Evidence of meeting #12 for Subcommittee on Food Safety in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was food.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
You'll provide the committee with studies that show that, which have been peer reviewed.
5:10 p.m.
Representative, Canadian Health Coalition
I would want to caution, because it's coming out now—and I think you referred to that just now—that to attach something as scientific or peer reviewed may not really give it too much standing, depending on who the reviewers were and who their employers were and whose contracts they were working on.
This is, as you know, a major issue in the question of the drug industry now. It's the credibility of much of what has been...in reports and safety issues. I think the same thing applies to food. I'm sorry, but I hate to say it.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
That can go two ways, based on the peer review you provide also, can it not?
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Hoback Conservative Prince Albert, SK
Again, like I said, I rely on these farmers to provide safe food. And I know them. They do provide safe food. They have different ways of ensuring that they provide safe food. If you talk about pork barns or chicken barns, I know the protocol they follow in those bigger operations versus smaller operations. In some cases, but not all cases, in these bigger operations, because of the protocol and the processes they have set in place, I would think it's safer.
To basically generalize that because it comes from a big operation it's no longer good or safe is a big mistake on behalf of your organization.
5:10 p.m.
Representative, Canadian Health Coalition
I wasn't quite saying that. I was saying, where do these diseases arise?
They arise in the large operations, in confinement, where there is a hothouse environment to nurture all kinds of pathogens. They may be safe, but what is required to make those buildings and those operations safe? That's something that one ought to look into in terms of what happens to the food quality in that process and the conditions in the building, the sanitation and the sterilization that is required.
From a health standpoint, as an individual, I want a healthy immune system. I don't want a sterile environment. That's one of the things that happens in those situations. The animals' immune systems are destroyed in the same way that ours would be destroyed under those circumstances. We would be sitting ducks for whatever pathogens happen to wander in. I don't think it makes very much sense. It's a very expensive system, and it doesn't feed the majority of the world's people. When we talk about exports, that is not what feeds the majority of the world's people.
5:10 p.m.
Conservative
5:10 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
I just want to go back to Mr. Chambers for a moment. When or if there are tabletop exercises that deal with a local outbreak, a national outbreak, is your organization or is industry involved in a tabletop exercise in terms of practise, practise, practise, and if so, how many have happened over the last year since the outbreak, and how many usually happen?
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition
When you refer to the outbreak, do you mean last year's listeriosis outbreak?
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition
Yes, I'm just trying to clarify, is that what you meant?
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition
I don't know of any exercises yet that have come out of the incident last summer, but the lessons learned documents, as you know, have just been tabled very recently. As an example, a workshop is coming up near the end of this month that is very much going to involve industry and both levels of government on intentional contamination, which of course is one of the other kinds of problems that can be there from a food safety perspective, and that's going to come up. I can't give you the number, but I know following the problem with the avian influenza in the flocks in British Columbia, a number of exercises focused on the animal health lessons learned, what needs to happen. The coalition wasn't involved in those, but many of our members were because it was an animal health, poultry, livestock kind of discussion. It wasn't a food safety discussion.
The coalition itself has had two national workshops: one focused on an intentional contamination example and the other dealt with pandemic preparedness. Those are expensive and difficult things to launch on a national basis, but we have certainly held those in cooperation with governments over the past several years. The work goes on. Whether it's enough, frequent enough, that's part of what can perhaps be recommended.
Within an organization, obviously, best management practice with respect to a food safety management system is to run test recalls, to make certain you can get your product back when you do have a problem with it, and that's part of best practice. I would expect...I have no way of calculating how many food businesses go through that process, except it would be fair to say that if they don't have a good food safety management system in place, they're less likely to have been doing so. It's our belief that there are real opportunities to put those systems in place.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Have you been asked to participate in one of...? The Public Health Agency report came out quite a while ago, December 2008. In it, it says, “Revisit the FIORP”, which is the food-borne illness outbreak response protocol. Is industry involved in revisiting FIORP?
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition
To my knowledge, we have not received an invitation to do so. Other individual food businesses or associations might have been involved in some of those discussions.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Would you say that would be a recommendation, particularly around the communication plan of--
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition
The coalition would be very interested in participating in any elaboration of best practice for communication, whether it's a food safety incident or another one such as a pandemic, etc.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
In the practice sessions around...would they be twice a year? How often should there be practice?
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition
I think we have to understand that the agrifood industry is very large and very complex. Having a national session that would be a practice session brings only certain players to the table at any one time. I think it certainly has to go that way. You need to get the people who are directly involved in an incident or potentially in an incident to go through those kinds of experiences, and then we have to do a lot of education. As we've seen from those reports, there were officials who were not up to date as to what they should be doing. Many in industry would not even have been aware of what would happen in that kind of situation.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Are you surprised there were three separate reports: CFIA, Public Health Agency, Health Canada? There doesn't seem to be one report. There's one report from Ontario. How on earth is a citizen supposed to figure out from those three reports when they all fight with one another? Are you feeling you're being--
5:15 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition
That's not a question I am competent to answer, I'm afraid.
5:15 p.m.
Liberal
