Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on June 8th, 2009

[Albert Chambers]

You've asked a number of questions there.

I'll try briefly to deal with them, Mr. Chair.

First of all, I'd encourage the committee to think about HACCP or HACCP-based programs as having been constructed using a very powerful tool of analysis. HACCP is a toolkit that you use to apply the best knowledge available to the organization that's developing the program about what the hazards are and the measures that can be taken to control those.

HACCP is a component of a good food safety management system. There are other components to a food safety management system, and I think the witness last week was talking about some of those components. Unfortunately, I didn't stay past the ringing of the bells and the vote in order to hear all of his comments.

If you look at a standard, and let's say ISO 22000 is an example of a food safety management system standard, there are some definite best practices built into that standard that would require the validation that a system is actually delivering the results it was intended to produce. Those principles need to be applied, whether they are government mechanisms or industry mechanisms, in order to provide greater assurance.

HACCP is not a silver bullet. HACCP or HACCP-based systems are not perfect, but they are the best practice we have now as to how to develop a food safety management system, and the associations that are part of the coalition have definitely endorsed that approach. It is consistent with the international approach endorsed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission. All of our largest trading partners have gone, and are still going, down that route, and there are new advances that will add to it, which we should be looking at as to how we move forward. You'll see some of that in the government's safe food strategy, the FPT safe food strategy, when it comes out.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, André Bellavance]

Thank you.

You have seven minutes, Mr. Shipley.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, witnesses, for being here today.

Mr. Chambers, I take a lot of what you're saying to be very good information, and I appreciate your comments and your presentation to us today.

As you know, along with what we're doing as a subcommittee, Sheila Weatherill is doing an investigation that will be completed in July. One of the things the subcommittee actually agreed to and wanted was to look not only at listeria but at food safety in a general context. I think we see the value of that, given the amount of discussion witnesses have had and have talked to us about. It has not only been in terms of listeria, which was one issue we dealt with--unfortunately had to deal with--last summer, with the loss of life. I think what we're seeing right now and what we're hearing, and all my colleagues, I think, agree, is that this is a bigger, broader issue. We want to make sure that the food system and the integrated line of food is protected and safe, basically from the farm to the fork, I guess, which is one of the analogies we use.

I think during this I've continually heard also that in terms of food safety, whether it's listeria or general food safety, we share that responsibility, and not only as a government. It is shared by everyone from the farm to the fork, basically. Do you share that concept that it is actually a shared responsibility?

I think what we also heard is that there may be some glitches, under lessons learned, that we need to improve upon. I'm wondering if you could just help me. What are your thoughts on shared responsibilities but also on where we have gone since that incident last summer in terms of food safety?

[Albert Chambers]

Mr. Chair, the founding rationale of the Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition is a firm belief among members of the supply chain that it is a supply chain responsibility, from input suppliers, whether they're producing agrifood chemicals or other chemicals used in food processing, to primary production processors, all the way down the road to the final marketers, including importers. The Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters is a member of ours. Each segment of the chain has a large degree of responsibility for making sure that it does the best it can to produce safe food.

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

Do you have a further comment on that? One of the things we talk about a lot here, particularly people who come in from industry--not just industry in terms of the production of food, but industry in terms of the processing of it--are the regulations we have in Canada and some sort of harmonization with those countries we trade with, the closest being the United States. I don't think we can always focus on just the United States, because we import and we export back and forth in trade with many countries. One of the things we have a concern about is when we hear that there's been an incident with China or there's been an incident with some other country with food coming in.

Can you help us in terms of whether it is important that we try to standardize and regulate or harmonize some of those standards with other countries? That doesn't necessarily mean that we lower our standards. It actually means that we bring standards together and harmonize them. I wonder if you have some comment on that.

[Albert Chambers]

Mr. Shipley, I think we do. One of the premises of trade policy in the 21st century, I believe, is that before you can impose requirements on the products coming into your country, you have to have the same requirements at home. Certainly that has driven federal interest in areas such as meat and poultry processing, dairy, etc.

What industry has been doing over the past 15 years, say, is developing national programs that are accessible and can be implemented by small, medium, and large-sized enterprises, whether they are on-farm food safety programs.... You've heard from the Canadian Pork Council about the CQA program, and about the chicken program, and the egg program, etc. We also have programs like that for trucking, for packaging, for grain elevators. Practically the whole continuum now has programs available to it. What we don't have is full implementation of those programs across all of our supply chain. That's certainly something we need to do.

Then we need to look at the countries that are exporting to us and determine whether or not they have programs that are equivalent to those. Many of them have programs that are as good as or in some cases better than what we have. We need to look at that situation.

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

Okay, thank you.

Mr. Kneen, I have a question I want to get to you. I was surprised a little by your comments about when you were farming a number of years ago—I guess 15 years ago. I'm wondering what you consider to be a family farm. Is it one that has 15 acres, or 100 acres, or can a family farm be one that has 5,000 acres or that milks 800 or 1,000 cows?

It took me by surprise that actually you discredited the farmers of this generation. You discredited their concern for the environment, their concern for the husbandry of animals, their concern for the production methods that are used, or in fact that they don't understand the land, the soil, the fertility, don't understand the livestock and their healthy diets. In fact, if we all lived on a diet the same as livestock have, we'd likely be a lot healthier than we are.

I'm just wondering what you consider to be a farm.

[Brewster Kneen]

Well, I would say there are many varieties of farmers. There certainly isn't “a farmer” or a single type of farmer.

I think you're implying that there is a class of farmers who have the big, highly capitalized, large-scale farms that have to employ labour on a significant scale, who usually carry a substantial debt—and may forever—and are very tightly integrated into the kind of system Mr. Chambers has been describing. They are very dependent on purchased inputs and on sales on a large scale, which means to major corporations or to an export market. That's one type of farmer—though the Federation of Agriculture and others don't talk about farmers but about “producers”, which is maybe a more accurate term than farmers.

On the other hand, there are a range of.... I would not want for a minute to discredit someone who is growing food for the local farmers' market as just a gardener. There has been far too much dismissal of people who actually grow food for their families and their communities as irrelevant. That's what I meant by the statement of Mr. Van Loan, who would dismiss anybody who wasn't a large-scale, industrial, commercial farmer as being irrelevant. I think that is a...well, the term “put-down” is what comes to mind.

I would say that among “farmers” we should include people who supply their families, first of all; who supply their neighbours and probably their farmers' markets; and who will sell to regional suppliers and distributors primarily. I would like to see a whole lot more farmers to balance out the preponderance of large-scale, commercial, industrial farms.

I don't know whether that answers your question, but I think there is a whole range of farmers and not just one type.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Kneen.

We now move to Ms. Bennett for five minutes.

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

Thank you both very much.

As we are coming to the end of the hearing part of this, we're very interested in what specifically you think should be done. Obviously, some of the issues around traceability and the idea that you would end up being able to better respond are going to be essential. But I was quite concerned, in reading the report for the Public Health Agency of Canada, that FIORP--the way the government has organized to respond to an outbreak--it seems hasn't been updated since 1999. Most people didn't even know about the agreements or how different departments and jurisdictions have dealt with one. But in looking at FIORP, Mr. Chambers, I don't see the industry even there, in terms of being part of the communication plan, or of how you would do this.

We thought we had learned the lessons from SARS about what cooperation, collaboration, and communication were, and had gained a clarity concerning who does what, when, as David Naylor's report told us. It seems to have worked pretty well in H1N1, given the fact that for pandemic preparedness there have actually been meetings and an approach to communication across departments, across jurisdictions, and with the private sector.

I would like to know what your recommendations would be as to how industry would fit in to some sort of planning for the future, particularly given that the confidence of Canadians relies heavily on the communication plan and everybody being on the same page. As we saw in the outbreak last summer, it seemed that Maple Leaf Foods' Mr. McCain was the communication person and everybody else just fell in behind.

I would love to have your recommendation, as the Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition, and I want to know why your coalition didn't tell these guys to get this plan fixed over the last ten years.

[Albert Chambers]

If we went back over time, you'd discover that the coalition has been making a number of suggestions since its formation as to the need to improve certain parts of the infrastructure. And it's not just hard capital infrastructure, but the other parts of infrastructure that are part of the food safety system.

It's also important to realize that until quite recently, food safety has not always been the priority that some of us who are engaged in working on the issue think it should be. It has become a priority in some provinces, and there have been revisions to legislation. It has become a priority with the federal government over the past several years, and we have seen some initiatives come forward in the action plan, in the amendments that were introduced in the last Parliament to the Food and Drugs Act, etc.

The coalition has, for the past four years, I believe it is, been the co-chair with the federal government of what was first the agrifood industry's pandemic preparedness committee, and now most recently of the network from the agrifood industry that is to deal with critical infrastructure issues, in terms of preparedness for crises.

We've certainly seen some progress in terms of government and industry learning from various crises, whether it was BSE, whether it was the avian flu problem and animal health issue in British Columbia, or whether it's the current issues. We've sponsored a number of workshops with government on this issue and we look to see further progress, but what we see is that this engagement has been with the federal government. It has been very difficult to get it to being a national engagement. We have to be prepared to respond, whether to a food safety crisis or a pandemic or some other challenge to the infrastructure of the industry or to public health, on a national basis, not just a federal or provincial or territorial basis.

So we would like to see more progress in that area, definitely.

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

Are there tabletop--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Your time has expired actually, Ms. Bennett.

I'm moving to Mr. Hoback for five minutes.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

I might share my time with Mr. Shipley here also, Chair, just so you know.

Mr. Kneen, I'm a little concerned with some of the answers you gave to my colleague on the size of farms, that somehow the size of farms would have an impact on the quality of food.

I guess the first question I have for you is, who is the Canadian Health Coalition. What are you made of? What other groups make up the Canadian Health Coalition?

[Brewster Kneen]

I'm afraid I don't have that before me. I was asked to fill in, and I'm not a staff person. I don't work--

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

You don't know how many members you have, then?

[Brewster Kneen]

No, I don't. I will get that information supplied to you.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Okay.

[Brewster Kneen]

I realize that when we started I had neglected to bring an introduction, and my apologies for that.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

You know one thing that I get very concerned about is these comments and suggestions that are made to committees that aren't based on fact. They're not based on peer review. I can assure everybody around the committee floor that our big farmers are safe, secure farmers. They provide some of the best food in the world, and we have science to back it up.

We use that science when we go and open up markets around the world with this product. I get a little concerned when people are saying that just because you are an operator that farms maybe 1,000 acres or has 500 cows or an 800-dairy herd, you're not safe. This is absolutely wrong. I'm sure you would agree with me on that comment, would you not?

[Brewster Kneen]

I think there's a world of difference between a poultry barn with 60,000 birds in it, in terms of the health of the whole operation and what it requires to maintain that health in terms of sanitation and the quality of the product, and whether that applies to pork, for example, and poultry as well.... I know of a great many people who do not buy pork or poultry at the supermarket anymore because they want something with flavour.

Now what they're getting from those factories may be safe, but whether it's a good food and whether it's tasty is another question.

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Again, I'd argue that point. The reason I'd argue with that is whether you feed them corn or barley or oats will definitely have an impact on the flavour of the cut. Whether you're feeding one or 600 has no difference. Again, I look back to the safety. That's what this committee is here to talk about, the safety of Canadian food.

There is no issue with safety now. If you want to talk about taste, there are all sorts of different preferences in taste that people want. Taste is not a safety issue.

[Brewster Kneen]

The question of where these diseases originate and how they are spread is very closely related to the size of the operation. Look at any of the situations around the world--

[Randy Hoback, Conservative, Prince Albert, SK]

Do you have something with peer review that would suggest that?

[Brewster Kneen]

I will send it to you.