Agriculture Committee on June 15th, 2017

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Mr. Chairman, this is one of those diseases that are also endemic to Europe, Asia, and the United States. When we initially got this disease in 2014, almost 95% of our breeder pigs and semen component were actually halted. We have regained all the markets after demonstrating that our biosecurity standards are very high and the industry is very dedicated and committed to this, as well as after a lot of negotiations on this. We have been able to maintain those markets based on that. Since it is not a food safety concern or a human health concern, it does not actually qualify for that at this point, where the trade would be affected.

[Lloyd Longfield, Liberal, Guelph, ON]

Finally, do you feel that we are on top of this situation? What stage of managing the crisis are we at?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Mr. Chairman, in terms of the way it has gone into the south of the country and into the United States, this disease is endemic. The best way, in my professional opinion only, is to manage it and try to slowly eradicate it, but it will need a lot of effort in terms of folks working together, maintaining biosecurity, and not getting to the point where there is any breach or any other transmissible measure that can affect the pork population.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Kochhar and Mr. Longfield.

Now we go to Madame Brosseau, for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Chair.

I would like to thank the witnesses for their insight and expertise on this important issue. I am happy that, as a committee, we are looking at this promptly, before we break for summer.

I was just wondering if you could clarify this, Mr. Kochhar. PED is not reportable immediately, and it is not a notifiable disease in Canada under CFIA. Is that because it is not a disease that affects human health?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Whether diseases are reportable or not depends on multiple factors. These include whether it causes a lot of economic losses, or whether it is zoonotic, or a disease that could create a lot of impact on the general survivability of the industry and Canadians.

Then there is a list of reportable diseases dictated by the World Organisation for Animal Health, OIE, which binds us. Canada, being one of the 181 members, is basically obligated to report and also to take actions.

However, in terms of the reportable diseases specific to the provinces, the provinces may actually use it for statistical purposes or for management purposes. Federally reportable diseases might be different from the provincially reportable diseases.

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

Under the OIE, PED is not a reportable—

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

PED is not reportable.

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

We know that in May 2016, the CFIA halted the emergency truck-washing protocol, and we know that this protocol was in place to force American swine transport trucks to be disinfected in Canada.

This protocol was removed. We've talked a little about the differences between our process for washing trucks in Canada versus what they do in the States.

How does it work to have a new protocol put in place? I think we're at the point where it might be important to go ahead and implement this protocol rapidly. What is the process? Does the minister have to direct the protocol?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Mr. Chairman, as was mentioned earlier by the minister, he has actually instructed the officials at the CFIA to work closely with the Manitoba government and the industry to start that conversation to move forward on certain aspects of the program, which would allow a similar kind of measure to what was in place earlier.

Barbara, would you like to add something on that?

[Barbara Jordan]

I would just like to make a comment on the protocol when it was in place. The emergency protocol that was put in place was the result of a specific issue around a couple of specific entry points for transporters. The question at hand was the use of recycled water. My colleague already referred to that.

Among the concerns that were raised, one was the real concern whether our regulations in place at the border were in fact having an unanticipated outcome of perhaps even spreading the virus. By having a scientist look into that, we were able to conclude that that was not the case. So we are in a situation now where we have regulations in place that are really trying to manage the disease at the earliest point in the chain.

Can we make a change quickly? Yes. I think we want to identify and understand the issues at hand and make a science-based decision about what changes need to be made.

I don't want to leave the group with the impression that we're reverting to a protocol that was there before for a different reason. I just wanted to be clear on that.

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

Mr. Dickson, I am wondering if I could get your comments on that, and some kinds of recommendations. It's important that we're having this meeting, but I'm hoping that at the end we can make recommendations to the minister and government on how to maybe improve the situation and act.

[Andrew Dickson]

I was directly involved in setting up this trusted trucker pilot project. We're not arguing the science of whether the water were heated to 60°C and disinfectants were used and so on. The problem is this. The reality in the United States is that when a trucker arrives at a wash station, he hasn't a clue whether it's 60°C or 20°C, and whether he's using the right amount of disinfectant. Your truck is beside other trailers, and you have no idea what standard they've ordered.

I know anecdotally from talking to people in Des Moines, Iowa, that trucks roll in, do a firehose thing, blast the manure all over the place, and drive right out. At the same station we're taking trailers to supposedly get 60°C water and so on.

There's nobody in charge of this thing. It's left up to the washing industry in the United States to do this. This is not appropriate, guys. We need to do a better job at this. The only way of doing so is to have inspectors at wash stations in Canada, where we control the process and do this properly. That is the scientific approach.

We had CFIA and their officials come out last summer to visit our stations and so on to see what was going on. Our council is more than prepared to help manage this thing. We can put regulations in place governing these wash stations. But what we're saying is that it should not just be for Manitoba. We would like to see this as an option available to other provinces as well. Not just in Manitoba, but Ontario could do it if they wanted, or Quebec, or Saskatchewan, or Alberta.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Mr. Dickson.

Thank you, Madame Brosseau.

Monsieur Drouin, you have six minutes.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I, too, would like to thank Mr. Maguire and Mr. Anderson for bringing this to our committee. I think it's important.

Mr. Dickson, our committee has just finished studying non-tariff trade barriers, and we're talking about harmonizing some of our regulations. As we go into NAFTA negotiations, would you be somewhat afraid that the United States would replicate something over in the States for us, just in terms of if you want an extra washing station.... I assume that you did this in 2014 and that it proved to be a system that worked.

[Andrew Dickson]

What we did was the trailers, and this only applies to trailers that go to farms in the United States. Trailers that go to slaughtering plants only have to be scraped. They don't have to be cleaned and disinfected, but it has to be a good scraping job. Most commercial operations wash them when they come back to Manitoba anyway. For the ones that go to the farms, we decided that the U.S. was not going to do any regulation. We've talked to the state veterinarians. They're not going to do anything about it, and that's just their approach on things. They have a different way of managing disease in the United States than we do.

Our issue is that we don't want these diseases coming into our herds, because it hurts our productivity per sow, which is our competitive advantage over the United States. Iowa has the lowest cost production system in the world, with 45 million pigs—more than Canada's total production—in one state alone. We send baby pigs there because they import 30 million into that one state alone. We are directly integrated in that, so we have to have some sort of control over what comes back across the border.

Ontario does the same thing. It ships finished pigs into the United States for slaughter, and it also sends baby pigs into the United States.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I assume that in the United States with PED they just assume the loss when that happens. If you're saying it's a productivity issue, they just accept the loss.

[Andrew Dickson]

Well, things are changing. The big operations in the United States realize that you can control this—they see what Manitoba and Canada have done—so they're starting to build their own wash stations and their own systems. However, we're talking about operations that have 220,000 sows. Smithfield has one-point-something million sows, more than Canada's total production. I haven't seen this for sure, but apparently Smithfield is thinking about trying to get this disease out of its herd. To try to clean this thing up on its farms, it will have its own wash stations, trucks, and veterinarians. It will minimize movements and so on, contain the disease, eradicate it, and prevent it from coming back to the Smithfield operations.

The U.S. is starting to move, slowly but surely, in the direction we're trying to go.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Okay.

Ms. Jordan, just at the end of Mr. Maguire's questioning you were saying that you don't want to replace.... You seemed to be hinting that if we provide the extra washing stations in Canada, there are already regulations in place, but you were going to finish your sentence....

[Barbara Jordan]

What I was trying to say was that we have requirements that transporters be presented clean at the border. We are committed to sitting down and having discussions with the province of Manitoba and with the industry about how we can ensure that what we have in place now is as efficient and effective as it can be in terms of managing risk. We had, a couple of years ago, a scenario that was raised with us where there were questions raised. We did make some changes in a very rapid manner to investigate that and to confirm the validity of the requirement to present clean at the border. When we were able to do that, we removed the temporary scenario. If there are other issues, we are absolutely happy to talk about them and to engage on them. We'll work together, but what we want to do as we work together is make sure we have the protections in place.

When we're talking about the protections for animal health, we're talking about PED. However, we're also talking about other very serious diseases that are present in the United States and in other countries, such as Mexico. We want to ensure we are very effectively managing these diseases. As folks around the table know, these diseases can be very costly if they get into Canada. PED is in Canada, but there are serious diseases that are in the U.S. and Mexico that aren't here yet, and we want to really make sure...before we effect changes—

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

How do we verify at the border that the trailers are actually clean? Mr. Dickson is saying that the practices in the United States are not the same as ours. Effectively, yes, they are required to show up clean, but are they actually clean? How do we inspect that?

[Dr. Harpreet Kochhar]

Under the authority of Health of Animals Act and the regulations, the Canadian border services officers are the first line who are actually trained. They have been given all the tools to visually inspect those trailers that are coming in.

They have to be visually clean. The definition of visually clean also means that there is no dung, dirt, or any organic material, either hanging out or dripping. Also, during the winter months, for example, scraping it clearly clean and making sure that there has been disinfection or washing done would be very visible. They are, in a way, our designated inspection staff at the border and they make sure that these trucks are coming back clean.

Should there be any situation where the trucks are not clean or trailers are not disinfected according to their judgment, they can either refer to CFIA, and CFIA will show up and actually have that evaluation, or they can turn the trailer back so it can get cleaned before returning.

[The Chair, Liberal, Pat Finnigan]

Thank you, Dr. Kochhar.

We now have Ms. Lockhart for six minutes.

[Alaina Lockhart, Liberal, Fundy Royal, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair; and thank you to each of you for being here today.

Mr. Dickson, you've heard some details now on where CFIA is looking to go. What's your opinion? Are these the proper steps to be taking at this point? Are there any other recommendations that you would make?

[Andrew Dickson]

We've had numerous discussions with CFIA, and we will continue to have numerous discussions with CFIA until we can come up with some way of trying to resolve this matter.

I should point out that the trailers visibly look clean. That doesn't mean they've done a swab and checked for disease, and so on. They're not required to do that. In Manitoba, all the people I deal with—and they're mostly in industry—rewash the trailers. We can't trust them.

Doctors, at one point, in the Victorian age, never washed their hands. Do you know what I mean? They did operations after dealing with cadavers. Well, the hands looked clean but it wasn't a very good idea.

It's the same problem with the trailer. We actually bring them to wash stations and have them properly washed with heated water, clean water, and properly disinfected by staff who've been trained in how to clean these things.

I'm sure we can work out something with CFIA. There are challenges with the act itself. The regulations have challenges with them. We fully recognize that. However, I'm sure we can work something out.