Agriculture Committee on March 14th, 2012

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Let me ask a question. It's on page 4, the second paragraph. It talks about “some latitude on how to get to the outcome, but no latitude on the outcome itself”, which is food safety. Obviously, I think we all agree on this statement.

Let me look at the first half of the statement. As part of that “how to get to an outcome” and that “latitude”, are we talking about CVS—the compliance verification system—or a component that looks like that?

[Paul Mayers]

Actually, no. Compliance verification is really the agency's tool in verifying that the industry has done what it is expected to do.

When we talk about latitude, what we talk about is shifting the regulatory framework to one that focuses on what the expectation of the industry is, rather than telling them how to do it. For example, we had a requirement related to a slaughter facility that they had to have a paved parking lot. Well, the real interest we had was to ensure that dust in the environment didn't enter the plant to contaminate the product.

What we want to shift to in the future is rather than telling a company what it must do, instead let's be clear on what we want in terms of the food safety outcome. That way companies can adapt to the achievement of that outcome in a way that makes the most sense for their particular operating environment. It may be that rather than a paved parking lot, they use dust suppression methods that work better for them.

So when we say latitude—

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Gotcha.

[Paul Mayers]

Okay.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Let's hope they don't use the stuff they do on rural roads, because I wouldn't want that. I'll take the dust in my meat before I'll take that stuff. But let's hope they just pave the parking lot and if they don't like pavement, do grass. Grass can blow, but it's not dusty.

Let me go back to the CVS then, since that's not part of it. But actually it is an integral part of it, because ultimately, at the end of the day, you're still giving them a sense of here's what we want to attain—we're going to allow you some room to attain what we want, which is, in your sense....

There was the dust control stuff. I don't know if you've driven a lot of rural roads like a lot of us do, but I don't think you want that stuff near a slaughterhouse to be honest. But that's only my view.

How far along are we with CVS? I've heard all kinds of things about the sense that there are inspectors out there who still don't really understand what CVS is about, in the sense that they're part-way trained, maybe trained, somewhat trained, fully trained.... So when we look at slaughterhouses and RTE places, are we absolutely assured that, in your mind, all of our inspectors are actually CVS compliant, in the sense that they know what the system is, understand the system, and can actually monitor what they're supposed to be monitoring because someone else is actually doing the work?

[Barbara Jordan, Associate Vice-President, Operations, Canadian Food Inspection Agency]

Thank you for that question.

After the Weatherill report and in response to the Weatherill report, there were a number of reviews done of CVS, including an audit. They proposed various things and I would say the overall result of the reviews, one being an audit and one being what we call a front line engagement where we went out and spoke to staff about CVS and maybe some of the challenges they had in implementing CVS.... Overall, the work that was done concluded that CVS was a very useful and appropriate tool for inspection—

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

No offence, Ms. Jordan, but it's not actually what I asked. I'm actually looking for a statistic now, and I'd be happy to let you go back and actually send it to the committee through the clerk.

I want to know whether indeed you can assure the committee that everyone out there who's an inspector, whether it be in a slaughterhouse or ready-to-eat plant, can actually verify the CVS system.

I read the KPMG report and your in-line stuff. I read all that stuff.

[Barbara Jordan]

And so I'll continue with my response—

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Yes, so if—

[Barbara Jordan]

—which was going to say that one of the areas identified by the front line was a need for more training.

There was funding, post-Weatherill, to train meat inspectors in slaughter and processing, which has been carried out. In addition to that, in last year's budget there was more funding made available for all inspectors, beyond meat, for inspector training.

So I don't have a number with me, but I can certainly get those numbers. There has been a training rolled out, post-Weatherill, specifically related to CVS.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I know, Mr. Chair, you want to cut me off, but I think what I heard from Ms. Jordan was that they can supply a number.

I'd hope that they would actually do that, because they ought to know how many inspectors they have and whether they actually went through the training.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

That's a fair request, yes.

Please do that.

Okay?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You're welcome.

Mr. Hoback, you have five minutes.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, witnesses, for being here this afternoon. I apologize that we're going to be short on your committee time because of votes, but we'll get through and....

Actually, I think it's good you're here. You can maybe help us shape what we should be looking at as a committee, as we look at the food supply chain and the overview, and maybe identify areas that the committee should pry into and look at a little closer. I'm going to go in that context with you.

I'll start off with an example. We had Mr. Galen Weston three or four weeks ago talk about a comment off the cuff, which I think he apologized for, about how somebody was going to get killed buying food through a farmers' market.

Is there an issue that you foresee, or is there something...? Is there a fire behind the smoke here in his comments? Is there something we need to be looking at, whether it's looking at the food that goes into these farmers' markets or warning consumers that there is maybe an inherent risk that you wouldn't necessarily have if you bought the food somewhere else?

Is there any advice you'd give to us there?

[Paul Mayers]

All foods in Canada are subject to the Food and Drugs Act, which has specific and explicit requirements around their safety. Implementation is a shared responsibility between the federal government and our provincial counterparts.

A farmers' market would normally, first and foremost.... Because that product is typically produced and sold within the same province, it's not subject to federal regulatory requirements that relate to interprovincial trade. It only is subject to the Food and Drugs Act and regulations.

Nonetheless, we work very closely with our provincial counterparts, so there's a significant amount of alignment. That's why I think I can say with confidence that Canadians, whether they're choosing products that are subject to a provincial oversight or a federal oversight, can have confidence that this product is subject to food safety requirements and is subject to an oversight regime that can provide them assurances around its safety.

Now, if an issue arises with respect to a product in, for example, a farmers' market, the CFIA is there to support our provincial colleagues. We exercise recall authority if it is necessary to address products that have the potential to pose risks to Canadians, whether or not they come out of a very large plant exporting across the country and around the world, or whether it's a small facility that's only serving a very local marketplace.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Okay.

Along that same theme of things to look at in this study, we had a situation here about a year ago where we had canola meal that was held up at the border. I think it was E. coli, but I could be wrong; it could have been salmonella. I get those mixed up once in a while.

How do you find the movement of “ingredients”, for lack of a better word, and how should we be looking at how those ingredients flow through the supply chain? Are there any issues there that you think we should be identifying, both trade-wise and domestically?

[Paul Mayers]

The example you used of the canola, where the U.S. had intercepted a shipment of product where they found a contaminant, I think is an indicator of the interest that both the U.S. and we in Canada have in terms of management across the entire supply chain. That canola meal going into animal feed has the potential to contribute to the presence of those pathogens in the animals, and ultimately into meat. We worked very closely with our U.S. counterparts and the company to resolve that issue.

As the committee reflects on the supply chain, one of the things, certainly from our perspective, that is important is the recognition that it is the whole chain control that is critically important.

That's why we take the approach we take in terms of providing greater latitude. Rather than just focusing on the slaughter plant producing the product and putting all of the requirements on them in terms of safety, extending that safety back through the entire chain maximizes the impact in terms of protection for consumers.

Every step of the supply chain has the potential to improve risk control, and that is the advantage we see when a supply chain approach is taken.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Your time is up.

Mr. Valeriote, five minutes.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Jordan and Mr. Mayers.

I received a note from foodsafetyfirst.ca. I'm sure you're familiar with it.

My questions are going to be threefold. I'll say the questions then you can answer all three.

The first is with respect to imported food. It says:Stopping unsafe food from reaching grocery shelves is not the purpose of import inspection and less than 2% of food imported into Canada is inspected....Inspections of products intended for human consumption are conducted primarily to monitor trends and not to prevent dangerous goods from reaching store shelves.

In other words, the majority of import inspections are conducted to protect plant and animal health, not human health.

I want you to respond to that first.

Secondly, it says, “Inspector and consumers have no way of knowing what treatments have been applied to imported raw products” like fruit and vegetables.

As a precaution, therefore, CFIA inspectors wear protective clothing and breathing apparatus “when inspecting these kinds of imports because they have no way of knowing what poisonous or dangerous chemicals have been applied...”.

Importers of raw fruits and vegetables declare only those treatments required by Canadian import regulations.

That was the second one.

The third one: CFIA is not able to ensure equivalency with Canadian standards in the food safety systems of countries that export food to Canada.CFIA has not conducted any periodic foreign country equivalency assessments in 2010 with the exception of the United States....

And this is despite recommendations in the report, “Audit of the Management of Imported Food Safety”, dated July 2010. Could you respond to those three comments thoroughly, please?

[Paul Mayers]

Thank you very much. I'll speak to the imported food and equivalency, and I'm sure my colleague will speak to some of the specific issues around inspector protection.

First of all, as for the reference to imported food not being inspected for food safety, that's simply not correct. When I appeared on Monday, I made it clear that the level of oversight for various commodities is determined on a risk basis. So, for example, imported meat products are subject to 100% oversight.

Now if you are referring only to physical inspection, which is only one component of an effective oversight regime, then not every lot of product that arrives at our ports is subject to physical inspection. That's certainly true. We did commit at the previous appearance to providing data to the committee with respect to the range of inspection approaches for various commodities.

In relation to equivalency, in fact, over the last year CFIA conducted 10 audits. I also noted this at my appearance on Monday, and we committed to share with the committee the list of countries that had been visited. In fact that list includes Russia, the European Union, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, China, Cuba, Oman, Peru, and again, the European Union.

Equivalency is a critical part of our overall strategy. We work very closely with key trading partners to evaluate their systems. If they can demonstrate to us that their system achieves the outcomes that the Canadian requirements reflect, then after that formal process we may confirm equivalency, and on the basis of that equivalency our approach to oversight may shift with regard to, for example, the certification of products coming from those systems to Canada as an important part of the overall continuum of regulatory oversight.

I'll turn to my colleague regarding the issue of specific oversight as it relates to protection of inspectors. But I will note with regard to the issue of treatments that there is much more to it than simply what happens at the port. As you are probably aware, the Food and Drugs Act and its regulations stipulate maximum residue limits for many compounds and include, as well, a generic limit for those compounds for which a specific limit is not set. In the context of those maximum residue limits, the CFIA operates a national chemical residue monitoring program. So the basis upon which we determine whether products that are exported to Canada meet our requirements is not limited to whether or not the inspector at a port can determine what treatment was provided.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

Did you have something you wanted to add quickly?

[Barbara Jordan]

I guess I would add quickly that we have occupational health and safety committees established in all of our areas, and nationally to the extent that issues do arise regarding the safety of our inspectors vis-à-vis chemical residues or anything like that, actions are taken and measures are taken to protect inspectors.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Curly—I mean, Mr. Storseth, you have five minutes.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. The fact that you once again make fun of the fact that I'm “follically challenged” is—