Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on May 13th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I would like to continue our subcommittee's study on food safety, and I'd like to thank our witnesses for being here today.

We'll go with ladies first and turn it over to Ms. Tricia Meaud and Ms. Anne Fowlie from the Agriculture and Food Council of Alberta.

Welcome. Could you keep your presentation to ten minutes or less, please?

[Tricia Meaud, Deputy Executive Director, Federal Programs, Agriculture and Food Council of Alberta]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you as well, members, for inviting us here today.

Let me begin by giving you some background on the role of the Agriculture and Food Council of Alberta.

The council is a non-profit society formed in 1994. It is an industry-led organization made up of volunteer member representatives from across Alberta's agrifood industry, including a student member and ex-officio members from Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. An election is held every spring to replace members whose terms have expired. The council represents a diagonal slice of the agrifood industry in Alberta and includes members from the production, processing, retail, and research sectors as well as other sections of the value chain.

The council is a catalyst for the agrifood industry to encourage growth, sustainability, competitiveness, and profitability. The council assists the industry to achieve long-term stability, sustainability, and profitability through programs and services that enable the modernization needed to compete in this constantly changing and complex global environment.

This is accomplished through several programs, including advancing Canadian agriculture and agrifood, ACAAF; the innovation in agribusiness management fund; the advanced leadership and management development program; and human resource projects.

Past projects have included a value chain initiative, the environmental policy initiative program; and administering the Canadian adaptation and rural development fund, CARD, and the biofuels opportunities for producers initiative, BOPI.

The council acts as a policy forum, providing a platform where ideas and information can be exchanged and policy options developed and where industry members can engage one another, stakeholders, and the public. The council also annually undertakes a strategic planning session and subsequently drafts a strategic and business plan. Several presenters this year and in past years have highlighted food safety as a priority.

One of the council's main activities is administering the ACAAF program on behalf of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. ACAAF was launched in 2004 as a successor to the CARD program. It was a five-year program with total funding of $240 million, ending March 31, 2009, and granting approximately $29 million in Alberta. The objectives of ACAAF were to expand the sector's capacity to respond to current and emerging issues, position the sector to capture market opportunities, actively and continuously engage the sector to contribute to future agriculture and agrifood policy directions, and integrate sector-led projects tested and piloted under ACAAF into future government or industry initiatives.

There is a sister council in every province and territory across Canada, with two in Quebec. Industry councils have identified project proposals that had broad application, and when more than one council shared the same priority, these projects were considered under what is called the collective outcomes process. The council is thankful for the funding received from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada for the CARD, BOPI, and ACAAF programs and is in the process of working with our counterparts within the department on the development of a successor program.

Through CARD and ACAAF, the council has funded several industry-led projects in food safety. Those include several workshops on HACCP, on-farm food safety pilot programs, piloting the food safety information society, and projects to test new processes and technologies for food safety, including high-pressure processing, new product development to meet regulatory requirements, and several projects involving evaluating disinfectants in processing plants.

I would like to briefly highlight two of these projects for you. The Alberta technology innovation program from Food Beverage Canada was funded through ACAAF in the winter of 2006. It is a program to provide opportunities for small and medium-sized processing companies to access, explore, and evaluate leading-edge technologies related to food safety, environment, processes, packaging, labelling, and storage. It is based on a 50-50 cost share of eligible expenses and has funded over 300 participants to attend over 100 events to date, resulting in companies investing in new processes, modified products, increased technical knowledge, and business partnerships.

Another project we funded that may be of interest to this group is the control of biofilm microorganisms on surfaces associated with meat processing facilities. This project was from Innovotech. It was also a project funded in the winter of 2006 with our sister councils in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Ontario, and the Quebec food processors council. Completed in the fall of 2008, this project developed and investigated the efficiency of different commercially available disinfectant combinations on primary and secondary processing surfaces in slaughterhouses. The company is continuing to disseminate results, and the project has led to subsequent projects. More information on either of these projects is also available, and I can provide you with some of the recommendations from these projects as well.

As these projects highlight, the council's projects often involve partnerships between industry and provincial and federal governments, including Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency when appropriate. They have tested ideas that have subsequently been funded and taken up by industry.

We have also been able to engage industry in food safety through some of our other activities. Several of our value chain projects involve traceability, and we have also been invited to participate with groups as they have developed biosecurity programs.

As you are aware, our knowledge around food safety issues is constantly evolving and expanding. I'll keep my presentation brief, as I am not the lead on these projects, but I can speak to them as well. It is the council's point of view that funding innovative research projects in these areas that are led by industry at a grassroots level allows for research and results to have an impact on the key stakeholders in a timely fashion that meets their needs.

The approach is proactive and allows the industry to have a significant impact on the direction and dissemination of research, which ultimately increases the likelihood of its uptake. With its cross-sectional representation, the council is available to assist in the dissemination of information to a wide audience.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll turn it over to Mr. Kyte, or did you have something to add further, Ms. Fowlie?

[Anne Fowlie, Executive Vice-President, Canadian Horticultural Council]

No. I'll be making a presentation as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Here I had you lumped in the same organization. I should have known better. You're from the Canadian Horticultural Council. Please go ahead. You have 10 minutes.

I'm sorry about that. I'll put my glasses on.

[Anne Fowlie]

On behalf of Steve Levasseur, my president and an apple producer from Frelighsburg, Quebec, I thank you for the invitation. Being an apple producer, and with the temperature as it is today, he is out in the fields.

The Canadian Horticultural Council is the national association representing the producers of fresh fruits and vegetables in Canada. What I would like to address with you here today is food safety in Canada's horticultural sector.

In 1999 our association, through the board of directors, made a decision to take a proactive and leadership role in the development and dissemination of an on-farm food safety program for those who grow, pack, and store the abundance of fresh fruits and vegetables enjoyed by Canadians. Since then we have accomplished a great deal. Thousands of on-farm food safety manuals have been distributed on farms across Canada, and a very conservative guesstimate of that is at least 5,000, and quite possibly more.

I must note that the accomplishments would not have been possible without the collaboration and support, in financial resources and technical expertise, of both Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The Government of Canada has made considerable investment in helping industry develop the program. The importance of this support cannot be emphasized enough. It is critical that such support continue into the future and be available to early adopters and those who must now update those programs, as well as those who are either new to the program or implementing it in a more formal way.

Our role in on-farm food safety has been to provide the tools to enable and facilitate the sector to respond and compete in the marketplace in Canada and beyond. Our mandate was to deliver a realistic, cost-effective, voluntary, and market-driven program based on member input and needs. It would seek to minimize the risk of contamination from produce grown in Canada, make a positive contribution to the safety of the Canadian food supply, and ensure consumer confidence. It would need to be technically sound and credible, created through a transparent process, founded on the best available science, and be a buyer-recognized standard.

It was a huge undertaking for a sector that includes over 120 different fruit and vegetable crops. In order to organize and facilitate the process, the crops were grouped into eight commodity-specific manuals, each with its own generic HACCP model. The result was the implementation of a four-year strategic phase-in of one program for horticulture in Canada, owned by the council on behalf of members.

A supply chain approach is key, and we established and relied on the links between programs both up and down the supply chain. We have striven for mutual recognition of programs by supply chain partners. It is important that programs take a common approach that is HACCP-based, technically sound, and auditable. Programs must be market-driven and responsive to consumer expectations.

The CFIA role, which we have supported, is to lead the government recognition program for on-farm food safety programs developed by national producer associations. This includes establishing the criteria for a technically sound HACCP-based program and having a recognition system in place to do in-depth technical reviews to ensure credible risk-based programs.

As of May 1 of this year, we are awaiting closure and CFIA sign-off on our leafy green and small fruit programs. The technical review process for our final modules is under way. Technical review of the on-farm programs by government will continue to be key to their credibility. There is a role for CFIA and Agriculture Canada to play in actively promoting the government's role in program recognition to an international audience.

The government recognition program provided CHC with the context to proceed as we did to develop a national HACCP-based program. That has helped our members respond to market pressures and be proactive in addressing food safety concerns.

Participation is market-driven. We have a certification component, and as of December, nearly 300 producers have been certified to the program. There is additional detail on the certification program, the audit protocols, and so forth in the packages you have.

The program has been endorsed by several major potato processing companies, including McCain Foods Canada, Simplot, Lamb Weston, and just recently Loblaw Companies Limited, a major Canadian retailer.

For further information, I again encourage you to see the documents or visit our website.

I'd like to talk a little bit about the international context, because for us it is very important. Trade in fresh produce is global, and food safety is an international concern. Our proactive initiatives extend beyond Canadian borders to ensure industry competitiveness and influence and to position the Canadian HACCP-based approach as a model internationally. Global benchmarking of our program is a goal, and we have indeed initiated the process with both GlobalGAP and the global food safety initiative.

On benchmarking, in the spirit of a supply chain approach, stakeholders in the Canadian fresh produce industry--our group, the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, and the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors--have agreed that food safety should be a non-competitive matter. The best means of achieving this is to have credible HACCP-based national food safety programs all along the supply chain and, in due course, recognize each other's national programs and promote food safety equally between domestic fresh produce and imported fresh produce.

We initiated a joint comparison project in 2007 entitled “Comparing Canada's National Industry-led Food Safety Programs in the Fresh Produce Sector with Food Safety Programs Available in Importing Countries”. If you'd like a copy, I'd be pleased to provide you with one. It showed that Canada was clearly a leader and had much to be proud of. There was significant interest in the report.

The CHC belongs to a group called the International Federation for Produce Standards. It was formed in 2006 to provide an international forum for the produce industry to address areas requiring standardization across international borders. The primary focus included food safety; good agricultural practices; harmonization; and produce identification, including the PLU stickers--the data bar codes you find on a number of things. A lot of those things are channelled through that group.

Membership comprises a number of groups: the Chilean Association of Exporters, CHC, the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, the Fresh Produce Consortium in the U.K., Fruit South Africa, Horticulture Australia, a group in Norway--I must apologize that I cannot properly pronounce the name--the Produce Marketing Association in the U.S., and United Fresh in New Zealand.

At our annual meeting in April we had clear consensus on the following points related to food safety: a single set of internationally recognized criteria against which food safety programs are benchmarked should be established; the outcome must encompass the total fresh produce supply chain; and one global benchmarking system is preferable for the produce sector.

I'm sure traceability is also something of interest to you. We participated in an initiative related specifically to produce in a North American trade task force to establish a global fruit and vegetable traceability implementation guide. This was a joint venture between Canada and the U.S. involving retailers and grower associations. We achieved that in 18 months. There is a document that is being finalized and will be available in July. It is a global recipe for benchmarking data-set capture and so on, which is very important. Trade moves very fluidly, and it's important to be capturing the same data.

In summary, resources are required to help the Canadian produce industry implement and sustain the program for farms across Canada. The program is costly to run, and the technical components need ongoing revision to maintain currency with developing science. Current projections show that our program will be running a deficit for at least the first five years, with debt accumulating until year eight.

Investment is required for Canadian industry to contribute to and be involved in the direction of industry-driven standards here at home and internationally.

There are also a number of research needs in the area of on-farm food safety for fresh produce. Many questions have yet to be answered definitively, and investment is needed to advance studies in those areas. In 2008, a priority list was compiled by Health Canada, CFIA, CHC, and the Canadian Produce Marketing Association, and it is available on Health Canada's website.

With that, thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

Now, from the Food Processors of Canada, we have Mr. Kyte. You have ten minutes.

[Christopher Kyte, President, Food Processors of Canada]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to thank the members for inviting me, and I'd like to thank the clerk for multiplying the copies. We processors can't count.

Food Processors of Canada got its start back in 1947. We provided assistance to freezers, canners, and the vegetable industry, and we have moved on to value-added products today. We represent only Canadian processors or processors actually making things in Canada and making investment decisions in Canada. We do not represent any foreign interests who do not make investment decisions in this country. Our members make dinners, entrees, pizzas, french fries, frozen foods--all of today's foods. We export to 80 countries in 23 different languages.

The agrifood business is a huge business. There are 210 associations representing it. If you look at the primary production, farm gate receipts are $46 billion, and for product processed at the factory level it's $87 billion. It's a $133 billion industry, and that's a very big industry.

We have over 5,000 plants, but only 2,300 of them are federally registered. In other words, only 2,300 are actually supervised or inspected by the CFIA. That's kind of interesting. You don't really have control over plant inspection in this country.

FPC conducted a study a few years ago. The 227,000 full-time jobs in the food processing industry created another 796,000 jobs in the Canadian economy. That's incredible. That's the number of jobs we created. We put in $18 billion in taxes, which is well over and above any subsidies the producers get, I think. The retail and food service businesses are $137 billion. Just to put a perspective on that--and some of the figures may change, because I got updates from Agriculture and from CFIA yesterday--the number of facilities selling food or preparing food...there are 22,000 grocery stores and another 79,000 food service outlets. That represents a huge number of people involved in food, and again, those are not federally inspected.

Consumers want to know—and there are a lot of discussions around “product of Canada” and everything else—if food is safe, wholesome, what they think it is, and the right price. Before I get into the crux of my discussion, I want to state that Canadian food is safe. Statistics show that recalls are declining. You have a chart that we just distributed today. These figures are from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the office of recalls. It shows that the recalls are declining.

There are two interesting statistics. One shows that they are declining and the other shows that 50% of all the recalls come from imports. That's kind of interesting, because we can justify how much we invest in plant inspection, but we can't justify what we're not spending at the border. We import 23% of the food we consume, and that results in 50% of the recalls. The Canadian food safety system works.

The CFIA is the most important department in the government. If you took National Defence and dropped it off in the middle of the Atlantic, nobody would notice it was gone for a couple of months. However, if the CFIA wasn't working or working well, we wouldn't be able to ship food tomorrow. We think that Carole Swan and her team have tough jobs, and they're doing the best they can. We feel they're stretched, and we'll talk a bit about that in a few minutes. That department supports a $133 billion industry. We've talked about that. There are relatively few incidents.

Companies, not governments, make safe food. They make food safe. Canadian companies' standards are higher than government standards. If you looked at this room, you would say that this floor is the government's standard, the minimum standard. The ceiling in this room is the consumer's expectation.

We're inspected not just by the federal government. We have our own QA people. We have our own systems. We have our own protocols. And we're inspected by customers and by other governments.

The customers have high expectations for our plants, and if we don't meet their expectations, we can't ship to their stores. Our name is on the product, so there's instant accountability there, as we've seen.

The Canadian food safety system is more efficient today than it's ever been, and you're talking to somebody who's had some experience through a number of ministers right through to today. I have to tell you that it's easier to do business and to work with the Food Inspection Agency and Health Canada now that there are only two entities. There used to be 36 decision-makers in 8 different departments every time you wanted to change a regulation. Now, if you want to reduce impurities in fish food, you can sit down with the CFIA and Health Canada and you'd make a decision overnight.

We also feel that because agriculture is not involved in the day-to-day workings of the CFIA and other departments, the decisions are more pure. There's less interference.

System advances are taking place all the time—HACCP, ISO, detection systems, DNA testing, internal communications—so the system continues to improve, and that's really what we're seeing today. Coming out of these hearings, we hope to see more improvements to the system.

The new listeria policy is one more advancement, but we don't believe the listeria policy goes far enough. It doesn't cover enough categories. It doesn't cover provincial plants. It's not enforceable on imports, and I think that's the next step to improve this listeria policy. So if I were to make recommendations, I'd say based on our experience we need strategic improvements to food inspection, not wholesale changes, because I think it's all about continuous improvement.

Import control is the consumer's best defence. Take a look: 50% of the recalls are imports, yet only 23% of food consumed is imports. There's an imbalance there. The CFIA is cancelling its meat import control program. We have a problem with that and we're fighting that vigorously. The only other association that's vigorously challenging that with us is Robert de Valk's group, the Further Poultry Processors Association of Canada. We want to see that program maintained, and that's connected to the pre-market label review program. We think that should be not only maintained but strengthened. It's your best defence. It's the best enforcement program, the most cost-effective enforcement program the government has today. It's HACCP-based. It's prevention.

The market enforcement--we talked about that. You can't go from a 13-person, 100% meat control at the border to inspecting 22,000 stores and 79,000 food service outlets. You cannot do it. You can't do it.

There's one other area. We'd like to see the agency have more enforcement staff and more of a mandate or more of...give them hormones or something. But we are finding a lot of mislabelled products on the marketplace and we'd like to see those enforced, and we bring it to their attention. Other than that, the system works.

We'd also like to see an upgrade of the capacity and the capability of the department. We're finding that the senior management are way too stretched to sit down and have a proactive discussion about enforcement, consumer labelling, or any of those kinds of things. You can't have more than an hour of somebody's time, and already their minds are on the next issue. So we've noticed there's a big change over time.

The other thing we've seen is that there's an eroding knowledge base, and that's just because of the attrition that's taken place since 1993. You used to have a huge number of people from the private sector who got into government back in the seventies. They're all gone, and you're left without the depth we used to have. If you want to get into some examples, I can do that. But one of the examples you will see, and you probably have seen it already, is where process—i.e., we had a committee meeting and everybody agreed—overrides content, because there isn't the capability of providing good content.

I'd just like to say that one thing that is also missing, and that hasn't been around for a number of years, is the striving for best decisions--not the right decision, not the politically correct decision, but the best decision for the consumer, for the processor, for the issue.

The last point I would like to make is about communication. Communication is a funny thing. You know, when I look at the Canadian Medical Association Journal--we all remember the editorial that came out last August, and the draft copy that hit the news--I see a disconnect between the editorial in the journal and the articles in the body of the magazine pertaining to plant inspection and listeria. There's quite a good, informative, thoughtful piece on listeria and what it is. They actually have a good discussion on plant inspection practices. It's quite different from the editorial.

There's one thing that probably disturbed us the most. When we had the BSE issue, the government was there in full force. You had Brian Evans out discussing it. You had the minister out. We felt really good. You got the message out to the consumers. They ate more beef. But we didn't see that in listeria. Michael McCain ended up being the Canadian government's spokesperson. We're not sure that was right.

Thank you, sir.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Easter, you have seven minutes.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, folks, for coming.

You people, or certainly the processors, are from the part of the food chain that's under somewhat of an investigation, I guess; the horticulture or the vegetable industry, not so much.

I want to begin by saying why we're holding this committee hearing. Basically, the opposition had no confidence in the kind of investigation that the Government of Canada set up through Ms. Weatherill. She doesn't have the authority to subpoena documents or to subpoena witnesses, and she reports to the very minister who is really, to a great extent, being investigated. And this week we found out, in response to information that she provided to this committee, that six of the senior staff come from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Canadian health authority, and Environment Canada. Three of those are departments that are really under investigation.

So I will tell you up front that while your information is very important in terms of moving forward, our concern with this committee and with the investigator is that they're not really going to get to the responsibility and accountability of what happened, which cost 22 lives.

I had to point that out in the beginning. Now--

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Yes, Mr. Storseth.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I think it's very important that we keep to the facts here. Mr. Easter has a tendency to play fast and loose with them sometimes.

The facts are that this committee was constructed by the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food to look at food safety in Canada. These witnesses have brought forward very good testimony, and we have a lot to learn from them.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

That's right, Mr. Chair, and I'd like to--

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

It's important that we stick to the facts. This committee was constructed by an all-party committee that voted unanimously in favour of moving forward on this.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I don't think that's a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[Brian Storseth, Conservative, Westlock—St. Paul, AB]

Just because Mr. Easter doesn't show up after the cameras are off doesn't mean that the rest of the committee isn't moving forward in a non-partisan way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

The point of order is so noted.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I'd like to thank you folks for coming. There's no question that food safety is a huge issue.

To the Canadian Horticultural Council, you went through a long list of areas where you're certainly, I think, at the farm gate level, doing everything that can be done in terms of food safety--the HACCP system, CFIA providing inspections, etc. In my province, the biggest cost for a potato producer now is in fact the food inspections.

I have two questions. One, does the Government of Canada have responsibility over food safety in this country? Two, as compared with other countries, the farmers in Canada seem to be paying for the food inspection system to a great extent. It's not so in other countries. Is that not therefore driving some of our producers basically out of business, and we'll have to depend on imported product?

[Anne Fowlie]

Well, I think there are clearly costs for producers, and these are incremental. There is no market premium for that; I think it's implicit to the consumer that food be safe regardless of how that happens. Again, there is no market premium, and food safety as a condition of access to the market shouldn't be what will drive some producers out of the industry.

As far as government responsibility is concerned, I certainly think it's been a very positive, appropriate, and expected action by the CFIA, the Government of Canada, to have set up criteria and protocols based on science as to how groups such as ourselves, or the other numerous national associations who have developed food safety programs, go about doing that. So it is based on science. It is credible. The system is there, and they review it and pronounce on it.

As to who should pay, clearly the producer does not get his fair share out of the market and out of the supply chain. For us it's very important that we work with other stakeholders in the supply chain, so there's a reasonable confidence at the producer level that we know that things are being done all along the way. The producer at the farm can have done everything to the best of his ability, and when the truck leaves the yard that's all he knows: it's left the yard and he knows he's done his best. We have to have the confidence that as products move through the chain, everybody else—Chris' group and others—will take responsibility in the next step.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

I guess the problem, Anne, that I'm trying to get at here—and maybe we need to make a recommendation on this—is that the primary producer is paying the bill in this country, and it's not so in other countries.

Coming to Mr. Kyte's point on imported food, I believe he said we seem to be able to justify what we spend in plant inspections. Those inspections are a cost to the companies you represent, but I don't think the same kind of rigidity is found for imported products.

We have a farm industry that's in huge financial difficulty. Part of the cost structure of that industry is food inspection costs by CFIA and others. When those costs are borne by producers, the cheap imported product coming from places where there's cheap labour and less environmental standards, and certainly not the care of the product that we must have in this country, can drive our farmers out of business.

So my question is this: shouldn't the Canadian government be compensating or covering off the food safety inspection costs as other countries do? And, second, shouldn't imported product have to meet exactly the same, or at least the equivalent, standards that Canadian producers have to meet?

I direct this question to Anne and Mr. Kyte.

[Anne Fowlie]

Certainly on imported products, that's something that's key to us. We want a level playing field and we want things to be competitive.

Certainly in the communications that the major Canadian retailer I referred to has issued to vendors, they are indicating they need to be on the CHC program and be audited, and/or be in an equivalent program. That's in part why some of these international linkages are so important. We've rebranded our program as CanadaGAP, and there are a number of reasons for that.

In terms of paying for the actual inspection, whether it's the actual inspection or ensuring there are programs and resources in place for the producer to invest in developing and implementing the program, regardless of what it is, it's important that resources be provided for that. We need to see that continued. There have been some, but have they been enough? Is it ever enough? But that needs to continue.

I reference the fact that certainly, in some instances, what we have found.... The potato industry, in particular, Mr. Easter, as I'm sure you are aware, was an early adopter for a number of reasons, including market pressures. In many respects, it is in fact the potato producers in Canada who've been penalized for that, if you will, by virtue of the fact that they could not access program implementation dollars for implementing their food safety programs because the program had either not received the letter of completion from CFIA, and they had to implement prior to that.... And certainly now, with the new Growing Forward plan and the changes in implementation, and the way that's gone out to the provinces, the people who've implemented this already will not be eligible for dollars, and they still need dollars.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay.

Mr. Bellavance, for seven minutes, please.

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

Thank you for your testimony.

Mr. Kyte, is Maple Leaf one of your members?

[Christopher Kyte]

Yes, they are.

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

I can tell you that, to this day, only one witness has come before this committee and accepted responsibility for the listeriosis crisis, and that was the president of Maple Leaf. Mr. McCain said that it was their fault and that they took the responsibility for it. But he is the only one who has said so.

The minister, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the Public Health Agency have all said that the government has a role to play in food safety, but it is as if they are trying to keep themselves out of trouble. Whatever they say their position is, they certainly were not there when the drama unfolded. They do not want to take any responsibility and they wash their hands of it. At least, that is what emerges from the testimony that we have heard so far.

You have proposed potential solutions that are very interesting. For example, you say that some changes should be made, even though the agency is working relatively well. I must say that, in its report, the agency did make a kind of confession, even though it does not take responsibility for the crisis.

For example, the agency did not set up a control centre to manage the crisis. But a control centre is part of the crisis response plan. The agency also agreed that there were some problems in communication. Cameron Prince told us that they met inspectors who said that there were not enough of them at the site. Dr. Evans told us: “It is clear that collectively we did not meet the expectations of Canadians.“

So, that is a confession of sorts. In your potential solutions, you mentioned some changes that should be made, such as in the checks on imported meat. Ms. Fowlie could say the same thing for fruits and vegetables. We could improve the checks on products that come from outside, because you point out the lack of resources for inspections on the border.