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June 8, 2012 - No. 86
The Need for the Working Class to
Constitute Itself the Nation
Dogfight Over the Detroit River
 
The
Need for the Working Class to Constitute Itself the Nation
• Dogfight Over the Detroit River
Canada's
Annexation
into United States of North American Monopolies
• Financial Oligarchs and Their Representatives
Gather for Bilderberg Group Summit - Dougal MacDonald
• Integrated Security Apparatus for Cargo
Shipments
• Canada Joins U.S. Space Surveillance Network
• New Unified Command for Canadian Forces
• Opponents Say Food Safety Compromised by Cuts
and Harmonized Regulations
The Need for the Working Class to
Constitute Itself the Nation
Dogfight Over the Detroit River
An ugly fight is underway over the building of a new
bridge between
Windsor and Detroit. U.S. billionaire private owner of the existing
Ambassador Bridge, Matty Moroun, is spending millions to stop any new
competing bridge from being built. He apparently has political support
in the Michigan State Legislature
and is funding a petition calling for a November referendum to stop the
proposed project.
The most avid proponents of a new bridge are the Harper
government,
Ontario Premier McGuinty and Michigan Governor Rick Snyder. They have
cooked up a secret public-private-partnership deal where the Canadian
public treasury will eventually pay the entire cost of $1.5 billion, a
private company will be
contracted to manage and maintain the bridge when built, and private
construction and material supply monopolies will profit handsomely.
A bewildering aspect arises from the antics of U.S. and
Michigan
political executives of the self-described richest country in the world
who are crying poverty and saying their treasuries are so broke that if
the bridge is to be built at all then the Canadian public treasury will
have to shoulder the entire burden
of approximately $1.5 billion. Prime Minister Harper along with the
quiet approval of Premier McGuinty has apparently agreed to this
outrageous demand!
Harper never tires of
demanding austerity from Canadians and
attacking the working class. Most recently, he fired almost 20,000
federal public service workers, wrecking or privatizing the services
they provide. He also passed legislation outlawing the just struggles
of CPR, Air Canada and Canada Post workers
for new collective agreements.
But austerity does not extend to pay-the-rich and other
schemes such
as the bridge across the Detroit River. No, austerity has been thrown
to the wind in Harper's role as puppet leader of an annexed Canada
eager to hand over hundreds of millions of dollars to the U.S. Empire
for what should be a joint public
project. Harper says Canada's money will be returned eventually,
however, not from the U.S. or Michigan treasuries but from user fee
tolls to cross the bridge. Canadians are to be skinned more than twice:
first by paying the private construction and material supply monopolies
for the entire joint project plus any
interest to finance capitalists who may lend money to the government;
secondly by paying user fee bridge tolls for decades to come and.
again, with austerity measures as the government declares it has to
eliminate deficits and bring down debt. Quite remarkable largesse for
Harper and McGuinty who never tire of
telling Canadians that the country and province are approaching dire
straights because they are saddled with deficits and debts to the
financial oligarchy and cannot afford social programs or public
services and constantly demand concessions from workers.
The nonsense does not end
with Canadian public money paying for the
U.S. portion of the joint project. Michigan Governor Snyder is planning
an executive end run around the Ambassador Bridge owner Matty Maroun's
opposition and his allies in the State Legislature. Snyder is
organizing a secret "interlocal"
agreement reportedly involving Michigan, the White House, Harper and
McGuinty. The deal would bypass the opposition in the Michigan
Legislature and be finalized before any possible November referendum.
This is another example of rule by executive decree as well as reveals
what happens when anarchy prevails
and different private interests vie for control of public authority to
advance their interests.
But a snag has leaked out regarding procurement of the
steel and
other material, which of course in any large project is a source of
enormous private profit and fierce competition. Wrangling has erupted
over what procurement rules should apply especially for the structural
steel. A rumour is circulating that Harper
and possibly McGuinty want to use cheaper Chinese steel. This has sent
the Obama "Buy America" factional interests into a rage even though
they are not paying a penny for the bridge. The "Buy America" activists
say that the interlocal agreement and executive approval of the bridge
is tied to $2.2 billion in U.S.
federal money for road and other infrastructure improvements in
Michigan, which according to them means that the new bridge must come
under the "Buy America" procurement rules regardless of Canadian public
money paying its entirety.
Canada's consul general in Detroit, Roy B. Norton, is
quoted in
local media as saying, "The supposed issue over using Chinese steel to
build a new bridge to Windsor is a fiction, a poorly informed report. I
don't know who the source of the report was.... They clearly aren't
informed about Canadian government
procurement policy."
Most Canadians would say they are also "not informed
about Canadian
government procurement policy" because for the Harper government
everything is based on secrecy and private interests, certainly not
openness, public discussion and input to serve and politicize the
public interest.
TML would like the Canadian consul general or
somebody in
the Harper or McGuinty governments to inform Canadians as to where the
steel is going to come from if it is not Chinese steel. Is it going to
come from a U.S.-based steel plant? We know it will not come from
Hamilton Works because
U.S. Steel refuses to restart its blast furnace. Besides, during the
wrecking of the Canadian manufacturing and steel industries over the
last dozen years, the making of Canadian structural steel has been a
victim. Stelco cratered its capacity before and during its phony
bankruptcy.
Canadians are financing the bridge project with the
people's money;
should the steel and other material not come from Canada, at least half
of it? The U.S. can use whatever steel it wants, we suppose, since it
has so generously agreed to accept Canadian public money to pay for its
half of the bridge.
Some sources in Canada are now
saying that in this situation "Buy
America" is fine if it is broadened and becomes a "Buy North America"
annexed version. Apparently some in the Obama camp will accept that
proposal under certain conditions: "Buy North America" is fine, they
say, when applied to Canada
but not the U.S.; it is especially fine for Canada if it does not have
the capacity to supply what is needed such as structural steel because
the industry has been wrecked and taken over by global monopolies that
refuse to increase and invest in local production meaning the
structural steel will be supplied from North
America, in this case the U.S. and not from China or elsewhere. But to
be perfectly clear, within the U.S. only "Buy America" is acceptable.
This stand does not favour either Canadian or American
workers or
their societies since the entire thing is a dogfight over who gets to
benefit from the pay-the-rich schemes. The danger of this stand is that
it seeks to line the working class up of both Canada and the united
States behind the U.S. in its inter-imperialist
and inter-monopoly contention with China.
In opposition to this imperialist dictate, Information
Update,
newsletter of Local 1005 USW, made a suggestion for the Canadian
government: "Instead of handing over $550 million of Canadian public
money to Michigan for the bridge, tell Governor Snyder to use part of
the promised 'interlocal'
$2.2 billion in U.S. federal money to finance the U.S. portion of the
bridge. Then Canada can use the saved $550 million as seed money to
build our own Canadian structural steelmaking public enterprise, and
upon waiting the time necessary until the steel plant is ready, bridge
construction can begin ensuring that
Canadian steel and construction workers can at least build our own half
of the new bridge using our own material. How the U.S. builds its own
half of the bridge is their business." (Information Update, June 7)

Canada's Annexation into United States of
North American Monopolies
Financial Oligarchs and Their Representatives
Gather for Bilderberg Group Summit
- Dougal MacDonald -
 
From May 31 to June 3, Alberta Premier Alison Redford
met in secret with top members of the world financial oligarchy at the
annual Bilderberg Group summit held this year in Chantilly, Virginia.
The 120-140 attendees are mainly from the U.S. and Western Europe.[1] Attendance is only by
invitation; two other
Alberta premiers have been invited in past years: Peter
Lougheed (1973) and Ralph Klein (1995). No other Canadian premiers were
invited this year, however, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Chief of
Staff Nigel Wright attended along with Mark Carney, Governor of the
Bank of Canada.
Noteworthy this year at
Bilderberg was the large number of politicians and government officials
that participated, for example, Mitch Daniels, governor of Indiana, the
first "Rust Belt" right-to-work state. Also invited was Bassma Kodmani,
Member of the Executive Bureau and Head of Foreign Affairs of the
so-called rebel Syrian National Council. This suggests discussions were
held regarding the imperialists' future war plans against Syria.
Overall, it seems logical to assume that politicians in attendance were
there to receive their updated marching orders from their masters, who
represent some of the largest monopolies
in the world (e.g., Alcoa, Dow, Siemens, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, Shell
Oil, Michelin, TD Bank.
The annual Bilderberg Group was initiated in 1954 by
German Prince Bernhard of Lieppe-Biesterfield (born 1911 in Jena,
central Germany), a member of Hitler's Nazi Party and Himmler's S.S.
The aim was to build tighter alliances between U.S. and Western
European monopolies as part of waging the Cold
War against the Soviet Union and communism. Walter Bedell Smith, head
of the CIA, and Joseph Retzinger, an anti-communist Polish politician,
assisted Prince Bernhard who became Bilderberg chairman in 1959 until
1975.
Prior to this, in 1935, Bernhard became Secretary to the
Board of
Directors of Farben Bilder in Paris from which he took the name of the
conference. Farben Bilder's parent company, I.G. Farben, was vital to
the Nazi war machine and produced the Zyklon B gas that the German
authorities used to execute millions of
prisoners. In 1937, Bernhard married Queen Juliana of the Netherlands
and became her prince consort, a very cushy position indeed with
influence and connections in both Nazi Germany and among the Western
allies.[2] After the
Second World
War, Bernhard was
made a director of KLM Airlines, which was accused of
helping transfer Nazi war criminals to Argentina. In 1975, Bernhard
resigned his Bilderberg chairmanship under a cloud, having accepted a
$1.1 million bribe from Lockheed Corporation to influence the Dutch
government's purchase of fighter aircraft. Another Bernhard scandal
emerged in 1995 when it was revealed
that mercenaries he had hired, supposedly to help the World Wildlife
Fund -- which he founded in 1961 -- stop wildlife poachers, were
actually
planning assassinations of South African resistance fighters in battle
against the apartheid regime.
No mystery surrounds why Premier Redford and other
Alberta premiers have received invitations to the Bilderberg Group
Summit to
hob nob with many of the richest and most influential leaders of the
imperialist world. Alberta has huge reserves of petroleum, the world's
most important strategic product, which is essential
to the functioning of the U.S. war machine and its industries. U.S.
imperialist leaders were major participants in Bilderberg 2012. For
example, one attendee was White House National Security Advisor Thomas
Donilon.
There is also no mystery as to the position the Redford
government always takes regarding the financial oligarchy's ease of
access to Alberta's energy resources. The May 24 Throne
Speech of the Redford government states more emphatically than ever
that Alberta's doors are wide open to
the monopolies:
"This province is the most economically free
jurisdiction in North America. Nowhere else do businesses have so much
room to operate without interference and adapt to market conditions.
Your government will further these freedoms and find new ways to
simplify regulatory burdens."
Spokespersons for Bilderberg claim that only "informal"
discussion takes place at the annual summits and that no decisions are
made or acted upon as a result. However, insiders suggest that when
Bilderberg participants reach a consensus about what is to be done,
they have at their disposal powerful international
and national instruments for achieving their goals. For example, the
Bilderberg Group meeting in May 2009 was attended by the Greek Minister
of Finance, the Governor of the National Bank of Greece, the Greek
Minister of Foreign Affairs, various Greek capitalists, and three
former heads of the World Bank. It
seems more than a coincidence that following the meeting the Eurozone
countries and the IMF agreed to a $110 billion bailout of the Greece
economy, with most of the money to be transferred to the international
lenders and holders of Greek debt. The bailout demanded massive attacks
on social programs, public
services and the Greek standard of living and a commitment to continue
to use Greek social product to pay international lenders. Such
consensus of the financial oligarchs, amongst whom so many
contradictions exist, suggests a leading group such as the Bilderberg
Group wields enormous influence backed
up by a big stick.
The Bilderbergers may also meet outside the annual
summit to achieve an immediate aim. On November 12, 2009, the group
hosted a dinner meeting at Brussels' Château de Val-Duchesse to
promote former Belgian Prime Minister Herman
Van Rompuy as their chosen candidate for President of the European
Council.
One week later, Van Rompuy was unanimously voted president.
Notes
1. An official list of 2012
participants is here:
http://www.infowars.com/bilderberg-2012-the-official-list-of-participants/
2. An ongoing mystery is why declassified
U.S. State Department documents show that Juliana and other members of
the Dutch Royal Family were at Chatham, Cape Cod on August 26, 1944, at
the same time that a large German Type XI-B U-Boat was said to be
operating in the area. Possibly the Dutch aristocrats
were to be intermediaries for German-U.S. negotiations dealing with how
to end the war in Europe and block the people from overthrowing
imperialism and opting for communism.

Integrated Security Apparatus for Cargo Shipments
On May 31, the Harper
government announced that it was
activating a North American system of air cargo security as part of a
plan to extend this system to all forms of cargo shipment on land, sea
and air. The arrangement places Canadian territory further under the
control of U.S. Homeland Security. It means
that goods that come into Canada from the United States will not be
screened by Canadian security officials, instead we are to trust U.S.
Homeland Security. To establish the set-up, U.S. officials were
reportedly given full access to Canada's "national security program."
The Harper government invokes
"national security" to control all aspects of Canadians'
private lives, but when it comes to Canada's national and
international transportation system on which everyone relies, it can
place it in the hands of U.S. Homeland Security! This is the same
U.S. which has been implicated in all sorts of black ops
and support for terrorist activities -- the same U.S. which has
protected terrorist Luis Posada Carrilles who admitted to blowing up a
Cubana airliner in 1976 killing all its passengers!
Meanwhile, Canadians are
told that they cannot know what the government is up to in its dealings
with the U.S. because of "national security
reasons." Clearly what is good for the U.S. is not good for Canadians.
The Harper government informs that since signing the
Security Perimeter Agreement in December 2011, Canadian and U.S.
officials have been working "to ensure commensurate security controls
exist within their air cargo security programs." Within this process
each country "formally reviewed the other's
national security program including: program design, regulations,
oversight and compliance, audit and site validation visits." As a
result of this process, Canada and the U.S. "achieved mutual
recognition of their respective national air cargo security programs
effective March 31st, 2012."
Under the new "mutual recognition initiative," cargo
shipped on passenger aircraft will now be screened only once, at the
point of origin and will not be rescreened prior to upload on an
aircraft in the other country.
According to the government, the following example
illustrates how the system will work:
"[A] shipment of Canadian computer games purchased by a
U.S. company would have had to comply with the rules of both air cargo
programs and be re-screened resulting in extra paperwork and additional
screening cost for the shipper. Today, that same shipment doesn't have
to be screened once
it gets to the U.S. before being loaded on passenger aircraft meaning
fewer security delays. With the two countries mutually recognizing each
other's air cargo security programs, the efficiency of screening is
improved and the burden on the industry is reduced."
Furthermore, the government states, "There is a large
variation in the physical size
and configuration of cargo, the nature of wrapping and crating used,
and material contents differ widely. For example, the technology used
to screen a suitcase does not work for a large pallet
of machine parts.
"To accommodate
these differences, air cargo in Canada is screened using several
methods including physical inspection, canine check, explosive trace
detection or x-ray scanning. The details of these requirements and how
they are applied are confidential, for security
reasons."
The Canadian government's intention is to apply this
standard to all forms of cargo shipment in the future. "Air cargo is
just the start. Canada and the U.S. are working together to strengthen
co-ordination, co-operation and timely decision-making at the border
for cargo shipped by sea or land with a view to increasing
two-way trade, and reducing travel and commercial disruptions. When the
Action Plan is fully implemented, the principle of 'screened once,
accepted twice' is intended to apply to all modes of shipping cargo," a
government news release points out.
Canadians must oppose this treasonous arrangement of the
Harper government.

Canada Joins U.S. Space Surveillance Network
On May 23, just two days after the Chicago NATO
Summit where NATO leaders announced new measures to integrate
surveillance technologies as part of NATO's war preparations, Canada's
Department of National Defence (DND) announced that a
long-term partnership with the U.S. Department
of Defense on Space Situational Awareness (SSA) had been established.
DND informs that Canada's Vice-Chief of Defence
Staff Vice-Admiral Bruce Donaldson,[1]
and Heidi Grant, Deputy Under Secretary of the U.S. Air Force
(International Affairs) signed the SSA Memorandum of Understanding on
May 4. Under the agreement, data from DND's soon to be launched
Sapphire
satellite will be integrated with the U.S. Space Surveillance Network.
According to DND the agreement is aimed at "enhancing the ability of
both
countries to detect and avoid the collision of critical space platforms
with orbital debris." The Sapphire satellite is a "space-based
electro-optical sensor" that will track "natural
and man-made space debris in high earth orbit." It is scheduled for
launch later this year.
"As reliance on space and satellite capabilities
increases, so too does the need to know what is happening in space, and
to act on that knowledge," said Vice-Admiral Donaldson following the
announcement.
Despite claims that the aim of the integration is to
"avoid collisions between satellites or with space debris," this
development follows similar arrangements in which Canada is being
integrated into U.S. arrangements to militarize space. For example, in
November 2011 it was announced that Canada was spending
$477 million to join a U.S. Defense Department satellite communication
system called the Wideband Global Satellite (WGS) System. The system is
designed for "U.S. warfighters, allies and coalition partners during
all levels of conflict, short of nuclear war."
Note
1. Donaldson was the former
head of Canada Command who oversaw operations at the G20 Summit in
Toronto and Vancouver Olympics, and who co-authored the annexationist
NORAD report: Framework for Enhanced
Military Cooperation among North American Aerospace Defense Command,
United States Northern Command,
and Canada Command. The report laid out the new arrangements
demanded so as to place Canada Command "seamlessly" under the control
of U.S. Northern Command.

New Unified Command for Canadian Forces
On May 11, Defence Minister Peter MacKay
announced that
the Harper government was centralizing the command and control of the
Canadian Armed Forces. The announcement was presented as a measure to
streamline cost in an era of fiscal restraint. MacKay announced that
the Canadian Forces (CF) will
launch a revised Operational Command and Control structure, creating a
single command, the Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC). The
creation of a single command structure for the CF will bring under it
the activities of Canada Command [responsible for operations in North
America], Canadian Expeditionary
Force Command [responsible for interventions abroad], and Canadian
Operational Support Command [responsible for logistics, military
engineering, health services and military police etc.]. According to
MacKay the new headquarters will be responsible for "conducting all CF
operations in Canada, North America,
and globally, in concert with national and international partners."
The change brings Canada into line with
annexationist recommendations made in the Framework for Enhanced Military
Cooperation among North American Aerospace Defense Command, United
States Northern Command, and Canada Command. That document was
released jointly by the heads of U.S. Northern Command
and Canada Command with the aim of establishing joint military
operations in North America under NORAD Command--meaning U.S. Northern
Command. (See TML Weekly No. 8, February 25, 2012.)
In
the
report the necessity to bring Canada's command structures within
Canada Command in line with the centralized
U.S. Northern Command structure was clearly articulated as something to
be sorted out.
According to MacKay the changes are a result of the
experiences of the Canadian forces operating at a "high tempo" in the
recent period. This "high tempo" includes: the invasion of Afghanistan,
militarization of aid to post-earthquake Haiti, invasion of Libya,
the G20 in Toronto and the Vancouver Olympics. The changes
are also the result of recommendations from the 2011 Transformation
report prepared by Lieutenant-General Andrew Leslie. Leslie's
recommendations were focused on increasing the Canadian Forces' ability
to wage aggressive war abroad and militarize civilian life at home.
Leslie summarized the aims of his recommendations
in this way: "...we are going to have to reduce the tail of today while
investing in the teeth of tomorrow."
The newly established structure will be implemented in a
phased approach in the upcoming months, and will be commanded by a
Lieutenant-General. The first phase will result in a 25 per cent
reduction in national-level command and control "overhead," and it will
make more efficient use of administrative
resources.
The transformations also include changes to the Royal
Canadian Navy as it prepares to operate the new fleet commissioned by
the Federal Government. The changes include:
- The creation of the Directorate Canadian Submarine
Force (DCSF);
- The consolidation of the five naval schools under one
single training authority;
- Coastal Personnel Coordination Centres (PCC) will be
brought under a single authority;
- The creation of a single fleet scheduling management
authority;
- Formalizing the role of a national Maritime Component
Commander (MCC) for international deployments; and
- The creation of the Directorate New Capability
Introduction (DNCI).
Speaking to the changes, Canada's Chief of Defence Staff
Walter Natynczyk stated: "I'm committed to protecting Canada and
Canada's interests in the world, working with our global and
continental allies, along with our federal, provincial and regional
partners here at home. The implementation of the CJOC
will result in a smaller, more efficient organization that will
continue to deliver the same excellence in operational support to all
of our people, at home and abroad. Furthermore, one command and control
system will help us to deliver the capabilities required to face
current conflicts and better plan for future global
security challenges."

Opponents Say Food Safety Compromised by
Cuts and Harmonized Regulations
In the federal budget, cuts
are being implemented to Canada's Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) as part
of the
Strategic and Operating Review. According to Public Service Alliance of
Canada Agriculture Union President Bob Kingston, since
the end of March 59 federal food
inspectors have been put on notice that their jobs will be cut. Of
those 59, 40 are meat inspectors.
"These people are trained in all forms of animal
pathology and food science. They make sure that when animals are
slaughtered they're actually healthy," Mr. Kingston said. He also
dismissed the government's two-year investment in the Canada Food
Inspection Agency as simply funding studies into further streamlining
food inspection.
"They take away money from
the ongoing operational
budget and replace it with a one-shot injection so they can study the
process," Mr. Kingston charged. "They've got appointed senior managers
down the line who don't understand what's going on -- you end up in a
dangerous space, and that's where we are
with CFIA right now," he said.
At the same time, the Harper government is reducing the
strength of Canada's regulation of food and drugs in the interest of
Canadian, U.S. and European agriculture monopolies as part of
negotiations towards a North American Security Perimeter and a
Canada-Europe Free Trade Agreement (CETA). This nation-wrecking and
threat to Canadians' food security is
being passed off as a measure to assist small and medium-sized business.
When the Regulatory Cooperation Council (RCC), made up
of the biggest North American monopolies, issued its action plan as
part of the Security Perimeter Negotiations, amongst other things it
called for "common approaches to food safety" and to "minimize the need
for routine food safety surveillance inspection
activities in each other's country." It also called for streamlining
"the certification requirements for meat and poultry, including where
possible, the reduction or elimination of redundant certification, data
elements and administrative procedures for shipments flowing between
Canada and the U.S."
The Harper government is moving behind
the scenes without any discussion on the significance of how Canada's
food safety is regulated. In the March 3 edition of the Canada Gazette, the journal in
which government regulations and new laws are announced, the Harper
government issued amendments to
Canada's Meat Inspection Regulations of 1990 in line with what is being
demanded by the monopolies through the RCC.
The regulations affect businesses involved in the
slaughter of food animals, the processing, packaging, labelling,
refrigeration, freezing and storage of meat products. The stated aim of
the amendments is to make it easier for small and medium-sized
businesses
to meet federal food inspection requirements so that
they can trade products inter-provincially and internationally. This
will
be done through amendments that will "streamline and simplify
requirements (e.g., replace prescriptive requirements and/or criteria
with more outcome-based requirements) for all existing federally
registered establishments as well as future applicants
to the federal system while maintaining Canada's high federal food
safety standards." One of the objectives of the amendments is to
"increase alignment with regulations and policies of Canada's major
trading partners including the United Sates and the European Union."
Among other things the amendments make it easier to set
up a business and meet federal requirements. For example, one of the
amendments revises room temperature requirements to process domestic
poultry, changing it from a specified temperature degree to a more
outcome-based provision that requires
the temperature to be appropriate to ensure the preservation of a meat
product.
With respect to regulatory changes pertaining to Bovine
Spongiform
Encephalopathy (BSE, aka mad
cow disease) the amendments state: "Where Bovine Spongiform
Encephalopathy (BSE) is referenced in all MIR provisions, modify from
'free' to 'negligible' risk." This change means that meat products
are permitted to be sold in Canada which come from a
country, or part of Canada, that is considered at "negligible risk" of
having BSE, rather than free" from BSE.
MP Claims Only Two Per Cent of Imported Food to Canada
Inspected
In related news, on February 17, NDP MP Malcolm Allen
revealed in an exchange in the Parliament that the House of Commons
Agriculture Committee had learned that only two per cent of food
imported to Canada is inspected. Even more astonishing
was that Conservative MP David Anderson, Parliamentary Secretary to the
Minister of Natural Resources and Parlimentary Secretary for Minister
of Agriculture and Agri-Food and the Canadian Wheat Board, refused to
even recognize this as an issue and instead attacked the NDP
MP.
Malcolm
Allen: Madam Speaker, this past Wednesday, the agriculture
committee learned that only 2% of food imported into Canada is actually
inspected. Yet 100% of the products that we produce and send abroad are
inspected. Canadians expected, in fact believed, that all imported food
was inspected. The
agriculture committee now knows that is not true.
What is the government going to do to ensure that
imported food is inspected so that Canadian consumers will feel safe
when they feed their families?
David
Anderson: Madam Speaker, the member should know that the CFIA
enforces the same rigorous food safety standards on imported food as it
does for domestic food.
I can give him some examples of what we have done to
improve our import system. He should know this if he is on the
Agriculture Committee.
Our recent budget includes an additional $100 million
over five years to enhance food safety. We have delivered $223 million
to the food safety action plan. To improve controls on imported food,
we eliminated the 72-hour notification of inspections of meat imports.
We have established an import surveillance
team to perform 480 border blitzes.
Madam Speaker, I could go on, but I know my time is
running out.
Malcolm
Allen: Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary should know
that actually there are no CFIA inspectors at the border. CBSA is
responsible to do that and it does not know how to do it. The $100
million was actually for exported food, not imported food.
The reality is we are not testing the products. In fact,
we do not require that potable water be used on washed vegetables that
are imported into this country.
We need to restore consumers' confidence in the system.
Will the government commit today to ensuring that the CFIA budget is
not cut in the next budget round?
David
Anderson: Madam Speaker, something the NDP does not know how to
do is to apologize. The member opposite should stand up and represent
his caucus and apologize for the sleazy online campaign that they have
been conducting.

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