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.

[James Laws, Executive Director, Canadian Meat Council]

Thank you. Mr. Chair, I am going to make my comments in French.

Good morning, everyone. My name is James Laws and I am the Executive Director of the Canadian Meat Council. Thank you for the invitation to speak to you today about Bill S-11, the Safe Food for Canadians Act.

The Canadian meat sector is the largest in the food processing industry. It employs close to 70,000 people. Its annual gross sales of pork, beef, veal, lamb and poultry exceed $24.1 billion. Last year, Canada exported more than $1.3 billion in beef and $3.2 billion in pork to over 125 countries throughout the world. In total, there are close to 740 federally registered meat establishments that slaughter, process, quarter, bone, package, preserve or provide storage for meat and are inspected by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

Food safety is the top priority of meat processors. We support measures aimed at consolidating and modernizing the legislative framework governing food products. The CFIA currently runs eight food inspection programs. Each of them uses different inspection methods and tools.

Proposed Bill S-11 will improve food surveillance by instituting a more uniform inspection regime for all food products and increased control measures for imported food products. The government and the industry have known for some time that Canadian legislation governing food products needs to be modernized and strengthened.

In July 2009, the independent body tasked with investigating the 2008 listeriosis outbreak recommended that the government simplify and modernize the federal legislation and regulations that have a significant impact on food safety. That is the very objective of Bill S-11. We have long maintained that the meat industry in Canada is treated very differently from other food sectors.

That is why we support the consolidation and modernization of the legislation presented in Bill S-11, which is causing the repeal of the following acts: the Fish Inspection Act, the Meat Inspection Act, the Canada Agricultural Products Act and certain provisions of the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act.

We believe in the importance of a modern approach to inspection based on the audit and compliance system. Grouping various powers and provisions in a single act will harmonize inspection and enforcement powers, make them coherent for all food products and allow inspectors to be more effective, and the industry to reach higher compliance levels.

Bill S-11 gives the government the power to create regulations to strengthen the act. For instance, subsection 51(1)(m) of the bill will require that certain persons prepare, keep or maintain documents and provide them to the minister or the inspector or that they give them access to them. Thus, consumers will benefit from a safer food supply system.

The bill repeals the Meat Inspection Act, a 17-page document, and replaces it by this new act, a document of over 60 pages. The bill contains several notable provisions, among them clauses 52 to 55 which describe incorporation by reference. Clause 52 states:

52. A regulation made under subsection 51(1) may incorporate by reference any document, regardless of its source, either as it exists on a particular date or as it is amended from time to time.

The meat industry is the most regulated sector in the food industry in Canada. Aside from the requirements that apply to meat and food under the Food and Drugs Act and its related regulations, and the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act, we must comply with the Meat Inspection Act and its related regulations, as well as with the standard and comprehensive requirements of the Meat Hygiene Manual of Procedures, published by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. The manual has 19 chapters and over 1,200 pages of text, and is already incorporated by reference in the meat inspection regulations, which are themselves 120 pages long.

The agency often changes sections in the manual without consulting the industry. Incorporation of documents by reference, under the regulations, is an important power according to which regulations will remain updated and could be modified. Indeed, section 55 of the bill states:

55. For greater certainty a document that is incorporated by reference in a regulation made under subsection 51(1) is not required to be transmitted for registration or published in the Canada Gazette by reason only that it is incorporated by reference.

We hope that incorporation by reference will be applied through a process that will guarantee consultation among the stakeholders. In that way, those who are affected by a change will have an opportunity to express their opinion. We think that this risks becoming a vicious cycle, because at least the Canada Gazette process, which is slow, is clear and well-explained.

Allow me also to point out that the new legislation applies only to meat processors that are inspected by the agency and that export or sell their meat through interprovincial trade. The new legislation will not create a unique standard, a national standard for meat inspection. We will continue to have hundreds of meat processors in Canada operating under different inspection regimes in the provinces. We think that all the provincial meat inspection standards should be consistent with the federal meat inspection standard.

Canadians should expect that all the meat products they consume are compliant with the same rigorous standards, regardless of where they live or make their purchases. We are willing to work closely with the government representatives and officials to make sure that the new act establishes a regulatory framework that will ensure that we are competitive in the international arena and will encourage the Canadian meat industry to attain the highest standards in food safety.

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

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to meeting number 53 of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

Our orders of the day are pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, October 23, 2012, on 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 Meat Council, Mr. James Laws, executive director, and from the Retail Council of Canada, Ms. Karen Proud, vice-president, federal government relations.

Welcome. I think you know the drill, so we'll ask you to make your presentations and then we'll move to questions from the committee.

Mr. Laws.

Food Safety

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives claim that Bill S-11 is crucial to preventing other problems related to E. coli. Yesterday, however, the minister admitted that his department did not impose strict rules when it comes to food safety. If the inspectors are not doing their jobs and do not have the resources they need, new legislation will not change anything.

The minister has admitted that his system does not work. Will he now allow the external review of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency that the NDP has been calling for?

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Agriculture]

Mr. Speaker, what is clear is that the CFIA acted appropriately and responsibly with respect to XL. What is also clear is that the member is not conversant with what is in Bill S-11.

We have a superior food safety system. This has been recognized in a report on OECD countries.

Bill S-11 takes our superior system and makes it better. The member is asking about the authorities that the CFIA has. If he would only read Bill S-11, he would see where we are headed.

[Neil Bouwer]

The Criminal Code, under “mischief”, does cover tampering. Normally, property-related mischief offences are prosecuted under the Criminal Code. Of course, that is not pursued or enforced by the CFIA. The new tampering provisions enhance and clarify the penalties for tampering to make clear that it's a clear prohibition.

As I mentioned in my earlier statements as well, this is a key provision that we heard discussed in our consultations, because tampering—for example introducing certain foreign objects into food—or threatening to tamper, which can be also very negative to the confidence in the food supply, is basically a gap in terms of the existing legislative framework. Bill S-11 proposes to strengthen and enhance those provisions by pointing out specific prohibitions on tampering and threatening to tamper.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

The relevancy is very clear. All we've done here in the last two weeks is spread a lot of misinformation and fear. That's why I'm so happy to have you here to explain this, because they would not accept any explanation from the minister, and I don't think they'll accept the explanations you have posted on the website, which is very unfortunate.

I will move on to Bill S-11. Bill S-11 is a piece of legislation which.... Again, you addressed Mr. Valeriote's concerns. He's been talking in the House about how you didn't have the mandate or the ability to get information in a timely manner. You've explained that to him, so I hope he now understands that. I know the minister explained it to him probably four or five times.

One thing I want to talk to you about is labelling. You've taken the labelling provisions from the old act into the new act. Have there been any changes in the labelling legislation? Then when it comes to tampering, can you explain the process around that?

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Da Pont.

First, you should know that everyone around this table supports Bill S-11. Second, nobody's questioning any of your commitments to food safety in this country. It's not so much what's in the bill as it is what might not be in it. Sheila Weatherill, in the report, recommended a third party independent audit. All sorts of successful companies—private, public—have third party audits, an outside look-see at the total resources.

I have four questions for you.

One, do you see the merit of a third party audit being undertaken every five years? Somebody outside of the CFIA would come in and look at it so parliamentarians and CFIA are informed on what exists, what may be needed, and how efficiencies can be achieved.

Two, you heard the minister say that CFIA could have been a lot more hard-nosed on getting the material from XL, rather than being nice. That tells me they had the authority. It might be a matter of culture in a particular plant where the authority wasn't exercised, whereas it is exercised in other plants. I'm still troubled with this seeking refuge behind some lack of authority under the existing legislation. Do you not feel they actually had the authority and it was a question of culture?

Third, I'm concerned that clause 27 doesn't authorize the inspector to require a specific format in which information is delivered, so time could be lost between delivery of information and the interpretation of that information.

Fourth, would you, Mr. Da Pont, undertake to provide within a week the names of all inspectors at CFIA, their job descriptions, and where they are located?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

I have 20 seconds. There is to be consolidation of the inspection system for fish, meat, and agricultural products, the idea being that the inspectors will now consolidate their knowledge. How will Bill S-11 ensure that the differences will be taken into account? In other words, will a former meat inspector have the qualifications to go to other areas? How are you looking at that?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Let me just say that not only is Bill S-11 legislation that we support but also that we want to try to work with you, Minister, and obviously our colleagues across the way, to ensure this legislation can be as good as possible.

We certainly agree there are some very good things in Bill S-11. It addresses some of the issues identified by all people in the legislature, as well as by CFIA—both administratively and by its inspectors in the field—and the industry in general, so we believe this bill is pointed in the right direction.

We'd like to see whether there are some things that can enhance and help it. We'll put those forward in a constructive manner. That's going to be our attempt here.

I want to get back to the usable data. I think that's a critical piece and I'm glad you raised it. It should be in a usable form and not, as you described—and I think probably very accurately—a bunch of boxes with a bunch of paper in them; that's not necessarily usable.

HACCP is the centrepiece for the plant itself. When we look at that, HACCP is not something we control per se as policy-makers. It is an independent piece that comes in as a control point that the plant has to administer and has to actually live up to; it has to be authorized and has to be registered. All of those things it has to do underneath that HACCP program.

The questions for me are these. How does the request that we now have through Bill S-11 about usable data get integrated into the HACCP piece? Does that become a change to the folks who register HACCP as well, or does it just become an augmentation to it? I'm happy either way, to be truthful. In fact, if it goes into HACCP, perfect; if it is an augmented piece to the HACCP program, that's good too.

I'll put the next question and allow you to get to it, Minister.

We know the HACCP programs, for those who have them in their plants, are reviewed annually by a third party, and not necessarily CFIA, by the way, just for the folks who are watching. These are registration programs. ISO 9001 registration is outside that and is not a CFIA responsibility, and folks need to know that.

That being the case, will there be an obligation that not only would we see that their registration has been effectively kept up, year to year to year, but we would also get more than just seeing their registration certificate? Would we see they've done the things they need to do to continue to get that registration?

Would this bill help make sure that kind of information-sharing continues, because the HACCP program is indeed supposed to be, in the words of a Toyota production assistant, “an ongoing quest for excellence”? If that is the case, should then that reporting mechanism be a two-way dialogue back and forth between the plant and its front-line inspectors to understand how that's working out?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Well, we've had a number of bills before the House that talked about tampering with food. There are things under Health Canada and things under CFIA.

We get these hoaxes. Around Thanksgiving, you always end up with somebody saying that they've done something to a turkey. Whether they did it or not, you still have to treat it as though it has happened, and you seek to bring that product back in. CFIA resources, Public Health Agency resources, and the store owners themselves all take part in that. It is a three-way partnership to make sure that food is safe.

What Bill S-11 does is make sure that if someone does that and they've shown intent by warning that they're doing it, they can be prosecuted to the full extent of the law and beyond, should it be required. It's just not on, those types of things. It's like talking about a bomb in an airport. Whether you did it or you didn't, it still creates a furor that is hard to dispel.

The one thing that people need to realize is that food safety is not a static exercise. HACCP programs, the CVS report card on the HACCP programs, what CFIA does, and what the Public Health Agency are not a static operation. It's a living document, or a living tree in a lot of respects, in that things ebb and flow.

As a plant like XL expands or does things differently, those changes call for different HACCP controls and for different reporting on those controls, and they call for different people and different training for the CFIA staff. There's ongoing and constant staff training, upgrading, and so on at CFIA to adjust for what industry is doing. They give us their plans and we analyze them. When we say, “Yes, this looks better”, CFIA will staff up accordingly. There are those living, breathing changes all the time that are to be adjusted to.

At the end of the day, that partnership among industry, CFIA, Health Canada, and the provincial health boards is to make sure your food is safe. The provinces concentrate on facilities at the provincial level, such as the Costco in Edmonton or restaurants and all those types of things. The Public Health Agency assembles all that data nationally to make sure there aren't spikes somewhere that show unhealthy food products out there. Then CFIA reacts to it, proactively as much as we can. That's what Bill S-11 seeks to do: add more tools to the proactive side of their tool kit.

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

Thank you, Minister and CFIA staff, for coming today.

I read Bill S-11 and I was happy to see how it would benefit Canadian families. I have four kids myself and—I've said this before—we're “meatatarians”. We have burgers.

I see Bill S-11 like a computer update; it's an update of legislation to make it current and bring it into our modern world.

It introduces consistent food inspection practices across all food commodities. It increases some existing fines and introduces new fines and penalties. It gives the CFIA the ability to require regulated parties to have traceability systems, including a prohibition against selling food commodities that have been recalled. It introduces new and stronger prohibitions against deceptive practices, tampering, and hoaxes, giving the CFIA the ability to require the registration or licensing of regulated parties and establishments, and it prohibits the importation of unsafe food commodities. It's great stuff.

I have a few questions, though. What specifically can be done in legislation, or what is in the legislation, that deals with tampering?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

There's growing support, right from the farm gate through industry, for traceability. More and more consumers in Canada and around the world are asking to know where the product came from and how it was handled.

I know that in Japan, you can take your cellphone camera and take a picture of the bar code, and it will bring up the farm where that pork or whatever was raised. It will show you a picture of the farmer hugging the pig. It's an unbelievable system. It's a little bit over the top for what most people require, but they've gone to that extent because of some food situations they've had over time.

I know that at the Senate hearings, there was some concern from the cattlemen, but I am here to assure them, as I have done personally in my meetings with them on the XL crisis, that the Health of Animals Act takes precedence on the farm and on the ranch. Bill S-11 only comes into play as that animal is loaded and moved on to the next stage for backgrounding, feedlot, processing, or whatever it is. They have that ability.

Farmers were concerned that somehow we were going to develop a cow registry. We had this huge computer system from a gun registry that went nuts, so they figured that we should put it back to work. I mean, they don't figure we should put it back to work. I'm here to tell you that this is not going to happen. We got rid of that gun registry. We're not going to have a cow registry.

What we are seeking to do is have traceability. As I said in response to another question, if something shows up at a processing facility or in a feedlot in the form of an ill or sickened animal, we can trace it back to the farm or ranch it came from. There are specifically reportable instances, such as tuberculosis and BSE. To maintain our status on the BSE scale internationally, we have to test so many animals a year. We do that. It has to be done at slaughter. You can't do a brain examination on a cow and send it back out to the pasture.

All these types of things are done. That's all kept. That's all databased. We need to be able to go back to the farm if there is a problem. Every once in a while that does happen, and we're able to go back and quarantine that farm should there be something like TB and so forth.

That's the whole concept. Farmers are also poised to make use of genetics and feed regimens and so on to put out a superior product. The plants now have the ability to database meat. For example, if there's a side of beef that is perfectly marbled and is going to get extra dollars in a premium market like Japan or Korea, we want more of that. Who produced that beef? We can go back now, through a program called BIXS, to that producer—Cargill or XL in Guelph, or wherever it is—and say, “Give me 200 more head of that, because I have an order from Korea.”

That's the nature of this. It's to build a more vibrant, effective system that works to the benefit of everybody. It provides safer food and also the ability of farmers to produce more of what they're doing for a specific market.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Thank you. I have half a minute.

I'll ask this question in regard to enforcement. The fines, according to Bill S-11, would increase. In the past the average fine was approximately 5% of the maximum fine for an indictable offence. In other words, they weren't enforced to the maximum.

My question is this: is there a desire now, in light of what has happened, to start enforcing these fines to the maximum, and do we have the personnel to do it?

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Minister, and your officials, for being here.

We're here to look at Bill S-11. Obviously the reason there is a new bill is it was felt that the current system isn't working, so we're here to improve it. I would hope, as we examine this bill, that if certain amendments are put forward, we'll discuss this and strengthen it, because that's our purpose here: to strengthen this piece of legislation.

Minister, you stated in your opening remarks that the Canadian and U.S. systems are equally as strong when it comes to food safety and to inspection. I'd like to zero in on what happens at the border for a few minutes, if I may.

I know that in committee in the past we've had witnesses who have stated that only, I think, 2% of the products that come into our country are inspected for food safety. In fact, we have inspection that checks out the pests and checks out other problems, but on the American side 100% of food commodities going across the border are inspected.

I'd like to refer to the testimony made by Paul Caron at the Senate committee, an inspector with 35 years of experience, who questions the fact that our system is as strong as the American one at the border. He states that, for example:

Shipments going to the U.S. have to be screened by the USDA for animal health reasons, plant health reasons, then by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, then Homeland Security, then customs and border services, which directs the load to a meat inspection establishment located in close proximity of the border.

Apparently, according to him, all food shipments entering the U.S. are cleared at the port of entry, while Canadian meat shipments are often released to be possibly inspected later inland.

There seems to be, from what I'm reading, a discrepancy in the way we treat items going back and forth across the border. I'd like you to comment on that if you could, please.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Sure. With the deficit reduction action plan, CFIA is not immune, nor is any other department or agency of this government. We're all looking for efficiencies, and that's what CFIA strove to do. They have identified a number of efficiencies. Absolutely not one nickel affects front-line food safety, not one nickel. I would challenge the opposition to actually point to that in any way, shape, or form. We do hear some noise from the unions on how this will affect such-and-such, but they cannot show where that is actually true.

You mentioned the $56 million outlined; that's over a three-year period. During that same timeframe, and there are still moneys to be announced, we also have sunsetting programs. This is the problem with Kevin Page's report; it's an incomplete report. It doesn't speak to the renewal of sunsetting programs. We fully expect to renew two for some $25 million, but that takes a vote in the House. You can't claim it until you've actually voted it through.

During the same timeframe that we're removing $56 million in efficiencies, we have on the table $223 million in new money, plus the go-forward over the next couple of years when we buttress or take sunsetting moneys and put them back in again.

This idea that somehow this is a horrendous slash to their budget is absolutely ridiculous. Since we've formed government, the overall budget of CFIA has gone up by 20% because it needed at certain times to do certain things. We fully expect the inspector modernization to be funded out of the $100 million in the 2012 budget over the next four years now, and we have a year under our belts.

Someone pointed out that we'd only spent $18 million. Well, that's the first year, and it takes time to build the capacity and train and get them all in to E-Certs and all those types of things to enhance commerce and still maintain our food as safe.

We've increased traceability from gate to plate. We've done that under other jurisdictions. The Health of Animals Act takes precedence on the farm, but as soon as that animal hits the farm gate on its way to a feedlot or a slaughter facility, then Bill S-11 starts to pull in to play. It's the next step, the logical sequence in maintaining that traceability part of Bill S-11 to make sure that our food is safe right from gate to plate. We have to be able to trace food from a processor on, which we do in a recall, but we also have to be able to trace it back to the farm.

There are people in these slaughter facilities who simply check the head of an animal and the brain to make sure there's no BSE. We also check lungs for TB. We check liver for cysts. A number of different operations are undertaken. That's really the traceability back to the farm.

There all of those things in Bill S-11 that start to build a stronger food safety system from gate to plate.