Agriculture Committee on Aug. 18th, 2008

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thank you.

And thanks to our guests for being here today.

I'd like to apologize on behalf of the opposition for keeping you sitting and waiting for an hour and a half, but I am very happy that you're here. It's very interesting to sit and listen to the questions. Every question and misconception that the opposition brought up today you have rebuked, and that's good. That made it worth coming here today, to straighten that out.

The one thing I do need to touch on a little further, and the chairman just did—

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

That's your opinion, Larry.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

It's my time, Wayne. You had yours.

On BSE inspection, it's second to none and it's very safe here. As a beef producer, I take real exception to Mr. Dewar's comments implying that basically our Canadian beef here isn't safe, isn't inspected, whatever he was trying to say. And it comes from a lack of knowledge out there, I think, more than anything, the fact that he thinks that agriculture starts and stops at the farmers' market. I have nothing against farmers' markets; they're a great tool for agriculture producers to market their products locally to Canadian consumers.

People like him, who bring out this kind of thing...you would have to call him the k.d. lang of Parliament for trying to dispute our great beef business here in Canada.

Mr. Evans, you stated that CFIA's role in the past has been to ensure through inspection that industry, processors, manufacturers, etc., are conforming to the standards put in place by government. Is there any change in CFIA's role in that aspect?

Mr. Mayers.

[Paul Mayers]

No, there is no change in CFIA's responsibility to oversee, to enforce, to demonstrate compliance. That continues to be the case. There is no shift in CFIA's mandate; nor, as Dr. Evans has already indicated, is there any change in terms of priority. Food safety and the protection of human health will continue to be our number one priority.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thank you.

Any changes that have been enacted have been made public. Changes don't get made without consultation. Is that a correct statement?

[Dr. Brian Evans]

Yes. As was indicated in response to the previous member, those areas where we have implemented—that is, our avian influenza efforts—have been made public. Other areas that we will be moving on will be done through a consultation process and full disclosure and transparency, not just with stakeholders in Canada, but again, recognizing our international obligations. We would not be undertaking to do anything that isn't consistent with the expectations of our international partners as well.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thanks very much.

We tend to lose track of time in this place, but earlier we had a motion before this committee that was passed unanimously to do a review of all inspection costs, whether they be at the border with products going in and out or in slaughter facilities, those kinds of things. Will this review possibly come out with anything that may either make it cheaper for farmers or producers or get rid of some of the bureaucracy to make it easier?

Can you comment on that at all?

[Paul Mayers]

As this committee has advised, and recognizing the challenges faced by the industry, the agency did bring forward a proposal to offset some of those pressures on a time-limited basis by remitting certain fees from the previous year, and that process is currently moving forward. Again, it is not an elimination, but it is in recognition of the pressures; and on the advice of this committee and others, the CFIA undertook to reduce some of the costs borne by parts of the industry.

As you've noted, the commitment to a fulsome review of user fees is also an element that the agency has initiated. There is a working group for a review of user fees that has worked with parts of the industry. We also have a broad commitment to look at the entire suite of fees collected in relation to the delivery of agency programs where such fees are charged.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thank you.

Mr. Evans, I know you've been managing director, if that's the proper title, for just a couple of years, but you've been with CFIA for a long time. I hope I didn't say anything wrong there, but my point is that the opposition has tried to make it sound like doing a review is a bad thing. I would suggest, and correct me if I'm wrong, that any department under any government from time to time is asked to do a review, and all for the good—nothing is ever perfect—to try to find improvements.

Under the former government, although you were in the veterinary field, do you ever remember a time when a review was asked for?

[Dr. Brian Evans]

My time with CFIA dates to the creation of the agency in 1997, in various roles, as you have indicated.

As CFIA, we have undertaken both self-initiated and.... Again, as we've tried to make very clear to this committee and to Canadians in all of our communications, we live in a world where risk is ever-changing, whether it relates to food safety and the food supply or whether it relates to animal health and animal disease movements internationally and in Canada, and certainly we've seen the devastation in our forestry sector and in our plant sector as well because of invasive species and climate change.

So I think it is absolutely mandatory--and it is the only responsible way to effectively manage risk to public health, animal health, and plant health--to undertake these reviews on an ongoing basis. Over the course of my time at CFIA, as I say, we have undertaken these reviews as part of a commitment to continuous improvement to ensure that we are using the best available science and the best available practices to ensure that we are providing Canadians the best level of support we possibly can.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Thank you, Larry. Your time has expired.

Madame Thi Lac.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Good afternoon.

I'm going to ask you to answer briefly, since I have five questions and only five minutes to ask them and hear your answers.

As you are no doubt aware, there is a research centre in my riding of Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot. Here we're talking about the Food Inspection Agency. On the page 2 of your speaking notes, you say there won't be any job losses. By that, do you mean there won't be any position cuts, or could positions be reassigned to other centres? Can you state that no positions will be affected in my riding?

My second question is as follows. You say: "Such a single-window approach will provide increased bilingual service, from the existing 20 hours to 24 hours, seven days a week." The number of bilingual public servants in Saint-Hyacinthe has to be higher than in your other centres. Can you state that the centre in my riding is a key location for maintaining and increasing the services that you characterize as bilingual?

I'm going to ask you to answer those first two questions briefly. Then I'll ask you my other questions.

[Dr. Brian Evans]

Thank you.

I can assure you that our laboratory...we have a laboratory, not a research facility. I can only speak to the CFIA laboratory. If there is an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research centre, I am unable to speak to their programming. But from the perspective of St-Hyacinthe CFIA laboratory, there are no programming changes being implemented there that would result in any job losses whatsoever from that lab facility.

With respect to bilingual service, again, there is no program effort to reduce bilingual capacity or service out of our St-Hyacinthe facility.

[Ève-Mary Thaï Thi Lac, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Mayers says there were no changes to the agency's mandate, but the question I ask myself and that farmers are asking themselves as well is whether there will be any in future.

Will any changes be made to your mandate, and, if so, what will they be?

[Dr. Brian Evans]

The mandate of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is established under the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act. We are not aware of any efforts on the part of Parliament to review the CFIA Act or to change the mandate of our organization.

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

Mr. Mayers, it's your answer I would have liked to hear on the subject. You said a few moments ago that no changes had been made to the agency's mandate.

Mr. Evans has just answered, but, for our part today, we're considering the entire matter that the media reported this summer following Mr. Pomerleau's dismissal. There was some question of a plan for the future, which was not publicly announced. However, some of the media no doubt got wind of bits of information about this plan since we were able to read some information on aspects of it.

You're saying there were no changes. However, as you'll understand perfectly well, we, the farmers and the general public, all those who are aware of the fact that food inspection is also a public health matter, want to know whether there will be changes to the agency's mandate and, if so, what their nature will be.

Earlier we were told that everything that had been made public by the media was untrue.

[Paul Mayers]

Again, I can only reiterate what my colleague has said, that the mandate of the agency is laid out in legislation and we are not aware of any proposals to review that legislation. The initiatives that my colleague overviewed earlier point to the interest that the agency has expressed in modernizing certain aspects of its programs and taking advantage of the opportunity of the strategic review to review its programs and to make adjustments in terms of those programs, while continuing—and it is important that I stress “while continuing”—to maintain its priority focus on the protection of human health, the protection of animal health, and the protection of our plant resources in this country.

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

That's your general mandate, but as regards the information published in the media, we have some concerns, and they are over the changes to the mandate that would jeopardize people's health. For example, there's the possibility that the agency's inspection mandate is more about oversight and that the industry will take charge of a number of aspects of inspection. That's part of the changes to the mandate that were made public. Mr. Evans, for his part, said they would not be made.

Whatever the case may be, there is a plan that we are not aware of. So why not disclose it publicly and make a clean breast of it.

[Paul Mayers]

If you would permit me to use an example of the initiatives to reflect on the issue of modernization, as has been noted, one of the initiatives is a feed inspection harmonization. That recognizes that we have been working with the industry to improve their practices in terms of control in feed mills by applying effective process controls--in essence, the HACCP system. In recognition of industry's progress in implementing that system, we are modernizing and therefore adjusting our inspection approach to align it with the effective implementation of that strategy.

So do we change our focus? Absolutely not. Does the priority in terms of protecting animal and human health as it relates to potential contamination of feed change? Absolutely not.

In fact, we improve our ability to control hazards by shifting away from an approach that would require the end product to be demonstrated to be safe to instead demonstrating throughout the process of producing a feed that there are effective controls on the potential points where hazards might be introduced. In essence, the modernization allows for the inspection approach in verifying that those controls are in place, that they are effective, and that they are doing what they're intended to do in controlling hazards.

We are augmenting our ability to demonstrate the ultimate safety of the product by modernizing the approach in alignment with what we've been working with the industry to accomplish, which is to improve their overall process of controls rather than simply relying on demonstrating that the end product is ultimately without a particular hazard.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

Your time has expired.

Mr. Komarnicki.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to commend the members of CFIA for their presentation.

It seemed to me that when I first heard Mr. Easter, the member for Malpeque, talking about reductions taking place and funding cuts, he was somehow implying that Canadians would be less safe. I'm comforted to hear that funding was not cut, but in fact that you're better utilizing--

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order, we weren't talking about their taking place; we're talking about their being proposed in a secret document that we've yet to see.

[The Chair, Conservative, James Bezan]

That's not a point of order; it's a debate.

Mr. Komarnicki.

[Ed Komarnicki, Conservative, Souris—Moose Mountain, SK]

It's interesting. What you're saying, as I understand it, is that it's using the dollars you have more effectively to respond in a more efficient manner to ensure that the risk is managed properly. Would that be correct? As risk is changing, you have to change the way you do things to meet that risk. You therefore need to redirect funds. In the end, I hear you say you're doing more, not less, to protect the health and safety of Canadians. Indeed that's what we're interested in, and that's what we hope you continue to do.

I understand that the CFIA will continue to provide front-line screening to ensure that imported products meet Canadian requirements. Canadians are very interested in that. Is that correct?