Agriculture Committee on Feb. 15th, 2012

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, everyone, for coming.

Clearly, there's been some dental work being done without novocaine somewhere around here. There seem to be a lot of antsy folks with a lot of angst in them today on the other side.

[An hon. member]

It's the diet coke.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

It's the diet coke. Perhaps they need more sugar. Or perhaps it's the aspartame that's doing it to them.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Order.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Mr. Kingston, you've been asked a number of questions about budgets, and let me not go down that road. But I would like you to clarify when you talk about 2%.

Here's what I'm hearing, and I know you can help me with this. When it sounds like 2%, do you mean that 2% of everything that's imported into this country is inspected, or are we talking about 2% of something altogether different that you inspect? It sounds as if I've a hundred things coming in and I inspect 2% of them, so I inspect two of the 100. Is that what happens?

[Bob Kingston]

It varies commodity by commodity. For example, certain root crops come into the country from offshore that are looked at at a 30% level because they are considered a higher risk--not for human health and safety, and they're not evaluated for pesticide residue, but they're evaluated for soil content because of the threat it poses to Canadian plant production. As I said, most of the commodities we look at are not looked at for human health and safety. So 2% is an across-the-board total number of shipments of agricultural goods that get looked at coming into the country, on average.

There are other commodities. For example, Asian pears: 100% inspection was required because every year we looked at them we were finding serious pests that would have created huge problems for fruit producers in Canada. So those were looked at 100%.

It varies drastically. Other products that come in we do hear about from time to time. They can pose threats, but haven't presented a big track record of doing so, so they're virtually not looked at all, until we get calls from either consumers or distributors who are complaining about, I don't know, insects crawling up the walls of their warehouses. Then we come out and then all of a sudden we start a bit of a blitz on that product for a while because we're finding that it's infested. That's how we found the Asian long-horned beetle, exactly that scenario.

So it truly varies. The 2% is an average. But we're talking 2% of shipments. And as I said, when we look at the shipments, depending on the commodity, we either look at the whole thing or we just look at a small statistical representation.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

What fascinates me in what you've just said, and I know you'll correct me if I misstate this, is when your inspectors in the field are inspecting, they're not inspecting for health and safety, which really is about me as a consumer consuming that particular product; you're actually looking for an invasive species, for instance, or an invasive plant as part of that product that's come with it, that's in addition to it. You're not inspecting the health and safety for me. Is that what I'm hearing?

[Bob Kingston]

That's absolutely correct. As I said, some trend monitoring goes on. We have people who go around to stores and pick fruit off the shelves, send it in for analysis. But by the time the results come back, it's usually months after, and it helps establish what they're going to target to look at the following year, if they find anything. And that's if they're looking for the right chemical.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

But internally our inspection process--and I know this from sitting on the subcommittee.... And I was amazed, quite frankly, with the testimony the other day. Mr. Mayers didn't testify except under questioning. We ran out of time, and I didn't get a chance to ask him. I would have asked about the CVS program: what exactly happened to that piece that was supposed to be audited to make sure it was in compliance and actually worked, and whether they had finished all those things or not. But with timing being what it is, votes are votes, and we have to do that sort of stuff.

Domestically, do we inspect the health and safety of food for consumers in this country? In other words, in a meat plant or other places, are we doing a health and safety check?

[Bob Kingston]

For domestically produced product?

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Yes, domestic.

[Bob Kingston]

Yes.

One of the things you have to remember is that a lot of countries around the world have regulations similar to ours about chemical and pesticide use, but they don't enforce them. Here we do. If you're growing produce in any Canadian province, you've got the Pest Control Products Act to deal with, administered by PMRA, and you've got the provincial applicators and provincial pesticide legislation to deal with as well. And they're all enforced, maybe not to the extent everyone would like, but they are enforced, and there's an expectation among both producers and consumers in Canada that this happens.

When you talk about product coming in from offshore, everybody in CFIA knows you cannot rely on what is coming in to have been dealt with in the same manner we would. As I said before, more often than not, we find cosmetic applications of chemicals and pesticides to commodities coming in where they are not documented and not required by us. That wouldn't happen. We don't do it on our products going out, but they certainly do on stuff coming in. We have no control over that--none. In fact, when you take a look at a bag that says “triple washed”, there's not even a requirement that this be done with potable water.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

My friends across the way use the term “alarmist” in reference to you.

Mr. Kingston, I wouldn't call you an alarmist individual, but I am, as a consumer, certainly alarmed at the fact that we don't actually test for health and safety for imported food product, which is going up, year after year, in terms of the quantity coming into this country, with no end in sight.

That, sir, should be alarming all consumers that there's a problem.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Allen.

Mr. Zimmer, you have five minutes.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

I have another question for Bob.

Just to go back to what Mr. Storseth was talking about, that 2% number, we didn't get a solid number on some of the quantified inspections that go on.

But I wanted to speak specifically to the USDA. Since we know that product is inspected at source in other countries, I'm certain that you have members who have common knowledge of the process on the other side of the border. Do you not recognize those inspections as valid? Why would we have a redundancy, and do them twice?

[Bob Kingston]

As I touched on, one of the problems with accepting equivalency inspections is not that we have a problem with what comes out of the plant on the other side, but we're finding infractions in the shipping, in terms of the state the commodity is kept in—everything from temperature to what cohabitates the inside of that container. Even on reefer trucks, you find all kinds of things; we have unloaded trucks that are supposedly filled with nothing but meat, and found car tires and batteries, fifty-fifty. That's a serious violation. It doesn't happen at the plant where the inspections took place; it happens with the shippers. It's not as rare as you might hope. That's where those inspections come in, I think, quite handy.

When registered establishments in Canada receive product from any place, whether it's another domestic source or a foreign source, they're supposed to be looking at it for condition of product: was the product that's listed on the documents the one that was actually loaded? What other things were put in there that might put it at risk?

There is a concern about those inspections disappearing.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Another question I would ask, with relation to the same question—this is more of a provincial-federal model, and I'll talk to you later about mobile abattoirs—is whether your group would support inspection harmonization, provincially and federally.

[Bob Kingston]

We've advocated for that for as long as I've been an employee.

We understand the bias toward large producers, because a lot of the requirements of HACCP programs are very document-intensive and system-intensive. What we're completely behind is looking at other ways of how quality management and HACCP programs can be put in place by small producers, which would still meet their complete intent, and therefore would make them eligible for federal registration.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

I just have a last question for you.

We've talked about austerity measures, and it was alluded to, again by my colleague, Mr. Storseth, about a willingness to see a wage freeze if it would cause an increase in inspectors. Would you see that as a prudent thing to do, or you would support something like that? I ask that as one government employee to another. We're being asked to do the same, so I'm asking you if your group would be willing to do that.

[Bob Kingston]

My group, right now, is fairly cynical about that sort of thing. The first thing they would say, for example, is that if you're willing to stop the tax breaks for oil companies that are setting record profits, they might think about it. If you're willing to stop tax breaks for banks that are making record profits, they might think about it. I mean, there are all kinds of things they think are going on that take money out of Canadians' hands left, right, and centre.

If Minister Flaherty would reconsider what he committed to us, in terms of enhancing the national pension program—

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Kingston, stick to the question, please.

[Bob Kingston]

Well, I'm saying, at this point the question is—

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

To be specific, if we're talking about a finite amount of money for your department and we see that not increasing, would you support hiring more inspectors if we saw a wage freeze? That's what I'm asking.

[Bob Kingston]

My members would roast me alive if I said that, because they believe the entire premise is false. They believe it's an internally manufactured freeze, which was totally unnecessary. For me to talk about that, when they see the government wasting money somewhere else instead of putting it into this, they would roast me.

[Bob Zimmer, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

I have a question for Evan.

You had talked about mobile abattoirs and that sort of thing, and you talked about cleaning up the regulations. One thing we have in my neck of the woods, in Prince George--Peace River, is these mobile abattoirs, but it's been a less than cost-effective method because of some regulation issues and some other issues. What would you propose there?