Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on May 13th, 2009

[Christopher Kyte]

Thank you.

Where do I start?

Number one, there was a problem. They fixed the problem, and that problem is behind them, but it is now part of that company's mantra how to manage going forward. Yes, they stood up and they took responsibility, but every food processor in the country has to take responsibility for how his plants operate.

The role as I see it for the agency is to set the rules. If you look at the charter of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, it is about trade and commerce. You can't ship tainted meat anywhere. That agency has a responsibility for making sure that anything that goes out of the plants has rules for how it's processed, how you ship it, how you handle the meats or any other product that's manufactured. You can't export anything that does not meet our regulations, and other countries' regulations as well.

So there are definitely a couple of roles here. Number one, the agency has to establish the standards, most of which are international standards. Number two, the companies have to follow or exceed those standards. And as I mentioned before, the customers are in our plants with fully trained auditors, and their requirements are higher than government standards.

Is there a relationship between the number of inspectors you have and the safety of your products? No, I don't think so. I've not seen it, because, number one, you can't see if meat has bacteria on it or not.

So I would say that the systems are pretty sophisticated. They keep improving. Company practices keep improving. You're using HACCP, you're using ISO, you're using rapid testing, and you're using DNA testing. There's a whole bunch of things in play. So I'm more comfortable today.

Where I feel less comfortable, as I was mentioning earlier, is how we handle food at home. That's where your higher risk is.

Thank you.

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

It is a shared responsibility. With the barbecue season just starting, consumers must be very careful about the way in which they prepare their food.

The crisis happened in August. You say that one of the solutions would be to improve inspections at the border, but, in this particular case, the food was not imported, it was domestic. The bacteria were found in the plant in Toronto. You can tell me that more inspections will not necessarily mean finding more listeria. But having inspections done by people in the plant does not solve the problem either.

What can we learn from this? What does the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have to do to become more effective? I am not sure that having more people in offices pushing paper is the solution either. I would like to know what you think.

[Christopher Kyte]

I agree. You can put another 10,000 people in Ottawa here. That's not going to make a difference. Let's not talk about the individual company. Instead, let's talk about how would I recommend that you improve the plant inspection practices. You would probably be well-served to get a study group of company people and experts and work in a non-political setting on how to get the best decision. How would you improve the system? What should the company do? What are the best practices? You have to ask these things.

I can't go backwards and say what actually happened or didn't happen, but I know from my experiences that when you have an unfortunate incident, you can make it positive by proactively saying what you can do to improve the situation. This hearing is probably one of those stepping stones.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Allen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I want to thank all of you for coming.

Mr. Kyte, you referenced the chart as being yours, indicating that the number of recalls has actually declined. I suppose if we look at it in whole terms you can make that statement. But I would suggest that the imported recalls haven't increased or decreased. In 2005-06, there were 21. In 2006-07, there were 33. In 2007-08, it was 32. Statistically, not much has changed. In fact, statisticians would say that's no change. Really, the import recalls have increased, not decreased. The domestic recalls have fluctuated from a high of 46 in 2002-03 to a low of 33 the following year. After that, it bounced back up to 42, then went down to 31, and then to 30, which is really equal.

[Christopher Kyte]

Well, you don't see it going up.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I'm simply looking at the raw numbers, and I don't see an absolute decline. The numbers may indeed be settling, and people might look at them and get into somewhat of a risk aversion pattern. They might say that it's not too bad, that it's an acceptable risk. But if you talk to the families of the 22 people who died last year, this wouldn't be an acceptable risk. To see this downward pattern in what mathematicians call an “absolute zero” context is not wholly accurate.

One of the other things you talked about has always interested me, and it's not the first time we've heard it. This has to do with industry standards. We all set the bar to different places. One thing for sure is that the government standard is the floor. I'm not upset by this perspective. The industry standards are higher. They're not climbing up to the floor—they're above the floor. This prompts the question: why is the government standard so much lower than industry's? If the industry is the leader, and food safety is the responsibility of the industry, why doesn't the government catch up to your standards?

[Christopher Kyte]

Look, I'm not an expert, but I'll give you some points.

Number one, we're not an island. If you look at the United States and all these other trading partners, we have no lessons to learn from them either. I noticed in the testimony I went through last night that people were pointing at Europe and saying, “Well, they're so much better than the rest of us.” Well, I would suggest not. It's our name on the packages, so you have to make darn sure that your products are safe, that they're the right price, that they're wholesome—all those other consumer expectations. Our customers are also demanding that. They're becoming more sophisticated as well. So that's really the level you have to—

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I get that. Not to interrupt you, but I am. I get that. The systems that you're based on are old manufacturing systems, whether it be TQM, TQS, SPC--they all go back 25 years, when I was in the auto sector. The food system has simply taken those, incorporated them, and built on them. Those systems, sir, meant that when you were on the floor and you went above it, the floor moved up. What I'm hearing from the folks who come here...the industry is saying, “We're above the floor, but we don't want the floor to come up.”

What I'm suggesting is that the government should be saying, if that is indeed the enhanced process—because what you're building into your systems is this continuous improvement, which actually comes out of the Toyota manufacturing system—if that's indeed what you're doing, that system says that when that continuous improvement gets you to here, the floor comes to there. Now you work from there, and when you continue to improve and get to there, the floor comes to here. What I keep hearing over and over again in testimony is that the government's floor is down here and we're up here, and I'm not suggesting it's your responsibility, sir, to drag that floor back up.

But what I hear from the industry and from the horticultural society, especially, because we had one of your colleagues here before, Ms. Fowlie, who explained HACCP and what the folks were doing with OFFS...great systems, great initiatives, an industry that's taking a leadership role and is getting out and looking at enhancing those systems.

What I keep looking for someone to tell me, and I believe it's unfair to actually ask you this, is, why is the CFIA not involved in an improvement process that you're leading and they're lagging in? Why aren't they coming up to the same standard, so that indeed as you lead us again they will lag behind you and pull themselves back up?

I don't think you can necessarily give me the answer, because that was more of a comment than a statement.

To you, Ms. Fowlie, around the system you have—I read your backgrounder off your website—you use a group to audit. It's a general question, because I may have read by it and just didn't see it. The CFIA used to have an auditor's group that audited the auditors. What I didn't see in this was that this is a group outside of CFIA that you've hired to do audits. Is there a mechanism where someone actually audits that group on a periodic basis?

[Anne Fowlie]

I can't give you the complete details on that right here and now, but I will follow up with you.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I appreciate that.

[Anne Fowlie]

The group we went with, QMI-SAI Global, was the group that was internationally accredited to the existing standards, whether it's ISO.... Again, I don't know the proper terminology, but that is in part why we went with that group, because they were the one group that did have those international credentials.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Just to clarify, I'm not suggesting that somehow they're not qualified. What I'm simply saying is when you have an audit process, there usually is this external audit that comes in on a very infrequent basis and just simply checks that the standards are being met. I just didn't know if I'd read past it. But I appreciate the response that you will get that for us. Thank you.

Thanks for your indulgence, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Allen.

Mr. Anderson, for seven minutes.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Just before I begin here, I'd like to respond to what Mr. Bellavance and maybe Mr. Allen were implying, in that there's something in a major way that's wrong with our food safety system that's putting people in a position—and it's barbecue season—where somehow they're going to be at major risk. I guess I'm going home to barbecue when I can. I'm going to barbecue chicken. I'm going to barbecue pork and beef and fish, and I'm going to be comfortable with doing that. The issue isn't that people are normally at risk. I think that's what you're saying today. The issue that we're really studying here is that we're trying to minimize a risk that our witnesses have told us can never be zero. That's really what we're going through here with this committee and with what the government is trying to do in its improvements as well.

I wanted to just pick up on one thing you said, Mr. Kyte. You talked about wanting to apply these standards across some other provincial plants and those kinds of things. We've talked about this a couple of times at committee. Are you suggesting we should have one standard across the country for provincial, for smaller plants, and for federal plants? If you are, I'd like your input on how we keep some of the smaller plants still functioning, because they often produce into a very small market. If there's an issue with their products, it's very quickly found, quickly controlled. It's not the same as some of the national companies. We've talked about that a couple of times with witnesses, but I'd like to know what your thoughts are on that.

[Christopher Kyte]

I'd make a couple of points. One actually answers your point, and that is that regulations do migrate up. Years ago HACCP wasn't heard of and now HACCP is the standard. The critical control points keep getting improved, and then the policies, the procedures, the regulations, and the work manuals all move up. So they do; it's just like a glacier, though.

I don't know how you do the provincial plants. I know it's a problem. And the reason I say that is that of the 5,000 plants, 50% of them employ fewer than four people. On the other hand, if somebody is sick, they don't care if they're sick in a 1,000-employee plant or a four-person plant. I think it's incumbent on us in the provincial governments to have the national standard and apply it, certainly in terms of HACCP and some of those kinds of things. But beyond that, I don't know how you're going to do it. There are two standards, and the provincial governments have to get more active and bring those provincial standards up. It's their responsibility too; it's a shared responsibility.

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

I don't know if I'm misinterpreting what you said, but maybe you're suggesting that the important part is to deal with the supply chain, and then at the level of production the provinces can regulate as they feel is best. Is that what you're suggesting?

[Christopher Kyte]

Yes.

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

Ms. Fowlie, I'd like to ask you a couple of questions. If I cut you off here it's because I have limited time. I wanted to talk about some of the international issues that you spoke about.

Are you running into any problems, particularly with the U.S., that are similar to the COOL situation that the beef producers are feeling--country-of-origin labelling that's causing our producers to have problems accessing production facilities in the United States? Has that been an issue at all for your folks?

[Anne Fowlie]

With respect to country-of-origin labelling, no, because the trade and commerce piece is under CFIA and the CAP Act--prescribed labelling, grade standards, and those types of things. So for fresh products that has not been an issue for us. It tends to be more in the value-added pieces.

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

Are the bilateral negotiations making a difference to countries that we've done bilaterals with? Has that made a difference to your horticultural interests?

[Anne Fowlie]

Yes, of course. We follow closely.

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

So that's been a positive thing.

You talked about the recognition of other countries' programs and their recognizing ours. Where is that at? How much of that coordination do we have? How much of that acceptance do we have and do we give?

[Anne Fowlie]

In terms of our food safety program and where we're going with benchmarking against GlobalGAP and the GFSI, the global food safety initiative, what we have now in Canada is that some of our apple producers—I'll speak about them because I know firsthand, in Ontario and B.C. in particular—are certified to GlobalGAP for export reasons. One of our objectives from the outset had been to find ways to ensure that the producer did not have to participate in the proliferation of audits and additional costs and so forth. Once that benchmarking is complete, then the one audit will suffice.

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

You talked about participation being market-driven. Does that mean it's still voluntary, or does it mean that as the big companies are requiring it, then more and more producers are basically obligated if they want to participate and be part of it? I think you said you had 300 producers that are certified. Is that a high enough number, or does that need to go up?