Agriculture Committee on June 6th, 2013

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Da Pont.

With respect, Mr. Kingston says otherwise: that not everyone is trained in CVS.

Mr. Ritz, I have to ask you this. In recommendation number 9, it says:

All major stakeholders (both government and industry) should work with academic sectors to encourage continued research on pre-harvest interventions that may reduce the prevalence of E. coli.…

That means we need researchers. Just two weeks ago, you cut 675 people—scientists, biologists, researchers—from the very investigation of those pre-harvest intervention studies.

How are we to be satisfied by you that this in fact will be undertaken?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Valeriote, first and foremost, your numbers are absolutely wrong. You're ridiculously high with your numbers. The Parliamentary Budget Officer just brought out the actual numbers this morning. We concur.

When you come to scientists and biologists from the Agriculture Canada side, it's some 38 people, most of them through attrition.

There is no gap. There is no lack. When you look at the plans and priorities documents of both Agriculture Canada and CFIA, you will see a bolstering of food safety, no cuts at all.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Mr. Ritz, last Thursday a scientist appeared before our committee. She's a Canada Research Chair. She said your cuts to scientists and researchers have put our scientific programs in jeopardy. That's “in jeopardy”, sir, and with respect, Canadians have no faith right now, in you or the CFIA, that any of these things will be done that you have undertaken to do.

If you look at number 4—

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Valeriote, I have to interrupt.

The bells are ringing. I mentioned at the start of the meeting that we need unanimous consent to keep us here for another 15 minutes. We have the minister here.

I'm asking that if it's agreeable, we'll continue for 15 more minutes—

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Am I part of the “unanimous?”

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

You are. We'll let the record show that, absolutely.

Mr. Valeriote, please go ahead.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Recommendation number 4 speaks of an assessment for the effectiveness of the agency's activities related to its meat program; in our opinion, sir, that directly relates to a third-party comprehensive audit that would have looked at the meat system and prevented the very things that happened at XL Foods.

Frankly, a lot of these recommendations aren't referable only to XL Foods; they are referable to the entire system.

Are we waiting for another crisis? Are we waiting for another E. coli outbreak or another listeria outbreak before you do a full third-party audit, so that we know we have the resources that Mr. Da Pont needs to effectively deploy the legislation?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Valeriote, I hope you have a change of heart, and when we bring forward moneys and add personnel, you will actually vote for it for a change. That would be very helpful.

In relation to point number 4—this is under the act, when the agency was incorporated in 1997:

(4) The Minister of Health is responsible for establishing policies and standards relating to the safety and nutritional quality of food sold in Canada and assessing the effectiveness of the Agency’s activities

Some of those assessments have been ongoing. You would have to ask the Minister of Health when and if she or he plans to do more—

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

And it has yet to be done. All you tell us in your handout today is that they'll do it.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

We're not stopping the assessment, Mr. Valeriote.

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

I propose too, sir, that you have a responsibility to make sure all of this is done. Mr. Lemieux said yesterday that all of these things will be done, so don't pass the buck to the Minister of Health right now. It's your responsibility to take care of Canada's food safety.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

I will personally write her a letter today inviting her to do an assessment—

[Frank Valeriote, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

When will you come back to tell us what you've done?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

That would be her timeframe, not mine.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Excuse me, gentlemen. I ask that all comments be directed through the chair.

Your time is up. I'll move to Mr. Payne.

Mr. Ritz, please go ahead.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

Mr. Chair, on a point of clarification, there are 10 effectiveness assessments done, posted on the Health Canada website, so maybe the member could start with those.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Thank you.

Mr. Payne, go ahead.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Minister and officials, for coming.

My question, through you, Chair, is for the minister.

Minister, of course you realize that the XL beef plant is in my riding. I know that you tabled the independent review food recall in the House yesterday. Your comments were that the government accepts all the recommendations, and we know that food safety is our top priority.

However, I understand also that even before we got the report, CFIA was already on its way to improving some of the food safety in areas where the review recommends improvements. That sort of demonstrates that CFIA is flexible and is prepared to consistently evolve and improve.

Minister, could you inform the committee of the steps that CFIA has already taken to improve food safety as a result of the XL beef recall?

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

I could outline those for you, but I think it would be much more effective if the president did it. He's the one who runs the day-to-day operations of CFIA.

[George Da Pont]

We've done a number of things. In mid May we issued a new E. coli policy that included a number of improvements that strengthen the requirements of plants and strengthen the requirements to inform us when they have high-event days. We have set new limits of 5% as the bar for high-event days. We've increased requirements for testing both by the plants and by CFIA.

In addition to that, one other really important thing we've done is to write to all inspectors, and to reinforce that constantly through messages, telling them that we do expect them to be rigorous in performing their duties, and telling them that senior management will support them if they're encountering issues and feeling that they're being blocked.

We are working very much on both strengthening the specific concerns about E. coli and dealing with some of the issues raised in the report about strengthening the food safety culture.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

Thank you.

Minister, we know that one of your very significant achievements as the agriculture minister over the past number of years has been to bring us successful negotiations in signing Canada's five-year agreement with the provinces and territories on Growing Forward 2, and certainly you crafted that to modernize Canada's agricultural industry and to put farmers first. I think that's a really important point. Of course, over $200 million has been invested in Growing Forward 2.

I'm wondering if you could update the committee on Growing Forward 2 and on what this money will be used for.

[Gerry Ritz, Conservative, Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK]

There are a number of envelopes of money involved in Growing Forward 2. There is some $3 billion to further competitiveness, innovation, and marketing around the world. There is also money for some domestic work that we can now do, which we've never been able to do before when it comes to marketing. We look forward to working with industry on their priorities going forward. We'll continue to fund science and research through the very effective clusters that have been put together by industry. We have reconfigured science and research at Agriculture Canada to be results-based, and we are working with industry towards the results they're looking to attain over the short, medium, and long term, and then putting together a package, sometimes including Agriculture Canada scientists, sometimes not, depending on the expertise required to make sure we deliver the result industry is looking for.

We can continue to build on competitiveness and on driving efficiencies, with new varieties of crops that have a lighter environmental footprint and that require fewer inputs. The major concern for farmers out there today is the cost of inputs, which they don't control by any stretch of the imagination. Transportation has been addressed by this government through the fair rail freight review. I look forward to that being implemented in the near future. Of course, there is the issue of being free to market their own product in western Canada.

We've seen an outstanding year. You know, 2011 was good, but 2012 was even better, and we look forward to exceptionally good numbers going into 2013.

Ninety-eight per cent of farms in Canada are still family owned. There's all this buzz out there that somehow the big corporations are taking over. It's not true. There are incorporated family farms, but 98% are still family run.

[LaVar Payne, Conservative, Medicine Hat, AB]

That's fine.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Merv Tweed]

Mr. Allen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I can't help but find my way back to 2009. I mean, as one New York manager said, it's déjà vu all over again. Clearly the Weatherill report recommendation 7 talks about figuring out how many resources you need. That was the audit that we still think is in contention. So I'll take your word that you did it, at least on face value.

Will you now admit that now you have an IVT team in place—in other words, people who will now check the folks who were supposed to have checked it in the first place—and that you didn't have enough folks? So you either didn't do the audit right, or the audit told you something wrong and maybe you ought to do the audit again. That's a pretty simple question.

You said you did the audit and that gave you the numbers. Now you're telling us you need to have other folks look over the shoulder of the folks who you thought could do the job. Did the audit give you the wrong number, or did you not do the audit properly?