- Member of Parliament
- Caucus Chair
- NDP
- Cowichan—Malahat—Langford
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $140,733.69
- Government Page
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to offer my thoughts on Bill C-355. I too am a member of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, and it has been my privilege to be a member of that committee now for six and a half years. It is a great committee, probably the best one in the House of Commons. Those on the committee treat each other with a lot of respect, even though we have differing opinions on many matters, but it is a committee that typically arrives at its decisions with consensus.
I congratulate the member for Kitchener—Conestoga. Not many private members' bills get to the stage where they are reported back to the House after making it through committee, so he has succeeded where many have failed, and I congratulate him on that.
I gave a more in-depth analysis of the bill, Bill C-355, during second reading in the House, so I do not want to spend too much time on it. Essentially, I would remind people watching this debate that this bill seeks to prohibit the export, by air, from Canada, of live horses for the purpose of being slaughtered or being fattened for slaughter. That is a very important point to underline in this. Certainly, from what I have heard in the debate today, there is a bit of hyperbole, thinking that this is going to be the end of the entire horse industry in Canada, which is simply not true. We have to look at the bill and read the wording of it. It is a very specific surgical instrument, which looks at one specific type of practice for one type of animal.
I am proud to be a member of a party that, since 2010, has introduced three private members' bills on this subject. I want to reference former member of Parliament Alex Atamanenko, who used to represent the riding of British Columbia Southern Interior. He introduced Bill C-544 in the 40th Parliament, Bill C-571 in the 41st Parliament, as well as Bill C-322. This is an issue that first came to light in Parliament in 2021 in the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food's mandate letter. The mandate letter directed the minister to deliver on a commitment to ban the export of live horses for slaughter. That took shape in the legislative form through Bill C-355.
Like the member for Kitchener—Conestoga, I have been involved in this conversation in other ways. I got to sponsor e-petition 4190 in the House of Commons that received over 36,000 signatures. I know that on this particular issue, as the agriculture critic, I have received well over 34,000 individual emails on this subject, many directly from my riding. This is a topic that galvanizes a lot of people in Canada, and they take a very real interest in this subject. Many people are happy to see this bill come forward.
I will talk a little about the committee work. When we look at the committee work we did for a private member's bill, I would argue that we did a pretty thorough job. This one private member's bill involved five meetings, 23 briefs were submitted, and there were 31 witnesses. I would say, given the length of this bill, we did our job. We heard from a wide range of people. Did everyone agree with the bill? No. That is impossible to find in a democracy. We have to balance out the differing points of view and try to find a way forward.
I did find, though, that the witness testimony helped inform the committee to make Bill C-355 a better bill. We did our job, and based on witness testimony, we made some amendments to it. We could compare the version of the bill we are debating now in the House to the version that was introduced at first reading. Based on some testimony, we removed the onerous declaration requirements that were spelled out in great detail. We certainly heard from some stakeholders that it was far too onerous, so we deleted that offending section, and the reception was quite positive. The committee did its job and listened to the witnesses, who gave helpful advice on which amendments to pass. It did, in fact, do that.
I want to spend a bit of time talking about two particular witnesses.
Racetracks of Canada sent us a written brief in support of this bill on March 18. I just want to quote from that brief. It states:
We consider the practice of exporting horses by air for slaughter to be abhorrent, and our industry has long taken extensive measures to ensure that horses exiting their time in horse racing find caring and quality ownership in Canada.
That comes from an industry that deals in horses, loves horses and is very much involved in animal agriculture. I think that really blows out of the water the Conservative narrative that this bill is attacking animal agriculture, when in fact we have witnesses involved in the horse industry who absolutely support this bill.
On April 9, Barbara Cartwright, the CEO of Humane Canada, said the following:
There are always varying types of animal welfare science. We do see that at the National Farm Animal Care Council. However, when you look at the testimony that focuses on the experience of the animals and not on the experience of the farmer or the agriculture business, you will see very clearly that the experience of the animal, which is what should be considered here, is a lot of tension, anxiety, fear and pain, all the way up to death.
I would implore Parliament to look at the horse, not the farmer.
I was very encouraged to have people like Ms. Cartwright, among others, come before our committee to give us their view on this bill.
Another person I wanted to mention is Captain Tim Perry from the Air Line Pilots Association. I asked him about a typical flight from Winnipeg to Japan. Let us just underline the fact that Japan is the key market for live horses. They are used for a delicacy that is served in Japanese restaurants. For the travel of live horses from Winnipeg to Japan, there are some variances, but one flight can burn anywhere from 50,000 to 70,000 kilograms of jet fuel. This is just to export live horses. That is an incredible amount of fossil fuels to be burned to export live animals that are eventually going to be slaughtered.
I want to underline the fact that this bill is not going to prevent horses from being raised in Canada for meat; it is not. It is black and white, period. Horsemeat is found on grocery shelves throughout Quebec. It is eaten in Canada. It is on the menus of high-end restaurants across Canada as well. More than 25,000 horses are slaughtered in Canada for food each year, and those products are exported mainly to Japan, France and the United States.
Far from this bill being the end of animal agriculture, I implore people to look at the facts, read the bill and look at the statistics of the industry. This bill is not going to end animal agriculture. It is going to stop a very niche practice of exporting live horses, which are going off to be slaughtered.
This is an incredibly popular measure. A survey from April 2024, just last month, said 78% of Albertans are in support of this measure, and when it comes to indigenous communities, 71% are in support.
Given that the House of Commons is the natural democratic outlet of the will of the people, I am pleased to stand with the majority of Canadians to see this bill pass through the House of Commons and make its way to the Senate.
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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand in the House and give my remarks, as the NDP's agriculture and agri-food critic, about Bill C-355, An Act to prohibit the export by air of horses for slaughter and to make related amendments to certain Acts. The bill was introduced by the member for Kitchener—Conestoga, with whom I have served on the agriculture committee for several years.
For my constituents who are listening to today's debate, I will give a brief summary of what the bill would do. The bill essentially seeks to prohibit the export by air from Canada of live horses for the purpose of being slaughtered or fattened for slaughter. It would do this by enacting a requirement for a written declaration before a live horse is allowed on a plane, attesting that the horse is not being exported for slaughter. Aircraft operators would not be allowed to take off until they have the declaration made available. There would be some hefty fines for non-compliance with any provisions of the proposed act.
Today's debate on Bill C-355 has to be placed in a wider context, which is the mandate letter that the Prime Minister provided to the previous minister of agriculture, who now serves as the Minister of National Revenue. The mandate letter was issued on December 16, 2021, and the Prime Minister directed the minister to deliver on a commitment to “ban the live export of horses for slaughter”. However, Statistics Canada data shows that since the Liberals made that campaign promise in 2021, there have been more than 2,000 horses shipped from Canada to Japan for slaughter purposes. If we go back even farther, to 2013, we can see that more than 40,000 horses have been exported from Canada for that purpose.
I will never question the right of any member to bring in a piece of legislation as they see fit, and I certainly do not want this to be a remark that sheds any bad light on the member for Kitchener—Conestoga. However, I do have serious questions about a private member's bill coming in on the same subject matter as what was a fairly clear commitment in the minister's mandate letter. In my mind, it is the government, when it is making such a promise, that has the power, resources and personnel across several departments to do the consultation necessary. In fact, we know that private members' bills get a couple of hours of debate, but they are spread quite far apart; there can sometimes be up to 30 sitting days between them. Time is a valuable currency in this place, which I think we can all agree, and I believe that government legislation, given the fact that it has priority over most of our orders of the day, does have the ability to advance far more quickly. This is an open question that we, as members of the opposition, rightly have for the government: Why has it been two years and we still have not seen any sign of government legislation on this topic, and why, after two years, are we now looking at Bill C-355?
That point being made, I want to give an honourable mention to someone who used to sit in the House, a former colleague of some of my NDP colleagues, Mr. Alex Atamanenko. He represented the British Columbia Southern Interior riding, which no longer exists. Alex Atamanenko introduced three separate private member's bills on the subject: Bill C-544 in the 40th Parliament, Bill C-571 in the 41st Parliament and Bill C-322 in the 41st Parliament. He was a member of the NDP who had long experience on the subject. It is subject matter, of course, that New Democrats are intimately familiar with. One of the main purposes of his bill was to look at horse meat for human consumption, because we have found in our data collection that some horses, whether they were race horses or were bred for farm work, were making their way into the human consumption chain. Of course, some horses, especially race horses, are treated with a variety of antibiotics, performance-enhancing drugs, etc., and it is very clear on the labels of those drugs that whenever they are injected into a horse, the meat is not be to used for human consumption.
However, I digress. As I often find myself doing as a New Democrat, I am going to try to find a way to land in the middle, between the positions of my Liberal and Conservative colleagues. We know that live horses are primarily shipped by air from Calgary, Edmonton and Winnipeg and that the main market is Japan and other parts of Asia. The horses are usually fattened up there. It is for human consumption as a raw delicacy. The journey can be long. Anyone who has ever flown across the Pacific knows that very well.
I am trying to look at it from another point of view. Our agriculture committee has looked at the total lack of processing capacity in many parts of Canada. Federally, our meat processing is dominated by just two companies, Cargill and JBS. It is important to remember in today's debate that this is not looking at the idea of whether it is okay to consume horseflesh. That is not the purpose of today's debate. This bill has a very narrow focus, which is on the question of whether live horses should be exported by air for eventual slaughter for human consumption.
One point of view that we could look at is why we are doing this in the first place, why we are allowing another country to reap all the economic benefits of us exporting live horses, and if this is a way for us to look at the issue, as members of Parliament, of increasing the resiliency of our own processing capacity here in Canada. We know it is a very weak link in the supply chain.
We only need to look back at COVID-19 and what that did to our few processing centres. It caused huge rolling backlogs, especially for the cattle industry. Our feedlots were jam-packed full. Many cow-calf operators had to keep their livestock on their ranch lands, because there simply was no room in the feedlots.
I also want to focus on the fact that I was the sponsor of e-petition 4190. It was signed by more than 36,000 Canadians from right across the country. Clearly, this is an issue that many people are quite concerned about. However, I think it is important to highlight a few notable points in the government's response to my petition.
In the response, the government stated that it was “actively working to ensure due diligence is conducted. The Government of Canada must consider the perspectives of all stakeholders”. Further, the government went on to say that the engagement is going to be with:
...animal rights advocacy groups, provincial governments, industry representatives, and Indigenous business owners and organizations to obtain information and their point of view regarding this issue. Engagements are ongoing and continue to be actively pursued to broaden the scope of the consultation process and strengthen the Government’s understanding of the issue.
As a member of Parliament, I have this question: How are the government's engagements on this issue coinciding with the work that the member for Kitchener—Conestoga has done? Has he been apprised of the government's efforts? Is he privy to the information that the government currently has on this issue? I do not know. I have to take his word for it.
I am going to lend my support to this bill in principle at second reading, because I believe that, as legislators, we can do our own consultation at the agriculture committee. Maybe this is an opportunity for us, as members of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, to call in those witnesses from all sections of the industry to give their perspectives. We can then make an informed decision.
In conclusion, the NDP will be supporting this bill at second reading, because I do have a very real interest in hearing those perspectives and getting them on the record at committee. Hopefully, that would help us determine a way forward and whether possible amendments to the bill are needed.
With that, I will conclude, and I will again thank the member for Kitchener—Conestoga for giving us this opportunity to debate his bill.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Kitchener—Conestoga for introducing this bill. I did introduce petition e-4190, which had over 36,000 signatures.
He is very well aware that this was a key line item in the minister's mandate letter, dating back from 2021. I respect the right of every member to bring in a bill, but I hope he can maybe inform the House why the government has not brought in its own legislation and why it may have relied on this private member's bill. Private members' bills often have a lengthy journey through the House, and I am wondering why the government did not make use of its considerable resources to advance this issue sooner.
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