Bill S-11 (Historical)

Safe Food for Canadians Act

An Act respecting food commodities, including their inspection, their safety, their labelling and advertising, their import, export and interprovincial trade, the establishment of standards for them, the registration or licensing of persons who perform certain activities related to them, the establishment of standards governing establishments where those activities are performed and the registration of establishments where those activities are performed

This enactment modernizes the regulatory system for food commodities.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food, meeting number 54.

Orders of the day, pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, October 23, 2012, are Bill S-11, An Act respecting food commodities, including their inspection, their safety, their labelling and advertising, their import, export and interprovincial trade, the establishment of standards for them, the registration or licensing of persons who perform certain activities related to them, the establishment of standards governing establishments where those activities are performed and the registration of establishments where those activities are performed.

Joining us today are: from the Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters, Keith Mussar, vice-president, regulatory affairs; from the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, Dennis Laycraft, executive vice-president, and Ryder Lee, manager of federal-provincial relations; and from the Canadian Federation of Agriculture, Christian Lacasse, vice-president.

Welcome.

I think you have appeared before committee, so you know that you present and then we'll move right to members' questions.

Mr. Mussar, would you like to start, please.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Once again, I'd like to thank both organizations for being here today and for expressing your support for Bill S-11. I think it is important legislation. I think that there are a lot things going very right in food safety, but there are always improvements to be made. It's never a completely perfect system.

On some of the wording, particularly in clause 24, Ms. Bilkhu made a suggestion on changing the word “they” to “CFIA”. Right now, it says that “an inspector may, for a purpose related to verifying compliance or preventing non-compliance with this Act, enter a place, including a conveyance, in which they have reasonable grounds...”. A suggestion was made that the word “they” should be changed to “CFIA”.

My concern is that the inspector is acting on behalf of CFIA, with the authority of CFIA. To put it back to the institution to somehow have to sanction his presence there I think runs counter to what the inspector is trying to achieve, which is a timely response to what he sees as a concern based on reasonable grounds.

What we just saw with the XL situation was that being able to respond quickly is very important. My concern with changing the word “they” to “CFIA” is that it institutionalizes a decision-making process that has already been vested in the inspector himself or herself and that the inspector is there to respond quickly. But it must be based on reasonable grounds. In fact, if a company were displeased with the way in which an inspector had conducted himself or herself, it now has recourse, not back to the inspector, but back to a tribunal that would look at the situation and consider both the arguments made by the inspector and the concerns of industry.

Could you comment on that? Do you agree with what I'm saying? My worry is that it's going to slow things down for the inspector trying to do his work with the authorities, with which he's already vested through legislation. He is an inspector of the CFIA.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks to all of you for coming today.

This is for Robert and Sukhdeep.

In your opening remarks you said that imported food is regulated to a lesser extent. This confirms testimony that was given before this committee a year or so ago. That testimony suggested that only 2% of the food coming into the country is actually inspected, meat to a much greater extent, which you also said. As a result, a lot of Canadians have concerns about imported food when they hear about melamine in milk from China. I'm not trying to discredit; I'm just trying to clear up some of this, okay?

Bill S-11 will include provisions to register and license importers, and it will require them to maintain a written preventative food safety control plan, so it sounds like the government is downloading responsibility for food inspection to the importing industry. If there's still a lack of inspection of this food that is coming into our country, can you tell me how being licensed and adopting a preventative food safety control plan will indeed assure Canadians that their imported food will be any safer than it is now?

[Ron Versteeg, Vice-President, Dairy Farmers of Canada]

Mr. Chair and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to participate in the committee's consideration of Bill S-11, the Safe Food for Canadians Act.

Dairy Farmers of Canada places a high priority on food safety and such related standards as traceability, animal care, and biosecurity. These aspects are important for the Canadian dairy sector.

I'm a dairy farmer from Cumberland, Ontario, just outside of Ottawa. With my family I manage an operation of 110 cows.

In June, DFC welcomed the new legislation, stating that food safety was a high priority for dairy farmers. We recognize it is a shared responsibility between the public and private sectors. The consolidation of food safety legislation would further clarify CFIA's role and responsibility related to food safety. DFC also indicated support for a more consistent inspection regime across all food sectors, and for tougher penalties on activities that put the health and safety of Canadians at risk.

DFC looks forward to seeing how the new act will recognize the role of technology in food production, enhance control over food imports and exports, deter from tampering and deceptive practices, and add strength to labelling, as well as maintain the authority to provide standards for food in Canada.

DFC believes that food quality is directly related to animal health and care. Healthy and well cared for animals produce high-quality milk. Consumers also expect that the environment will be respected in the process of producing milk.

Traceability is a tool to mitigate risk related to animal health, and will speed up market access recovery and the return to normal business in the advent of an animal disease outbreak. All dairy cows are already identified with unique ear tags under the existing legislation. The animals we export are identified of course, and all purebred animals are documented in their respective breed herd books. Premise ID information is already a matter of public record. For example, 45% of the dairy animals in Canada that are located in Quebec are fully traceable today. This is the standard we want to see implemented consistently Canada-wide.

DFC and its 10 provincial member organizations have worked closely with the CFIA and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to develop on-farm programs: the Canadian quality milk, or CQM, program, and more recently the national standard on biosecurity for dairy farms.

Several stakeholders were also involved in developing the code of practice for the care and handling of dairy cattle. DFC believes in integrating these tools so that farmers can assure the public about how their dairy products are produced and where they come from.

Consumers continue to trust the government's role in the food safety system. External and reputable third party oversight is necessary to continue to maintain strong confidence in Canadian food.

Mr. Chair, DFC is looking forward to the timely enactment of this bill and to participating in the consultations to develop the related regulations.

Thank you for your attention. I will be happy to answer your questions.

[Sukhdeep Bilkhu, Chair, Canadian Association of Regulated Importers]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for the invitation to appear during your hearings on Bill S-11, an important bill for everyone in Canada and those outside Canada who buy Canadian-produced food products.

This bill will provide the regulatory environment for food production and marketing in Canada for at least the next 30 years, and therefore, we need to get it right. It is CARI's view that Bill S-11 sets out the framework needed to modernize food safety in Canada.

What is also needed is a Canadian national food strategy that will help guide the creation of the regulations that will quickly flow from this bill. It's like buying a much-needed new car but not having an agreement on how it will be used or where we would like to go with that. A national food strategy is being worked on by both industry and the CFIA, but this work is still far from completion.

CARI supports Bill S-11 because it will put all imported food on the same footing when it comes to food safety. We also note that Bill S-11 will increase the powers and tools available to CFIA's food inspectors.

Recent incidents have shown that there were gaps in the tools available and in which part of the food industry the regulation could be applied. We understand these weaknesses can now be corrected.

One area of concern CARI would like to raise is found in subclause 24(1). This subclause gives inspectors a lot of powers including, for example, the power to access a company's computer if a non-compliance is suspected. CARI agrees this is a reasonable approach providing the grounds to believe have been documented.

There's a difference in the wording between the English and the French versions of clause 24. The English version states “they have reasonable grounds” while the French appears to reference the inspector. We would suggest this difference be fixed by amending both the English and French versions to read “the CFIA” instead of “they” or “the inspector”.

Much like the Competition Bureau has to document the reason to believe before being granted access to company records, so should the reason to believe non-compliance is taking place be documented before an inspector has access to company computers and all the other actions that can be taken under clause 24.

The change CARI is proposing for the English text is the replacement of “they” with “CFIA” and the insertion of the word “documented” between the words “have” and “reasonable”. The passage would read, “in which the CFIA has documented reasonable grounds”. This would ensure that an individual inspector could not decide on his or her own to exercise the powers set out in clause 24, without first convincing the CFIA officials that the powers are needed and putting on file the documentation setting out the basis for the reasons to believe. CARI believes this change will significantly reduce the concern about this clause among industry stakeholders and harmonize the investigation process with other federal acts.

Finally, to balance the no liability clause in Bill S-11, CARI suggests a contingency fund to be put in place as part of the act and to provide firms with access to funds to compensate firms for mistakes made by inspectors, test results, or other actions that proved to be wrong.

Thank you very much for your time.

[James Laws]

One important thing that Bill S-11 puts in place is that it requires all the importers of food to be registered, which is not currently the situation. It's my understanding that a few years ago, when there was a scare involving imported melamine, they had trouble tracking it as quickly as they could have had they had all the importers registered, as this bill will require. It will make it a lot faster. It will help them out a great deal in that regard.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Chairman, I am going to ask them to expound on that layer next.

My next question is, how do you think the new legislation, Bill S-11, will improve food safety for Canadians? What are your impressions specifically on that?

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Thanks for coming today.

I want to ask you both a general question, and this is a big one. I want to know what your general impression of our current food safety system is before Bill S-11. Can you give your impression of it to the committee today?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Laws.

Ms. Proud, I have some questions for you as well.

It's pretty clear that Bill S-11 is aptly titled as the safe food for Canadians act. It clearly will make Canadians' food safer; there's no question. You look at strengthening inspection, increasing penalties for those who are risking food safety, giving inspectors the right tools to do their jobs, traceability requirements. All these things are going to improve Canadians' food safety and that's obviously something we should all support. I know you do, and that's appreciated.

Probably equally as important is the perception, and for you particularly with the Retail Council, consumer confidence is vital. As much as we need to ensure we are improving food safety, we need to make sure it's visible and known to consumers as well.

I would like to hear your thoughts on whether you believe the changes under Bill S-11 would do that. Do you believe consumer confidence will be increased? Do you think Canadians will think their food is safer as a result of the measures taken in this piece of legislation?

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to both witnesses for being here today. I appreciate your testimony and the questions that you've answered so far. I have a couple of questions for each of you.

I'll start with you, Mr. Laws.

You testified before the Senate committee concerning this bill. You said that the Canadian Meat Council “support[s] the consolidation and modernization of the legislation presented in Bill S-11”. Could you explain to the committee a little further why you feel that consolidation and modernization of Canada's food safety legislation is so important, particularly to your meat industry here in Canada?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Very good. I appreciate that, thank you.

I'm glad we had the opportunity to clarify the difference between the monetary penalties and actually being found guilty of a violation in a court of law by a judge, because sometimes those get confused and someone thinks the CFIA inspector can write a ticket up to $5 million, which is not the case.

I want to ask a question about traceability. Traceability, as you know, plays a key role within our food safety system. This legislation builds on what we already have, and of course, it wants to move the industry toward even better traceability. I believe the industry wants to go to traceability as well, because it's a win-win for everybody. Yes, there can be some initial costs incurred to move in that direction, but of course, the savings and the benefits are tremendous.

I want to ask each of your organizations your thoughts on the traceability portions of Bill S-11.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you very much, Chair.

Thank you to our guests for being here today.

I thank you and your members for your commitment to food safety. I appreciate the fact that you support Bill S-11 and what we're trying to accomplish here, by taking something that is good and robust and making it even better, particularly based on feedback provided by you, by the members of your organizations, and by the industry at large.

I wanted to ask a question regarding fines, because sometimes there can be confusion about fines or penalties. They basically break down into two groups, as you know. CFIA inspectors can use AMPS, which are the administrative monetary penalties where, I guess, a ticket can be written by an inspector for minor violations, serious violations, or very serious violations, but the monetary amounts are very modest. I think a minor violation is $1,300 and a very serious violation is $10,000.

Bill S-11 prescribes penalties through the court system. In other words, if someone is actually found guilty of contravening the act in certain circumstances and a judge rules on it, there are summary conviction fines and indictable offence crimes. I believe there has been a significant increase. Penalties used to be up to $250,000, if found guilty by a judge in a court of law. These have been increased to $5 million, as a maximum, and not in every case, of course. It's at the discretion of the judge, depending on the circumstances.

I wanted to ask each of you whether you feel this is reasonable, if you feel this is a positive step. What are your thoughts on that?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Ms. Proud, we see at the retail end standards that retailers have set. Sometimes they seem to vary by individual retailers, especially large ones. Do you see this as being problematic with this legislation? The minimum standard is Bill S-11. If folks ask for standards beyond that, how does it affect this piece of legislation? We have producers who come to us and say that the standard is here or the standard is there. It goes back and forth. Do you think we should have uniform standards at the retail end, so that we all understand whatever the benchmark is? Should we have legislation that speaks to that safety standard?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being with us today as we go through Bill S-11, I agree it is an update, and hopefully it will become a standard across the country for food safety. It's one bill rather than a multiple and makes it more transparent for all to understand exactly what the rights, obligations, etc. are for all parties whether they be primary producers or end consumers.

The legislation talks about an audit five years after it comes into force. They'll do a review to try and see what's working and what's not working and make adjustments. One of the things we've been saying is that if you don't have a reference point to start from, how will you know where you end up in five years? Specifically around CVS, a compliance verification system, it's still our contention that in the Weatherill report, although done by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, and in Carol Swan's analysis and review, an audit is still needed.

I'll look to both of you to comment. Do you have any suggestions about whether that's something that should be looked at? I realize you may not have a definitive answer on that. Is it reasonable to suggest that we have a reference point so when we count to five, we know we actually got to five and didn't get to four and a half? It's difficult, it seems to me, that if you don't have a reference point to start from, how do you know what you've counted? You'll know at 10 because you can count from 5 to 10.

I'll let you comment. Why don't we start with Ms. Proud. We'll work right to left.

[Karen Proud, Vice-President, Federal Government Relations, Retail Council of Canada]

Good morning, Mr. Chair, members of the committee. I'd like to thank you for giving us the opportunity today to speak to Bill S-11.

My name is Karen Proud. I'm the vice-president of federal government relations for the Retail Council of Canada. I'm going to keep my remarks fairly brief this morning because we've already submitted a brief to the committee and it details our position around Bill S-11.

The Retail Council of Canada represents over 9,000 members with 45,000 storefronts across Canada. Our members range from the large multinational companies that you're all familiar with to the smaller, independently run and owned companies.

In February of last year, a new grocery division was added to the Retail Council of Canada which amounts to about 95% of the total grocery industry in Canada. Our grocery members include: Loblaws, Walmart, Metro, Federated Co-ops, Co-op Atlantic, Sobeys, Costco, and Canada Safeway.

I'd like to start off by saying that RCC and our members fully support Bill S-11. This is evidenced by the fact that Minister Ritz announced the introduction of this bill at the location of one of our members and I was in attendance in support of that bill. I'd like to also mention that last week Minister Ritz appeared before you and said, “Consumers remain this government's number one priority when it comes to food safety and consumer confidence.”

I can tell you with certainty that if it was any one of our members sitting here today, they would say that exact same thing. Food safety is the number one priority for the grocery members. They expend considerable effort and resources ensuring that the products they sell to their customers are safe. In this, we are completely aligned with the policy intent behind this legislation.

As you will see from our brief, we are proposing a few amendments to the bill that we believe will improve it. I'm not going to go over these in detail as you've already been provided with a copy of our detailed brief, but I'd like to draw your attention to a couple of key points.

We do believe that there a few areas in the bill where the authorities are a bit broad. In the interest of transparency and clarity, we have suggested some minor changes that we feel don't detract from the intent of the bill and still provide the minister with the necessary authorities.

With regard to disclosure of confidential business information, we feel that the language that can be found in the recently passed Consumer Product Safety Act actually provides for a balanced approach that would give the minister necessary authorities in this area while recognizing the sensitive nature of this information.

As my friend, Mr. Laws, commented, we also have some concerns about incorporation by reference. We're not actually suggesting any sort of amendment to the bill, but we are asking that the committee make a recommendation that the Treasury Board Secretariat develop guidelines for departments in using this authority, as we've seen more and more pieces of legislation being passed that have the authority to incorporate documents by reference.

We'd like to make sure the departments are given guidance on how and when to use this authority, what sort of documents can be incorporated by reference, and the need for proper consultation with industry on those documents.

As I said, I wanted to be brief and I'm hoping that I achieved that. I would like to thank the committee again for providing us with the opportunity to share our views. I look forward to any questions you might have.