Good morning, Mr. Chair. My name is Rick James-Davies. I'm a veterinarian. I'm also the senior director of west operations at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
I appreciate this opportunity to speak about this important subject, mental health in the agricultural sector, and specifically the impacts on farmers, ranchers and producers when they must hear stressful news.
I'll be speaking today about the CFIA and the way we approach and deliver difficult news.
To set the stage a bit, I want to explain that CFIA is a science-based regulatory agency. Our business stems from a very broad mandate that encompasses food safety, market access, plant protection and animal health.
Mr. Chair, as a regulatory agency, sometimes the CFIA has to make the hard decision to depopulate herds or flocks to protect animal health from the spread of disease in Canada.
We do this to protect all of Canada's producers, farmers and ranchers, and the country's economy.
We've had to do this during avian influenza, BSE, bovine tuberculosis and others. They are not simple decisions, Mr. Chair.
They’re not taken lightly.
The CFIA is aware of the impact such decisions have on producers, farmers and ranchers.
The way in which the news is delivered can make a big difference.
We start in how we train our inspectors and veterinarians. We take recruitment and training of our staff very seriously. We select the best person to do the job. To become a CFIA inspector or veterinarian, the candidate needs to demonstrate analytical thinking, interpersonal skills, teamwork, planning, organization, dependability, good communication, initiative and judgment. Once hired, our employees are required to attend a prerequisite training program, or PREP, which covers all the fundamentals of not only inspection but also values and ethics and how to have difficult conversations.
The training doesn’t stop there.
There is additional operational guidance provided for program- or situation-specific activities, such as how to respond to a disease outbreak.
Let me explain a bit about how we operate when an outbreak occurs.
In the event of a disease outbreak, CFIA mobilizes experienced staff from across the country to assist in the area where the event has been identified. CFIA inspectors, veterinarians and other staff who respond to the high-stress situations are acutely aware of the potential impacts on producers. Those responding are well trained in the specific outbreak on how to work with and speak to producers, farmers, and ranchers regardless of whether it's avian influenza, BSE, TB or something else.
I want to add that this approach also provides mentoring to our more junior staff in a buddy system so that younger inspectors learn from their more seasoned colleagues.
I have some real-life examples of how we interact with producers. One I lived through in 2016 was the bovine TB outbreak in the west.
I'll give you a little bit of context. CFIA doesn't work in isolation.
We partner with other federal departments, provincial counterparts and industry associations to the greatest extent possible.
We also take all the necessary precautions to maintain producer confidentiality. Provincial health authorities are one of the key partners so that producer health and mental health remain a focus. When necessary, we refer producers to the appropriate provincial partner to support their health.
When it came to TB in 2016, a representative of the Alberta Beef Producers was fully embedded in our emergency operation centre. They were able to provide valuable insights on the impacts of CFIA's activities on producers and on how we might mitigate some of them. We held regular twice-weekly calls with the Alberta and Saskatchewan cattle associations to make sure the right information was getting out. In addition, those associations were able to help direct producers back to CFIA or one of our partners to get the answers they needed.
Regular town halls were held in the producers' communities.
Several CFIA specialists were present at each of these town halls so that specific questions on testing, surveillance and compensation could be addressed.
As well, our partners were there so that the producers had direct access to those other departments.
Case officers were assigned to every producer.
These case officers were CFIA inspectors trained and knowledgeable in all of the elements of the investigation. They could answer most of the producers' questions as well as ensure that the producers were able to speak to the specialists on very specific technical issues.
We visited producers on their farms and in their homes, and we sat down with them as much as we needed to. Every situation is unique. Every farm is unique. Every producer's needs are unique.
We recognized this.
Producers who said they were not satisfied with the information they were getting from their case officer or the specialists were referred to me as the senior person in charge to see what more we could do to help, and what other resources we could bring to bear.
I can say that CFIA takes special measures to make sure that producers involved in an event are seen as individuals. They're not simply part of an investigation. Thus, after an investigation, we always take the time to do what we call a “hot wash” to review how the overall operations went and what we could have handled better or differently. We also routinely review and revise our guidance to inspectors who work in these challenging situations, and the agency and its inspectorate are involved between disease outbreaks so we can learn from our hot washes, continue best practices, review those challenges, and put plans in place to address them moving forward.
Additionally, feedback from the affected producers, farmers, ranchers and their associations is taken into consideration with a view to how we will respond to these events in the future.
Mr. Chair, as I said at the beginning, the CFIA is a science-based regulatory agency, and we as a regulator at times must deliver difficult news to producers, farmers and ranchers. We walk a very fine line in balancing the obligations we have as regulators with those of being understanding and sympathetic to the situation the individuals find themselves in. We try to do both with the help of our partners to the best of our abilities.
Thank you again for the invitation to speak today.
Thank you very much.