- Member of Parliament
- Caucus Chair
- NDP
- Cowichan—Malahat—Langford
- British Columbia
- Voting Attendance: 66%
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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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Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to give a few of my thoughts on Bill C-280, which was introduced by the member for York—Simcoe. I would like to thank him for introducing this important bill.
Of course, Bill C-280 is an important bill that is going to amend both the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, which we will hereafter call the BIA, and the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act, the CCAA. Ultimately, the bill is seeking to create a deemed trust for perishable fruits and vegetables.
Let me go into a bit of background on why this particular issue is so important. For the people who are growing, harvesting, packing and marketing fruits and vegetables, we have to understand that this industry comes with a number of risks. First, there are very high costs. Second, the capital in that industry is often tied up in the farmland, the buildings, the machinery and the overhead, so we can look at the value of the company and can see that it is what is commonly termed as “land-rich, cash-poor”.
Furthermore, the challenges are exacerbated because any returns made from the selling of their produce are often delayed until that product has been sold and payment is collected all the way up the supply chain, which can be long after the farmer or another seller has passed on the product. In that whole system, there is no financial protection from losses because of buyers who have become insolvent, which adds a tremendous amount of risk to this business model. The perishability of fresh produce and the common industry payment terms make it impossible for sellers to recoup money that has been lost when a buyer goes bankrupt, and we have seen a recent example in Ontario with Lakeside Produce in Leamington.
Prior to 2014, Canada was the only country in the world that enjoyed preferential access with our largest trading partner, the United States, under its Perishable Agricultural Commodities Act, also known as PACA. That was a dispute resolution mechanism in the United States, which basically meant that Canadian produce sellers were treated on par with their American counterparts when selling to a U.S. buyer. Unfortunately, and this continues to this day, the United States removed our country's preferential access to that system because we did not have reciprocal protection here in Canada.
It has to be clearly underlined that the fresh fruit and vegetable industry has been calling for a statutory deemed trust for payment protection from losses due to buyers defaulting on payment obligations. They have been calling for this for a long time, to make sure that we are on par with what our American counterparts enjoy, and they want us to do this so that our amazing producers can be on a level and competitive playing field with our closest trading partner.
I want to say from the outset that the NDP absolutely fully supports this initiative in Bill C-280. In fact, we have been campaigning on this particular change to the law since 2015, and we have continued to support it ever since then. The very first mention of it was in our 2015 election platform. When we boldly stepped out and made that commitment, we got praise from both the Canadian Produce Marketing Association and what was then called the Canadian Horticultural Council, which really praised us for taking a strong position on the issue.
Again, in the 2019 election, Rebecca Lee, the executive director of what is now the Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada, stated:
Canada's fruit and vegetable farmers are facing financial risks that threaten their competitiveness at a crucial time when consumers want to make healthy food choices and are being encouraged by their government to consume more fruits and vegetables. It is important that all parties recognize this, and we applaud the NDP for their commitment to making a payment protection program for produce growers finally a reality.
It is not just from our election commitments. This has been the subject of parliamentary committees, two in particular, the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, of which I have been a proud member since 2018, and the Standing Committee on Finance, in the 42nd Parliament, the first Parliament in which I was a member in the House.
Both of those committees, which were, at the time, comprised of a majority of Liberal members, made the recommendation that our country move toward a PACA-like system to protect our produce growers. Unfortunately the Liberal government said they would not consider it at the time.
Again, in this current Parliament, as here we are in the 44th Parliament, with regard to the Standing Committee on Agriculture, in our recent report, entitled, ”Feeding the World: Strengthening Canada's Capacity to Respond to Global Food Insecurity”, recommendation 7 of that report makes a very clear recommendation to make a statutory deemed trust.
Again, the Standing Committee on Finance, in this Parliament, in its recent pre-budget consultations, also called for the creation of a limited statutory deemed trust.
We have had multiple committees look at this issue and make those recommendations. It is time for the government to take that ball and run with it and finally put this into action. I think we are actually going to see some movement on this, thanks to Bill C-280.
Let me read into the record the stakeholder feedback. We have positive responses from the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, the Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada and the Fruit and Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corporation. They are all calling on members of Parliament to consider this bill and to send it off to committee for further study.
I believe that this is a critical opportunity for all members of Parliament to demonstrate our support for this sector and to safeguard Canadian food security. I want to also give an honourable mention to the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. It has also been an important voice in calling for this change.
Going forward, we are only at the second reading stage, in principle. The government has raised some concerns about this bill. It believes that no other commercial creditor has a deemed trust for unpaid claims. It thinks that this bill would favour sellers of fresh produce over sellers of other perishable products. It believes that fresh produce sellers could demand immediate payment, that this bill would benefit large retailers, that the existing dispute resolution corporation already has a mechanism or that the BIA already has provisions that adequately protect growers.
I think this will come through a committee: each one of those arguments has been thoroughly refuted and they will be coming up at committee, where we can finally put them to rest through important witness testimony and feedback.
I have seen both the CPMA and the Fruit and Vegetable Growers of Canada respond to each of those points with evidence to the contrary and I look forward to that information coming forward in committee so that we can properly make a report back to the House.
I just want to say that Canadian farmers are essential workers and they need and deserve to stay in business. They work so hard on our behalf, putting in those long hours, working in a very uncertain market and with very thin margins. The least that we can do as parliamentarians is to set up policy and laws that help them compete on a level playing field.
I believe that if we go forward with this bill, we will have a number of positive impacts. We will help reduce the number of Canadian farm bankruptcies by extending key financial protection toward them. It will encourage timely transport of produce to market, because it is going to make it more worth the transporter's money and time to ship it.
I believe, ultimately, that a deemed trust is going to provide important stability in a very volatile food price inflation market.
For that reason, and as the NDP's proud critic of agriculture and agri-food, I am looking forward to voting on this bill tomorrow, to sending it to my committee and giving it the proper examination that it deserves.
I would like thank the member for York—Simcoe for bringing forward this important bill.
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- Feb/13/23 3:34:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am proud to present e-petition 4190, which was actively promoted by singer Jann Arden and signed by more than 36,000 people across Canada, making it the third-highest petition of this Parliament. The petition is to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food.
The petitioners recognize that banning the export of live horses for slaughter is in the Minister of Minister of Agriculture's mandate letter from the Prime Minister and in the Liberals' 2021 election campaign commitment. They recognize that horses are flown from Canada to Japan in cramped wooden crates in journeys that can commonly take more than 24 hours. They recognize that horses panic easily, have strong flight or fight instincts and have extremely sensitive hearing. They also recognize that since 2010, the NDP has introduced three private members' bills to ban the export of live horses for slaughter.
Therefore, the petitioners call on the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to halt the export of live horses for slaughter.
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Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks, I want to acknowledge and thank my colleagues in the Bloc Québécois, who switched their spot with me so that I would be able to make committee tonight at 6:30 p.m.
I am very proud to be speaking to Bill S-227, and I want to acknowledge the member for Perth—Wellington for sponsoring it here in the House fo Commons, but also Senator Rob Black. I have known Senator Black for a little while now, and he and I share a definite passion for farming and soil health. It is nice to see that we have those kinds of champions not only for our agricultural sector, but for the key role that it plays in establishing food security in Canada. They recognize that farmers are going to be one of our greatest tools in effectively combatting climate change.
As I mentioned in my intervention with the member for Perth—Wellington, this bill is no stranger to Parliament. We have seen several versions of it over several Parliaments. I also want to acknowledge the former member for Kootenay—Columbia, Wayne Stetski, who was a colleague of mine for four years in this place during the 42nd Parliament. He introduced what I believe was Bill C-281. That bill actually passed through the House of Commons before arriving at the Senate, but unfortunately did not go further. I am pleased to see that with this version of the bill, I think we may have enough runway to pass it into law.
I am very proud to be standing here, not only as a proud member representing the great riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, but also as the NDP's agriculture critic. I have been privileged to hold that position for four and a half years now, and for me, agriculture is not work. It is a passion of mine, and I have been incredibly blessed in this role over four and a half years to have spoken with farm organizations from coast to coast to coast. To represent the farmers in my riding, take their feedback and be a part of the national policy discussion on food, food security, agriculture and how well our farmers are doing has been a real privilege.
I am also the owner of a small-scale farming property. It is nowhere near a commercial operation, but even the work on that property has given me a small insight into how hard our farmers actually work. I raise livestock. I have a small flock of chickens and raise ducks. I also have pigs and three elderly sheep. This teaches me a certain level of responsibility. It makes me appreciate that care for animals and the land is something we should all aspire to.
I think this is something that, through the enactment of this bill, will become part of our national discourse. It is an appreciation for what farmers do for our communities, big and small, because sometimes in our large urban centres, there can be a bit of a disconnect from where our food actually comes from. If this bill helps further the conversation, strengthening those links between our urban centres and our rural centres, I think it is doing nothing but good for our national unity.
In Canada, we already have Agriculture Day, which we celebrate in February of every year, but I like the fact that Bill S-227 is going to establish the Saturday before the first Monday in August as food day in Canada. That is important because Agriculture Day is, of course, a very broad topic. There are multiple different kinds of agriculture, but this bill is making it more specific and is centring, really, on the concept of food.
I think every member of Parliament realizes that food is not just a commodity. It is important. The thing that makes all humans equal is that we all have to eat to survive. It is very much a social determinant of health too. We know that there are far too many people in Canada who suffer from food insecurity. Food security and food sovereignty have been key issues for me personally.
We are a country, of course, that is very blessed with the amount of arable land we have. We produce far more food than our population consumes, so we are net exporters of food. We are actually one of the top agricultural producers in the world, and that is something we should definitely carry around with pride.
What I love about the country is the huge variety of growing regions we have from coast to coast. It truly is a learning experience, no matter what province we are visiting. I think we should have a country where we have the ability to produce food locally for everyone who needs it, not only to give the bare minimum amount but to achieve the good, high-quality food we all need. We need that high level of nutrition. It is a very strong factor in the social determinants of health.
As New Democrats, this has been a central issue for us in many parliaments for many years. Back in 2011, we ran on a commitment to introduce a Canadian food strategy that would combine health and environmental goals and food quality objectives. We have had incredible MPs, like Alex Atamanenko and Malcolm Allen, who in the past really set the stage for the debates we are able to have today. We have to recognize those members of Parliament who did that heavy lifting in previous parliaments to establish the building blocks we truly have today to get to where we are.
We created a strategy called “Everybody Eats: Our Vision for a pan-Canadian Food Strategy”, which really focused on how food travels from the farm to the factory to the fork. It was very comprehensive and I think played no small part in forcing the Liberals to come up with their own strategy in the 42nd Parliament, when they last had a majority government.
I stay in close contact with the farmers in my region. I depend very much on their feedback, and I try to be as true as I can, as their representative in this place, to ensure their voices are being heard.
The other thing is looking at how food is produced in Canada. I think this bill is also going to force us to look at the concept of food miles. I can remember going to grocery stores when we could see oranges from New Zealand and apples from South Africa and the amazing distances those foods had to travel to make it to our plates. I know in British Columbia we have the ability to grow a lot of seasonal produce, and I think we need to establish those stronger links. I hope this bill will help achieve that.
I am also incredibly proud to come from a province that I think arguably has the most diversified agricultural sector in the country. British Columbia has a variety of different climates, given our mountainous province, and we are able to grow a lot of different things in many different regions. Depending on which valley and which part of the province we are in, we will always find a little niche market somewhere.
Bringing it home to Vancouver Island, to my riding of Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, we have some fantastic farmers' markets where we can go and see where our food is coming from locally and the incredible diversity that is being grown right in our backyard. I appreciate the efforts that the locals are going to in order to highlight that incredible work that is going on our backyard.
The Cowichan region, believe it or not, is Canada's only maritime Mediterranean climatic zone. We have the highest mean average temperature in all of Canada, and this allows our farmers to get a head start on growing some amazing food. In fact, in the local Halkomelem language, Cowichan, which is the anglicized version of the word, means “the warm land”. We are blessed with incredibly warm, hot summers and get an incredible amount of rainfall in the winter. That allows us to produce an amazing agricultural bounty. It is on display everywhere we go. We can get organic fruits and vegetables; local honey, cheese, eggs and sustainably harvested seafood; meat from grass-fed and ethically raised animals; homemade jams, jellies, chutneys and sauces; artisan breads, pies, pastries and cookies; locally grown and produced wines and spirits; and even gourmet treats for our pets.
To cap it off, because I know I have only a minute left, I am incredibly proud to stand here to support this bill. It sounds like we are going to have a lot of agreement in the House. I hope that when it finds passage, reaches royal assent and becomes law, it will be yet one more tool we have in our tool basket of policy to remind Canadians of how important local food is, to celebrate the farmers who produce it for us, and to start a conversation on how we, as parliamentarians, can better support food security so that everybody in every region has the ability to access good, high-quality food with no barriers whatsoever.
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- May/17/22 5:22:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this very question has come up before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security, of which I am a member, looking at what Canada's Arctic sovereignty is like vis-à-vis our security stance with Russia.
I would argue that we need a renewed commitment with the Inuit people who live up in the north and who know the ways there. They need to know that they have a firm and strong partner in Ottawa who is going to respect their traditional way of life, learn from them and find ways to partner to make sure that we do have that Arctic sovereignty firmly in mind, because I do not think that our policies to date have really respected the change in the geopolitical alignment that has happened, especially this year with Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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