Agriculture Committee on Nov. 1st, 2012

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Jeffery, how many Canadians did you say die every year?

[Bill Jeffery]

According to World Health Organization estimates, for countries like Canada about 20% of deaths are due to excess sodium intake or too much saturated and trans fat. It works out to about 48,000 Canadians. We've seen some published estimates. One of the witnesses who appeared at the Senate committee has published estimates of between 300 and 500 people dying from food-borne pathogens, but I haven't seen any Canadian Food Inspection Agency data on that.

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Would Bill S-11 help in any way with salt intake? Would it help protect Canadians in that aspect?

[Bill Jeffery]

I don't think so. We're going to submit a technical brief to the committee with some specific recommendations for modifications. One specific thing we've noticed over the years to our surprise is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency re-characterizes nutrition as a food quality issue, and therefore they assign it lower priority. It seems strange that it's not a health and safety issue in the inspectors' perspective when it plainly is.

You can see that demonstrated. Even with the very low levels of fines and the infrequency of fines, virtually none of them is related to nutrition.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Richards.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you all for being here. It's very clear that you're all very knowledgeable on the matter at hand, and we certainly appreciate your sharing your expertise with the committee today.

I hope I'll have enough time to ask some questions of each of you this morning. I'll start with you, Mr. Jeffery.

You submitted a written brief to the Senate committee on this bill, in which you wrote that you felt that this bill “could improve the CFIA's ability to protect public health, safeguard consumers against fraud, and enhance public confidence”.

Could you elaborate on each of those three specific points and how you feel they would contribute to food safety in Canada?

[Bill Jeffery]

To be clear, sir, the submission I gave to the Senate committee was the same as the one I gave to this committee. It could achieve those three objectives if the nine or ten concerns that I laid out were addressed better.

The truth is because we don't have good data about the number of people who are dying from food-borne pathogens every year, we don't know how this—at some level it seems as if it's a good exercise to merge legislation. It sounds as if it makes things more efficient, but I am concerned about inspectors who are being forced to become jacks of all trades as an example.

I honestly don't know if it's going to lead to better outcomes, and I don't think anybody can know that if we're not monitoring the outcomes.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Okay, I appreciate that.

Mr. Fruitman, I know you had a chance to testify before the Senate committee as well as here this morning. Can you give me some specific examples of how you think that will benefit consumers? I know you stated that you think the bill clearly will strengthen CFIA's ability to track, trace, and recall food.

[Mel Fruitman]

If they follow the procedures, and that's a big if, unfortunately, as far as I'm concerned. By having the capability of knowing the auditing procedures of what went on in the plant, and knowing what went where, where it came from, where it went in the plant, and where it's gone since it left the plant, if they do identify problems, I think that will offer the capability of a mandatory recall taking effect almost as soon as a problem is identified, if the product has left the plant.

Right now, it's a lengthy process to determine where, what, when, how, that sort of thing. The enhanced capability for prosecution in the bill, if they do prosecute, and the requirements for enhanced record keeping within the plant, should make the process work a lot better. It should make it easier to identify problems when they do occur, and find out how to correct them and what needs to be done to ensure that none of the product reaches the hands of Canadian consumers.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

You'd see that as something that would certainly enhance food safety and probably increase consumer confidence as well.

[Mel Fruitman]

Definitely. There's a big if in there though. It has to be done properly.

[Blake Richards, Conservative, Wild Rose, AB]

Fair enough. Of course, as anything, you always want to make sure that it's done properly. I understand.

Specifically talking about the introduction of strong penalties for food tampering, I want to know what your thoughts are on how these might benefit consumers.

[Mel Fruitman]

Again, I'm not aware of any recent cases. Bill might be. I don't know where food tampering has actually taken place. However, if that does occur, the fines are heavy enough and could presumably be implemented, and jail sentences could be implemented much more quickly than through the civil process. That hopefully would deter anybody from doing anything to contaminate food. Again, we always think in terms of the Tylenol mess a number of years ago, when somebody deliberately put cyanide, I think it was, into boxes of Tylenol. Hopefully this would help dissuade any person from doing such a ridiculous thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

I have to stop you there. Time flies.

We'll go to Mr. Valeriote.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, gentlemen, for coming in this morning.

Mr. Jeffery, you've recommended certain amendments. I'm hopeful that later this morning the committee will consider an extension by at least a couple of meetings to consider the amendments you've proposed and that others before you have proposed, including the Retail Council of Canada and the Canadian Association of Importers and Exporters. I'm hopeful that will happen. Otherwise, it's virtually impossible to look at this bill and change it now. I don't want to sacrifice good legislation for speed, in this instance.

Mr. Warriner, I want to ask you a couple of questions.

You heard Mr. Fruitman speak of the dual responsibility that has led to schizophrenia. I concur with you. The minister has a very difficult position. He is responsible for making sure that trade continues and that food is safe. There's a conflict there. In light of that, and given that conflict, we have proposed a third party, independent, comprehensive audit of the CFIA now and every five years from now. That arises from the Weatherill report, which suggested that at that time, following the listeriosis crisis, they did not have an opportunity to understand the complexity of the human resources and other resources of the CFIA. It was just so broad. While a review was undertaken later, it was not an independent audit, which Carole Swan, the former president of the CFIA, said are two different things, essentially.

Given the dual responsibility, don't you think at the very least that rather than they themselves doing the examination, which clause 68 would now require every five years, somebody from the outside should be coming in? They would take a good look at the human resources and all the resources to make sure that they know what they're doing and know that they have the resources to support it.

I suggested to the group of witnesses who appeared before us on Tuesday that I had a concern that they were jacks of all trades and masters of none. I was assured by one of the witnesses that they could bring their inspection skills under one act to the next act. That may be true.

I'd like you to comment on both the independent audit and the jack of all trades and master of none issue.

[Dr. Keith Warriner]

It's a very good question. The trouble is that the CFIA have a sort of identity crisis. On one hand we expect the food industry to take full responsibility, with the CFIA just as overseers, but on the other hand, people suggest that the CFIA should be very hands on, doing front line inspection. Anybody coming in from outside probably wouldn't appreciate, as you said, the schizophrenic sort of way they have. The reality is that the roles of the CFIA are ill-defined.

This was brought up by the XL Foods affair. There were inspectors in the plants saying that they have a strict regime of duties to perform who seemed to be oblivious to the other things going on around them, whereas consumers may expect the CFIA to be more involved.

I think an internal audit would be much more successful than an external one, for the simple reason that the CFIA has to understand what its real role is. This is one of the benefits of the act, that it clearly defines that.

In terms of the second question about being a jack of all trades, I always say that people who are very confident about being able to do something might have some deficiencies in knowing the full scope of the problem.

This really comes down to what we expect of the inspectors and if we expect the inspectors to be very hands on and to be able to identify many different hazards. We could use an example of veterinarians trying to inspect animals coming in diseased. Would we expect them to look at a lettuce to see whether there is a potential pest that could devastate our agriculture?

Certainly being a jack of all trades is an issue. If we go down that route, whereby we have inspectors inspecting a diverse range of commodities, then our sense is that the CFIA will be there just to monitor paperwork and will have nothing to do with the front line. That's my opinion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Again, I have to stop you there. I'm sorry.

Mr. Lobb, you have the final comments.

[Ben Lobb, Huron—Bruce, CPC]

Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the guests who are here today.

My first question has to do with Mr. Fruitman's comments. You commented about breaking up the CFIA—I think that's what you said—or splitting it off. Where does that idea come from?

[Mel Fruitman]

It's a long-standing concern of ours about the duality of the CFIA, that they are both guardians and promoters. At one time we had a department of consumer affairs that consolidated all the legislation of the consumer protection type and oversaw it.

[Ben Lobb]

It's realistic and logical to think, though, that an organization as large as the CFIA, which encompasses thousands of employees, would have the ability to do both jobs. We're talking of thousands of employees, so it's not very reasonable to suppose that this couldn't be done.

[Mel Fruitman]

Do you mean in its current form?

[Ben Lobb]

Yes, I mean in its current form.

[Mel Fruitman]

Our impression is that it's not being well done in its current form because of this duality. It sets up a culture in which it's difficult for employees to determine how to balance the duality: do they lean this way, or do they lean that way? Quite often there are trade-offs that have to be made.

[Ben Lobb]

To be honest, though, if you're looking strictly at the inspection functions at a processing plant, the entire inspection function would be based on science, working with manufacturers of the equipment throughout the entire chain to make logical decisions so that the inspectors who work in plant X are able to do the job that's required to provide food safety. The people who are doing the inspections aren't the same people who are working on trade missions with the minister.

Do you see where I'm coming from on this?

[Mel Fruitman]

I see where you're coming from, but I think you have to take a step back and look at the way the agency operates, and look at the higher levels of the agency as well, and indeed at the way the various directors of the agency have responded to the XL Foods mess. It is our feeling that they did not respond appropriately. They became very defensive and they did not take the types of actions that needed to be taken as soon as they needed to be taken.

If the senior levels are confused as to what the prime focus of their job is, that affects how the people lower down do their jobs.