Agriculture Committee on Feb. 10th, 2009

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Thank you for being here today. You were here earlier when the minister talked about the hiring of 200 inspectors at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. As you know, there are contradictory versions on the subject. For example, we've already heard what the President of the Agriculture Union, Bob Kingston, has said on the matter. Moreover, I believe he sent a letter to all committee members, stating the following:

No additional food inspectors have been hired by CFIA since well before the outbreak. The Agency simply does not have the resources to fully address food safety as well as all of its other mandated responsibilities.

For the purposes of clarity, I point out that he's talking about the listeriosis outbreak. That is somewhat what my colleague Ms. Bonsant said and what I mentioned to the minister.

To make a clean breast of it, it would be good for the committee to know when these 200 inspectors were allegedly hired. Where are they working? What is their job description? The minister added an interesting point, when he said that some 100 inspectors would be hired each year, but we don't know over how many years. How many new inspectors will be hired and what will their duties be?

You may not be able to answer me today, but it would be good for the committee to have that information so that we can know once and for all where these inspectors are who have allegedly been hired by the department. The union tells us that there are no new inspectors.

Furthermore, as regards the file that the committee began to study last August, we heard your evidence and that of the union following Luc Pomerleau's dismissal from the Agency. Mr. Pomerleau disclosed to his union the government's plan to cut the operating budget of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency by 5%. The plan also talked about privatizing more and more inspection services, leaving it to the industry to conduct inspections, rather than allowing Agency employees to do them.

You came and testified that this was not how that worked. Recently, however, veterinarians from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency felt they had to file suit against the Agency in the Federal Court of Appeal because, under a number of pilot projects, the industry itself would be inspecting poultry slaughter houses. Thus it would not be Agency veterinarians conducting inspections.

In view of all that happened, I believe the government has not learned from its mistakes. Listeriosis caused deaths. I don't want to engage in petty politics over this matter, but this kind of incident must be used to ensure that people have trust in their inspection system.

This is not what is happening in actual fact, particularly in the example I just cited, in which veterinarians are being shoved aside in favour of industry employees, who will conduct the inspections themselves, without any government supervision. That is precisely what the public fears: that the industry will conduct its own inspections. I don't mean that these people will do their job poorly. However, we have an agency and we don't want to play with people's health and safety or food safety. We want to take no risks, even if we know that we can't prevent every accident.

I would like to hear what you have to say on the subject.

[Dr. Brian Evans, Executive Vice-President, Canadian Food Inspection Agency]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members and Mr. Bellavance.

First let me make two quick comments. Certainly we will respond in a very timely and earnest way to provide the level of detail that you have sought from the CFIA with respect to inspection numbers. I believe in a previous appearance before this committee, last fall, the CFIA was very clear in confirming that in terms of our hiring of personnel involved in food safety inspections, we have seen net growth, in line with what has been publicly reported. I believe it's important in all of these discussions, when we have a debate around numbers, that we're all talking about the same numbers.

We fully respect the efforts of Mr. Kingston to represent his membership. As we said at that time, a number of classification groups are involved in food safety protection in Canada. We have veterinarians, we have chemists and analysts in the laboratory, we have people with master's degrees in food processing and thermal processing, who in fact are represented by an alternate union to that of Mr. Kingston. In Mr. Kingston's union, we have very important inspection personnel as well who play a very critical role in food safety in Canada.

So we are very pleased to present to the committee the total number of hires that exist in the agency, over whatever specified time you would seek to have them, by classification, by the work they carry out.

Again, food safety, as we've also previously committed to, is not something that is achieved at one point in the inspection system. Canada benefits from the fact that we have a food safety system--in fact, we are envied around the world--that is a continuum of monitoring, from the point of production at the farm through to slaughter. It includes all the inputs in terms of seed and fertilizer and biologics approvals. We look at risk as a continuum of risk as opposed to any one point. Inspection takes place at slaughter, it takes place at processing, and it takes place in the marketplace in response to certain circumstances.

So we think it's important, when we talk about the investments that we at CFIA are making in food safety, that we look at where do we make a difference in food safety, who are the people making a difference in food safety, and how do they complement each other's work in terms of providing the integrity that Canadians deserve and expect and that we intend to try to deliver to our highest ability? The same goes for our international markets.

With respect to the roughly 100 per year, we have just completed our forward-and-back analysis on HR trends. We do that on an annual basis. It has not yet been published, but it will be published shortly. We will share that with you as well. It looks at five-year trends in all the classification groups in the agency and the work that they do.

I can tell you that with respect to one branch alone, the front line operations branch, we have done an initial assessment. Between the period of April and January, there was in fact a net growth of 84 food safety inspection staff. That applies in meat hygiene, it applies in meat processing, it applies in fresh fruit and vegetable inspections. It deals with import inspections. It deals with recall assessment and recall verification checks. We have that number, and we are more than pleased to share with you that justification.

You made reference to strategic review and privatization. I would reiterate the comments we have made before as CFIA. Like all federal departments and agencies, we are obliged to go through a four-year cycle of assessment of our programming and to make proposals to government. With respect to our CFIA programming, five initiatives were adopted and approved by the government for us to progress on, which we have been doing. We itemized those in a previous appearance, and we would be glad to review those with you once again. There are no other initiatives for which we have been given permission to proceed.

The moneys...in the CFIA perspective, in identifying the 5% base, in fact those moneys were returned to CFIA for investment in higher priorities. So there was no cut to our capacity but rather a reallocation to higher food safety priorities.

Again, on the issue of reallocation, when we talk about the absolute numbers of inspectors, the CFIA is a regulatory agency. We do recognize that from time to time in executing our food safety mandate we are obliged to remove the licence of plants to operate where we feel they are not meeting their food safety obligation, and that happens on an annual basis. It has happened over the past several years. In the current economic downturn, some companies in fact have opted to go out of production in food areas.

I can tell this committee that as part of that effort, while that may have impacted about 150 of our staff, we were able to redeploy and refocus 129 of those 150. We were able to accommodate and reassign them to broaden the capacity in other areas where we felt priority in food safety was necessary.

So there is growth in the organization overall--net hires minus net departures, which is our net growth figure--but in addition we have reallocation within the department in response to a changing marketplace that allows us also to move inspectors into areas of significant capacity challenge.

You made specific reference, Monsieur Bellevance to the poultry rejection project that was raised by, again, one of the other union-represented groups in their concerns. Again, this is before the courts and I can't comment on it in detail. But what I can say about that particular program on the poultry rejection pilot projects is that these are pilot projects. This program has not been instituted nationally. We are still going through data assessment and we are committed to a full review of that data and international peer review of that data before we would make any changes in our programs. The program inspection has to be science-based.

But this program does not deal with food safety. What this program deals with is those carcasses that have already been diverted from the food supply line. They've already been discarded away from food supply, and the purpose of the rejection project is to classify the basis for the defects: Is it bruising? Is it broken legs? Is it broken wings? Are there other complications associated with that? And our intent, in undertaking that program, was to say the veterinarians are better able to stay on the food safety line where their skills and inspection attributes are more value-added to Canadians for food safety purposes.

So we see that veterinary role as very important to food safety, as opposed to playing that arbitration role between a producer and a processor, where a producer may say “I submitted x number of birds and I only got paid for y number of birds”. They were rejected for a reason. So we don't think it's the best use of the veterinarian's time to be doing a technical “this one was rejected for a broken wing, that one for bruising” type role. We would prefer the veterinarian be focused further up the line on those products that are entering the food supply.

But again, as we stated, this is a pilot. It is before the courts in terms of a judicial review, and we will certainly abide by the outcome of that process.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you. Your time is long expired.

Just before we move on to Mr. Atamanenko, I want to read something in here, from chapter 20, and it's on testimony:

The obligation of a witness to answer all questions put by the committee must be balanced against the role public servants play in providing confidential advice to their Ministers. The role of the public servant has traditionally been viewed in relation to the implementation and administration of government policy, rather than the determination of what policy should be. Consequently, public servants have been excused from commenting on the policies and decisions made by the government.

I just wanted to point that out.

Mr. Atamanenko, it's over to you.

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

Thanks to all of you for being here.

In light of what our chair said, I hope I can still get an answer to my following question.

When we talked about the $50 million, and I gave some examples of local abattoirs, when they try to tap into this money, the minister mentioned that they can provide a business plan, but that mobile abattoirs were excluded from this fund because they were provincial. In my province, as far as I know, there's not really a difference of mobile or stationary when these folks tap into provincial funds. In other words, there are provincial moneys available.

In this particular situation in Grand Forks, they've got some money locally, they've got some money from the province they have to match. And since they want to do a mobile abattoir to better service the region, why should they be excluded from the possibility of tapping into this money, whereas some of the other ones I mentioned are stationary abattoirs and they have a possibility? I didn't quite understand that, so I would like an explanation on that, please.

[Krista Mountjoy]

Bearing in mind the comments of the chair, with respect to the ability to respond to the specifics in your question, it might be helpful to take a step back and look at the context. The government has indicated that it's moving forward with a $50-million program to provide assistance to meat slaughter and processing facilities in Canada.

Certainly the committee has heard from the livestock sector about the challenges before it. As officials and as a department, we are hearing from the beef and pork value chain round tables about the challenges they've experienced over the last several months with respect to the Canadian dollar, input costs, feed and energy, world prices, and market access. We have been working with those value chain round tables as well as with the sector in responding to those challenges. My colleague Mr. Meredith can speak to the performance of the financial systems programs that operate through the FPT domain.

We've also been engaged with them in considering competitiveness issues. Looking through that competitiveness lens, we are considering how we can help this sector to optimize its ability to compete domestically, in North America, and internationally.

We've looked at research and development, the regulatory framework, and market access. We've also looked at the food-processing sector to see if there are specific challenges suffered apart from what producers are experiencing. We are seeing beef, pork, and live product exports move out of this country into North America. At the same time, we are seeing the need for our processing and slaughter plants to be able to compete in that North American and international milieu. The slaughter and processing assistance program is being designed to assist the industry in implementing business plans that will enable it to achieve the competitiveness and sustainability necessary to offer viable choices to our Canadian producers. They need to be able to choose whether to export or run animals through Canadian processing plants.

As to your question, we do not yet have all the details. We can't comment on the details of the program, but when they are finalized, we'll be making them available for review.

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

If I understand correctly, it's not 100% sure that mobile abattoirs would not be able to tap into the program. Are you saying they can or they cannot? Is there hope?

[Krista Mountjoy]

It's a good question, but I would prefer to bring forward all the details of the program before giving you an answer, Mr. Atamanenko. As the minister has said, it is about improving business operations and the capacity of the existing beef and pork slaughter and processing plants in Canada. The minister has also commented on the need to look at improving capacity in specific areas. Officials are undertaking all of this as they develop the details of the program for the minister's and government's consideration.

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

Are there any areas of priority? In other words, will more priority be given to the smaller players? Will the big multinationals, Cargill and Tyson, be able to tap into this, or are we looking at trying to encourage the smaller operations to create jobs in communities through this program? Can you answer that?

[Krista Mountjoy]

The best answer I could give would be to refer you to Minister Ritz's comments on this matter.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You have about 30 seconds, Alex.

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

I'll sell it to somebody else.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I want to thank everyone for being here today.

I have a couple of specific questions. One of them concerns the cash advance for livestock. This was raised by a constituent of mine, so I just wanted to get some information on it.

The information is that the program money comes off any of the cash advances. It's my understanding that does not happen with grain, and my constituent was asking why that is. When the cash advance program takes inventory as collateral, why do they then also take the program money and apply it back against that advance, particularly in a time when producers are having a tough go of it?

I also want to follow up on that after I have an answer.

[Greg Meredith, Assistant Deputy Minister, Farm Financial Programs Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Thank you for the question.

I think probably it's worth clarifying that the advance payment program was changed relatively significantly not that long ago, through legislation that changed the terms and conditions under which emergency advances could be obtained by livestock and other producers.

The provision your constituent is referring to is probably that the inventory of the herd is now able to be put up as security, which is consistent with what happens in other commodity groups. But we do require producers to be in one of the business risk management programs--not as security; that program would still be there for the bank to take as security, but as a means of repayment should default occur.

That's the rationale for that provision. It provides the producer an opportunity to use that advance or to use that future payment as credit security, but it still has to be a provision so that we can collect in the case of default.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Can they borrow again, then, on the freed-up inventory?

[Greg Meredith]

In fact the emergency advances, which provide producers up to $400,000 of advance under terms of special economic hardship and apply to the livestock sector right now, will be in place for at least another month or six weeks. And yes, if the inventory is not pledged against any other borrowing and it's not pledged against the advance, and the producer still has a ceiling, they are eligible--subject to, of course, the due diligence that the loan administrator has to do on a particular situation. So theoretically, yes.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

So there could be a situation where the payment is applied against the advance, and then the producer turns around and tries to reapply for a loan for that same amount of money on his inventory. I've had this discussion before.

[Greg Meredith]

What I might suggest is that perhaps I could respond to you in writing on the specifics of that case and then on the generic case, because there are a number of issues that get mixed in together, including the crop year for that particular producer and the security against which he has pledged his herd or his existing inventory. We could probably reply in writing with some specifics.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Okay.

I want to talk a little bit about country-of-origin labelling. We were working with the previous U.S. administration to have the guidelines changed to reflect the needs of our producers. The new administration has put a freeze on the implementation of some of these guidelines. Can you update the committee on where we're at on the current situation with COOL and where we see that we can go from here?

[Krista Mountjoy]

Thank you for the question. It's a timely one.

We have done quite a bit of work with respect to country-of-origin labelling, as I'm sure the committee is aware. Leading up to the announcement of the United States Department of Agriculture final rule, we had been engaged at a number of levels in the U.S., with the department, with U.S. trade, as well as with congressional representatives, to make the case on behalf of Canadian agriculture and Canadian producers that traditional flexibility was required in the final rule so as not to disrupt the integrated North American market and to continue to provide an outlet for Canadian livestock exports, hogs and cattle, moving into U.S. processing plants.

Incidentally, a number of those same animals go into U.S. feedlots and are needed by U.S. processing plants too, so it's an argument that resonates in the U.S. in those constituencies as well.

We saw the final rule come forward, with additional flexibility, in January, with an implementation date of March 16. It came as no surprise that just as the new administration took its place it announced a blanket review of all recently promulgated regulations, including the country-of-origin labelling final rule. That final rule wasn't singled out, wasn't targeted in any way. It was part of the blanket review.

As I believe the minister remarked, he's had a recent conversation with the newly appointed USDA Secretary Vilsack on the subject, and we await the outcome of Secretary Vilsack's decision. We hope it will be positive. We are encouraged by public remarks made recently by the House agriculture committee chair, Chairman Peterson, who has commented that it would be best all around if the final rule were to be implemented, moved into place, and were to be allowed to function for a period of several months to allow both Canada and the U.S., and other trading partners, to look at the implementation of that rule for any unintended consequences.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Just a very brief follow-up, if you want, Mr. Anderson.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Okay, I can do that.

Is there a timeline on his response? This wasn't dealt with individually when it was put under the restrictions, but is there a timeline as to when he might be responding to it and dealing with it individually to bring it back out?

[Krista Mountjoy]

USDA Secretary Vilsack is expected to be dealing with this in the short term, as are all secretaries who are considering rules, so Minister Ritz is optimistic that we'll see that happen very soon, as he commented. Certainly the department hopes it will see a positive outcome from that process.

Canada of course has reserved its rights with respect to its recourse to the WTO, and will of course continue to work with industry and provinces and territories to assess the situation and prepare for the outcome, not only of Secretary Vilsack's decision but as the rule is implemented and carries forward.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Ms. Mountjoy.

We do have some motions to deal with on the estimates at the end of the meeting and a couple of minor issues of committee business.

I'll take Mr. Easter as the last questioner before we go to that.