collaboration on food-related issues across sectors of government, society, fields of work, and academic disciplines is a central component of food policy”.
The third outcome is improved food-related health outcomes. The policy refers to “[i]mproved health status of Canadians related to food consumption and reduced burden of diet-related disease, particularly among groups at higher risk of food insecurity”.
The fourth outcome is strong indigenous food systems. The policy states that “[t]he Food Policy for Canada will help advance the Government of Canada's commitment to Reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, build new relationships based on respect and partnership, and support strong and prosperous First Nations, Inuit and Métis food systems – as defined by communities themselves.” How can paternalistic Ottawa claim to have any credibility when it comes to indigenous health when it is still unable to provide clean drinking water to some indigenous communities? That is unacceptable.
The fifth outcome is sustainable food practices. The policy mentions “[i]mprovements in the state of the Canadian environment through the use of practices along the food value chain that reduce environmental impact and that improve the climate resilience of the Canadian food system.” If the federal government wants to get involved, then it can fund research on green practices.
The sixth outcome is inclusive economic growth. The policy mentions “[i]mproved access to opportunities in the agriculture and food sector for all Canadians within a diversified, economically viable, and sustainable food system. There is tremendous potential for economic growth within Canada's food system given the growing global demand for high-quality food that is nutritious and sustainably-produced”.
That is what I had to say about what is already covered at the federal level. Now, let me say a few words about Quebec. In Quebec, it is the ministry of agriculture, fisheries and food, along with the ministry of municipal affairs and housing, that regulates food waste initiatives. Many groups and organizations are also involved in tackling this problem, including the Association pour la santé publique du Québec, Recyc‑Québec, community groups and municipalities.
Quebec also has a 2018‑25 bio-food policy that includes two suggested courses of action that recommend reducing food waste and loss and promoting food donation, and supporting the circular economy and recovering co-products. Food waste was one of the themes identified as requiring further reflection at the May 2019 bio-food policy partners meeting and in the 2018-23 bio-food policy action plan, which was released in 2020.
The 2021 edition of the 2018-2023 action plan reminds us that the bio-food action plan provides for the implementation of a food waste project in co-operation with bio-food and government partners. The purpose of the project is to take stock of the situation and to propose and implement a concerted plan to coordinate partner initiatives, both at the sectoral and government levels. As I was saying, this policy is what triggered RECYC‑QUÉBEC's research.
I could continue to talk about other measures that the Government of Quebec has implemented, but we think that Quebec already has this issue covered. Finally, since the motion seeks to establish a hierarchy of levels of government, it is difficult to support.
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