Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, for the invitation to appear during your hearings on Bill S-11, an important bill for everyone in Canada and those outside Canada who buy Canadian-produced food products.
This bill will provide the regulatory environment for food production and marketing in Canada for at least the next 30 years, and therefore, we need to get it right. It is CARI's view that Bill S-11 sets out the framework needed to modernize food safety in Canada.
What is also needed is a Canadian national food strategy that will help guide the creation of the regulations that will quickly flow from this bill. It's like buying a much-needed new car but not having an agreement on how it will be used or where we would like to go with that. A national food strategy is being worked on by both industry and the CFIA, but this work is still far from completion.
CARI supports Bill S-11 because it will put all imported food on the same footing when it comes to food safety. We also note that Bill S-11 will increase the powers and tools available to CFIA's food inspectors.
Recent incidents have shown that there were gaps in the tools available and in which part of the food industry the regulation could be applied. We understand these weaknesses can now be corrected.
One area of concern CARI would like to raise is found in subclause 24(1). This subclause gives inspectors a lot of powers including, for example, the power to access a company's computer if a non-compliance is suspected. CARI agrees this is a reasonable approach providing the grounds to believe have been documented.
There's a difference in the wording between the English and the French versions of clause 24. The English version states “they have reasonable grounds” while the French appears to reference the inspector. We would suggest this difference be fixed by amending both the English and French versions to read “the CFIA” instead of “they” or “the inspector”.
Much like the Competition Bureau has to document the reason to believe before being granted access to company records, so should the reason to believe non-compliance is taking place be documented before an inspector has access to company computers and all the other actions that can be taken under clause 24.
The change CARI is proposing for the English text is the replacement of “they” with “CFIA” and the insertion of the word “documented” between the words “have” and “reasonable”. The passage would read, “in which the CFIA has documented reasonable grounds”. This would ensure that an individual inspector could not decide on his or her own to exercise the powers set out in clause 24, without first convincing the CFIA officials that the powers are needed and putting on file the documentation setting out the basis for the reasons to believe. CARI believes this change will significantly reduce the concern about this clause among industry stakeholders and harmonize the investigation process with other federal acts.
Finally, to balance the no liability clause in Bill S-11, CARI suggests a contingency fund to be put in place as part of the act and to provide firms with access to funds to compensate firms for mistakes made by inspectors, test results, or other actions that proved to be wrong.
Thank you very much for your time.