Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on April 22nd, 2009

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

Thank you very much for the question.

Mr. Chair, I think there are two aspects to that. For example, the communications we engaged in were not simply the YouTube posting, information on the website, etc., or the media I did, or the newspapers we wrote to. We also wrote to seniors organizations and professional associations, we developed guidelines, etc.—multiple means by which we intended and tried to communicate with the public.

We also had daily technical briefings or press conferences. The initial ones were my deputy chief public health officer and Dr. Raizenne over the weekend when it first started. I started at the beginning of the week, and at that point the media stopped broadcasting them live and did not seem to use clips from that, with me speaking to these issues, in the same way as they referred to Mr. McCain, who appropriately speaks and is a very credible spokesperson for his company but is not the person who can and should speak to it.

Again, it's a lesson learned in terms of how we engage on those things and what gets picked up and heard and understood by the public.

On our visibility, we thought we were trying to be very visible on this and in collaboration with our federal partners, because it is a multi-role. In terms of our role around human health, I can't count the number of times and the number of media, etc., I spoke to, but what they used was often Mr. McCain. So we have some things to think about for how we address that in the future.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I understand that, sir. You're right, Mr. McCain is a very engaging gentleman who communicates very effectively. Thank goodness he's not decided to run in my riding. It might make things difficult for me.

He was so open, in the sense of communicating back and forth—this is his admission the other night—with the different agencies, he was talking with CFIA, he's been talking to the Ministry of Agriculture, doing the best he can. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps we should say to Mr. McCain, “You need to stand down, sir, because we need to be the face, because we're Public Health, not you. Folks have to be hearing us, because the media has turned us off because you're much better at it than we are, but we're Public Health.”

Maybe if that thought didn't occur, perhaps one of the lessons we should learn is that we need to tell folks in the private sector that they need to stand down. They can defend their company, do what they need to do, but stand down so that we become the public face and folks are actually hearing us rather than them when it comes to public safety around food. I'm not sure if you thought about that.

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

Thank you very much for the reflection.

Mr. Chair, I'm not a news person. I do know that a president of a company who is under fire standing up and having that level of openness with the media is clearly news. Where we go with that.... Not every company president does this, though I think many will learn lessons from this, and this will be talked about in business schools for years to come. If the process by which we get there, as we look at it... Quite honestly, it's interesting in retrospect to look at the perception of my absence, the perception of the engagement. Yet we were engaged; I was active. We were visible. But we need to examine that in terms of thinking as we move forward. What the exact solution to that is, at this moment, I'm not sure of, but we will be addressing it.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Time is up, Mr. Allen.

We move to Mr. Anderson for a couple of minutes.

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

I actually would like to continue on this for a minute, and then I want to go back to the roles of the different organizations, because I think it's important that we reiterate this and talk about it.

In the letter, your response to the medical officer in Ontario, you point out that after August 16 public advisories were issued with each of the recalls that came. All members of the public had the opportunity to be notified—retailers, consumers, public and private institutions. Public health units were engaged as well. You mentioned that you were on press conferences. I think there was a two-week period towards the end of August when there was a press conference every day, and either you or Dr. Raizenne were on those conferences each day.

So I think you're making a good point that the information was being provided. There may be some things we could do to raise the profile of the information, if there are some lessons to be learned there. But the reality is that you were trying to do your job, trying to communicate. The minister was doing the same thing. I think it's important to point that out, and I don't know if you have any further comments on that.

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

I don't really have further comment, although to reiterate, we really are looking forward to.... We think we're pretty expert in a number of things, but we don't know everything. We're constantly open to advice and perspective. We are very much looking forward to the deliberations of this committee, the investigator's report, and what we can further learn, beyond our own lessons learned, to apply as we move forward. It is a constantly evolving field that we are engaged in, and we're always hopefully learning and continuing to improve what we do.

So it is much appreciated.

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

I'd like to go through the roles of the different players involved, and if you have any comments or corrections to this, I'd be glad to hear them.

It's my understanding that the provinces have the responsibility for leading the investigation of outbreaks, as long as it's within their boundaries, and that includes the investigation itself. They also release communications of issues with respect to human health and the notifications to the public, typically. Is that accurate? And some jurisdictions like Quebec have the authority to conduct recalls.

The Public Heath Agency's role is usually as the first point of contact at the federal level for food-borne illnesses. Is that true? It's in charge of the public health surveillance and then leads the investigation when cases occur in multiple provinces. Is that accurate? They also release communications of issues with a human health impact. Ms. Bennett pointed that out as well.

Health Canada's role is to establish food safety standards and policies, along with decision-making with respect to risk assessment processes. They release communications of issues related to food safety. Is that accurate? I see you nodding.

CFIA's role is to contribute to the investigation and control of food-borne outbreaks through its food safety investigations and recalls, as well as compliance and enforcement activities. It also notifies issues to the public when specific food has been identified.

I note that Dr. Evans noted the other day that CFIA stepped up and took the lead because they felt someone needed to at that point and they were working well with the other agencies. They felt it was appropriate that they do that, and that is why they took that lead.

Finally, and probably most importantly, industry is ultimately responsible for ensuring that the food it produces is safe and that food products are produced, manufactured, imported, stored, and distributed to consumers in a safe manner. It's their responsibility, as well, to identify potential issues and assist with food safety investigations. They also initiate or respond to directions to implement a recall.

Is that a fair summary of the various players involved and their roles?

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

Yes, I think so. If I might say something on the public health side, I'll just supplement that slightly in terms of where and how we get engaged.

For example, if it's a local outbreak or confined to a province, at their request we'll provide support, whether it's epidemiologists or help with the investigation. We're often involved because of the reference laboratory services that we provide, etc. At some point, when it's either bigger or broader, we get more engaged. Certainly if it's still within the provincial jurisdiction, they are still the lead, even though we are actively engaged and involved. We will bring a national perspective. When it crosses provinces, obviously we have to take on a higher level of engagement.

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

As long as the outbreak was confined to Ontario, then it was managed by the Province of Ontario. That was appropriate, and then they were responsible to inform Health Canada, CFIA, and the Public Health Agency of Canada.

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

And we would support and facilitate that.

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

You certainly work with them as well.

Was there a good working relationship through the time, in terms of people being able to work together and identify the jobs that needed to be done and then move ahead?

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

Yes, we have a very good working relationship, because we have a common interest in addressing these issues. We don't always get it exactly right, but the will is there, the expertise is there, and it's something that we do collectively treat very importantly.

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

When did Ontario contact you, then, to assist with their outbreak?

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

It occurs at different levels. For example, Frank can speak to the laboratory level, then the issue of “we think we have something going on” comes from the epidemiologist to our program staff, and from the chief medical officer to me, for example. Depending on the level of the problem, it can enter at any point, and then our job across the partnership federally is to make sure that right connections are made.

In this case, Frank, can you speak to when we first engaged the laboratory?

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

Can I just make a comment? The other day CFIA told us that they had no record of being on the July 30 calls with Health Canada and the Public Health Agency. Do you have any records that indicate they were on that call?

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

No, I do not. I was not on that call, but our understanding is that they were not on that call. It was a call asked for, because at that point Ontario was the lead, and they asked for the call to get some advice to help coordinate the information they had.

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

So as far as you know, they weren't on it, and that confirms with what they said as well.

Dr. Plummer, do you have some comments?

[Dr. Frank Plummer, Scientific Director General, National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada]

Mr. Chair, I would ask the committee members to have a look at this chart, which was distributed just before we began.

What it shows is a plot of the number of listeria monocytogenes isolates over the months of June, July, and August that we dealt with at the national microbiology laboratory. These are specimens coming in from all across the country. The different colours of red and orange represent listeria monocytogenes that were ultimately linked to the outbreak. The grey will represent other listeria that were the background noise here. On July 18, we found two cases of listeria that had an identical genetic fingerprint that ultimately proved to be part of the outbreak.

It was impossible at that time to know that it was the outbreak strain. On August 1 and August 8, we had two closely related but not identical bacteria that were from Alberta and Quebec, I believe. On August 12, we had results of a whole bunch of listeria that came from Ontario that had the identical strain. That's when we knew we had an outbreak. Those results are communicated in real time to their submitting laboratory, the Province of Ontario. On the next day, August 13, they were posted on what we call the Canadian Network for Public Health Intelligence, which allows front-line public health workers, on a roll-based way, to communicate about events that are happening.

This would have gone out to the entire public health community in Canada that is responsible for food-borne outbreaks. It's a fabulous real-time system that has been put in place since SARS, and this would not have been possible three years ago.

This listeria system for PulseNet is only about three years old. Since the outbreak we've further decentralized this. The system that we use, which we call PulseNet, is fundamentally a virtual laboratory. Laboratories across the country work with the same equipment, the same protocols, the same training, that produce genetic fingerprints, and then they compare them electronically on the database that we maintain.

If you find the same fingerprints in Alberta and Ontario, then it's quite a good chance that there's going to be some kind of link there. Since the outbreak has finished, Ontario has decided that they want to be certified to do that, and they've already been certified. Alberta has also been certified. At the time of the outbreak only Quebec was certified, and that was their choice.

I think we have two very good systems, the PulseNet system and the Canadian Network for Public Health Intelligence system, which lets us detect these kinds of events quickly--and we detected it at the time; there were 10 cases in a country of 30 million people and where there's a high background of enteric illness--and get the information out quickly to the people who need it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much. Your time has expired, Mr. Anderson.

We'll go to Mr. Easter, for five minutes.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I've always been led to believe, and I've always felt, that we operate on a system of government in Canada, ministerially and departmentally, of accountability and responsibility. There's only one individual I've seen in this system who has accepted responsibility for 22 deaths. Certainly none of those individuals have been ministers. In fact, one of them went into hiding for a good while. And none of them was an agency in this country, either.

As for our own lessons learned, we just had a witness here a moment ago, Ms. Weatherill, who is doing an investigation. I can conclude nothing less and nothing more than that it is a hearing, an investigation, set up to prevent political accountability for this crisis. One of the greatest concerns I have and that I think a lot of Canadians have is that there may have been political interference here, with an election coming on. And we'll certainly get to the point, either later today or at a later point in our discussions, of whether there may have been political interference with agencies in terms their doing their jobs.

First, I have a direct question for you. That was just background to where we're going. Who is mandated within the Government of Canada for food safety in Canada? Who is the ultimate source of accountability for food safety in this country? Or is there one?

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

Perhaps we'll both speak to it.

I am responsible and I'm accountable for public health actions related to this outbreak and any other outbreak at the federal level. That is my job.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

That wasn't my question. My question was about food safety in Canada.

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

It's a shared responsibility across CFIA, Health Canada, and us, and we each have a responsibility to act on the parts of that system that we are responsible for.

[Morris Rosenberg]

I completely agree with that. I think it is a shared responsibility.

One of the challenges in dealing with this is to try to sort through responsibility when there are a number of players in the system. Within the federal government there are three principal players, all of whom have a piece of the role. Each one of them needs to look at their responsibilities or their mandate in the context of the aftermath of what happened this summer and ask what they could have done better and what they could have done differently.

That is, in fact, the purpose of the Lessons Learned exercise, the ongoing.... Lessons Learned, frankly, is not the end of the road for us in terms of thinking through what we did. I assume that it's the principal purpose of this subcommittee, and I assume that it's the principal purpose of Ms. Weatherill's investigation. We're all looking at how we performed our roles and are assessing whether we could do them better. One of the themes in this is that there is complexity because of the nature of these things. There is increasing complexity in global food distribution.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Rosenberg, we understand that. But I'll tell you my view on shared responsibility. When you have shared responsibility, no one is responsible. That's the ultimate. That's my view.

I very firmly believe that the Canadian Food Inspection.... In fact, I went back to my office Monday night after being shocked by Ms. Swan's presentation. She said, quite clearly, that industry is responsible for food safety. I believe that government is responsible for food safety. There has to be a single agency responsible for food safety.

You have a different role, Mr. Butler-Jones, no question about it.

I went back and looked at my mandate letter from when I was parliamentary secretary, and it states that it was CFIA. But you're telling me now that it has moved to a shared responsibility. We have to look at that in terms of recommendations.

Your letter to David Williams, which one of you mentioned, about some of the concerns and the discrepancies in the report.... The parliamentary secretary mentioned one earlier. My concern with this letter, signed by the heads of all three agencies, is that it seems to me to be trying to transfer the blame to the chief medical officer of health in Ontario. We'll be talking to him and getting some of the stuff sorted out, I'm sure.