By Renaud Gignac, LL.B., M.Sc., President of Transition AlimenTerre Québec, and David Steele, PhD, President of Earthsave Canada.

A version of this article was published in La Presse (Montreal) on February 2, 2025. It can be read (in French) here.

---

In his January 9 article, Ottawa chaos saved farmers and consumers, Professor Sylvain Charlebois claims that the prorogation of the federal Parliament was a blessing, having suspended consideration of bills he claims are harmful to both farmers and consumers.

Charlebois is delighted that capital gains reform will not now happen. According to him, the reform “would have represented a significant financial burden” on farmers. However, he completely ignores the measures included in the bill in order to protect farmers, including an increase in the capital gains exemption for farm property from $1 million to $1,250,000.

Most surprising, though, is his claim that Bill C-293, a bill designed to prevent pandemics, is instead a “Vegan Act”. Charlebois claims that Bill C-293  “appears to impose a particular dietary program – in this case, vegetarian and vegan – under the guise of public health” and “includes provisions to promote the consumption of alternative proteins.”

His claim is simply not true. No matter how hard one looks, one cannot find where in the bill Professor Charlebois could find the evidence to come to such a conclusion.

The bill mandates the development of plans by the Ministry of Health, in coordination with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Ministry of Industry, to both reduce pandemic risk and to facilitate rapid responses to any such threats that may arise.  

Measures are prescribed to ensure that health care workers are better prepared to respond to sudden increases in patient volume and that planning be done to ensure the supply chains of personal protective equipment, vaccines, etc., are as protected and secure as possible.

So, too, are preparedness strategies for the protection of the most vulnerable groups and to bolster the surge capacity of our institutions to deal with the stresses and needs that a new pandemic would impose.

It is true that, among the actions mandated by the bill, are the regulation of animal agriculture so as to lower the probability of antibiotic resistance arising among farm animals and to make the likelihood of new virus variants arising on Canadian farms less likely.

Both are eminently rational goals. Note, for example, the current threats that farmers face with bird flu – and the likely human to human transmission of a variant of that flu recently identified in the United States. That said, no specific actions are mandated; these would be formulated by the various ministries based on their own judgment of the risks at hand.

Yes, the bill would make it easier for government to halt production in meat processing facilities in the case of a pandemic, and to regulate the conditions under which animals are raised where those conditions pose a serious threat to the public health. Slaughterhouse workers were among the most likely of all people to be infected in the Covid-19 pandemic, so the ability to regulate or close them more easily in the event of another pandemic is plain and simply prudent.

The bill puts not a single constraint on the consumption of meat or other animal products.

Where exactly in the text of Bill C-293 did Charlebois read that it would “mandate the consumption of vegetable proteins by Canadians” or “legislate the consumption of vegetable proteins”? These claims are simply not true.

Bill C-293 does not even mention consumption. In that regard, it requires only that Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada provide measures to “promote commercial activities that can help reduce pandemic risk, including the production of alternative proteins”. Once again, a prudent action and one that would boost our ability to compete in a rapidly growing global market.

Bill C-293 is a rational response to a serious threat. It aims to reduce the likelihood of pandemics arising within our borders and to bolster our responses to any pandemics that may nevertheless arise here or arrive on our shores. 

Promoting the production of plant proteins in Canada, without any constraints on consumption, is not only part of a very rational and important risk-reduction trajectory, but would also strengthen the competitiveness of our farmers in a rapidly expanding global market.

Unfortunately, the prorogation of Parliament will not make the risks of future pandemics disappear at the same time as Bill C-293. We’ll have to stay on our toes if we want to avoid finding ourselves again in the same bad movie.