Agriculture Committee on Aug. 26th, 2009

[Dr. Mark Raizenne, Director General, Centre for Food-borne, Environmental and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases (CFEZID), Public Health Agency of Canada]

Thank you very much for your question.

The Agency's focus is prevention and it tries to respond. By the time an illness has been detected or recognized, the contamination is already present. In terms of prevention, information has to be prepared in cooperation with CFIA staff and our public health colleagues, that information being aimed in particular at the most vulnerable populations and individuals at high risk of food contamination.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

In order to avoid fatalities, is there something you could have done differently during the last crisis?

[Dr. Mark Raizenne]

That is an academic question.

Once there has been an outbreak, the important thing is to focus on containing its impact and determining exactly what occurred. We are talking about a vulnerable population that had been exposed to the products we examined when the listeriosis crisis arose. Had it been a non-vulnerable population, there would not have been such a high mortality rate.

It was an unfortunate situation, because a vulnerable population was ultimately the one most exposed to these products. As far as we are concerned, what is important now is to ensure that, in future, seniors, pregnant women and people with a weaker immune system have access to information to help them make the right decisions.

We also want to work with health care professionals, to be sure that there are clear lines of communication. We discovered that, when the outbreak occurred, there was a lack of communication with public health authorities who are responsible for keeping the general public informed. That is what was reported.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

Is the Agency carrying out tighter monitoring now?

[Dr. Mark Raizenne]

We intend to work even harder in this area. All the information that we have collected, as well as material published by Health Canada, now appear on our websites, where people can access it. As Ms. Weatherill pointed out, particular attention must be paid to communication with a view to prevention.

[Luc Malo, Bloc, Verchères—Les Patriotes, QC]

In your opinion, who should be in charge of coordinating all of this communication, which seemed to be lacking? In the wake of the outbreak, do you have the sense that there is now greater cohesion and better information sharing? This issue and others have clearly pointed to gaps within the Agency with respect to the way in which information is handled and managed. Have there been any improvements in that regard?

[Dr. Mark Raizenne]

That is, of course, something that we identified. We looked at the lessons learned from the outbreak through the different agencies. We then set about developing a risk communication plan and identified very specific communication products aimed at the most vulnerable populations. Developing information is one thing, but we are now looking at the most effective way of ensuring that it reaches its intended audience and that people understand what the risk is.

This afternoon, we said that it is impossible for there to be zero risk, and that people have to recognize that fact. Dr. Evans could provide more information in that respect, but I can tell you we are certainly working in closer cooperation now than we were previously.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, André Bellavance]

Please be very brief, Mr. Evans.

[Dr. Brian Evans]

I simply want to add a quick point.

One of the areas around that communication--because, obviously, public health starts provincially; the investigations are done by local public health, and information flows through the provincial system to the federal system for that analysis--that we can share very openly with the committee is the fact that subsequent to the events of last year we have met on several occasions now with the new chief medical officer of health in Ontario, Dr. Arlene King, to talk about how we work together between Ottawa and Toronto, and our local people in Guelph at our area office met with her on several occasions as well. We have run five food safety simulation emergency exercises across the country now, including one in Ontario, to actually work the protocols, work the communications protocols and the coordination protocols. All of those activities again, which have been recommended both by the committee and by the independent investigator, is work that we have undertaken to do and we will continue to do.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, André Bellavance]

Mr. Christopherson, I just want Committee members to know that, because the answers were a little longer, everyone will have about seven minutes. So, I will give some additional time to the NDP and the Conservatives, if everyone agrees.

Mr. Christopherson, you have the floor.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I won't be complaining, Chair. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Dr. Evans.

I want to return to the question I asked earlier, and I realize it's an awkward one and difficult to answer. You're saying no? Okay. Then I won't feel guilty at all about asking.

I was really shaken. I've got to tell you that I was shaken to the core to hear someone of Mr. Kingston's responsibility make the statement that he did. I want to be fair to you and be clear about how you would characterize those comments, because I think it's important. I would suspect that it may get a fair bit of attention, and the public is going to be a bit jarred by hearing that.

Again, his quote was that “it's just a matter of time before you see it happen again”. I asked the question, and my question was very specific and clear, was he talking about similar preventable incidents? He was very clear in saying yes. We've already accepted that zero is impossible, so please do me a favour and don't go into that world about.... We all get that, that it's not possible. But that's very different from what Mr. Kingston said.

So what I would like to hear from you, Doctor, is, do you think that he was being over-the-top fearmongering, whether deliberate or not, or do you believe that he was accurate and that we ought to be as frightened as I think anyone who hears that would be, or is it somewhere in between? If it's somewhere in between, please elaborate, sir.

[Dr. Brian Evans]

I will do my best to be brief and to answer directly.

We do recognize that the report of the subcommittee, the dissenting report of the government, and the report of the independent investigator all underline the issue of resource capacity to address risks in the appropriate way. We recognize that the learned group that has heard that has spoken to that issue. And we have made a commitment to make sure that from our perspective in addressing recommendations from the various reports, we do our very best to demonstrate the resource capacity of the agency against the demands that we have against our program standards. And that will come out where it comes out.

The other point I would make, though, about this issue of whether it is only a matter of time is this. The best way I can answer your question is to say that at the end of the day--and I suspect Mr. Kingston has spoken to this issue several times before--it's not an absolute number of inspectors that will prevent this from happening again. It is the reality that we have invested in training, which was an issue raised before by the committee. In March this year, subsequent to last year's events, we had 325 staff trained on the new listeria requirements at the operational level to bring those into effect through the verification activities. We trained 20 internal inspectors in CFIA to provide ongoing inspection and mentoring to front-line staff in these areas. We also took on the training that was requested by this group in their report and by the investigator around training in the incident command system to make sure.... As Mr. Kingston has talked about, prevention is critical, but at the same time, you have to have a response capacity for those events that do happen. Again, I come back to the point that the focus around the table for the past period of time has been listeria, and I hope nobody ever believes that listeria is the only threat to food safety. We do deal with E. coli, salmonella, and campylobacter, and there are other pathogens that can play.

We have an increasingly vulnerable population in terms of allergenicity who we must be very conscious of in terms of food safety for those people who have allergens. We deal with the reality of a different culture in the world today. We have to deal with deliberate threat. Even in the reports yesterday there were reports of tampering with a food cereal in British Columbia. And we all see the issues with candies at Hallowe'en and turkeys at Thanksgiving. We have to be cognizant as to how we prevent and deal with those activities as well.

Again, I'm not trying to say that events won't happen, but we have to look at the broad scope of food safety challenges out there and make sure that our attention on listeria is appropriate and it's vigilant. But please don't expect that we're going to turn a blind eye to those other risks as well, because those can also have very serious health and social consequences and economic consequences for Canadians and our markets internationally.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you, Doctor.

I have to tell you, those are your words, and it'll be up to people watching and the media how they slice it, but I think they would have preferred to hear you say something about his being way over the top and that nothing like that's going to happen. I have to tell you, sir, I didn't hear that. But that's just me. We'll see where it goes from here.

To be fair to Mr. Kingston, he did talk about limited budgets and he did talk about the fact that it wasn't just his inspectors. So in fairness to that issue and to the way you're phrasing it in terms of resources, let me ask you this question. Has the government indicated to you that they will be providing new funds as a result of all this? Do you have new money coming, and if so, would you detail that for us? And further, if there is new money coming, what heightened assurance can you give us as a result; or are there no new resources, which would be another matter entirely?

[Dr. Brian Evans]

Again, I'm not sure I'm in a position to comment as to whether or not more resources will be made available by Parliament.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

No, but as of today, have you heard indications from the minister or from the PMO, from anywhere on high, that there are new resources coming in here to deal with the issues that Mr. Kingston and you, to some degree, have raised, which are very much related to resources? So that's my question.

[Dr. Brian Evans]

Again, my answer back is simply that we have been asked to contribute to the government response to the staff report and to the report of the independent investigator. At this point in time, we can't speak to whether the government will make recommendations that support resources or don't support resources. That's not an issue we can comment on.

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

So if I can, then, sir, when you make the statement, as you're entitled to do, that it's better than it was a year ago and it'll be better a year from now, you're saying that sort of in the blind without really knowing whether there are going to be new resources. You're predicating that on new systems, new something, but not new resources. That's what I'm hearing, sir. If I'm wrong, please correct me.

[Dr. Brian Evans]

No, I believe that what I have heard repeatedly from the government, and previous governments as well, is that they view food safety for Canadians as a priority. We do know there are processes that we as a department or agency contribute to, both in cycle for budget and external to the cycle in terms of submissions for the consideration of the government. And we at CFIA will contribute to the fullest extent possible to those processes.

[The Vice-Chair, Bloc, André Bellavance]

Your time is up, Mr. Christopherson. Thank you.

Mr. Shipley.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, witnesses, for coming out.

Just to be really clear at the start or as a quick preamble, Mr. Easter continually says we engineered the meetings. I think it's fit for the Canadian public to know that in fact, when the chair knew he would not be here, we offered to arrange different dates. That offer was not accepted by the opposition, and so here we are today. It was not engineered; in fact, it was engineered by them.

Second, the other comment keeps coming forward, and I know Mr. Christopherson brought it up. We talked a lot during our subcommittee, meeting after meeting, about the significant loss of life, the 22 people who died because of this and the significant debt that is felt toward those families. But I really want to be clear here. Just so that we know, Mr. McCain, in a recent editorial, said Maple Leaf was responsible for the loss of 22 lives. I quote: “We were accountable for the death of 22 Canadians.” So I don't think we need to be spending a lot of time pointing fingers and trying to instigate new.... I think what we should be doing is what we are now here for, and that's seeing what we can do to improve the process.

So I want to follow up on Mr. Christopherson's comments regarding resources, and I'll go to Mr. Evans—or maybe it's Mr. Prince, I'm not sure. When I look at a chart here regarding inspectors and inspection staff at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency from June 1997 to March 2009, if we start in 1997, the previous government actually cut the total number of inspectors. They did that for two to three years before they got even, and then there was an increase.

So I think, Mr. Christopherson, in terms of your comment on resources, I can just refer to the chart. In March 2005, there were 5,858 inspectors. In March 2006, that went to 6,121; in 2007 to 6,585; in 2008 to 6,961; and in March 2009 to 7,053. Then it is further broken down into inspection staff and field inspection staff. So each of those numbers has continually increased.

I'm not saying those are perfect numbers in terms of what should be there; I'm just asking, have we put resources forward? We have, and I think that's acknowledged by these numbers.

I also want to thank Mr. Kingston for his comments, because what he's really done is acknowledge—even though the report has just come out and the minister hasn't had a chance to respond to it yet, and he will be responding—the significant improvements that have actually been happening under the minister's direction, in collaboration and working with CFIA.

There are significant, significant improvements that have happened since the listeria outbreak and Ms. Weatherill's report has come out. One, the environmental testing that was scrapped by the previous government is now back in place. We recognize how important that is. I think one of the other ones, too, is that there have been positive tests, but there was no requirement. And I'd like you to just confirm that there'd been no requirement for the industry, in this case Maple Leaf Foods, to report a positive test. Now I understand that if there are positive tests, those have to come forward and be reported by industry to CFIA.

Can you confirm that?

[Dr. Brian Evans]

Just to be clear, there has been a regulatory requirement in legislation for mandatory reporting of product positives. That has existed for an extended period of time.

Where we did not have that obligation on the part of industry was for the environmental testing, and that speaks more to this issue of prevention and how we get early detection and early assessment to determine there's not a persistent infection in the plant. So what did change with the new directives last fall was making the environmental testing mandatory, in terms of all positive results, to supplement what we were already getting on the end product.

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

I'm glad our minister has actually brought that back into the process and made that improvement.

Can you talk to me about your industrial working group? There will be a report coming out in 2009, this fall. And you're hoping there will be work with the U.S. in collaboration on food safety issues. Can you talk a little bit about those two things, please?

[Dr. Brian Evans]

If it pleases the member, I would ask Paul Mayers to respond to the question, please.

[Paul Mayers, Associate Vice-President, Programs, Canadian Food Inspection Agency]

Thank you very much for the question.

Indeed, while we established a number of mandatory obligations through our directives, we didn't stop there. We've also worked with the industry. And we have to commend the industry for its leadership in recognizing that in addition to the mandatory obligations that we've set for them in terms of listeria controls, there are further opportunities to explore how the industry can collectively work to identify additional means of improvement. That's what the work of the industry working group has been, to develop best practices for the control of listeria in meat processing. Here they're looking beyond those areas where we've established specific obligations. They're looking at issues, such as environmental testing in the plant environment away from food contact surfaces, that might ultimately contribute to food contact surfaces becoming contaminated.

So we're very keen to support the industry in undertaking that type of work in the interest of continuous improvement, and we look forward to their report. Frankly, we're interested in how we can assist the industry in systematizing those improvements as well, complementing the obligations we've placed on them.

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

Thank you for that.

I think all of us understand there's a partnership in prevention here, and industry has to play a very, very significant role in that prevention.

Speaking on that, and just to follow up, are the standards being applied by Canada for listeria aligned with international standards?