Agriculture Committee on Nov. 19th, 2020

Evidence of meeting #6 for Agriculture and Agri-Food in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was capacity.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Processing Capacity

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Theresa Iuliano Vice-President, Operations, Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Frédéric Seppey Assistant Deputy Minister, Market and Industry Services Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food

Sheryl Groeneweg Director General, Manufacturing and Life Sciences Branch, Department of Industry

Tammy Switucha Executive Director, Food Safety and Consumer Protection Directorate, Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Martin Scanlon Dean, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, University of Manitoba, Deans Council - Agriculture, Food and Veterinary Medicine

Michael Graydon Chief Executive Officer, Food, Health and Consumer Products of Canada

Jean-Sébastien Gascon Director General, Boeuf Québec - Société des parcs d'engraissement du Québec

5:25 p.m.

Dean, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, University of Manitoba, Deans Council - Agriculture, Food and Veterinary Medicine

Dr. Martin Scanlon

I think red tape or regulations are important, as you say, to ensure our food safety. Part of it is this educational component of those innovations like flow cytometry online tools that can be used to automatically detect food safety issues, rather than some of the old technologies that are proven and that our regulations are built around. There has to be this matching between using the regulations effectively as they are at the moment, and also being prospective in what innovations can overturn those regulations and in turn help innovate on the line to slow down the amount of hold up on product, for instance, because you've now got these 30-second response times rather than 18- or 24-hour response times waiting for a regulation to be enforced.

5:25 p.m.

NDP

Alistair MacGregor NDP Cowichan—Malahat—Langford, BC

Thank you.

5:25 p.m.

Liberal

The Chair Liberal Pat Finnigan

That's all the time we have. We have to vacate the room at 6:30 sharp because there's another committee after us.

I want to thank our panel for giving us an insight into our Canadian food processing sector. Thanks for all of your really good information. I want to start by thanking Martin Scanlon, dean, Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, and Christine Theoret, dean,

of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at l'Université de Montréal.

and Mr. Graydon from Food, Health and Consumer Products of Canada.

I would also like to thank Mr. Jean-Sébastien Gascon of the Société des parcs d'engraissement du Québec.

The meeting is adjourned.