Evidence of meeting #11 for Subcommittee on Food Safety in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was food.
A recording is available from Parliament.
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Is there anyone from the bigger processors who would like to comment?
5:15 p.m.
Director, Quality Assurance and Food Safety, Piller Sausages and Delicatessens Ltd.
I understand that one hundred per cent. I think the inequities are in the cost of inspection, in the cost of testing, in the expectations of our customers and the retailers, which are higher and more costly to carry for federal establishments than they are for provincial establishments.
I'm not saying that you have to have a paved parking lot. We have inspectors on site every day, and we are scrutinized to a great extent. We have the added cost of mandatory testing, of meeting all these internal regulations. It is only fair. If we're going to be sharing counter space in a retail facility, the consumer will not be able to tell, unless they know what the legends mean, the difference between provincial--
5:15 p.m.
Conservative
David Anderson Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
Can I interrupt you there? The reality, though, is that you're not sharing counter space. And we heard that at the agriculture committee, when I was there. The smaller processors are working into a limited market. They only have access to that. You folks are working into a large market, trying to set up on a national basis. The reality is that if you have a problem with your product, it will affect a lot more people than the product of a small plant, which may affect 10 or 20 people, will. You're potentially affecting thousands of people.
5:15 p.m.
Director, Quality Assurance and Food Safety, Piller Sausages and Delicatessens Ltd.
That's absolutely correct.
There is overlap, and I have seen it myself. I have worked with provincial plants many times in Ontario--I think with most of them, actually. The main contention, I understand, is that we're held to a higher standard. It's very costly, and it's difficult to compete, even where we do overlap and where we do compete on a cost basis, because of the added cost we have to maintain the federal standard, whether it be in Ontario or in shipping across Canada.
5:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Pork Council
I would say just a quick word. We have not, in the Canadian Pork Council, ever had to take a position on whether there were two systems operating. It has been a fact of life for a very long time.
But if you had interprovincial movements of provincially inspected product, I guess our concern would be how to ensure that it didn't move into international commerce. A lot of our requirements do evolve from that relationship we have with the U.S. and a lot of other jurisdictions.
If a product moves out of the jurisdiction where it has been provided inspection, it becomes problematic for the CFIA, which doesn't.... I don't think we can reasonably expect CFIA to confirm that a product moving into another province meets that province's requirements, because every province is slightly different. So it becomes fairly complicated. I know, though, that several times over the years they have tried to arrive at a common Canadian standard, and it seems to have bogged down each time. Maybe we can find circumstances that can be more successful next time.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Thank you.
Before we move on to the next round, here is a question on the same subject we've been talking about around the table; it concerns provincial standards and coming up with something that works.
I have a good example in my own riding, with the major groceries stores. We know they're part of our competitiveness study, but they've taken an issue here in Ontario, and it's probably the same in other provinces, whereby they will not allow their grocery stores, whether they are part of their chain stores or are independent groceries...because even the independent groceries have to purchase a lot of their stock wholesale through them. They have stipulated that these grocery stores cannot sell provincially inspected beef--and I presume it carries into pork and probably anything else--in the stores.
There's a gentleman in my riding who runs his own independent grocery store. He appeared before this committee a while back. He has a store and he's also a part owner of a provincially inspected slaughter facility. They just won two awards in the last couple of months for quality, but in his own store he's not allowed to sell provincially inspected meat.
Could I hear some of the commodity groups, or even Mr. Laws or Mr. Stein, comment on this? It is an issue. I certainly don't have all the answers and I don't think this committee has, but we're trying to find some, and there are some problems across the country provincially versus federally. I would appreciate having comments on this issue.
5:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Meat Council
I'll comment briefly.
Peter has commented, and it's true that he's been across many plants. We've seen Ontario come a long way since the Justice Haines report back in 2004. The new regulations are very strict. But some of the provinces, such as Saskatchewan, I think, and maybe even a few plants in Quebec, have no inspection whatsoever. That's the dilemma, that there is quite a disparity among the provinces. If the provinces could reach an agreement whereby they all came up to Ontario's standard, for instance, that would be a good thing to do.
Certainly it's a very difficult question to answer: why can you buy a product in Ontario, and that's fine, but you can't buy it somewhere else? It's difficult to answer that question.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Okay. Before I turn it over to Mr. Stein, could you also consider in your responses whether you think it's right that a grocery store chain should be able to do that? I know it's not illegal, but I'd like to hear some comments on it.
5:20 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Meat Council
It may be because some provinces are not up to the standard of Ontario, for instance, and because they may print a flyer that goes right across the country every week and need to have a supplier who can supply nationally. That's a dilemma for business owners.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
5:20 p.m.
Director, Quality Assurance and Food Safety, Piller Sausages and Delicatessens Ltd.
If a provincial facility is not able to get into a large chain, from what I've been told it's usually because of the shelf life. They may not have the shelf life required by a chain to hold product for a certain length of time on their shelves.
What I also wanted to mention is that the variation in provincial facilities is tremendous. I've seen some provincial facilities that are very clean; they rival the best federal facilities. I've seen the other extreme as well, which we don't get on the federal side. You do definitely get a range on the federal side, but not close to what I've seen personally on the provincial side. We need to narrow that. If some can do it, then why can't they all do it?
I think that's part of our legacy from when we were provincial. We made the switch to federal and have been very successful. I think on the food safety and food processing side of it, this should be feasible, absolutely.
5:25 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Sheep Federation
To your second question, whether it is right that grocery stores can only access certain products from federally inspected plants, the short answer is no.
If our focus is on the consumer and the consumer is looking for a Canadian product or a local product—if they're in Grey or Bruce County and want Grey-Bruce lamb—they should have the ability to access it. Trying to educate them on why they can't is cumbersome and a little bit difficult. If we're going to focus on the consumer and on what the consumer wants, we should be able to find a way to provide them with a product that they are demanding.
5:25 p.m.
Chairman, Bison Producers of Alberta
Mr. Chairman, on the question of the standards for non-export federal, it seems to me we know what food safety requirements are. This is not new science. CFIA could set a standard and a plant could either meet it or not. It may not be, it would not be, the full standard required for export, but it would meet all food safety requirements. That doesn't mean that any plant in any province that doesn't meet that standard can't continue to comply with provincial law, whatever that law may be, but it certainly would break down the barriers we have in this country for moving meat back and forth.
It seems to me that while we shouldn't be compromising food safety, we've got to have a practical approach to this, and certainly we could allow interprovincial movement of meat from those provincial standards for livestock industries like bison and lamb and others that simply don't have the numbers to justify large federal plants.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
I have a last comment on Mr. Stein's, about the different regulations and what have you from province to province. We're all aware of that, but it still goes back to Mr. Olson's comment that he made about it being safe to eat here in this province, but not in another. It's hard for the public or even any of us to get our heads around.
Ms. Bennett, for five minutes.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Thank you very much.
I'm very much taken by the cold pasteurization solution. Obviously this is a new technology that's very expensive. I would like to know, first, whether this is just for products that are sealed. The product in question that caused this committee was large, industrial-size, going to nursing homes and those sorts of things. Would this work for that kind of product?
5:25 p.m.
Director, Quality Assurance and Food Safety, Piller Sausages and Delicatessens Ltd.
That's a great question.
Yes, it can be used for larger, whole-muscle, or larger big hams or big turkey roasts and things like that, which are for food service and then sliced later. It does work for those just as well. But as soon as you open the package, all bets are off. The product is safe in the package; it can have a best-before date of August, but if you open it today, you have a few days to consume that product.
So yes, it would work very well, but as soon as that product is opened, especially on the food service side where there's a deli or you're at an old age home or at a hospital where they're opening that package and then slicing part of it today, part of it tomorrow, or the day after or what have you, then it depends on how clean and aseptic and what their hygiene standards are.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
Yes, but where we want to go is where we started at this. If this were milk, it's no longer an option as to whether things are pasteurized. The fact is that now you've got a system to do it with cold, that doesn't alter the taste or the quality of the food. Do you think this is the future, and should smaller plants come together to buy one, and could there be a cooperative? Eventually, are we going to eat stuff that has not been cold pasteurized?
5:30 p.m.
Director, Quality Assurance and Food Safety, Piller Sausages and Delicatessens Ltd.
First, it's not a silver bullet. This is not something that lets you take it easy and slack off on your sanitation or your plant hygiene or your good manufacturing practices. You have to be as diligent as if you didn't have this equipment, number one. But absolutely, if someone can't afford it and others can, and somebody may charge someone to put it through, why not? That is something that could happen. I don't know. I don't think it's happening now.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
Carolyn Bennett Liberal St. Paul's, ON
I have two questions.
There's a lot of debate or maybe not too much debate about whether we have enough inspectors. I think everybody knows we don't have enough at the border. In terms of people's plants and things, the debate between audit verification, and obviously, as a physician, knowing what the lab tests show in terms of swabs and things is an important piece of paper to be looking at. Could the panel sort us out on whether they think there are enough inspectors? What is the role of the audit verification in terms of CFIA?
Then, just to help out the analysts a little bit, maybe in the next round or whatever, if you would tell us what needs to be in the recommendations, it would help our job a lot, because it affects your livelihood.
For Mr. Olson, there is a huge concern about CWD, chronic wasting disease, in the game farms. I want to know whether you feel, in terms of food safety, that some of the elk and some of the other game farms are putting our food system at risk.
5:30 p.m.
Chairman, Bison Producers of Alberta
Let me answer the last question first. As to the CWD issue, I can't speak to that. Bison don't get CWD, and our practices are to try to keep animals unconfined, in large ranges, to try to restore the ecosystem at the same time as we restore the bison.
I can't say I'm not familiar with those practices. It strikes me that if there's a food safety issue there, there's a food safety issue. It has to be dealt with. We just don't have that issue in bison.
5:30 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Okay, thanks.
Does anybody else want to comment? Mr. Rice, go ahead.
5:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Pork Council
The members of the Canadian Meat Council are going to be much more informed than we are in terms of the efficacy of the inspection system that's in the plants, but I guess we would share the view that more can be done with the data that is being collected in plants and the data that is being generated by these on-farm quality assurance programs, which we don't really see as being utilized to their potential yet to help in addressing present risks.
5:30 p.m.
Executive Director, Canadian Meat Council
I'll just comment very briefly as well.
We talked about it last time: inspectors certainly need to have regular training. I don't believe they're given enough time to get that regular training. If you look at a package like this, 10 years ago this wasn't on the shelf. It has a modified atmosphere here. They replaced the oxygen in the atmosphere with nitrogen and CO2from the atmosphere, and it's regular atmosphere just minus the oxygen. It's a resealable package. It has longer code dates. When an inspector was hired 20 years ago, this product wasn't around then. Things have changed. A lot of things have changed. We have new products. The CFIA needs to constantly reassess what the risk is with food products out there. They're the ones who need to determine, okay, they have all kinds of inspectors in the slaughter facility, maybe they need to move some around. They'll have to assess that.