Agriculture Committee on May 3rd, 2023

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, John Barlow]

I call the meeting to order. We'll get started. I know that Kody will be here.

There he is.

I just want to say that it's really good to hang out with everybody today and keep this spot warm.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Sorry, colleagues. It was just a slight personal matter. I'm sorry for the delay.

Welcome to meeting number 61 of the Standing Committee on Agriculture and Agri-Food.

I will start with a few reminders.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. The proceedings will be made available via the House of Commons website. Just so you are aware, the webcast will always show the person speaking, rather than the entirety of the committee, and taking screenshots or taking photos of your screen is not permitted.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Monday, April 17, the committee is commencing its study of animal biosecurity preparedness.

I would like to welcome our witnesses for our first one-hour panel.

From the Canada Border Services Agency, we have Shawn Hoag, director general, commercial program.

From the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, we have Dr. Mary Jane Ireland, executive director of the animal health directorate and chief veterinary officer for Canada, and Philippe Morel, vice-president for operations.

Welcome to you both.

We also welcome back someone who is no stranger to this committee: Mr. Tom Rosser, assistant deputy minister, market and industry services branch.

We had you here for almost two hours the other day, Mr. Rosser. You did great. Welcome back to the committee.

We will get started with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for opening remarks.

It's over to you, Ms. Ireland. You have up to five minutes.

[Dr. Mary Jane Ireland, Executive Director, Animal Health Directorate, Chief Veterinary Officer for Canada, Canadian Food Inspection Agency]

Thank you very much.

Good day, Mr. Chair. My name is Dr. Mary Jane Ireland. I am Canada's chief veterinary officer and executive director of animal health at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. With me today is Mr. Philippe Morel, vice-president of operations.

We appreciate this opportunity to speak to the committee on biosecurity preparedness and the safeguards we have in place in case of threats to Canadian agriculture.

The CFIA is a science-based regulatory agency. Its broad mandate encompasses animal health, plant health, food safety and international market access.

Around the world, threats related to diseases, pests and the environment are constantly changing. The Government of Canada takes the issue of animal welfare and disease prevention very seriously. This responsibility is shared with the federal government, provincial and territorial governments, producers, transporters, industry organizations and others.

Canada has always relied on stringent import measures to safeguard our borders. Science-based import controls at international borders have successfully prevented the introduction of foreign animal diseases such as foot-and-mouth disease and African swine fever for many years.

In the event that a foreign animal disease presents itself in Canada, the CFIA has a robust animal health program in place to manage these events, to promote and regulate animal welfare, to support biosecurity standards and to facilitate trade and market access for Canadian animals and products.

As the chief veterinary officer for Canada, I co-chair the Council of Chief Veterinary Officers, which is a forum for federal, provincial and territorial CVOs to ensure a strong and safe animal health and agri-food system across Canada. By working together, we provide strategic direction for animal health and welfare using a “one health” and evidence-based approach to assessment, collaboration and consensus-building.

The CFIA works closely with veterinary colleges to support training of the next generation of veterinarians, and also has partnerships with universities and veterinary colleges to support research for animal health.

What is biosecurity? Biosecurity can be defined as measures, actions and attitudes needed to prevent the introduction and spread of disease. Biosecurity is a complex issue that continues to evolve.

To promote and facilitate the industry implementation of biosecurity measures on-farm, the CFIA has developed voluntary national biosecurity standards and guidance in collaboration with provinces, producer organizations, territorial governments and academia. These standards are in place for livestock and poultry industries, sheep and goat producers, and such other industries as apiaries, deer and elk, horses and mink farms. This standardization allows for producer organizations as well as provinces and territories to develop complementary biosecurity programs.

The CFIA also works with other government departments, such as Canada Border Services Agency and Environment and Climate Change Canada, to support biosecurity at our borders and to prevent diseases and pests from entering into Canada.

When a federally reportable animal disease is found in Canada, CFIA takes the lead in the response. As this committee is aware, the CFIA is actively addressing the highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak that began spreading in Canada in 2021. The disease is significantly impacting poultry and other birds, not only in Canada but around the globe. As of April 24, there have been 319 premises with confirmed avian influenza in nine provinces, and about 7.6 million birds have been affected. Of those 319 premises, 54 continue to have active outbreaks in seven provinces.

When a disease like avian influenza is detected, surveillance and strong biosecurity measures along with rapid and effective action are important to limit the spread of disease and minimize the impact to producers in Canada.

The agency is also working to protect animal health by preventing the introduction of animal diseases. This includes preparing for African swine fever, ASF, which has been significantly impacting the pork industry globally but so far has not been detected in North America.

The government is working with provinces and industry to take every necessary precaution to prevent the introduction of ASF and to ensure that we are ready should an outbreak occur. The government is also currently working on planning, preparing and testing responses with industry and stakeholders, including provincial governments.

An investment of $23.4 million is supporting the pork industry's prevention and mitigation efforts, and another $19.8 million is being invested in prevention, emergency response planning, enhancing laboratory capacity, establishing zoning arrangements and contributing to international efforts to develop an ASF vaccine.

We are also putting measures in place to prevent foot-and-mouth disease, FMD, from entering Canada. The CFIA is also establishing a Canadian foot-and-mouth disease vaccine bank, as announced this year, with $57.5 million over five years and $5.6 million ongoing to both establish the vaccine bank and also update FMD response plans. This funding will secure sufficient doses of vaccine to protect Canada's livestock industry against large and uncontrolled outbreaks of FMD. This would help mitigate prolonged market disruptions in trade should an outbreak occur.

The CFIA has an emergency preparedness plan for FMD and other key diseases, including Avian influenza and Newcastle disease—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Ms. Ireland, I don't mean to interrupt but I have to, because we are well past the five minutes. If you would just like to wrap up quickly, I would appreciate that, and we'll get to questions momentarily.

[Dr. Mary Jane Ireland]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I apologize.

In conclusion, effective biosecurity is crucial to minimize the negative impacts that animal diseases and plant pests can have on Canada's plant and animal resources, which in turn impact all Canadians and the economy.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you very much.

We'll now turn to Mr. Rosser for up to five minutes, please.

[Tom Rosser, Assistant Deputy Minister, Market and Industry Services Branch, Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food]

Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable members. I appreciate the opportunity to be back again to talk to you about biosecurity preparedness, which is an extremely important component of animal health and the agriculture sector more broadly. Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada supports the sector from the farmer to the consumer and from the farm to global markets.

Biosecurity is essential through all phases of producing, processing, and marketing farm food and agri-food-based products.

As you know, agriculture is a shared jurisdiction in Canada, and the department works closely with provincial and territorial governments to develop policies, programs and services that encompass biosecurity.

Canada's agriculture sector is very export-dependent, and continued access to international markets is critical, with nearly 70% of hog and pork products being exported and about 50% of cattle and beef products. In such an economically significant sector that feeds Canadians and consumers across the world and provides one in nine Canadian jobs, biosecurity and emergency disease preparedness are critical.

AAFC recognizes the significant impact that a large-scale animal disease outbreak would have on the sector and the need for governments and industry to work together to try to prevent them and prepare for those risks. Back in 2016, under AAFC leadership, federal, provincial and territorial governments and industry created the livestock market interruption strategy to enhance government and industry preparedness to deal with the impacts of a market interruption caused by a foreign animal disease. This strategy paved the way for future collaborative efforts related to animal health, deepening our understanding of government and industry roles and responsibilities.

The department provides leadership and plays a crucial convenor role to bring together industry and government to improve the livestock industry's position in case of a potential foreign animal disease incursion, working on issues such as African swine fever and collaborating via Animal Health Canada as a vehicle to do so.

The creation of the African swine fever executive management board, the ASF EMB, under Animal Health Canada has put Canada in a position of unprecedented preparedness for a potential foreign animal disease incident.

The executive management board allows government departments and agencies, including Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and industry to put into place the plans and supports needed to mitigate the impacts of African swine fever based on four pillars including biosecurity, preparedness planning, business continuity, and coordinated risk communications.

The tabletop exercise that will bring together several federal, provincial and territorial deputy ministers and industry leaders later this week to test current surplus hog depopulation and disposal plans is a good example to illustrate ongoing collaboration in preparedness planning efforts.

Also critical to flag is that the work on African swine fever, along with lessons learned from the recent highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak, will benefit more than just the hog sector, as it can be used to inform prevention and preparedness efforts for other diseases of concern such as foot-and-mouth disease.

Recognizing that the committee's motion for this study included “other potential threats to food security”, I would like to remind the committee that plant biosecurity issues can also arise. I am certain that members here today will remember that it was a fungus in PEI soil that caused all the challenges around potato wart in recent years. Borders were closed to prevent movement of this plant disease.

The Canadian Plant Health Council is a collaboration between Canadian governments, industry, academia and other partners to address priorities for the plant health sector, working together on preventive approaches and activities to protect forests, agriculture and other plants from pests, diseases and other risks. The council fulfills a multi-partner commitment to collaboratively implement the plant and animal health strategy for Canada.

In closing, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada has demonstrated and will continue to demonstrate a strong commitment to advancing animal health and welfare, through a “one health” perspective.

The government continues to work and employ resources that contribute to animal biosecurity preparedness. These initiatives contribute to the sector's sustainability, growth and competitiveness, while enhancing resiliency and public trust.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you, Mr. Rosser.

I now give the floor to Mr. Hoag.

[Shawn Hoag, Director General, Commercial Program, Canada Border Services Agency]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon, honourable members of the committee.

We appreciate the opportunity to speak to the roles and responsibilities of the Canada Border Services Agency in identifying and combatting biosecurity threats to agriculture at our borders.

In managing the border, the CBSA works closely with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to ensure that goods that may pose a biosecurity threat to Canada are interdicted at the earliest opportunity. The importation of food, plants and animals, and related products is regarded by the CBSA as high risk, given the potential negative impacts to the environment, the economy and the health of Canadians should tainted food, foreign animal or plant diseases or invasive species enter the country.

The CFIA, Environment and Climate Change Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans establish the requirements for importing and exporting food, plants, animals and products. The CBSA in turn is responsible for ensuring the goods being imported to or exported from Canada are compliant with our partner government agency program legislation and regulations. The CBSA's role is to enforce these policies as they apply at Canada's border ports of entry.

The agency fulfills this role by employing a layered and risk-based approach to biosecurity, including assessing pre-arrival data for goods, receiving near-real-time recommendations from the CFIA, issuing targets and lookouts, conducting examinations and inspections and, where required, detaining and seizing goods, issuing penalties and ensuring that international waste is declared and disposed of using approved methods.

The CBSA screens travellers for inadmissible food, plant and animal products and ensures that commercial shipments are also reviewed or referred.

Based upon CFIA expert advice, the CBSA regularly updates our direction to our frontline officers to manage the handling, interdiction and release of at-risk goods. More specifically, the CBSA inspects food, plant and animal goods carried by travellers; certain low-risk commercial goods; wood packaging materials; goods potentially contaminated with soil; live animals that are low-risk; and the control, monitoring and disposal of international waste.

To increase compliance, the CBSA enforces the CFIA's agriculture and agri-food administrative monetary penalty system for contraventions to the legislation. Under this system, border officers may issue monetary penalties to travellers who fail to declare goods that could cause harm to biosecurity.

Finally, as part of budget 2019, the CBSA received up to $31 million over five years to acquire, train and work closely with the CFIA to deploy 24 new food, plant and animal detector dog teams at our high-risk ports of entry. Detector dog teams continue to be one of the CBSA's best tools for detecting food, plant and animal items.

The CBSA is also employing further funding to enhance prevention activities related to African swine fever.

This concludes my opening remarks, and we'll be happy to take any questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Thank you very much, Mr. Hoag.

We'll now turn to Mr. Barlow for six minutes.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I have a few questions. I'm going to try to go through them as quickly as possible. Maybe Ms. Ireland or Mr. Rosser could answer this first one.

You did mention the $57.5 million that was in the budget for the foot-and-mouth vaccine bank. The line that concerns me in that announcement is that it could appear that provincial and territorial partnership is a requisite to make sure that the vaccine bank goes ahead.

Can you confirm that the vaccine bank will go ahead regardless of provincial or territorial shared partnerships or shared funding?

[Tom Rosser]

Mr. Chair, thanks for the question.

We were very pleased to see the funding in the budget for the foot-and-mouth vaccine bank. It's been an industry priority for some time. There is substantial funding there.

I think we may have referenced in our opening testimony existing structures in place with industry and provinces—

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

I only have a certain amount of time, Mr. Rosser. I'm just asking if it will it go ahead regardless of whether funding is shared with provinces and territories, yes or no?

[Tom Rosser]

We're very confident and determined that it will happen.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you. That's good to hear.

Now, Ms. Ireland, you mentioned an emergency preparedness plan that CFIA has for animal disease outbreaks. With the recent outbreak of avian flu, we certainly heard some great frustration from farmers towards CFIA regarding a lack of CO2. You're supposed to be on-farm within 48 hours when the avian flu is detected. We were hearing it was up to 10 days in some cases.

Do you have the resources necessary to handle these outbreaks when they happen? Was there something that was unexpected with the most recent flu outbreak? We had this in 2004. We had this in 2014. I really hope we not only have an emergency preparedness plan in place, but also the resources to make sure that when that happens, you can get into action and resolve the issue as quickly as possible.

[Philippe Morel, Vice-President, Operations, Canadian Food Inspection Agency]

Thank you for the question.

Yes, we have the resources we need. Certainly, during particular weeks in the last outbreak in the fall on the west coast, we had up to 10% of the agency deployed to respond to avian influenza.

You referred to the gas supply. We have a system whereby we prioritize which establishments need to be depopulated, based on risk. We were close to having not enough gas, but we were able to depopulate.

There was some waiting time, as you said. Some farms were depopulated in a longer period—up to 10 days—but those farms were also identified as the lowest risk, where the death rate was very, very low.

Of course, when we arrive on site and we see that 30% or 40% of the birds are dead, it's at the top of the list. When we see only some signs of distress in some birds, we can wait, because the birds are not suffering, and then it could take several more days.

It's not ideal to be at 10 days. We try to respond faster than that. It was only in two or three situations over the last year that it happened. It was not made at the expense of birds suffering, and we were there to give support.

The other thing I want to mention is that collaboration with industry and with the province was key there. Having the industry help us get gas supply was essential, particularly in B.C., where we had a lot of depopulations happening at the same time. Having the workforce from industry help us depopulate was also key.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Morel.

I would think that another option would be to look at industry as a partner when it comes to euthanizing. I know you're saying that 10 days is unacceptable, but for those farmers, our stakeholders, that is a massive mental health issue for them. They know how to handle these things, so I would think that this would also be an opportunity that the CFIA should look at—allowing, or working to build a framework that will allow, the farmers themselves to take on that euthanizing, rather than having to wait for the CFIA. That's something that I would leave with you to take a look at.

This next issue may be a little bit off from what we were expecting to deal with, but it has arisen with Canadian fairs and agricultural societies. I had mine in Alberta call me earlier this week on the new changes being proposed to the health of animals regulations. You're asking farmers markets, 4-H clubs, rodeos and agricultural societies to take on the traceability and identification of animals being brought to those organizations for maybe a calf show or a 4-H show. They are very concerned about having to take on this responsibility. They don't have the manpower or the resources to do this.

Are you working with the agricultural societies across Canada to address this issue? We do not want to lose these groups in our rural communities.

[Dr. Mary Jane Ireland]

Mr. Chair, I thank the member for his question.

We are currently consulting on new traceability regulations amendments as published in Canada Gazette I. Currently CFIA is consulting with industry in all sectors and having webinars and discussions on what is proposed in the regulatory package that was preconsulted on and then published in Canada Gazette I. We are consulting, and have been for some time, with the fair societies. We are very open to feedback and understanding and hearing their concerns. We'll work with them on looking at solutions.

I would say that in the context of what we are discussing today around biosecurity, the ability to understand where animals have been, where they are going and what other animals they have interacted with is essential. When we have animal disease in this country, it is essential to be able to trace and track and see who might be affected, and what animals, and to deal with them appropriately. This traceability regulatory package increases our ability to do that and our understanding of where animals are in a short period of time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kody Blois]

Unfortunately, Mr. Barlow, we're at time. I know that you'll get another crack at it. Either you or Mr. Lehoux can raise that with Ms. Ireland.

Go ahead, Mr. Turnbull.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thanks, Chair.

Thanks to all the witnesses for being here today.

Dr. Ireland, I'll pose some questions to you to start. I am looking for a general sentiment from you. I know it's hard to generalize, perhaps, but how adequately prepared is Canada for the various biosecurity threats in agriculture, just in general? Can you give me a general sentiment? Are we well prepared, very prepared...?

[Dr. Mary Jane Ireland]

Thank you very much for the question.

I think we're very well prepared. As we described in the opening comments, the CFIA has worked extensively with other federal departments and with industry and governments to ready ourselves to be prepared for an incursion and to prevent an incursion of a foreign animal disease. We continue to do that with avian influenza and we do that with foot-and-mouth disease, as well as with many other diseases that can enter the country, including African swine fever.

That includes helping to develop national biosecurity standards. That means strong import controls to prevent infected products or animals from coming into the country and having response plans ready in case they do. Those are our hazard-specific plans.

We need to continue to establish or monitor the global events and trends. What are the diseases we're seeing emerge? Where are they? They inform our policy, they inform our regulatory approach and they inform our import controls.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

Thank you.

We essentially have emergency preparedness plans, as I understand it, for every disease that we're aware of. Is that correct?

[Dr. Mary Jane Ireland]

We have hazard-specific plans, which are playbooks for us, really, in terms of what we would do if a disease were to enter Canada. In addition, there are associations in provinces and territories that also prepare themselves should a disease incursion happen.

The CFIA remains ready for those and is constantly updating its approach, based on the global trends and analyses.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

When you say “constantly updating its approach”, how often would you say that is?

[Dr. Mary Jane Ireland]

We look at our hazard-specific plans as we understand diseases evolving in other parts of the world. I wouldn't say that we change them every month, but we certainly do review them and make sure that they are solid. We update them if it is required. We do that in discussion with other groups, as well, so that they understand what our response plan would be. We're all in it together when there's a foreign animal disease, and it's an “all hands on deck” situation.