Agriculture Committee on June 1st, 2006

[Greg Orriss]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The priorities of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency relate to health and safety and consumer protection. Our emphasis in our inspection programs and our resources are prioritized based on the risks associated with health and safety matters, and consumer protection matters from the perspective of misrepresentation or deceptive practices regarding the sale of food products.

We look to the industry establishments producing the products to have quality assurance measures in place to verify that these products meet the appropriate specifications and that they have process controls in place to ensure these ingredients are used appropriately and are formulated in a safe manner. We verify that those controls are in place, as well as do end-product testing to look at the compositional nature of the product in some cases. But principally, we look at health and safety matters with respect to microbiological safety of the products.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

What agency of record then would be verifying that this falls within our parameters? Nobody? You're talking about safety only, and you take their word for it, but who does the actual spot check, or end result check, to say this is 85%?

[Greg Orriss]

Mr. Chair, I don't know. From a CFIA perspective, we don't focus on that area.

Possibly our colleagues can respond to that question.

[Graham Barr]

I believe you're referring to the procedure at the borders?

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Yes.

[Graham Barr]

I will refer the question to my colleague from the Canada Border Services Agency.

[Darwin Satherstrom]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

This is going to get a bit technical, which I apologize for right from the start, but essentially, if the goods are being imported under chapter 4 of the customs tariff, and the importer wishes to claim them within what we call the “within-access provision” in chapter 4, at the lower rate of customs duty, they are required to have a permit issued by the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.

When the goods are being accounted for, we will check the importation against the permit to ensure that permit exists. Otherwise, if the importer had made a claim that there were goods that qualified within the access rate, but did not have the permit, we would go back and investigate and reassess the importer. If the importer were not able to provide the permit, then they would become subject to the higher rate of duty.

In terms of whether the goods are below or above the levels of protein concentrate for purposes of classification, whether it's in chapter 4 or chapter 35, the practice of the agency is to periodically conduct verifications of importers. We will look at the records of importers to confirm that the goods in question meet the claim that has been made at the time of importation.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Okay, so you basically check the permit and the paper, but nobody ever really physically checks the product?

[Darwin Satherstrom]

It is possible in the process of a verification to ask for a laboratory sample.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Has that been done?

[Darwin Satherstrom]

I can't talk of specific cases, but in certain sectors, depending on the nature of the product, whether it's food or chemicals, or otherwise, and depending on the complexity of the product, we would ask for samples.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

But you can't tell me if that's been done or not?

[Darwin Satherstrom]

I couldn't refer you to a specific case.

[The Chair, Conservative, Gerry Ritz]

Okay. Thank you.

Now, Mr. Boshcoff, for five minutes, please.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Border crossings, I believe, relate to Mr. Satherstrom's program. Currently in my riding, which covers the entire top of the State of Minnesota, there are three border crossings. This is an issue, I believe, that applies across the country. The number of “turnbacks” on specific types of products—dog food, potatoes, and those kinds of things—is something that of course has an entirely detrimental effect on tourism and on other people coming across the border.

Is your agency the one that is responsible for advising Americans, before they get to your food, safety, and consumer protection...?

[Darwin Satherstrom]

Well, it depends on the issue, I think. I'm not an expert in this area.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Is there someone then from International Trade who could respond?

[Darwin Satherstrom]

If you could just specify the question a little bit more, as to whether you're talking about exports from the U.S. into the Canadian market that get turned back at the border....

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

No, it's essentially about people coming across the border with products. Were you just going to deal with commercial exports and imports?

[Darwin Satherstrom]

My area is commercial, dealing with the administration of the trade programs.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

It would certainly apply to those people who were trying to sell or buy products across the border, in terms of their knowledge or understanding of what happens when they get to the border and they're turned back. I'm just concerned about our methods of communicating to Americans what they can't sell or bring to us.

[Darwin Satherstrom]

I'll have to take your question under advisement.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Thank you.

Now to International Trade, the recent concerns about a softwood sellout included some predictions that there would be other detrimental effects on NAFTA from the ruling. The first effect started yesterday with the appeal on corn to the panel. Are you familiar with that, you folks from International Trade?

Okay.

For a long time, the Dairy Farmers of Canada have been expressing their concerns with this article 28. They have provided a legal opinion that it would not be applicable to the United States, but I think, because of the precedent set from softwood, the Americans will be using an angle now to try essentially to expand their operations.

So do you think, and are you concerned, in spite of the legal opinion to the contrary, that milk protein concentrates would be part of that? Is that your greatest fear?

[Carol Nelder-Corvari]

I don't know if I can answer that last question, but with respect to your question about the appeal on corn, both Canada and the U.S. retain their rights to use trade remedy measures. Canada, over the last decade, has taken actions against the United States, and vice versa. In the case of grain corn, there was a finding by the Canadian International Trade Tribunal that U.S. imports were not injuring the domestic industry, so that case was dropped. I understand, however, that the U.S. has proceeded to appeal the finding of the Canada Border Services Agency respecting subsidies in that case. That's their right to do.

Both governments use a chapter 19 process under NAFTA quite frequently in trade remedy cases, so it's not an unusual step. The only thing unusual here is the fact that the case has been dropped by Canada, and the assumption is that the U.S. government remains concerned about the way in which Canada undertook its investigation of U.S. subsidies. So that's the issue in this case.

[Ken Boshcoff, Liberal, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

So for MPCs, if a professional organization provided you with a legal opinion, you're welcome to either consider it or not. I would think that the legal opinion of the Dairy Farmers of Canada would probably have been examined laboriously and been submitted in a very serious manner. So what would you do with that, in terms of your own perspective on determining whether or not it would be injurious or not?