44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 1, 2023 11:00AM
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, as one can see, I have a very supportive group on the agriculture committee that I enjoy working with. The member is exactly right. We not only have to ensure that farm families are environmentally and socially sustainable, but it is also critical that they are economically sustainable. Legislation such as this would ensure that their herds and animals are protected.
It also raises important awareness among Canadians that maybe what they are seeing on social media is not exactly accurate. Farmers invest tens of thousands of dollars, and in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars, to ensure that the biosecurity protocols in place, which are put forward by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and provincial bodies, are followed to the letter.
Absolutely, it is critically important. Any opportunity we have to allow farmers to be economically viable for the next generation is a critical tool that we must give those farm families.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the member for Foothills for introducing this bill. I also want to say that I appreciate the comments made by the parliamentary secretary, who basically told us that the government will work with us to come up with an enforceable bill. That is great. It is good news because our duty, as parliamentarians, is to work for our constituents. Our farmers need additional protection so that they no longer have to experience the atrocities that they have endured and over the past few months and years.
This bill seeks to eliminate the growing problem of trespassing. I would like every member of the House to take a few minutes to think about what trespassing means. We may find it hard to empathize with farmers when we think of it in terms of farm businesses, so let us consider it in terms of a more relatable scenario.
I am going to use the same scenario that I did when we spoke about Bill C-205. Imagine if you were to arrive home to find four or five people sitting in your living room, and that they tell you that they do not like the way you run your home, that it is inconsistent with their values. You ask them to leave, but they will not. You cannot remove them by force because you might get into trouble and be criminally charged, so you just have to live with it.
The real-life example that I always use is the case of the Porgreg farm in Saint‑Hyacinthe because it is the most blatant. Farm staff had to put up with this kind of situation for many hours. Even when the police showed up and asked the protesters to leave, they remained seated. They were taking pictures and saying that they wanted to protect the animals whose health and safety they were jeopardizing. Afterwards, it was discovered that a disease had been introduced into the herd because biosecurity protocols had been violated.
I think that “biosecurity” is a very important concept we must keep in mind. This was mentioned by the member for Foothills and the parliamentary secretary. Focusing on biosecurity may be the right approach to take. As federal representatives, we must find a way forward. I appreciate what the parliamentary secretary said about jurisdictions. As members know, the Bloc Québécois also likes to respect the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces. I believe that is something we generally agree on. Nevertheless, I believe that we can work as a team, as we do in committee. That is the sense I am getting from the debates we are hearing today. We must find a way to better protect our agricultural producers against this unacceptable abuse.
This is not about questioning the values of people who are vegans. That is not the issue. It is also not about limiting freedom of expression, because any freedom ends where the rights and freedoms of others begin. There is one thing we often tend to forget and that we really need to remember: the rights of the individual are not absolute. I am sorry to have to tell my colleagues that when someone claims to be exercising their right to freedom of expression by criminally assaulting another person, that is not exercising a right but committing a crime. Parliament must absolutely put a stop to that. That is why we need to work on this issue.
We ask agricultural producers to take strict precautions when it comes to meeting health standards. A few of the possible infections were named earlier. One of them is African swine fever, which is having devastating effects around the world. Thankfully, it has not reached Canada yet, and we are taking every precaution to ensure that it stays that way. We are not going to allow certain individuals to jeopardize the biosecurity of agricultural establishments, which could lead to contamination.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy, foot and mouth disease and avian flu are also risks. Quebec currently has confirmed cases of avian flu. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is advising producers not to go into fields if they see wild birds there, to avoid the risk of contaminating their establishment.
These producers are always careful and are looking for ways to protect their facility. They shower before they enter and they change their clothes. We cannot have people deciding to jeopardize all that based on an ideology that is a little extreme, and so I believe it is our job to be doing this.
In and of itself, Bill C‑275 is pretty straightforward: It prohibits people from entering a production facility if it would compromise biosecurity. I think the biosecurity element is already there. I am quite willing to work with the parliamentary secretary and the member for Foothills to find common ground, but it is imperative that we get this bill passed.
In fact, we studied it in detail in the previous Parliament, as part of Bill C‑205. This is one of too many bills that we have had to start from scratch. We need the opportunity to do this efficiently so we do not have to go through this process a third time. The committee is able to work quickly and efficiently by analyzing the scope of Bill C‑275 with experts.
First, the issues raised by the parliamentary secretary seem legitimate. Obviously, as I always say, we will work carefully and diligently in committee in order to adopt a bill that is real, that will send a positive message to the farming community and a clear message to people who have any intention of demonstrating, a bill that is actually enforceable. This third condition is important. That is what we are here for and why we will do serious work.
The issue of shared jurisdiction was raised again. This bill also raises the issue of animal and mental health. This was mentioned earlier by two members who spoke before me. This being Mental Health Week, let us take this opportunity to protect our farmers whose life is already challenging. It is already so tough.
I am thinking of pork production. A processing plant in Quebec closed recently, which is having tremendous repercussions on production and jeopardizes several producers who might have to withdraw from farming. It is no joke. Are we going to allow threats, intimidation and gratuitous assault on top of that? The answer is no. As a Parliament, I think we have a duty to say no.
I want to come back to what happened at the Porgreg farm in 2019 because it is a perfect example. As I said earlier, there was disease within the herd. Someone will surely say that laws already exist governing this, which is true. However, it can be difficult to make the connection between the disease and the trespassing incident in a court of law. It also means that these individuals must lodge a complaint and go through the justice system, thus reliving the assault, which can also be difficult. We therefore need to improve and clarify the process. It would be great if we could enhance these protections.
During the incident at the Porgreg farm, there was a biosecurity breach and the doors were left open for many hours. It was -12° outside. Diesel fuel was also contaminated with water. How do prosecutors prove that the attackers put water in the diesel fuel? There are a number of ways.
Significant measures must be put in place to deter wrongdoers. We need to send a clear message that if they do these kinds of things, it will cost them and their organization dearly. In committee, I will pay particular attention to ensuring that fines and penalties are directed not only at individuals, but also at the organizations that sponsor them.
The member for Foothills spoke earlier about pigs hanging from an overpass in Montreal. This is the same organization that trespassed at Les Porgreg farm and claimed responsibility. It is clear what kind of people we are dealing with. These are extremists who are not afraid of anything and who are ready to face criminal charges.
There must be more significant consequences if we want to discourage these kinds of activities. Our agricultural producers deserve this. They need to know that we respect them, that we appreciate their work, that we want them to carry on for a long time and that we will protect them.
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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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Madam Speaker, the member for Foothills is a real champion for agriculture, and agriculture is very important in my riding.
I know the farmers, orchardists and vineyard owners in my riding saw their gas prices go up three cents a litre this year because of the carbon tax. It is a provincial carbon tax in B.C. They saw the price of gas go up 80¢ a litre because of the greedflation around the world.
The president of Shell Canada has asked for a tax on excess profits, and the Government of the U.K. has implemented such a tax. Would the member support the NDP's call for a tax on excess profits so that we can raise billions of dollars to help farmers and others who need it across the country?
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Madam Speaker, I have a lot of respect for my colleague, but the fallacy is in his question. Adding taxes, whether it is a windfall tax or a higher tax on the highest earners, does not reduce the costs. If I were to increase the tax on a company, is that company all of a sudden going to reduce its prices? No, it is not.
The fastest solution is to eliminate the carbon tax. That will eliminate those three cents that the member is saying his producers are worried about. Imagine, the NDP is supporting the Liberals and increasing the carbon tax. In B.C., people pay the carbon tax on any natural gas and propane imported from Alberta. They do pay it, and they pay the GST on top of that.
If the member wants to make life more affordable for the producers and farmers in his riding, the solution is scrapping the carbon tax.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague made a quick reference to the carbon tax in his speech. However, what farmers have been asking for is the supply management bill, which is critical. That is the real way to help them. That is what Quebec's farmers are asking for.
My colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot asked a question earlier about why certain members filibustered in committee and delayed work on this important bill.
Now, to really help farmers and agricultural producers, would it not be a good time to work hand in hand to help the bill move through the final stages so that supply management is protected as quickly as possible?
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for Shefford for her question.
This is an opportunity for me to talk about the farmers and families in Perth—Wellington, where we have the largest number of dairy farmers and chicken farmers in the country. Supply management is very important for me and for the people of Perth—Wellington.
I was very pleased to vote for Bill C-282, which is very important, but let us be clear: This bill is only a small part of a big concern for farmers and families in Perth—Wellington and across Canada.
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