Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on June 1st, 2009

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

Mr. Pugh.

[Terry Pugh]

I don't think it's safer, David. I think in many ways we'll be lucky if it is as safe as it was. We've actually got a lot more trade happening globally around the world. Sources of food are much more widespread. Food is transported great distances, and there are simply more hands that it has to pass through, more stages, and I think there's more opportunity for problems to occur in the food system when that happens, of course.

That's not to say the entire food system is like that. I think there has been tremendous progress in certain areas. For example, I would say the organic sector is very safe. There's a lot of regulations in place now, a tremendous amount of traceability and so on, that people who are organically certified have to go through.

I don't think you could make a blanket statement that it is safer or unsafer now. I think the possibility of problems is increased because of the distances and the centralized nature of the processing.

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

I find that an interesting response, because earlier when we asked one of the other witnesses who actually is in charge of food safety, he said that without a doubt it has improved dramatically. There was no hesitation in his response, so I find it interesting that we have two different responses to that question.

Mr. Pugh, I called you a little earlier on some information in your news release. You had referred to a food safety first website, and when I looked at it, I saw that there's a whole pile of what I would call, politely, one-sided misinformation on there. I'm only wondering, when you referred to that, did you know that's a website set up by Mr. Kingston's group last year when they were bargaining for a new contract, and that was the initial reason for setting up that website?

[Terry Pugh]

Well, actually, the website is set up by various groups: the Canadian Health Coalition, the Professional Institute of the Public Service, Public Service Alliance of Canada, Registered Nurses Association of Ontario, Syndicat Agriculture Union, and the Canadian Federation of Nurses Unions. So I would say there's a fairly broad cross-section of organizations in there.

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

Some of those folks need to go back and check what's on there, because I would say there's some serious misinformation on that site. If those organizations want to maintain their reputation, I would suggest they look at what's there and correct that information as soon as possible.

Mr. Pugh, originally you implied in your statement that this was really an issue of putting the bottom line ahead of consumers. I think that's pretty close to a quote from you, and you were talking about last year's problems. Do you see it that way? Do you see what happened last year as an issue of someone putting the bottom line ahead of consumers?

[Terry Pugh]

Yes, absolutely. The process that was in place did not adequately protect Canadians, and what happened was that 22 people died. Now we've seen steps taken to address those fundamental problems that were happening there. So yes, I think when you have a process that basically reduces the amount of inspection, the ability of the CFIA inspector to step in, then that does put the public in jeopardy.

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

The reality, from what the witnesses said to us, I think, is that no one anticipated there would be a problem with that machinery. In fact, the manufacturers themselves didn't, the inspectors didn't, the regulations didn't, the people who were using it didn't, and the CFIA inspectors didn't. It was one of those issues that no one could have seen ahead of time, according to the information we have. But you seem to be saying that somehow corporate greed was responsible for no one knowing or understanding that there might be an issue with that machinery that we now know was an issue.

[Terry Pugh]

I didn't say corporate greed. I said that when you have systems in place that will have the process of making sure there's proper inspection...if that's not in place, then clearly the public is going to be put in jeopardy.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Pugh and Mr. Hutton, thank you very much. Our time has come to end here, but I'd like to thank you very much for being part of our review and study on food safety. I look forward to our report.

[David Hutton]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

The meeting is adjourned until next Monday at four o'clock.