Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on June 8th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You're finished? Okay.

Your time has expired, Mr. Bellavance.

Mr. Allen, seven minutes.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Evans, I'll refer you back to page 2 of your notes that you read into the record as part of your presentation. It's the fifth paragraph down, where you say, “I reject the notion put forward by some that CFIA resources and staffing were inadequate to meet the situation.” I take it that you mean the situation last year.

Let me just quote another piece from a document that was put together on January 26, 2009, the summary of findings and action plan, for the minister and presidents of CFIA. It says, “inspection program experiencing workload challenges in meeting delivery requirements”. Can someone square the circle for me? Clearly, Dr. Evans, you're saying you don't have an issue with staffing and the report to the minister says the inspection program experiences workload challenges in meeting delivery requirements. That was this year--January.

[Dr. Brian Evans]

Mr. Chair, thank you for the question.

I don't think it's a difficult thing to square that circle. What I indicated in my opening remarks was simply that there have been those who have brought testimony to this committee suggesting that an additional number of inspectors would have prevented this from happening. What I said in my report is that an absolute number of inspectors is not the solution to this problem. We've heard testimony from many witnesses who have talked about the fact that a physical inspection presence will not detect these types of issues, which are not available to be seen by the eyes and cannot be picked up by any sensory process. It has been testified by many that there was an issue around this particular circumstance that brought forward new knowledge around the potential for certain equipment to harbour material that had not been proven before, so my assertion is one of saying that an absolute number of inspectors was not going to prevent this problem from happening.

To further square the circle, Mr. Chair, on the issue around challenges in terms of workload issues, again in this plant we have evidence that has been presented, and can be further documented, that in fact all the CVS tasks required in this plant were delivered, and delivered to over 100% of the requirement as outlined in terms of the food safety program in that plant.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Now that we've made a triangle, perhaps you can explain to me—and I'll look at Ms. Swan on this because this is from a report from you to the minister, that you experienced workload challenges; the “inspection program [is] experiencing workload challenges in meeting delivery requirements”. What did you mean by that?

[Carole Swan]

Following the listeria incident, as part of our lessons learned, we took a very hard look at our inspection forces, at our inspection programs. It is a normal part of dealing with a large inspection force that we are obliged to move resources to areas of highest risk on occasion. We also, as Cam has mentioned in regard to a question asked earlier this evening, have sometimes a challenge in terms of making sure that we have adequate relief for some of our inspectors, primarily in slaughter, to be able to leave their posts to take training. I think it is fair to say that we use the inspectors that we have the best we possibly can. In looking at how we deliver our inspection programs, we did look at workload, and we have made some changes as a result of that, particularly in terms of the number of facilities inspectors have. Workload is something we must take into consideration. It's something we continuously look at.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I think I understand that, because I've seen your numbers, and I appreciate Mr. Prince's getting those numbers to me eventually. This whole sense of how we count or don't count, and how we do them....

Your sets, sir, really give me four sets of data on one set of numbers that has been presented to us, and none of them comes to the same number. I'll leave that just as a comment, rather than a question. If you go back in the record and look at them, none of them adds up to the same number. Not one of those four sets of numbers actually comes to the same number at the end. So I don't know, somebody failed arithmetic somewhere.

Let me ask you, Ms. Swan, about a phone log, or lack thereof. Going back to last year, do you remember having phone conversations with representatives of Maple Leaf Foods at any point in time last year?

[Carole Swan]

I would have had a number of conversations with representatives of Maple Leaf Foods, both in terms of the closure of the plant and the very detailed protocol that the agency put in place in order to allow the plant to have a phased re-opening.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

During those, did you keep any logs?

[Carole Swan]

I don't typically keep logs. I may keep a scribbled note on occasion. I don't have a large system of keeping logs. No, I don't.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

So the information provided to us at committee, because we had asked for it, was that you had conversations with Maple Leaf Foods on August 25 and 28, September 12 and 17, October 10 and 14, and November 7 of 2008, and you didn't have any logs. Do you have any memory of what those conversations would be about?

It just seems to me that in the middle of a situation as serious as we were witnessing last year, it is really unusual, at least in August—perhaps not in November, but at least in August—that you wouldn't have made some notes about a conversation you had with representatives from a plant that we now know had contaminated the food. You made not one note you were able to give to us.

[Carole Swan]

Mr. Chair, let me tell you that all of the decisions about plant closure, plant re-opening, and plant protocol were made at the regional level, at the level of people who were most familiar with the plant.

I do not have the log of conversations in front of me. Michael McCain on occasion would call me. These were not issues that related to the specific issues of what was happening in the plant. Those decisions very clearly were being made at the operational level.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Allen. Your time has expired.

Mr. Anderson, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

One thing I wanted to point out, to answer Mr. Easter's questions, is that the minister did meet with the independent investigator, and the minister's office is willing to send an e-mail to the chair and clerk tomorrow with the date of that meeting. So they will provide the information.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Is there a point of order?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

When the parliamentary secretary is doing that, could he tell us how long the minister met as well? We don't want it to be a five-minute fireside chat.

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

I don't have that information here, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Evans, I want to go back to the inspectors issue. You said in your comments that you have adequate resources. Do you feel that you have the number of inspectors you need?

I'd like you to talk a little bit about the role some of the lab folks play as well. When Mr. Kingston was here, he seemed to say that it had to be all inspectors all the time, and it's clear that there need to be some other people involved in this issue as well. Would you talk about that a little bit?

[Dr. Brian Evans]

Thank you, honourable member.

Mr. Chairman, my comments, I think, echo those that have been made previously by myself and others in testimony before this committee. The fact is that food safety is not delivered by any one point of inspection. Food safety is a continuum of activities. It is a culture of commitment that starts, as has been indicated by many before, with the stewardship that we benefit from in Canada from an industry that at a producer level takes the food safety commitment very seriously.

I believe you've had testimony from others who have talked about on-farm HACCP programs and the commitment that various industry sectors have brought to incorporating HACCP principles as prerequisites to the HACCP that we apply at slaughter and at processing.

Again from that perspective, what we have done at CFIA is ensure that the resources allocated to us as an agency cover the spectrum of risk, so that we can mitigate risk at multiple points along that continuum, from our activities of ensuring that the animals entering the food system are health, through good disease control and zoonotic control programs to ensure that animals at the point of slaughter receive appropriate ante-mortem and post-mortem inspection to ensure that only healthy and fit animals are used to produce food in this country. That oversight extends through multiple layers of processing, including deboning and further processing, with inspection activities that support the type of work that is absolutely essential to dealing with the types of risks, such as listeriosis, that you cannot detect through physical inspection processes. We have ensured that we have appropriate lab capacity to adequately sample and perform tests that are delivered to gold standards to validate what the environment is telling us now and what end product can tell us as a subset of verification of the activities.

I think you have heard testimony from academic and other experts who reiterated that you cannot inspect or test your way to food safety. The reality is that technologies can be applied to achieve food safety outcomes, but what is critical to the agency is ensuring that we have the capacity at all points along that production continuum with the appropriate competence to ensure that there is no weak link in the chain that we can identify.

I am very confident that as an agency we continue to make good investments in terms of our recruitment and in terms of our training, both within CFIA and in working with those who train inspectors before they even join the organization, through outreach to agricultural and veterinary schools and through the teaching curriculums, to make sure people come to the agency with a wealth of experience and knowledge that will be critical to food safety.

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

Mr. Kingston talked about inspectors when he was speaking to us as well. I don't know whether he implied or said that inspectors in the RT plants each have an average of four to six plants for which they are responsible.

Are all plants the same size as that 97B plant, and are those numbers accurate?

[Dr. Brian Evans]

Mr. Chair, thanks to the honourable member for the question.

Mr. Prince in his testimony has fairly clearly indicated that the deployment of our inspection staff is a reflection of both the size and risk associated with the types of plants they provide inspection services for.

I believe that in the commentary he was providing to the committee, Mr. Kingston was making reference to more than just processing plants. The reality is that it has been recognized that within various complexes an individual may work in a processing plant, including meat processing; he may also have responsibility for cold storage, which has a whole different set of CVS tasks and time commitments associated with it. We recognize this and have taken significant efforts as a result of direct engagement with our inspector community to ensure that the workload associated with various complexes is looked at and adjusted accordingly.

I think it's important that we recognize that the food industry in Canada is not static. We have new plants that open; we have plants that close. As CFIA, we have a regulatory obligation to provide inspection services. In many cases, plants want to go to double or triple shifts, and we have to adjust our inspection regime to meet those demands. To the fullest extent possible, that is done with the full understanding that we will provide that level of service and will provide it in a way that maintains the food safety standard that is warranted to protect Canadians.

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

We've had a bit of a discussion about the issue of shared responsibility. Ms. Swan made those comments when you were here the first time, and tonight we had another witness who talked about the fact that there is a shared responsibility across the spectrum on this issue.

Is there any reference in the Food and Drugs Act or the 2003 Codex or those kinds of things that would affirm what you're saying?

[Dr. Brian Evans]

Maybe Paul Mayers could speak to the regulatory statutes.

[Paul Mayers]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Food and Drugs Act is clear in its direct placement of the responsibility for providing safe food on the producer. As an example, section 4 of the act states:

(1) No person shall sell an article of food that

(a) has in or on it any poisonous or harmful substance

The CFIA Act equally makes clear the responsibility of the CFIA in oversight. In her opening remarks, Ms. Swan noted the shared responsibility that we have with Health Canada, whereby Health Canada sets the standards and the CFIA provides the regulatory oversight in relation to compliance.

Provincial legislation sets out quite clearly the responsibility for foods produced and distributed within a province in terms of assurance of the safety of those foods.

And internationally, as you noted, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, the standard-setting body for foods, also recognizes the shared responsibility that exists among all players in the food production continuum and the role that consumers have in handling and preparing foods to facilitate their safety.

So indeed, there are a number of such documents that recognize that shared responsibility.

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

Do I have a couple more minutes?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I'm sorry, your time is up, Mr. Anderson.

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

I can keep going, if you'd like.