Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on June 8th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I know you can.

Ms. Bennett, you have five minutes.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

I have some concerns that in these issues that cross a number of government departments and a number of jurisdictions, we haven't had a clear message from anybody as to how you go forward. There are three reports from your agency, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and Health Canada. Probably the clearest report is the one coming from Ontario, in that they just have one report and the recommendations are very clear. I guess I'm concerned that even if there are three reports.... The Public Health Agency of Canada report came out in December, but your report, which only came out in April, doesn't really deal with the things that were raised in the Public Health Agency's report.

The lack of a revision to FIORP and a communications plan is not dealt with in your report. And I guess the idea of the MOUs....

It was clear that H1N1 was easier to deal with because there was practise and meetings and pandemic preparedness and whatever. I think a lot of people feel this really caught people off guard in a certain way. There doesn't really seem to be a plan. FIORP hadn't been revised since 1999, before the Public Health Agency even existed. Communications was the big, huge problem in this. Canadians didn't seem to know who was in charge or who was calling the shots, other than Michael McCain, who was the face of this.

I want to know how you will go forward. You have three different reports that contradict one another. Can you table with the committee how you're going forward, to make sure this doesn't happen again? You seem to have a different view than the Public Health Agency or Health Canada or the Ontario government.

The second part of that is if there is a plan, are you testing that plan in tabletop exercises? How often will you plan to do that? And what can we see going forward that would give us any confidence that this wouldn't happen again?

[Carole Swan]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

The three lessons learned documents that were prepared by the three federal departments/agencies involved were in fact developed individually by the agencies, but with a great deal of communication and connection amongst the three. The areas of responsibility have some overlap. When we look collectively at the lessons learned--and we have, along with our counterparts in the Public Health Agency and Health Canada--I think it's very clear that the lessons learned by all three of them indicate that we do need improvements. We need improvements in better early warning systems. We need strengthened control measures. We need better engagement with public health partners.

We are committed to following up individually as an agency and together with our partner, the department of Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, in actually implementing specific actions in relation to the lessons learned. We take this very seriously. We've been working on them. We continue to work on them.

Some of it has to do, in fact, with tabletop, as you mentioned. I think that's a very good way of testing to make sure that we have the right provisions in place to make sure that we're able to move forward.

On communications, I would say that during the period of recall there was great media availability both of Dr. Butler-Jones on the public health side and Dr. Brian Evans in terms of the food safety side. We attempted to make sure that Canadians understood the nature of the recalls. We were in a situation where we had multiple recalls owing to the extensive nature of the distribution of the contaminated food. We are looking at how we put out recall information. That is something that we are going to follow up on in detail.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Very briefly.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Go to another round, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Shipley, five minutes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks again to the witnesses for attending this evening.

If we look at where we were, where we're going, and where we are now in terms of food safety, public health safety, we've heard from not only your federal counterparts, the agencies, but also from provincial witnesses who have been here. We've all looked at and gone over lessons learned from the event that happened last summer. We're now going through another event with the H1N1 influenza.

On the circumstances of last summer and some of the circumstances that have unfolded with the H1N1 influenza, what has improved and what is being changed due to the lessons learned? Do you have any comments on that?

[Dr. Brian Evans]

An important reality that I hope this committee embraces is that this is about continuous learning. This is about continuous improvement in responding to a very dynamic and changing global risk environment we live in as it relates to both food and--as I'm sure the honourable member herself would say--infectious disease reality.

I believe efforts were made with the best available intent to deal with listeriosis--the availability to conduct technical briefings; the availability of our food recall people to conduct hundreds of media interviews; efforts to make sure information was available not only through the website but through 1-800 call lines, where the general public could call in if they had any concerns or questions about products. Those were very heavily utilized. When one looks at that broad outreach, the mechanics of what we did in listeria are not significantly different from the mechanics of H1N1.

But some of the differences around communication on H1N1 are reflective of the broader reality in dealing with that type of issue. Whereas in listeriosis we were dealing initially with a single province, with the H1N1 we were dealing with multiple locations very quickly. So I think the general engagement happened very early with H1N1, just because of the very nature of how that disease was spreading. It spread very quickly in the community after the initial spreading from direct contact with those who had been travelling to high-risk areas.

The issue around H1N1 also forces us to think about an area where we have asked for the guidance of this committee: what is the threshold that should signal a public advisory of an issue? I think there are those who would suggest that to a large extent H1N1 had very good public penetration. There are probably those out there who would also say that the communications around H1N1 unfortunately probably led to a significant level of public anxiety, because people were getting information from international sources and others. So part of that is recognizing the threshold for informing the public without alarming the public. That comes back to the desire to seek from this committee their best advice on when public engagement is appropriate to take place when there is information that the public can act on.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

There may be two different aspects to it. With listeria it's very complex; it's very difficult to actually identify the bacteria, where it came from, and what was involved with it. H1N1 was easier to identify as an influenza.

Is that correct?

[Dr. Brian Evans]

I believe testimony you've heard from a number of sources is that the incubation period for listeria can be quite protracted in healthy individuals and somewhat shorter in those who have other underlying health issues. As was indicated by representatives from Ontario, that epidemiological investigation takes a long period of time dealing with something like listeria. The issue earlier on is that because listeria and a vast majority of food-borne illnesses in this country are the result of inappropriate handling and preparation of food, there's the need to go further and determine where the source of contamination took place. So certainly the investigation phase on listeria was much longer than you would see on influenza, where there's very rapid spreading by direct contact.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I think one of the things we heard, maybe it was last week, was an allegation that CFIA acted too slowly, that you didn't communicate with your provincial partners on a timely or very effective basis, that you didn't take the proactive steps that should have been there to block their assistance, block their intervention. I'm wondering if this is true.

I want to go back to the second part you touched on, that there's some suggestion that maybe we should start to use a precautionary principle rather than the principle that is used now, which is based on science. My concern would be that you get alarms going out before you know what the circumstances are. I'm just wondering, I don't think we ever want the agency to be perceived as crying wolf. We have to base ourselves on something, and science seems to be that something.

Do you have any comments about that?

[Dr. Brian Evans]

Thank you for the question.

Honourable Chair, I think the fundamental principle, again, is one of finding that correct balance where you can give information to the public that is actionable for them, so they can take that information and turn that into an action they can take to protect themselves. I think it's very clear, in reviewing the circumstances of last summer, that while there was a tragic loss of life of 22 people, when one looks at the totality of the health information, the vast majority of those illnesses and more dire consequences were the result of exposures of those individuals to the food source before CFIA was even aware there was a potential food contamination issue. The incubation period was one where the exposure had taken place before we were brought to the table.

In exercising the efforts from the 6th of August to the 16th, with regard to the sharing of information, when one looks at the evidence, in terms of what information we had available, what information Toronto Public Health had available, the reality is that we were all collectively working to find that solution as quickly as possible. The CFIA, on the 13th of August, took the initiative to bring the community together when we became aware of secondary investigations beyond the primary investigation by Toronto Public Health. We started to make sure that everybody was sharing the information they had in as timely a way as possible and that this information could be used by everybody around the table within the scope of their regulatory and jurisdictional authorities.

It concerns me that there is a suggestion that we were in any way obstructive to the work of other jurisdictions. I think that suggestion is most unfortunate and disrespectful, given the body of evidence that has been assembled around that. The reality is that from our perspective, the decision to go to recall late on the 16th, early on the 17th, was arrived at when all we knew was that we had L. mono and we could confirm there was a contamination at a production source. We didn't have the PFGE pattern. Because of that, we couldn't even confirm that this product linked to illnesses with a common PFGE pattern. That was seven days later, after the recall was issued.

So again, I believe that when one looks at the actions that were taken, with the evidence that was known at the time--two illnesses up until August 6, a second pair of illnesses on August 12--we were investigating four illnesses, and from that point forward, within four days we had done a recall. Against any international event I can find over the past number of years, international standards such as they are, people would look at that and say that was an amazing level of investigation, an amazing early determination, and the appropriate call in terms of a recall, to do that as early as they did it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Easter, five minutes.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to come back to the issue that Mr. Bellavance raised earlier, Mr. Mayers, because it relates to the timing on being informed, as you claimed, on August 6, wasn't it?

Anyway, we have an e-mail from the executive director of the communications and information branch of the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Kevin Finnerty. I'll give this letter to the chair and you can get it copied, because I think this needs to be looked at a little more.

I'll quote the paragraph:

We understand that there was an error in the report regarding the teleconference that was held on July 30th. The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care (MOHLTC) does not have evidence to suggest that the CFIA was included on this particular teleconference.

Then it goes on to say:

However, the ministry does have evidence that the CFIA was advised of the increase in the listeriosis cases in Ontario on July 29th by MOHLTC, first directly by telephone and email and then via a posting on the Canadian Integrated Outbreak Surveillance Centre notification service.

And it goes on from there.

I will table that. I don't expect any more answer than you gave, unless you can answer it now, but it does need to be checked and we need.... Somebody has their information wrong, either at your end or their end.

[Paul Mayers]

Thank you.

Through you, Mr. Chairman, the situation is no different than I described. We absolutely agree that, as Ontario notes, through CIOSC, the CFIA was informed that there was an increase in the number of listeriosis cases being experienced in Ontario on the 29th, and I've noted that is the case. However, also as we've noted, the information presented on the 29th was just that, that Ontario was experiencing an increased number of listeriosis cases; no information on source, no indication that these cases were linked to food. In fact, there was no indication that these cases could be attributed to anything at that point. That is not in dispute.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Okay. They do say that you were notified by telephone and e-mail. Were you as well? In your earlier answer you kind of indicated that it was the posting on the Canadian Integrated Outbreak Surveillance Centre that you got your information from.

[Paul Mayers]

We certainly do get our information from CIOSC--that is the acronym.

In terms of e-mail or telephone, I don't have that information personally, but it would be the same information.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Okay.

As well, this question is to you, Brian. In documents presented to the committee, notes from a meeting between Maple Leaf and yourself on July 24, 2008, they contain the following reference to meat inspection, and I quote:

Risk environment is changing and inspection mechanisms have to switch accordingly.

Cannot maintain public trust in the quality of our food....

And it is “maintain” the quality, not food safety. It says:

Cannot maintain public trust in the quality of our food if we continue to do things the way they've been done.

Can you indicate what you were referring to? Do you recall or can you give us an explanation on that? And I do want to emphasize for the record, and for anybody who may be listening, that the comment was in reference to quality, not food safety, because there is confusion between the two.

[Dr. Brian Evans]

Yes. Thank you for the question.

Again, my personal notes from that meeting I think very clearly indicated that this was a meeting that had been originally scheduled for February of 2008. It was delayed because I was not available to meet the Maple Leaf representative in February. We touched on a number of issues that day, seven or eight different agenda items.

With regard to the particular reference to the changing environment in which we operate and its impact on maintaining public confidence in the quality of food, that was really touching on the issue of traceability and the fact that, in fair terms, this is a company that exports to a number of countries around the world. They had specific interest in certain markets.

We were alluding in our discussions to two things. One was from the food safety perspective. Again, playing against that backdrop, you will recall that in the fall of 2007, the U.S. had brought in additional testing requirements to be applied to imports of products from Canada. The question we were dealing with at the time was that while those were brought in for a short period of time, the United States basically found that the Canadian imports were meeting their requirements and they reverted back to the standard level of testing. The question that Maple Leaf was raising was whether Canada was in fact prepared to provide that same level of testing on imports.

Again, what we were alluding to in our discussions was that where we have traceability, where we can determine, in fact, that countries are investing to the same standard as Canada in both food safety and food quality, then we should not be using the border as the way to try to level that playing field. In fact, the mitigations for traceability and the mitigations on food safety should take place pre-border by audits and verifications in those countries. The inspection systems in those countries should adapt to the global reality.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Your time has expired, Mr. Easter.

Mr. Bellavance, five minutes.

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

I only have five minutes, which is very short. So I will ask you a series of questions that you may be able to answer later, once you have taken note of them. I think that will be the easiest way.

Ms. Swan, my first question is for you and it concerns a letter that you sent and that was co-signed by Dr. Butler-Jones, from the Public Health Agency of Canada, and Mr. Rosenberg from Health Canada. On April 20, 2009, you wrote to the Ontario Health authorities to tell them that they had sent the samples to the wrong place. You indicated that they should have been sent to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency laboratory in Scarborough rather than to Health Canada.

In his testimony on April 23, 2009, that is, three days after he signed the letter, Mr. Butler-Jones told us here in the committee that the Ontario Ministry of Health officials actually did the right thing by sending the samples to Health Canada. So I would like to know whether you too have changed your mind about this.

I would also like to know what you think the ideal ratio would be in terms of the number of plants that each inspector should be responsible for. Do you have enough inspectors to implement that ratio? In the case of the Maple Leaf plant where this unfortunate incident took place, we know that a single inspector was responsible for seven plants. I think that he is now responsible for just one plant. From the start of the subcommittee's study, it has been clear to everyone here that one inspector being responsible for five, six or seven plants was much too high a ratio. In your opinion, what is the ideal ratio? Do you have enough inspectors for that ratio?

Furthermore, is it normal practice for inspection reports to be changed well after the fact, as we have heard about here in testimony? Is it customary in the agency for inspectors to have to make changes to their reports weeks after writing them? Former agency employees have told us that that is not the usual practice.

Dr. Williams, who is also Ontario's Chief Medical Officer, told us that there was a lack of compliance with the CFIA's emergency protocol in the sense that you were supposed to set up an emergency operation centre and that was not done. I would like to hear your comments on that.

Finally, on the product recall, we heard testimony here in the subcommittee that you allowed Maple Leaf to issue voluntary recalls and that the alert was sent out three days after Ontario provided notification of the problem.

That is my list of questions for the moment.

[Carole Swan]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

There are a number of questions there. Let me take them in order. First, in regard to the letter that we prepared for Dr. Williams and the issue of the use of the Scarborough lab, our intention was not to indicate that it was the wrong place to send the samples to, but rather a missed opportunity. But if it had been clearer that we were dealing potentially with a very serious food-borne illness, sending the samples to the CFIA Scarborough lab would have expedited the process and we would have had the results quicker.

Secondly, in terms of inspectors, it is true...and I have mentioned that we have looked at the appropriate ratio of plants to inspectors. I would point out that in the case of the inspector at Maple Leaf—and there were in fact two inspectors, and other inspectors—there was a combination of ready-to-eat meat plants and also cold storage. So there were different obligations for inspection, and different timeframes. We have taken a look, especially in our southern Ontario complexes, at what the workload should ideally be. When I'm finished, I will ask Cam to perhaps come back on that one in detail.

On the inspection reports, they were quite clearly added to. They were not changed in the sense of anything being deleted. During the very detailed investigation of what happened at Maple Leaf, when we sent in our very specialized food safety auditors, the food safety auditors recommended to the inspectors that in fact they should add additional information to the record. It was not that they should change the record, or edit the record, or remove anything from the record, but rather that additional information should be added to it for the purpose of understanding what had happened—which was our goal, to really understand what happened. I imagine that's not usual, in the sense that it's not usual that we have such extreme investigations of situations in plants where there have been such issues.

In regard to the emergency centre, one of the lessons learned was that we did not set up our national emergency operation centre for this. In retrospect, it would have been helpful, particularly on the documentation side, because it does contain some very stringent protocols for reporting daily information. At the time, however, we knew what we knew at the time, which was that we had a small number of listeria illnesses. We were tracing them out as a food safety investigation. We did put all of our resources, in terms of our recall and investigation, to this. So even though the emergency centre wasn't set up, we had a very thorough response, a very immediate response, with our food safety investigation.

On the question of recall and allowing Maple Leaf to do a recall, the minister does have the power to require mandatory recalls. In the vast majority of cases, industry does voluntary recalls. In this case, the recall was initiated very, very quickly after CFIA determined that in fact there was a sample from Maple Leaf that had tested positive for listeria. As Dr. Evans testified earlier this evening, at that point we only had an indication that it was a listeria species—that it was mono, not the PFGE pattern. So we couldn't, at that point, even necessarily directly connect it to a specific illness and a specific product, but in the interests of precaution, the recall was issued.

Cam, would you just speak for a minute about the issue of inspectors?

[Cameron Prince]

Yes.

I'll be quick, Mr. Chair.

It's very hard to talk about an ideal number of plants per inspector. I'm not trying to avoid the question, but the reality is that because plants have varying degrees of complexity, size, and geography, and the time it takes to get to them, there are a lot of factors that come into play when you're deciding how many plants each inspector will have.

Our information in the first year of CVS indicates that we are meeting the targets of CVS. We have just slightly over three plants per inspector, but again, I want to caution you that it varies widely. And it certainly does in the case of the inspector at Maple Leaf. Because the plant isn't fully back to where it was, we feel it is important that we have increased inspection and attention in that particular plant. So that inspector has one plant at the moment.

We adjust these constantly around the country. We adjust the number of plants per inspector based on the risk.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay.

Mr. Allen, five minutes.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Perhaps I'll start with a comment. My colleagues always want to mention the precautionary principle as if it's not science. But it seems to me, if I remember my biology class from many years ago, that the precautionary principle really is about science. It's just simply an alarm bell, if you will. It's like the canary in the old coal mine. When the canary dies, you know that carbon monoxide is going up, so get out. That's called the precautionary principle.

So it's not as if this is not based on science. It's not voodoo economics, as we thought about what happened in the United States, when the previous President was there and someone talked about his economic theories. It is based on science.

I think, Mr. Evans, you would accept the fact that it is a science-based term, the precautionary principle. It is based on a certain amount of science. It's not an absolute. In other words, we don't wait for folks to die in the coal mine. They get out, because the canary died; that's why it's the precautionary principle.

Let me go back to this sense of.... You've clearly said, and what I've just heard now again, and clearly it's in your documentation, that you've increased the amount of inspection at the Maple Leaf Foods plant, the Bartor Road place, where all of this stemmed from.

In your comments, Brian, again on page 2 near the bottom, you said, “The contamination of product may have been averted or detected earlier if positive environmental results had been reported or assessed in more detail.” That basically aligns with the summary of findings between Ms. Swan and the minister in part of the overview and the lessons learned. It said, “In depth assessment of plant revealed that MLF experienced challenges in environmental control and sanitation in May and June 2008.” Those two match. I would call those two circles, and they certainly overlap.

What it says to me, and I'd like you to either confirm or not, is clearly we didn't have enough inspection there in May and June, based on what we've done now. Albeit, maybe we have one person in there, or two; depending on the shifts that are being run, you may not have that. Mr. Prince may decide it won't be necessary, that number going forward, because of the experience we had.

Clearly we weren't looking for a microbe when we talked about sanitation and environmental control. We were talking about things like condensation. We were talking about things not being cleaned properly. We were not talking about looking for the listeria microbe, which, everyone always keeps saying, you can't see.

You haven't found anybody on this committee, especially on this side, ever refuting that. Of course you can't see it. You know, I didn't buy these glasses that I wear today on the back of a comic book, where you can buy glasses that can see everything in the world. So we know that we can't see it. But we can see the environment when it's not good, and the report fully indicates that it wasn't.

Your additional comments here, Brian, are that if we had gotten a good assessment, it could have come from two places: (a) CFIA's inspector, if he'd had more time to be there, or (b) the inspector that the HACCP program allows to be inside the plant, based on the plant's HACCP program, if it had been reporting properly. If the program had been working correctly, it could have told us something, and we perhaps could have done something different.

Can you comment on that?