Evidence of meeting #8 for Public Accounts in the 41st Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was departments.
A video is available from Parliament.
November 27th, 2013 / 4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Thank you very much.
I was going to say to Mr. Harris that since I've become involved in politics, I find that five minutes takes a lot longer when other people are speaking than when I'm speaking.
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Voices
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4:30 p.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Mr. Chair, I welcome our guests today and thank them for their attendance.
I want to say at the outset that I'm always very impressed, Mr. Ferguson, by the degree of detail and thoroughness you bring to your reports in terms of tracking things down and crossing every t and dotting every i.
I want to begin with an issue which I think was incorrectly stated earlier. All of my questions, by the way, will be on chapter 4, “Canada's Food Recall System”. I'm referring to paragraph 4.57. As I understand it, the Weatherill report recommended, among other things, the use of the ICS. Is that correct?
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Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
ICS stands for Incident command system. Is that correct?
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Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
The ICS system was, in fact, activated during the XL Foods recall. Is that correct?
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Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Yes, Mr. Chair, that is correct.
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Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
In fact, you found that the activation of the ICS at the national level in relation to the XL Foods recall was effective in engaging CFIA senior management. Is that correct?
4:30 p.m.
Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Yes, that is correct. That was one of the original observations of the Weatherill report, to engage senior management.
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Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Whatever else might be still in draft, it would not be correct to say that the ICS is in draft. It actually has been formulated and in fact applied. Is that correct?
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Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Yes, it was applied.
However, we noted that there was uncertainty and confusion around roles and responsibilities.
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Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
If you don't mind, you'll find I ask pretty tight questions, and because of the time limitation that Mr. Harris and I were discussing, I'm going to try to keep your answers to my questions.
In fact, after the XL incident the CFIA people learned from that and took steps to improve the ICS by in fact better integrating food safety specialists. Is that correct?
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Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Yes, Mr. Chair, that is correct.
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Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
What I want to really talk about are the things that I think are important to most Canadians when it comes to food recall.
First and foremost, I think Canadians want to make sure that if there is any reasonable possibility of a problem, the CFIA is on the job and will investigate it. They don't want CFIA to leave any stone unturned.
Can you tell me how many food safety investigations each year the CFIA undertakes?
4:30 p.m.
Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
It's roughly around 3,000.
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Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I would characterize 3,000 as a very vigilant system of investigations. Would you agree with that characterization?
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Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
I don't really have a relative benchmark to compare that to, but it is a large number.
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Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I understand that during your audit you examined 59 cases in which CFIA actually engaged in food recalls. Is that correct?
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Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
Am I right that in every one of those 59 recall cases you found that the illnesses involved were appropriately and reasonably contained?
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
I think that's another hot issue with the Canadian public. They want to make sure that the recalls are effective in containing illnesses.
In fact, there were other recalls that you didn't actually investigate during the two-year period of your audit. Is that correct?
4:35 p.m.
Principal, Office of the Auditor General of Canada
Our sample during that two-year period of audit was randomly selected.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Stephen Woodworth Conservative Kitchener Centre, ON
There were more than 59 recalls during the two years. Is that correct?