Evidence of meeting #8 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.
6:55 p.m.
Bloc
6:55 p.m.
Vice-President, Technical Services, Olymel
We all have potassium lactate and sodium lactate in our bodies. They are just metabolites that are part of our system. They are not dangerous at all. Diacetate is a chemical additive that quickly breaks down into acetate and something else. In any event, these are common metabolites in human physiology. There really is no impact on our health. The goal is to prevent pathogenic bacteria from multiplying during storage.
When we talk about microbial interventions, we are talking about a whole range of other antimicrobial agents and additives in use in the United States. They have not even always had to declare these substances on the label. We do not have that luxury in Canada because the products are not approved. But all the studies and the scientific data show that these additives and antimicrobial agents pose no danger in the United States. In Canada, we are asked to do our homework again and to keep validating every time we want to use a new one. That is why we waited six years. But all of a sudden after the crisis, in September 2008, they decided to speed things up and to grant temporary approval for the sale and use of sodium diacetate.
6:55 p.m.
Bloc
6:55 p.m.
Vice-President, Technical Services, Olymel
The temporary status will stay in effect until another decision has been made. The decision was to allow its use, but it is not yet officially in the regulations. It will be eventually. It is just that they are giving themselves time to evaluate the situation and make sure that it was the right decision.
6:55 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Is the decision made by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency?
6:55 p.m.
Vice-President, Technical Services, Olymel
Yes, in conjunction with Health Canada, of course. Health Canada decides which additives are and are not permitted. The agency makes sure that they are correctly applied, by establishing allowable limits and concentrations.
6:55 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Are there other products that you are asking to use, that could have been used to prevent bacteria from multiplying, but that are not yet approved?
6:55 p.m.
Vice-President, Technical Services, Olymel
Yes, there are a lot of additives on the list that are permitted in the United States but are not approved in Canada. There are probably about 40.
6:55 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Has the agency explained to you in the past why you still cannot use these antimicrobial substances? if they have sent you written explanations, we would like to get them. I am going to get right to the point with my other question because I have no idea how much time I have left.
If these substances have been used by Maple Leaf, do you think that the deaths in the listeria crisis could have been prevented? That is a crude way of asking the question, but...
6:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Meat Council
I will answer that question.
That might very well have been the case, but the fact is that Health Canada does not have the capacity to approve antimicrobials, or a long list of veterinary medications that the Food and Drug Administration allows Americans to use. As an organization, they employ 10,000 people while Health Canada employs about 800.
Canada should accept everything that the Americans have already approved. In 2009, there is really no use in conducting our own studies on products that the Europeans or the Americans have already approved. For products that are genuinely intended for food safety, we should be able to avoid redoing all the studies.
6:55 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
The agency banned those substances for all that time, but suddenly, one month after the deaths, it approved them. How did it explain that to you?
6:55 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Meat Council
We have not been told why Health Canada made that decision, but we are very pleased that they did.
6:55 p.m.
NDP
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of you for coming.
I appreciate, Mr. Laws, the number of recommendations you've put into the report. Obviously, you've spent some time, and your agency has spent some time, thinking through these things probably from past experiences, because some of them may not be new.
I was hearing from Ms. Nicol earlier about going back to 2002, which I think is when she started that timeline for us about how we were looking at things, and here we are in 2009.
What I don't want to infer, Mr. Laws, from some of your recommendations is that there are some things that I might see that maybe you're not telling us. So I'm going to try to ask in a way that you can tell me whether indeed it's implicit in your number 6, when it talks about better training for inspectors. It says “CFIA inspectors need to have the regular consistent training”, and it goes on to say that the new implementation of April 1, 2009...“many inspectors didn't know...about proper aseptic sampling techniques”. I think we saw that actually in a news release that came out, where folks were saying they weren't able to do that. CFIA said their folks were unable to do the sampling because in some cases there was cross-contamination.
If indeed we're asking folks to be better trained, there's a resource commitment that needs to be made to that, which is a polite way of saying we need additional money. “Resource” always sounds really flamboyant and really nice, but the bottom line is, somebody write a cheque because we need some extra bucks to make sure we train the folks, because it takes money to train folks. You have to take them away, and if you have to take them away from their regular duties, it seems to me you need additional folks to backfill where they are, or you're paying them OT, overtime, I'm not sure which. Sorry about the acronyms--old habits.
Am I seeing that in there or am I not, in the sense of what your perspective is when you wrote this? Are you also saying--and make it the third question--that CFIA inspectors ought to be doing a little more inspection than what they're presently doing, and spending a little less time filling out forms and reviewing binders, actually being on the floor conducting inspections?
May 13th, 2009 / 7 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Meat Council
Well, I don't think it would be right for me to comment on how much time they spend doing one thing versus the other, but we certainly know that their job is a combination of both. You cannot stop walking the floor, inspecting equipment, etc. But the meat industry today is not what it was 20 years ago. The equipment has changed. Processes have changed. All our members, for instance, are going to annual conferences. We hold annual symposiums. Education is a very big part of what we have to do at the Meat Council, as far as working with our members goes, and the same is true for inspectors. But in this particular case, with the new listeria rules, many of our members do hire food scientists, Ph.D.s, and veterinarians. Many people in our facilities are very highly trained, and they want to make sure, especially given the very onerous rules, that the samples are being taken properly so that they won't be subjected to some improperly held product or false positives because someone simply isn't familiar enough with the aseptic sampling techniques.
7 p.m.
NDP
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
I appreciate the fact that you believe you shouldn't comment on how much inspection versus how much reporting they should do, and I understand that, but do you have an opinion as to who should decide that? Should it be the processors? Should it be the plants? Should it be your organization? Or should it be CFIA, through the government? Where do you think that decision should be made?
7 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Meat Council
Well, I think if you look to other countries, for instance, if you're looking at the entire system, they do set up a section that looks at the risks involved and asks where the risks are.
As an example, when we were growing up, we all had meat in a can, and when I grew up, we all ate canned vegetables. Well, the industry has changed and now there's a lot more fresh vegetables or whatever. So this is a fairly foolproof method. There are some problems with it, but, generally speaking, there's not going to be any listeria left in this. So that's pretty safe.
The world has changed. The processes have changed. The retail sector is demanding longer shelf life. We've changed our lifestyle such that both partners in a marriage are working, so when everybody gets home, they don't have time to cook things like they used to. Everything's changed. So everybody needs to keep up with their training, and there are totally different processes.
7 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Meat Council
So if there was some expert group that would re-evaluate what the new risks are.... That's why we proposed in recommendation number 2 that since we do so much trade between Canada and the United States--it's such a major partner and a major customer of ours; it doesn't make sense, in our eyes, that Canada set up its own set of rules and the United States set up its own set of rules. It's the year 2009. The Europeans got their act together with however many countries they have. Surely, Canada and the United States could get their act together. Now is a very opportune time. The Americans are looking at what happened with the peanut butter situation. The new Obama administration said they're going to do something. We stepped up and had the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement several years ago. It's an opportunity. We know it's a fairly ambitious recommendation, but it can be done.
7:05 p.m.
NDP
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
The other aspect you talked about was educating consumers. We've heard from numerous witnesses about whether, at the end of the cycle, just before the fork, if you will, consumers are actually participating in the food system in a safe way. As well, there was the question of who contaminates food more--the consumer at the end or some folks in between. I think that's a debate for another day, but I do see that your recommendation number 8 talks about proactive concern and targeting the education: “Special attention should be paid to high risk groups such as the elderly, the immunocompromised and pregnant women.”
Now, when you say that you pay attention to those three groups, are you talking about processed meats, such as what we saw with listeriosis? Is that the inference that I'm taking? Or are you talking about those three groups as being targeted groups that we should always be looking at? Because, indeed, at those stages in their life and the things that are affecting them at that moment in time, they may be subject to things that others of us are not. For instance, you and I aren't going to be pregnant; therefore, we're not going to have to think about what we eat or consume or what we are around.
7:05 p.m.
NDP
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
Yes, Chair.
Ultimately, at the end day, is it indeed going to be a system that says we'll notify these three groups? And who's going to do it? The processors, the folks who make this, actually are telling part of their market, “Perhaps you ought not to buy our things.” That's a dangerous slope for a marketer who's trying to sell a product, saying to three groups of individuals, and these aren't small, and I would suggest to you--
7:05 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
I'm trying to be generous here, Mr. Allen. Do you have a question?
7:05 p.m.
NDP
Malcolm Allen NDP Welland, ON
I know you are. You're always generous, Mr. Chair.
I'll let you carry on.