Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on May 13th, 2009

[Anne Fowlie]

It's going to increase. I don't want to get into the semantics of terminology, but actually that number is far greater. When we look at the number of potato producers in Canada who are supplying the processors, McCain Foods in particular, they've had it in their acceptance criteria in their contracts now for a number of years that producers must be on the CHC program and must be third-party reviewed. This year they've moved to the type of audit that we're involved in. But they were doing their own audits, so they've had means to verify what was being done.

It is, in fact, higher if you want to look at it in that context.

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

Okay.

Tricia, I wanted to ask a couple questions about two pilot programs you mentioned that you had run. The second one was the control of--I didn't get the full title--microorganisms on the meat handling facilities. Did you come with any recommendations that might be apropos to the discussion we're having here and the incidents from last summer?

[Tricia Meaud]

The full name of the project was the control of biofilm microorganisms on surfaces associated with meat processing facilities. I'm not a microbiologist, so I'll give you the layman's explanation. Biofilms are groups of bacteria that have gone together and are acting as one, as a film. This project was to test those.

Yes, the proponent did come up with six recommendations, which I actually have here today but didn't provide to the clerk because I wasn't sure if I'd be speaking to them or not. I can provide that, and it is in both languages as well. The gist of their recommendations is that—as Mr. Allen said about raising the bar—perhaps in future policy decisions biofilms would be one area to look at.

I can provide you with a copy of the recommendations. That would probably be easiest.

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

Am I just about out of time?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Your time has expired, Mr. Anderson.

Mr. Easter, you have five minutes.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Kyte, I asked you a question earlier, but you didn't get a chance to answer it. It was about how serious the country is about doing inspections on imports versus domestic product, and the fact that--I certainly believe--that product should have to meet the same standards as does Canadian product, not only on the safety side but also on the production side.

The second question I had asked you is this. You mentioned pre-market label review, and you seemed to be pretty emphatic about that. So perhaps you could just explain that a little further and tell this committee what you might recommend in that regard. Then we could certainly consider it.

[Christopher Kyte]

The issue of mislabelled imports has been a real problem for the industry for many years. It dates back to the seventies. It predates me. It kills jobs.

I remember a few years ago there was a U.S. company shipping in french fries that didn't meet Canadian standards, and they were being sold in Toronto. It was costing the industry $57,000 a week until we could finally get those things off the shelves. And that took us about two months. So that gives you a sense of the financial dynamic of mislabelled imports. They can come up. They can be dumped.

If they have a price war in the United States, they'll divert their product into the Canadian marketplace. By the time we get it off the store shelves, we've lost a lot of money. So the financial side puts a stress on companies, especially the smaller companies. And we don't need to lose any more companies. We've lost 24 sizable processing plants and 9,000 employees in the last two years. We don't want to see more of that happening.

The second point is that if somebody gets sick, do they care if it's from an American product or a Canadian product? Well, on the Canadian product side, you're doing what you can--your due diligence. You're trying to eliminate the risk. But we're not trying to eliminate the risk on imports. And that's a problem.

If you look at the size, the number, and the frequency of food-borne illnesses caused by American producers--from spinach, lettuce, red peppers, peanut butter--the numbers are huge. If we think we have a problem in Canada, take a look elsewhere.

Did I answer your question?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Is that for the pre-market labels as well?

[Christopher Kyte]

On the pre-market label, it's a really deficient.... In the last cost-recovery sessions, which would have been in the early nineties, the meat industry wanted the pre-market review program, which was tied to import controls. In this country, every time you want to market a product that contains meat, you send the label to the CFIA, and they review that label to make sure it doesn't have allergens, that it meets the Canadian regulations, that it has the right weight, that it comes from a registered plant--all of those kinds of safeguards--and then they allow it. So that's for both domestic and imported products.

The agency allowed the service to deteriorate somewhat, so there was a delay for companies. Service turnaround time was up to eight weeks, and now it's back to two and a half weeks. That's great for the agency.

Unfortunately, the agency, in its strategic review, has to get rid of this import control program. This is a really good, cost-effective enforcement program. No other category has it. If you look at some categories, such as baked goods, juices, drinks, and a whole bunch of those categories, the number of mislabelled products is huge. I understand that even the dairy farmers were here talking to Robert de Valk the other day about the problems they're having in the dairy industry and how the labels are out of compliance.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

So you're strongly suggesting that this remain.

[Christopher Kyte]

It should remain for meat, and it should be added to for other categories. Meat is the biggest industry--13 employees.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Easter.

We'll now move to Mr. Shipley.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you for coming.

Can I just follow up--so that I clearly understand--on what Mr. Easter was talking about? In terms of the mislabelling, misinformative labelling, is that in terms of the pre-labelling? Are you talking about the same thing, that to help, as a recommendation, you fix one with the other? We're talking about two things here, from my understanding.

[Christopher Kyte]

No, the pre-market label review is tied to 100% border control for meat-containing products.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Okay.

[Christopher Kyte]

It is also applied domestically. You don't send your inspectors into foreign plants. This is your way of making sure the playing field is level.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Are there some agreements—and we were told there were—in other countries, and particularly in the United States, so that when they are moving a product to, say, this country, the inspectors there understand what the standards are for this country? We would have the same in our plants if there is product going to another country, such as the United States, for example, that when they were producing that product, they would know what the standards are so they meet them. Is that a true statement?

[Christopher Kyte]

Not quite. If we want to ship a meat-containing product into the United States, we have to get the label approved by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. So they have a pre-market review system. What's more, they're expanding that pre-market review system to include other product categories, because they're kind of concerned about what's coming in from China.

We have not found that the U.S. regulators nor the U.S. industry have the same sensitivity to Canadian regulations as we have when we ship south.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Are you recommending then—just for the pre-market labelling—that we would actually pick up on those standards and implement them here? The procedure?

[Christopher Kyte]

Well, I think the procedures could be made more efficient, but essentially right now the Canadian system and the American system are similar. What we're going to do is create a North American imbalance.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Can I go to another area? When we're talking about food safety, it was listeria that was the issue, but the bigger part of this, or just as important a part, is that we don't have a recurrence. Yet we understand you said more inspectors don't necessarily make safer food.

What is it that inspectors need to be trained in that will actually make our food system safer? Is it the training they have? With listeria, you could stand on the line and watch all you want—you can't taste it, you can't see it, you can't smell it; it's basically an invisible killer. But it's my understanding also that listeria is something that is out there in our environment. So when you say that, what do you mean in terms of what our inspectors need to do?

[Christopher Kyte]

I think what you've got right now is the testing protocols that have been improved with the listeria policy. Many of my members have done test and hold for years. You've got HACCP. So what you're doing is making sure the critical control points are monitored because you can't, with any degree of success, do end-product testing. You could test every product and still never get it, whereas if you make sure you do it right the first time, then you have a greater degree of assurance that you're putting a finished product out.

I'm not an in-plant inspection expert, so I can't say much more than that. I don't know the degree of training they do get now. I would have to assume it's effective.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

One of the things you talked about is how we improve. How do we improve our systems? I'm interested in your comments because I think they have a lot of value. You're talking about moving away from the political influence of moving ahead and actually getting industry...there will always be agency participation. Would you suggest that might be a recommendation you would propose?

[Christopher Kyte]

I would, and you will have Jim Laws speaking next. He's with the Canadian Meat Council and he's much closer to the plant floor. I know he and his colleagues in some of the meat-related associations have done some serious work to improve safety in plants, and that's something they might take up in terms of doing study groups and plant practice workshops and things.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Kyte, I would like some clarification on a couple of things you said in your opening remarks. I forget the exact numbers, but you indicated that only 2,300 of some number of processing plants—I think that was the term you used—in Canada are actually federally inspected.

I presume some of those that aren't are some of our provincially inspected plants. To be clear where you're going with this, if you are implying that provincially inspected meat plants, slaughter plants, aren't up to par, I guess I've probably got a bit of an issue with that, first of all as a farmer and secondly as a politician.

Are you saying basically that for any meat-killing plant in Canada—beef, pork, whatever—if it is not federally inspected, there is a food safety issue there?