Agriculture Committee on Oct. 30th, 2012

[Robert de Valk]

I think that you're overreacting to the process that we're asking to be put in place. If you ask most inspectors, they would agree with us. They would like to have some comfort when they're taking action.

You may think that inspectors will do this, but I'll tell you right now that, as a result of the incident, there has been a lot of hesitation among inspectors to do things because of the consequences that flow from their actions. You're asking an inspector to do some pretty interesting things. Inspectors are human beings as well and they need some comfort that what they're doing isn't going to be just their say-so. It's a two-way street here. We're making it comfortable for both parties for someone to proceed.

Your scenario where you say he documents it and then he has to get permission from the CFIA to proceed, that's not what we have in mind. What we have in mind is to put the documentation in place and ensure that it is in a place where others can see it, so it then becomes a point of reference for future action. The inspector can go ahead based on his reason to believe, but the only thing he has done is, instead of just acting, he's put it in a document.

The reason the documentation word makes some sense is that we've put “CFIA” in the “they”. You're right. The institution that is getting the document, and where the document is placed, is correctly the CFIA.

This issue goes beyond the inspector. It's not just between the inspector and the plant. This is the CFIA. You're right. Right from the beginning he's part of the CFIA. I don't know how you can separate those two. The CFIA has to be comfortable that they're doing this because there's reason to believe. No inspector does reason to believe all by himself. Reason to believe means plants could be shut down. No inspector is going to do that on his own. In the incident such as we had, there were 46 inspectors there. None of them was going to shut down a plant; I can tell you that.

This is something that is worthy of consideration. If we want this to work, we've got to make sure everyone in the system is comfortable.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Atamanenko.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Thank you for being here.

This bill obviously offers improvements to what we had before.

Mr. de Valk, you mentioned improvements at the border. You also mentioned, during the last conversation, that you think we should be improving the method of reporting, or inspectors' access.

We have this piece of legislation. We're listening to you. We want to hear your comments. We want to know if there could be any improvements. If we didn't want this to happen, there would be no need to listen to you folks.

This question is for all of you. What do you think we can add to the current piece of legislation to make it even stronger and to make it more acceptable to Canadian consumers and producers, and to the Canadian public at large?

Maybe we could start with you, Mr. Versteeg.

[Ron Versteeg]

I think the legislation is certainly the starting point, but as I mentioned in my presentation, the devil is in the details. The regulations that come afterward will have a large impact on the success of this piece of legislation.

That process hasn't yet started, but it's an important piece.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

You've obviously thought about this. Is there some aspect of the subsequent regulations that you think should be mentioned or included?

[Ron Versteeg]

I would say that they need to be sufficiently prescriptive to ensure that we achieve our end goal, which is protecting the health and safety of Canadians. At the same time, they need to be not so onerous that they impose unnecessary cost burdens on producers or other people in the supply chain.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Do you have any examples that you've been discussing with your colleagues?

[Ron Versteeg]

None come to mind right off the top of my head. As I mentioned earlier, in our sector in dairy, maybe we have a little less opposition to prescriptive rules. We think they make everybody operate at a higher level, which in the end is good.

Not everybody shares that point of view, but....

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

It's regulations that make sense and that make this work.

[Ron Versteeg]

Yes.

[Alex Atamanenko, NDP, British Columbia Southern Interior, BC]

Mr. de Valk or Madam Bilkhu, do you have any other ideas to share with us that would strengthen the bill?

[Robert de Valk]

One of the objectives of this bill is to encompass all elements of the food industry.

I must confess that we have not screened the bill to the nth degree to be able to answer correctly for ourselves that yes, everything is covered. We know some critical sectors are covered that weren't covered, but that's the objective. If you're going through the bill and you think that transportation really isn't covered as well as you thought it would be, then we need to correct that.

It's clear from the recent incident that to have safe food a lot of things have to go right. To have an incident and a lot of little things go wrong, that's the flip side of that coin. A lot of things have to go right. What do we mean by that? We mean that food safety has to be practised at every opportunity in the food chain. If we find out that by doing something at the farm level we improve food safety, then we would expect this bill to be able to enforce or regulate that activity. If it happens to be in transportation or distribution and we find out that in distribution there's an abuse occurring, with respect to temperature for example, or at retail there's abuse with respect to temperature and we want to correct that, we hope that this bill will give us the legs, so to speak, to address those kinds of situations and ensure that a lot of little things go right all through the chain.

That being said, the only thing we think is missing from the bill that we haven't mentioned is an appeal mechanism. There's been reference made to a tribunal of some kind, but certainly there's nothing in the bill where we can appeal a decision the CFIA has made. Given the additional powers, an appeal mechanism would certainly be wise to put in place. As you encourage people to make decisions, there are times when mistakes are made, and we recognize that. But a mistake in food safety can result in a firm going bankrupt and product being recalled, and millions of dollars wrongly assessed to a particular company. That affects our competitive situation. That's why we mentioned the mechanism, the offset to the liability statement in the bill. An appeal mechanism would make eminent sense in terms of addressing the balance in the bill. It's very much giving powers to a certain group of people. We agree with that as industry, but at the same time, we have to recognize there can be mistakes made. I certainly have knowledge of firms that have gone bankrupt as a result of mistakes made in food safety analysis.

This is not an exact science. It's very much a culture. We all agree we need to work toward that end, but at the same time, we've got to make sure there's some balance.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

With that, I'll thank our witnesses for being here today. I appreciate your time and counsel. Again, thank you.

For the sake of the committee members, I just want to make sure that you understand that by Friday we will need any amendments that you're proposing to the bill. I also want to confirm that we will be doing clause by clause next Tuesday morning in our regularly scheduled meeting and that we will be dealing with the Canadian Grain Commission that evening, Tuesday of next week, from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. The witness list has been provided. I think I've chosen wisely, but if there are additions or if members think we may need extra time, let me know through the clerk.

Mr. Valeriote.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Chair, I understand not this Thursday but next Thursday will be considered a Friday for House purposes. Am I to assume that we're still meeting at 8:45 on Thursday morning, November 8?

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

We have that as a scheduled meeting, but it will be subject to completion of previous business by the end of the November 6.

Are there any other comments?

Seeing none, the meeting is adjourned.