Agriculture Committee on Oct. 25th, 2012

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

Okay.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I do want to say that Rainy River beef, of course, is the best beef in Canada and possibly the world, just so you know that.

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

I'll have to come and try some.

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

Yes, you're certainly welcome any time.

One of the reasons you're here with this bill is that we had a situation, a series of events. If you could go back to when the Americans first discovered that there was something wrong—

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

Whoa. We discovered it on the very same day, so let's get that on the record again and again and again—

[John Rafferty, NDP, Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON]

I'll say “when it was discovered”, then, Minister.

What would you do differently now?

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

Hindsight is always 20/20, absolutely. I think we would have been more vociferous in demanding that XL come forward with paper, but you have to recognize the fact that any other recall has been predicated on illness.

When you look at the time chart and you talk to public health, it was the day after the CFIA notified public health, which is the proper thing to do. They started analyzing, looking for spikes of illness. E. coli, listeria, and all these great things generally occur between April and September. That's the hot spot, and because of temperatures and people handling the food. They're barbecuing more and they set some hamburger out on the counter; then they're home two hours late, and gee, something happened to it on the counter.

They're always analyzing this. We're looking for spikes right away with public health. There weren't any. There still aren't any.

Other than four or five people in Edmonton who ate meat coming out of that Costco needling, there has not been a cluster of people affected by this particular outbreak. None of the 13 in Saskatchewan was connected to the XL product, none. You need that analysis right away to know where to look and to see where that product went out. While that evidence is accumulating—and it's based on sound science, on protocols, and so on—you form that analysis.

You can see by the timeframe—and we'll make sure everybody gets a copy of it—how that was starting to build. We actually had recall notices out on the product before the U.S. did. Yes, they closed the border, but they were still accepting all kinds of Canadian product. They were still moving XL product in the U.S. beyond the dates that were covered. In fact, they were going to cook everything that was recalled and put it back into the food chain. We're not doing that.

There are differences, but there is equivalency at the end of it.

Looking back, what would we have done differently? We followed all of the protocols that were laid out. I think the CFIA would have been a lot more hard-nosed in getting the material from XL, rather than being nice and going through the format of a letter and so on. You stand banging at the door until you get it.

However, we're not seeing any illness spikes to drive us to the point of decertifying; that's a nuclear strike. Certainly we have tremendous empathy for everyone affected by this, the 16 people who were ill. That redoubles our efforts to make sure that the CFIA and public health have the capacity to analyze this type of thing in a more timely way and get any of that type of product off the shelf even faster.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Zimmer is next.

[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]

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]

Right.

Expanding on that a little bit, Minister, can you just explain for Canadians what the fines are under the new act, and can you list some of those fines?

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

Neil has that page circled right there, so I'll have him do it.

Thank you.

[Neil Bouwer, Vice-President, Policy and Programs, Canadian Food Inspection Agency]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

In response to the question, in particular with respect to tampering, there are explicit authorities in the bill in regard to tampering or those who threaten to tamper with food commodities. The increased fines and penalties for these offences are clearly detailed in the bill.

For summary conviction, a first offence would be a $500,000 fine and/or 18 months' imprisonment. For a summary conviction on a subsequent offence, it's a fine of $1 million and a two-year imprisonment. For an indictable offence for this category of offence, it would be an unlimited fine and/or five years' imprisonment.

Mr. Chair, I would just point out for the member that the measures on anti-tampering and threatening to tamper were both issues that were raised in our consultations on the bill. These were identified as an important enhancement. The Criminal Code currently covers tampering as mischief, but the explicit authorities that are in the Safe Food for Canadians Act give greater legal assurance and enhanced authorities to prosecute tampering and threatening situations.

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

Thanks. That sounds good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Allen is next.

[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, you rightly point out, Mr. Allen, that the HACCP protocols in any plant are a living document. They ebb and flow and change as the plant redirects its staffing and what they're doing on a given day, and you try to make them as complete as possible.

I would not agree with you that CFIA is completely removed from the adjudication of those HACCP programs; it is there. It is there to make sure they are efficient and equivalent to what the plant is actually doing. Then through the CVS, the compliance verification system, CFIA constantly audits the efficacy of the HACCP program as to what's actually happening on the floor.

That's what tripped up XL at the end of the day, when its certificate was pulled. What it had written down and what it said it was doing did not correspond to what was actually happening on the plant floor. That was the decertification point.

You rightly point out that these HACCP programs are changeable and they are adjudicated, as you say, by third parties, but the day-to-day verification that HACCP is still efficient and effective in the plant is done by CFIA.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I don't want to leave the impression that CFIA steps aside. That's not what I'm suggesting. What I'm suggesting is that, when a plant actually applies for a HACCP designation, it does so through the certification process that is recognized worldwide.

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

Right. It's recognized internationally.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

CFIA always plays a role, obviously, inside the plant, so I don't want to leave people with that impression.

The issue is that there are also, through the certification regime that's recognized worldwide through HACCP, certain things the plant must continue to do to receive its certification. It can lose its certification—

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

Yes.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

—and CFIA would then have another issue to deal with if it loses in the certification process.

Yes, day to day CFIA is doing the things that need to be done on the plant floor around those critical components going back and forth. What I'm asking is this: if the changes to HACCP come along, and the independent third party review comes through on an annual basis to see if they're doing the things they need to do, what is the dialogue back and forth?

This is at a higher level than just an inspector, by the way. This is not about a front-line inspector and a carcass; this is now about the system.

Is there something in this legislation, or is the process now in place, to require this dialogue to go back and forth? If it is, I think we should recognize it, because it's important to know that and it's wonderful if it's happening. If it's not happening to the same degree as maybe it should, perhaps we have to incorporate it some way with a minor tweak to the legislation.

That's really what I'm trying to find out.

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

Would you comment, George, please?

[George Da Pont]

Thank you.

That's actually a very good point. There is an aspect in the legislation and there is work under way in the inspection modernization initiative that the minister mentioned that touches on that point.

In the legislation itself, sections 51 and 53 will provide the authority to establish regulations around documentation, a format-type of documentation, so once the act is enacted we will be able to put in a regulatory package that would address some of the issues you just mentioned, so the authority is there, and it would be in regulation.

You also mentioned the requirement and the usefulness of having a more structured system assessment. We have been working on an inspection modernization process for almost a year now. We've had a lot of consultations with industry. We've had consultations with consumer groups. Most of the details have actually been developed by focus groups from our front-line inspectors, and one of the proposed changes there is to bring in and create those who we're calling for the moment “system assessment officers”, who would be doing exactly what you described.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

With that, I'll thank the minister and the departmental staff for attending today. We appreciate your time.

That ends the first portion. I'm just going to take a brief recess for two to three minutes while people clear the room.

Thank you, Minister.