Evidence of meeting #3 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 39th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cfia.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:50 p.m.
Executive Director, Animal Products Directorate, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
I'd be pleased to address the question. Thank you very much.
I think the difference is one of terminology. All foods sold in Canada must meet the standards of the Food and Drugs Act and its regulations. The issue of the oversight in relation to foods is indeed different. Domestic producers of food are subject to CFIA oversight in a way that imports are subject to meeting the standards but their producers would not be inspected physically by CFIA in the same way that a domestic producer would. The standard is indeed the same. The nature of the oversight is different. We would react and respond to imports in different ways mechanically from how we would domestic producers, because we have the ability to inspect domestic producers, while for certain imports our focus would be on the food products themselves as opposed to the producer.
4:50 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
Thank you, Mr. Lauzon.
Before I turn it around to any other member for second questions, I want to ask a few questions of my own.
I am a member of Parliament from Manitoba. I'm getting lots of calls about confusion around rule 2 and the tuberculosis test and the requirement for Manitoba. Specifically, we're still considered somewhat different from the rest of Canada, even though we haven't had a TB outbreak from Riding Mountain in the domestic herd since 2003. We do have a zone set up with aggressive testing in that area. As you mentioned, there are 650 herds getting tested there every year. I have one of those herds that get tested every fall.
My concern is that we are being discriminated against in Manitoba. I want to find out what the CFIA position is and what message you carried forward to USDA when they were developing rule 2.
4:55 p.m.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Veterinary Officer, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Thank you, Mr. Chair, for the question.
When rule 2 came into effect, or the proposal around rule 2, the initial intent of rule 2 was to reinstate measures that were in place prior to May 2003. So there were no provisions within rule 2 specifically that dealt with tuberculosis. And as you've indicated, the status of Manitoba changed in that interval between 2003 and November 19 this year, when its status was regained as a TB-free area.
Prior to May 2003, as a result of the Riding Mountain circumstance, the U.S. at that time required that any animal that had been resident in Manitoba was subjected to TB testing even after it left.
In the lead-up to rule 2, adjustments were made to in effect drop that requirement, so the U.S. shrunk that requirement to say only animals coming either directly from Manitoba or that had been resident in Manitoba during the 60 days immediately prior to their export. They did drop the “any time in a lifetime” scenario, which was quite difficult to--
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
For 2003, before the board shut down, only cattle coming from zone 23 and 24 around the park required testing--
4:55 p.m.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Veterinary Officer, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Correct.
4:55 p.m.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Veterinary Officer, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Correct.
The U.S. has done two things. First and foremost, at the time of the negotiation of the rule, there was agreement that the TB testing at that time would not be applied to steers or spayed heifers, that they would provide an exemption for those animals and provide exemptions for young animals over five days of age but less than four weeks of age because the test is not an effective intradermal test in that age group of animals.
Subsequent to that, as I say, they did take the decision because...in the original proposal following the rule, they were going to apply it broadly to Manitoba. They agreed to bring it back to the 60-day or direct-origin. And they did inform us over the weekend that they were further reducing the restrictions on TB testing. In fact, sexually intact animals moving to a feedlot in the United States, and then to be slaughtered at less than 30 months of age, now are also exempt. So they've added another category of exemption, and now only sexually intact animals for breeding purposes are subjected to testing.
So the requirements have been reduced over the past 72 hours. We have amended the health certificates and notified industry and accredited vets accordingly.
In parallel, Mr. Mayers and Mr. Prince were in the United States and met with the senior U.S. officials around re-achieving Manitoba's free status. They have made a commitment to us that they have started a review of their CFR-quota federal regulation requirements on TB tests, not just for Canada but for all countries. They anticipate coming forward in 2008 with a revised CFR, and they have committed to us that their review of Manitoba's free status will be expedited in that process.
So we hope that we can continue to bring pressure to bear to have that done as quickly as possible.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative James Bezan
No, we'll win the Grey Cup this weekend--and the Vanier Cup.
Mr. Boshcoff.
4:55 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Boshcoff Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
A point of speculation there.
My question deals with the national abattoir system. Although we keep hearing perhaps too frequently that abattoirs and processing plants are gearing down production or stopping altogether, I have a project in the Rainy River district that has been in debate stage for many years. They've finally decided, because of the difficulties and the onerous conditions for a federally inspected abattoir, to go with the provincially inspected abattoir. And the issue comes down to how there can be such a vast difference that a cooperative organization would decide it couldn't meet the federal standards, which I understand are almost exactly the same as all the provincial standards. But the costs and the other things impacting them mean now they can only sell their product in Ontario as opposed to Manitoba, which is much closer than many of the other larger markets they would want to be able to compete in.
My question is what are we doing to each other when we can't as a nation...? Do people think the national standard is so vastly superior to the provincial standard, which it can't be? Clearly you can't throw the carcass on the sawdust floor, so why are we still debating this? Why can't we do these types of things?
5 p.m.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Veterinary Officer, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
The goal of a national meat standard in this country is a goal that we still actively pursue. But I'll ask Mr. Prince to address your question.
5 p.m.
Vice-President, Operations, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Thank you for the question. It's a very good one.
The federal requirements are based on interprovincial trade and on foreign country requirements. So there are some things in those federal plants that are done because it's a requirement of the U.S., or Japan, or so on.
When it comes to trade interprovincially within Canada, that is something we have been working on. Paul Mayers has been a lead on this in working with the provinces.
There has been a lot of work done in the past decade working on what's been known as the national meat code. The objective with the national meat code is to establish a national standard for abattoirs and meat processing plants that all provinces could implement.
The ultimate goal here would be to have provinces and their meat inspection systems start to harmonize, meeting this national standard. The ultimate goal, on the basis of that, would be to allow interprovincial trade based on that national standard. In other words, we could have abattoirs that wouldn't necessarily meet all the requirements for export to the U.S., Japan, or whatever those myriad requirements might be, yet they would meet a national standard, and by virtue of doing that, would be able to trade interprovincially.
There is a lot of momentum on this file at the moment. We're working very hard towards that goal and we'll keep you posted on it.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Ken Boshcoff Liberal Thunder Bay—Rainy River, ON
That actually gives me good cause for optimism as they proceed, because they're essentially ready to start dealing in realities.
The question was also raised earlier about the same standards. I want you to try to clear this up. Perhaps it's now an urban legend, about the mushrooms from a foreign country that had a high formaldehyde level, and that the CFIA simply raised the level to deem them acceptable. It could have been an issue that was raised in this committee, actually.
Are you familiar with this? You can say yes or no to that one.
But the bottom line is that under those categories that our own producers want to know about--labelling, inspections, environmental pesticides, site purity so that we know it's not coming from a former nuclear dump, those kinds of things--you said very clearly, and I appreciate how succinct it was, that our standards for production and import standards of production are the same.
So can we assume that the labelling of any product coming in would be the same in Canada as it was in the country of origin?
5 p.m.
Executive Director, Food Safety, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Thank you.
We do on occasion find formaldehyde in mushrooms. Formaldehyde is a naturally occurring chemical, as well as being a chemical that at times is used in various manufacturing processes, not necessarily in food manufacturing processes.
If ever we do find any level of formaldehyde in a food product, we do request a health hazard assessment to be conducted by Health Canada. Health Canada will look at the product, the consumption of the product, and the distribution of the product in making a determination.
They also do seek to set tolerances that relate to these products. And in setting tolerances, they do take into account international standards as well as their own research in setting those standards.
You referred to an urban legend. I'm not aware of any situation where we have changed a standard to accommodate an import. But there are occasions when standards are revisited on the basis of new scientific information and new evidence. So if a standard is changed it would be because of new science; it would not be because of an import issue or a domestic issue.
5:05 p.m.
Conservative
5:05 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I would like to come back to the issue of SRMs. Could you tell me, yes or no, if the regulations require that anyone producing, importing, distributing or selling livestock feed has to keep records during 10 years with the following information: the name and address of the clients, as well as a description of the feed, including quantities and ingredients? Is that in the regulations?
5:05 p.m.
Executive Vice-President and Chief Veterinary Officer, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
There are record-keeping obligations associated with the regulations, but for that level of precision, I'll ask Mr. Libby to respond, please.
5:05 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
Yes or no, do they have to keep records during 10 years? Are you in a position to answer this question?
5:05 p.m.
National Director, Feed Ban Task Force, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
On record-keeping, yes, I can talk about that.
Basically anybody who controls SRM, whether they transport or produce it, has to keep records of the amount of SRM for a period of 10 years, the reason being that the period for mad cow disease to come about is roughly seven to ten years from the date of infectivity.
So we've worked with the farming community, we've worked with the rendering plants, we've worked with anybody who does deal with SRM on the most simple way they have to keep these records. It's not an overbearing requirement. Basically, they just have to have a good account of the amount of SRM that's been produced.
5:05 p.m.
Bloc
André Bellavance Bloc Richmond—Arthabaska, QC
I believe this is a very heavy burden for our producers. You know that farmers have to prepare mixtures of meal and feed for their animals several times each day. Each time, they will have to record in their books the mixtures they have prepared, with all the details, even though, as you know, farmers have many other things to do with their time.
Are you saying that they will not have to do that?
