Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on June 1st, 2009

[Terry Pugh]

Yes, this is a point that you made to Bob Kingston, and I think it was covered fairly well in his testimony. The amount of money that's going in is laudable, and many of the places you're putting that money is important to the laboratory work. The question is whether we need more front-line inspectors. This is very important.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

You said that we've cut the budget to CFIA. But when I looked up the numbers, I found that in 2005-06 they received $489 million in funding; in 2006-07, $571 million; and in 2007-08, $639 million. Can you tell me how that amounts to a cut? That's a substantial increase in each year. The only years in which the CFIA budget was cut were 1994, 1995, and 2005, when the Liberals themselves cut the budget.

[Terry Pugh]

Well, the important thing is—

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I don't think we need to spend a lot of time on that. It's clear that it's gone up by $150 million in two years, so there has been a significant increase.

I wanted to go on to another issue: food supply. Today you folks sent out a news release talking about the captive supply of beef. It's important that you be accurate in your information. In your news release you said that the captive supply of Canadian cattle is as much as two-thirds of the animals slaughtered each week, or 66%. When we check with CanFax, their figures tell us that packer-owned cattle accounted for 10% of fed cattle procured in April. Forward contracts are 7%. That amounts to about 17% of cattle that you could even use under a broad definition of captive supply.

Can you tell us how you get from 17% to 66% in your figures?

[Terry Pugh]

Actually, no, I can't, David. That was done by our resource department and I didn't actually see that. Sorry.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I don't know if this is part of the fundraiser you guys seem to have a couple of times a year, where you pick an issue that you take to the membership. I think they need to be accurate, because other information from CanFax said that 65% of cattle were traded on the cash market last year, which was up slightly from 2007, when 63% were traded. I think your research department needs to go home and take a look at their information and maybe redo that. Maybe they could even put a correction in the Edmonton Journal, which is where the article was published today.

You talked about the compliance verification system and quoted Bob Kingston and some of his concerns. Do you support that system?

[Terry Pugh]

The system itself works when you've got the resources there to make it work, David. It's important, though, that you make sure the system itself is working. I think the last question simply addressed that. I don't know if the pilot project that was implemented was actually ever verified as working properly.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Mr. Kingston obviously wanted more inspectors on the floor, because he's the union head and clearly he'd like to see some more people employed under his watch.

One of the things he really seemed to be criticizing was shifting towards analyzing data patterns. We've heard from a number of witnesses that this really seems to be crucial, and that if they'd been doing that last year they might have found this problem before it sprung up in the Maple Leaf plant. Do you have any concerns with that? He really wanted to have a lot more visual inspection. Most other witnesses have told us that's not necessary and we really need to be analyzing the data, the trends, the test results that are coming back and those kinds of things.

[Terry Pugh]

It's the combination of the two, David. Just looking at those data trends, if you don't do anything with it and if you're not seriously looking at how to correct those trends when you find them, making sure the positive test results for listeria are reported to the inspector, just having it there in a binder and so on, that doesn't actually bring it to their attention.

So finding those patterns is important, but also so is taking steps to correct it, because the system Maple Leaf had in place was of their own design, but the problem took place even though they had that system, which went above the regulations, as Michael McCain pointed out. It didn't actually lead to detection of the problem.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Last winter you did some work with R-CALF in the United States and you were working together on a project down there. I think there was a joint press release that came out. I'm just wondering if that had anything to do with food safety or food supply for our producers in western Canada?

[Terry Pugh]

For the record, we don't work with R-CALF and it was not a joint press release.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Oh, I had information that I think I got in your press release, where it talked about the work you were doing with them, and I guess I was concerned about that because they typically have not been a friend to any Canadian farmers.

So you are disavowing any connection with them?

[Terry Pugh]

Absolutely.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Good, I'm glad to hear that.

Mr. Hutton, I'd like to shift to you. Earlier in your presentation you seemed to have a concern about larger farms, that the trend towards larger farms could lead to...and I think the quote was “many lives lost”. We heard from the witnesses prior to you that food safety has been immeasurably improved in the last 10 or 15 years, and I think some of that has actually been due to the fact that farms are bigger and in some ways able to take the cost of some of these safety compliance mechanisms as a smaller part of their budget.

Can you tell us what it is about larger farms that's going to lead to these many deaths that may occur? It seems to me we've got better standards now than we've ever had.

[David Hutton]

My remark was not aimed at farms particularly, but at the industrialization of the industry and operating on a larger scale. My point is that when you're in that situation—and I made the analogy with aviation, where you're flying larger planes and more people—it means that when there is some kind of problem, it can be a much more serious problem with more loss of life.

We all understand that in the past when there were lots of small farms, occasionally a farmer might have some kind of problem and sicken some of his neighbours, but it would be unlikely in the past that a single peanut plant, for example, could cause the largest recall in U.S. history.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

I'd like to ask both of you a question then. We talked to the earlier witnesses about this.

Do we need one national standard for meat safety, a meat standard, or can we have two or three standards across this country and still deliver a safe product to the marketplace? If we need one standard, how do we protect the small plants?

[David Hutton]

I don't think I'm particularly qualified to answer that question.

[David Anderson, Conservative, Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK]

Okay.

Terry, you probably have some thoughts on that.

[Terry Pugh]

I'd like to take a stab at it, David, if I could.

I think actually what you raise is a very important point. Federally inspected plants match a standard that's designed for across Canada and for export, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the meat is actually safer than what's produced in provincially or even municipally approved plants. So this is important.

We do need local abattoirs, and I think it's important to have regulations in place that ensure a safe meat supply, but it also has to be appropriate for the facility. As long as safety is the primary objective, I think we can be flexible enough to ensure that happens.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, Mr. Anderson.

Mr. Pugh, for clarification, we had a witness here a couple of weeks ago, Mr. Kingston, whom you have referenced three or four times. What's the connection between Mr. Kingston and the NFU? Does he work for the NFU, or is he a member of the NFU? I just wonder what the connection is there.

[Terry Pugh]

The connection is that we talk together and we have communication. The common objective in that is to ensure that there is a safe food supply from the farm to the table. It's common sense that the farmers who produce that food have a vested interest in it. The workers in those plants have a vested interest in ensuring that safe food supply as well. When there are concerns that come up, I think it's important for everyone to talk, and they may come up with common solutions as well.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

I agree. We're all here to try to make food safety good, and what have you. I just wondered about the connection. That was all.

Ms. Duncan, you have five minutes.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for coming. It's very interesting to learn from you.

Dr. Hutton, it's my understanding that Americans came here to verify our systems last year, to make sure our food systems were safe, and that concerns were posted on the American website afterwards regarding a Maple Leaf facility in Quebec. This information would have been available to our federal officials; however, no action was taken.

First of all, did Maple Leaf have whistle-blower protection?

[David Hutton]

I don't have any specific knowledge about Maple Leaf, but I would say it's one thing for an organization to claim that it protects whistle-blowers, and it's another thing for it to be real.

If you look at our own crown corporations here, there is actually a requirement as part of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act for all government departments and crown corporations to have an internal disclosure system that people can use, if they choose, before they go to the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. If we look at that, what we find is that many of the largest employers have had zero findings of wrongdoing and zero disclosures. Canada Post has had not a single disclosure through that system in the past year, yet there is a whistle-blower right now in the news, Mr. Christian Dumont, who was hounded out of his job for drawing attention to a practice of selling afternoon routes, which has all kinds of problems for the integrity of the mail system. For his trouble, he lost his job. The courts have repeatedly found in his favour. Canada Post has been ordered to pay him $80,000. They still refuse to pay. A seizure order has been issued against them.

What I'm saying is that the contrast between what an organization may say it's doing and what actually happens in practice can be a very large discrepancy.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

So that's important, looking at what's actually happening in business. Thank you.

I think you mentioned at the beginning that we don't have it for public servants. Do you think whistle-blower protection would have made a difference to federal inspectors, because they would have known there was a problem in the Quebec plant? This was posted on the American website, yet nothing was done.