Evidence of meeting #6 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.
6:20 p.m.
Bloc
6:20 p.m.
Associate Professor, University of Regina, As an Individual
Absolutely.
6:20 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
So this independent agency would carry out part of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's current mandate? Which part of this mandate should be assumed by an independent agency?
6:20 p.m.
Associate Professor, University of Regina, As an Individual
I am always surprised when people tell me that I am a naysayer and that I am absolutely against everything the CFIA does. On the contrary, I support the agency. I think it is staffed by extremely competent people who know how to manage risk. However, that is something we needed 12 years ago, when the agency was created, in 1997. Things have changed since then: we now have a global economy, and there are many more imports.
Earlier, I heard you refer to melamine in milk. That is part of the problem. We have to do something to mitigate risk and inform the public properly in that regard. What exactly is going on out there in the real world?
I think that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency should essentially look after developing a partnership with the industry. I often visit processors, farmers, and different agri-food firms, even in Quebec. I was there last year and I visited certain businesses in the Lanaudière and Laurentians regions. People are ill at ease with the agency. It's as if there is an atmosphere of confrontation; the relationship is strained. In the best interests of the Canadian public, this relationship should be constructive. The agency should be supporting the industry.
Currently, people apprehend the inspections. They ensure that everything is in order, but they don't do it for us, for the business or for its customers. They do it for the agency. Let's not fool ourselves, Maple Leaf is a very well-managed company, in my opinion. Of course, the listeriosis outbreak completely changed it. I referred earlier to the six types of Listeria. Only one represents a threat for humans, for consumers, but Maple Leaf is currently applying a protocol to monitor all six types.
I don't agree with people who say that the industry is less rigorous than what is provided for under the legislation. On the contrary, I feel that the industry is always ahead of the government, and that is why the agency must be structured so as to support the industry, which takes initiatives to adapt rapidly, practically, in real time, when there is a crisis, like listeriosis.
6:25 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
We need a more detailed description of what you mean by an independent agency. I heard you discussing privatization. I am convinced that that was pleasing to our colleagues opposite, and to the government. I am worried about food safety and population health. To myself as well as many other people whom I meet either in Quebec or elsewhere, this is not just another ordinary business.
Earlier I heard you say that according to your polls, people were not ready to pay more for more inspections. I do not know what kind of questions were put to them in these polls, but I always felt that this was a top priority for people, not only for themselves but also for their children and their families. We must preserve public confidence in our system of food protection and food safety. Otherwise, we will lose much money, and this is your hobby-horse. I think that it is worth paying the cost.
You said that we do not need more inspections. However, you wrote an article in September 2008 in which you said that in Canada, there is a lack of ability to trace the ingredients that go into the composition of imported products. I see that this contradicts the fact that you tell us that we do not need more inspections, because you have written that we are not really able to find out what goes into the composition of those products. If we do not do more inspections, how can we find that out? This is my question.
I note a further contradiction. In your presentation, you said that the agency must not intervene directly with the public. This is my free translation of what you said in English. I am giving you an opportunity to explain this. In an article that was published in the daily newspaper La Presse on March 29, 2009, I found the following passage, which I quote:
In normal times, the CFIA must be seen as a public educator. Thus, when there is a crisis, people go to the agency to get their information. However, only 5% of those who answered our poll went to the CFIA website to get information about the recalls.
I see that this contradicts what you said earlier, when you said that it is not up to the agency to intervene directly with the public. At the same time, you are saying that the agency should be more proactive in intervening with the public.
I would like to hear your comments.
6:25 p.m.
Associate Professor, University of Regina, As an Individual
Yes, certainly. I think that we are not quite comfortable with discussing food safety and the cost of food safety. In my view, there is a taboo about discussing food safety: no matter what the cost, it must be paid to make sure that everything is running properly. However, people are really spending less and less money for food. This is currently bringing great pressure to bear upon the industry.
The Maple Leaf case is typical. There is a plant in North York, Ontario, and this is a mega-installation. More than 200 products are produced in that plant. Why is this? Because the cost structure was created on the basis of demand. People are not ready to pay much more. However, you are right, we are beginning to see a new trend. Perceptions are beginning to change and people are beginning to see that it might be time to invest more money in our food. Nevertheless, in my opinion, we have not yet reached that stage. This subject is beginning to come to the forefront, but there is some uneasiness. For consumers, cost is a factor, especially for poor families, less fortunate families. What are we going to do for those people? If we ask the industry to invest more in food safety, we must recognize the fact that this will eventually mean higher prices for consumers.
The other point I would like to raise is about food distribution. Currently, we are not aware of the large number of conflicts that arise along the distribution channels. For instance, producers are what we call price takers. They are at the mercy of market conditions: they take the price that they can get. Processors, however, are much more powerful. There is a bottleneck between producers and processors. There are fewer players, there are oligopolies, and they do not have the same interests. With regard to food traceability and labelling, who actually has the means to fund or to subsidize a traceability system? The processors have the means. Food safety and hygiene gives rise to conflicts along the supply chain because of divergent interests. In my opinion, this is the basic problem. We cannot come to a consensus for all the distribution chains.
Earlier, Mr. Easter said that food traceability was not working in his part of Canada. The reason why it is not working is this: there's no consensus about who will be accountable and who will pay. We will have to reach an agreement about that.
6:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
You're well over time, but you had some good comments.
Mr. Charlebois, you talked about the consumer having the biggest ability to pay. That thought is certainly out there at the producer end of it. It has been around there for years. I may follow up on that.
Mr. Allen, you have seven minutes.
6:30 p.m.
NDP
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, Mr. Charlebois.
I've heard my colleagues ask who we report to, and I believe I heard you say that we need to separate the two. An expert report was done for the government quite some time ago, back in 1990. It talked about this dual mandate and how it set up a conflict of interest within the CFIA between the inspection role, if you will, being the overseer of what they needed to do, and being the promoter of the industry itself as a whole. I'm not going to take the time to quote it back to you. Negating the mechanics of who we actually report to--because I hear you saying Parliament, but that may well be simply a term you've used in the sense of not necessarily meaning all 308 members, perhaps, but in some other form, Parliament being this institution here on this Hill--I'll allow you to explain that to me.
When I questioned the minister on this when he was before us, that was the question I put before him, about a dual mandate, and he seemed to be very comfortable with that; the dual mandate the CFIA started out with and still has today was fine. He believed--and I'm paraphrasing his words--they were comfortable and they didn't see the inherent conflict. They were comfortable within the structure of CFIA being able to delineate the two pieces, so in their minds there wasn't a conflict.
Do you see any inherent discrepancies with that?
6:30 p.m.
Associate Professor, University of Regina, As an Individual
With all due respect for the CFIA, I'm not sure if they're the ones who should answer that question. I think Parliament should be answering that question.
From the inside—
6:30 p.m.
NDP
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
Just so you're clear about what I said, I didn't say Ms. Swan said that; I said that the minister said that. Ms. Swan also said the same thing, but clearly the minister was here with Ms. Swan at the same time. So clearly the government is saying that they're quite comfortable with a dual mandate, and not just CFIA.
I understand what you're saying. It's difficult to ask a question of yourself: “Are you okay? Sure I am. Thanks very much for asking.” But it's a totally different thing when you're asking the government, which is responsible for the CFIA, particularly the minister in question, the Minister of Agriculture, whether he is comfortable with the fact that the CFIA has a dual mandate. And this report that was commissioned says that it is in conflict, and he was okay.
6:35 p.m.
Associate Professor, University of Regina, As an Individual
I beg to differ. I think there is a conflict.
I look at the future, and things will get worse, not better. Things will get more complicated: trade will increase, threats will increase, the scope of every single recall will increase. Maple Leaf has Tim Hortons and McDonald’s as clients. The listeriosis reached 10 provinces in days. When you look at spinach or tomatoes, you can reach many states and provinces in hours now. So things are getting more intricate and more complicated. I'm just not convinced right now that our food system, agriculture, can actually cope with the future threats.
Looking at Europe, for example, or Japan or Australia, where they've actually set up these agencies, right now as an external academic, every month I get a bulletin from the FSA out of England telling me what's going on, what has happened with the food recalls, how many food recalls have occurred over the last month or so, what the investigations are. Right now, basically consumers are clueless about what to do with their products. We did ask people in our surveys what they did with the spinach, what they did with the Maple Leaf products. You'd be surprised that over 20% of consumers weren't clear what they had to do with the products if they had them in the fridge. To me that's a huge concern because it's a threat to families and consumers.
I get a bulletin free of charge from England telling me what's happening in England on food recalls, follow-ups over a year...because right now we're talking about Maple Leaf, which occurred in September 2008. But if the media doesn't cover the story, how will you get the information? That's my point.
6:35 p.m.
NDP
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
And that leads us to this whole sense about the transparency of regulation, in the sense of understanding as consumers. You mentioned earlier confidence in the system, and clearly we're consumers by necessity; we don't have choices here. We have choices of product, but we don't have a choice about eating. This is something that sustains us and we need to do. So consequently there's a bit of a push here to actually consume.
So when you talk about confidence and you balance it against risk, it concerns me in the sense that one starts to think about risk aversion, placing it in the context of what is an acceptable risk to take. I'm not so sure that's the type of mindset one needs to have when we talk about food, because we all have risk. You get up in the morning, and there's a risk if you get out of bed and a risk if you stay in it, to be honest. I understand that in life there is that risk. But quite often when you place it in the context of industrial settings—because that's what food processors are these days, they're industrial plants—and when you start to talk about that risk, it reminds one of the Ford Pinto with the fuel tailpipe in the rear-end crashes. The risk they decided to take was that to save a certain amount of money meant you could take so many crashes.
Does this mean that the food system should have the same type of risk analysis based on it that says x number of folks will get ill and unfortunately x number may die, but that's an acceptable risk? Is that the type of system you want to develop? Or do we want to develop a system that's better than that? I heard you talk about how the CFIA sets this floor and a lot of food producers are at the first floor above it. So why isn't the CFIA at the second floor, with the producers coming up? Why is the CFIA behind? Is that a risk we're taking as a regulatory body, or is that something we just can't keep up? I'm not sure.
6:40 p.m.
Associate Professor, University of Regina, As an Individual
The CFIA are the first to acknowledge that there's no such thing as zero risk, and I think everybody knows that. But we owe it to our consumers to allow them to understand the sources of risks and the rationale behind our risk assessment programs. We have excellent programs in Canada, and you've heard about some of them from the witnesses who were here before.
The reason Canada did well in the world ranking on food safety performances was that our programs are pretty darn good compared with those of other industrialized countries. We compared Canada with 16 other industrialized countries, and we fared well. We were weak in risk communication. The public doesn't have much knowledge about our systems, our programs. We're having this commission because most people don't know what we have to offer. They don't know what's happening in plants. They should know, I think.
During the listeriosis outbreak, the Maple Leaf website tried its best to educate the public on where to call and what to do. But there were no pictures. They did not show exactly how inspections are made, what the slicing machines actually look like. Maple Leaf said that one of the likely sources for the outbreak was the slicing machines. I'm not sure if you remember it; I do. It was on September 8. Two days later, the Ohio manufacturer of these slicing machines sent a press release saying it was impossible that the slicing machines were the culprit, because they'd sold over 300 of them and this was the first time this had ever happened. The media didn't cover that at all. I didn't see it in the Canadian media; I saw it in the American media. Should consumers know about this? Of course they should, and I think they should understand how slicing machines work.
6:40 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
I want to change direction a bit. You talked about the urban-rural divide, and some of us have brought that up a number of times. Do you have any suggestions on how to maintain the smaller processors, suppliers, and retailers in a world where bureaucracies are pushing everything towards one standard, one method of producing and distributing? I'm interested in your thoughts on this.
6:40 p.m.
Associate Professor, University of Regina, As an Individual
When you understand supply chains, then you understand how complicated they are. You have processors, wholesalers, retailers, agents, and brokers. You have hot dog stands. You have convenience stores. Every function of the supply chains deals with different market dynamics. Regardless of the policy that we implement, we need to appreciate these differences or else we're going to have to monitor everybody, every day.
For instance, the city of Montreal has 18,000 retail outlets on the island. They have 40 inspectors. That's what the city of Montreal has. Is that enough? Some people would believe that it is not nearly enough and some people may believe it's enough. So 18,000 for 40—you're looking at one outlet per day per inspector. That's the ratio. Is that acceptable? I don't know. For me, it may be; for others, it may not. But what would be an acceptable ratio?
6:40 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
How do you ensure that smaller retailers, producers, and processors are able to continue if you think you need to have 1,000 inspectors? Clearly, there's a cost there. You mentioned that consumers don't seem to be willing to pay a lot more for their food. They seem to be happy with the fact that 99% of it seems to be safe. How can we make recommendations that will ensure that smaller operators are able to continue?
6:45 p.m.
Associate Professor, University of Regina, As an Individual
That's why the sharing of knowledge is important, I think. Maple Leaf, unfortunately, had an outbreak last fall. There was a loss of 21 lives. Most importantly, there are lessons to be learned here. What is the industry learning from what has happened in North York? Are they learning anything? I know for a fact that Maple Leaf, Mr. McCain and his staff, are out there at trade conferences telling the Maple Leaf story. Some aspects of the story are quite eloquent.
But what is the industry learning from the Maple Leaf outbreak? Right now, I don't see the evidence. These small outfits can certainly learn from what has happened in North York over the fall. If you have a CFIA that is mainly and only concerned about the learning process, about sharing knowledge among stakeholders, then I expect to see fewer conflicts between stakeholders. There will always be some.
6:45 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
But one of the things we seem to have heard that the industry has learned, or that we've seen as lessons learned, is that we don't need more bureaucracy. One of the issues that we've heard is whether there was an ability to communicate and to share data, and for the bureaucracies that already have partial responsibility to work together. Now you're suggesting another one. I don't think we've heard from anybody else that we need to put another bureaucracy in place. I'm surprised that your suggestion isn't that the CFIA do a lot more communication and promotion, if that's what the issue is, rather than setting up another bureaucracy with some part of that system under their control, and then the other agencies that are there now still having their part in it as well.
6:45 p.m.
Associate Professor, University of Regina, As an Individual
The bureaucracy that you see currently within the food industry exists to create evidence for accountability. That's all there is. Accountability is important in food safety. But how accountable do you want the industry to be? What kind of evidence do you need to make an industry accountable? Right now, is the industry producing enough evidence to suggest that they're doing enough? Right now, I would argue that whatever evidence they're producing is not enough, but maybe it's just not the proper language being utilized to provide that evidence. That's why I think we need an agency to better connect with the public, because as far as I'm concerned, the public should be our number one concern.
6:45 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
But those are two different things. Managing the information is what you're talking about. Are we doing that adequately? Then you're also talking about something separate there, which is just promotion of our system.
6:45 p.m.
Associate Professor, University of Regina, As an Individual
“Promotion” wouldn't be a good word.
6:45 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
When you're talking about dealing with perception and fear and trying to let people know what the system is in Canada so they can feel comfortable with it, isn't that different from managing the data correctly and accurately?
6:45 p.m.
Associate Professor, University of Regina, As an Individual
You're distorting the message here. We're talking about awareness and education, not promoting anything. Awareness and education. It's a big difference.