Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on June 1st, 2009

[David Hutton]

I think it's very important when we look at whistle-blower protection to include the public servants, because what we see happening in other jurisdictions--and there's evidence of this in Canada too--is that agencies with the job of providing oversight actually discourage their inspectors from reporting. There are many reasons why they might want to do that. None of them are good reasons, and none of them are good for the public interest and public health.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

I'll ask another question, if I may. What might whistle-blower protection look like for the food industry in Canada?

[David Hutton]

I think you need some legislation that would cover all employees. Basically, the idea is to make it an offence to retaliate in any way against someone who raises concerns and to give them a safe place to go in addition to their management. They should go to their own management first, but there should be somewhere they can go if their management doesn't listen, or if the management starts to make reprisals, and raise it to another level. Ultimately, they should be able to go public if they're not getting due process and their concerns are not being investigated properly. That's what it would look like.

You need well-written, strong legislation, because the problem for a whistle-blower is that they're typically up against the full resources of their employer. If you look at government departments, they will give a blank cheque to the justice department lawyers to go and do what it takes to tie up this poor person in the courts forever. It's important that the legislation be well written and strong.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you.

What resistance do you think there has been to allowing for whistle-blower protection within the food industry, and what do you see as the challenges going forward?

[David Hutton]

I don't think it has really been discussed within the food industry. I hope that an enlightened management would see this as a plus, but there's always the fear in any organization that by giving some protection to people who know about problems, you may be exposing yourself to embarrassment and negative publicity, whereas the reality is that if they were to pay more attention to people who have the courage to talk about the problems, they would be able to deal with them at an early stage and, therefore, avoid the sort of problems we've seen with this outbreak.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thanks very much, Ms. Duncan.

We'll go to Mr. Shipley for five minutes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you, witnesses.

I want to go back to Mr. Pugh for a minute.

You made some comments, and I know my colleague followed up on those. You focused quite a bit on Mr. Kingston, the union representative who was here, not acknowledging, quite honestly, that there had been more inspectors, nor that there had been money put forward in terms of what we've done over the last budget or so.

Something else also became really clear but was not mentioned--and maybe you can just help me with clarification on that. When we get front-line inspectors--and by the way, there was about a 7% increase in front-line inspectors--who are certified, do you know if they can be certified for more than one position or not?

[Terry Pugh]

Yes, they can.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Is it an understanding that they actually move around from one area--maybe horticulture, maybe livestock, maybe food processing--to another, depending on the area of need at the time?

[Terry Pugh]

I'm not an expert on this, so I have to acknowledge that there is some movement, according to the testimony. When you asked Mr. Kingston the question, he said that there was that sort of movement, and he said it was very rare in the meat inspection department.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I think it likely is rare, because actually I think one of the things we found out is that of the 12 million to 13 million food-borne diseases that happen every year across this country, there's a very small percentage that actually get into that sort of crisis situation. So when that crisis situation happens, my understanding is that's when they move, rather than necessarily on a daily basis. I think that would make some sense.

[Terry Pugh]

Clearly, when you have a crisis, you're going to concentrate resources to combat that crisis, absolutely.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

One of the things you mentioned in your speech was something about deregulation of the food safety system and that actually, over the last couple of years, there had been this deregulation of the food safety system.

I just want to review a little bit. There has been the implementation of the CVS. There were additional regulations added on April 1 of this year. We extended, actually, the data analysis system for the patterns that develop. Then actually, if I remember right, there are stricter sanitation and safety requirements that have been put into the regulations. Those are only four I can think of right now.

I'm wondering how that fits in with the comment that deregulation of the food safety system seems to be happening.

[Terry Pugh]

Ultimately, it's who's responsible for setting up and enforcing these measures. Is it industry that's regulating itself? Is it the role of CFIA to look at the audit reports or the various reports that come in through that system? Or are they checking on the shop floor as well as reviewing those very important reports?

When the CFIA is responsible for ensuring that, then they have the authority to go in to make sure that any problems they see are corrected, right? When the inspectors look at something that is of concern to them.... They used to be able to go into a plant and see something that was out of the ordinary or something that was a concern. They could stop the process of production right there and have that machine taken apart. Now that's not happening. To look at a record, say, later on and try to catch a problem that's already happened just doesn't have the same impact.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

What you're saying, then, is that now that is not allowed.

[Terry Pugh]

My understanding is that it's not taking place in the same way.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

That's not what I'm asking, actually. I'm talking about deregulation. You're saying that things have been deregulated. Now you're saying that, well, they actually used to be able to go in and could shut the plant down. Are you saying that this government has actually put something in place to prevent that from happening?

[Terry Pugh]

The system in place right now puts the onus on the company to carry that out.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Okay. I have just one more quick one in terms of that deregulation.

It is still incumbent upon the person on the floor, if they see something wrong—as Mr. Allen said, they used to be able to talk to someone—to actually do something about it. I don't think there's any question about that.

[Terry Pugh]

Oh yes, absolutely. Part of the problem is the opportunity to talk to an inspector. They don't have that same amount of time in the plant or the same environment in which to just approach--

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

We just had a witness previously who said that they actually do that. They actually do go and make those comments, and they do get passed on.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

We'll now move to Ms. Bennett for five minutes.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Thank you, again, both of you, for coming.

Mr. Hutton, I want to know if you looked at the situation that happened in terms of the whistle-blower at CFIA, which preceded this event, and what happened in terms of that person being fired.

[David Hutton]

What I did was read very carefully everything that appeared in the media about it.

I did actually make some attempts to contact Mr. Pomerleau. The message I got, I think from his union, was that it wasn't a whistle-blower issue. He didn't want to be seen as a whistle-blower, and it shouldn't concern us.

To me it has a lot of the hallmarks of that type of situation. Someone is basically punished very severely for doing something that would seem to be not only the job but something we would expect the person to do because of his or her professional duty. I don't know a lot of the specifics, other than what I read in the media.

[Carolyn Bennett, Liberal, St. Paul's, ON]

Under comprehensive whistle-blowing legislation, what would have happened to him?