Evidence of meeting #5 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.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
I found out about that when you found out, Mr. Easter. I had no idea where she was housed. It was up to my department to find her space. They've done that.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Are there any staff, that you're aware of, seconded from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada to the independent investigator's office?
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Well, maybe she'll get back to us on that, because I'm beginning to believe that the only way to get to the bottom of this is to have a full judicial inquiry.
In any event, your remarks, Mr. Minister, lead me to believe that you do have confidence in the compliance verification system—which comes back somewhat to Mr. Shipley's point—which was implemented as a pilot project in 2006, and implemented nationally on April 1, 2008.
I have two questions, really. One, was there an evaluation done of that pilot project, and have you seen it, and can it be tabled with this committee?
Two, can you explain why your government failed at the same time to implement any kind of mandatory environmental test reporting system?
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Mr. Chairman, those are very technical issues. I would turn those over to Cameron Prince. As director of operations, he'd be able to answer those for you.
4:50 p.m.
Cameron Prince Vice-President, Operations, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Was there an evaluation of the pilot projects? Yes, there was an evaluation. It was a constant evaluation. I'm not aware of any specific document that can be provided. We could certainly go back and have a look at the ongoing work that took place throughout those pilot projects.
We have to keep in mind that this was a very lengthy process, a lot of work with industry, with the pilot plants themselves, with our inspectors, with the scientists involved, so it took quite a while to perfect the system. By the time we reached April 1, 2008, we were very, very confident in the effectiveness of that system.
We will be undertaking a thorough review in the next short while of the compliance verification system. Like any new system, there are opportunities for improvement, but overall we're quite satisfied with the effect of the enhanced food safety that's come about as a result of the implementation of the compliance verification system.
I'm sorry, Mr. Easter, I didn't quite catch all of your second question.
4:50 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
My second question relates to why there was no mandatory environmental test reporting system as well.
When you do a pilot project—and I believe the pilot project was introduced by the previous government—isn't it normal for a summary report to be done and tabled with the minister, who ultimately makes the decision on whether you move ahead with what was being piloted?
I'll let you hold that for a minute, Mr. Prince, because I do have a question that I have to get on the table. We didn't get an answer from the minister today. Maybe Mr. Evans or Ms. Swan would be able to answer this question.
On the documents I raised the question on, the verification report at the plant, 097B, these verification reports range from February 11—I have seven of them here—until August 6. All seven of them had handwritten notes put in them dated August 26, 2008. This is after 12 deaths had been confirmed. Why?
I can understand an inspector changing a report a day or two after he thinks about something else. According to the agricultural union, the inspector who signed off on the amended reports was directed to do so by his superiors at CFIA.
Why were the reports amended, and why were they amended up to five months late? And can you give us the name of the inspector who was involved?
We will be asking questions of the agricultural union as well, on this matter.
Mr. Minister, I don't think--
4:50 p.m.
Vice-President, Operations, Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Yes, I'll answer the question about what occurred with respect to the inspection records at the plant.
There were two inspectors assigned to that plant, on two different shifts. Every day they did the compliance verification. There were inspection records. So we're talking about a lot of records, on a daily basis, on two shifts, over an extended period of time.
After the events of August, it was clear, as per our policy, that we had to implement an in-depth listeria review. That in-depth listeria review was undertaken by our food safety experts who look at all plants in Ontario and across the country, as specialists. They went in as a team and uncovered every rock and every stone and looked at every element of what was happening in that plant for the period of 2008. In the course of that work, they came across some records. They interviewed the inspectors involved, and overall, in this very small percentage, there was some additional information put on the record to clarify. And this was done at the suggestion of the senior food safety auditors who were at the plant.
The purpose of this was not to alter or change in any way. The purpose was to provide further clarification and be completely in line with the recollection of the inspector at that time.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I agree, Mr. Easter is done.
Mr. Minister, I want to thank you for coming in today. This is not the first time you've come before the agriculture committee. You've always been very accessible to us, and we appreciate that. We also appreciated your blunt honesty when it came to some of the questions today.
I want to start out by asking you some questions about the independent investigator. She is a lady who I believe is of great qualification. She has spent a good deal of her career in our capital health region in Edmonton, bettering our health services in that community. But it seems that every time the opposition comes to these committee meetings, in particular the Liberal opposition, they tend to ask questions about her and bring her qualifications to note. It is something when The Toronto Star isn't even agreeing with Mr. Easter any more. In fact, I'll quote an article from The Toronto Star:
The critics are overreaching. Weatherill's past experience can only aid her search for best practices. And it's not clear to us that Canada needs another costly and lengthy forum for lawyers to cross-examine those involved in the outbreak. All indications are that the main players will co-operate.
We heard from you today, Mr. Minister. The first question, as I've asked all our witnesses, is do you believe that Ms. Weatherill's qualifications are above reproach in this and that she has the qualifications to do an excellent job? Secondly, I would like you to put on the record once again that you have agreed to meet with Ms. Weatherill.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
Absolutely. I first met Ms. Weatherill when she was asked to take this task on. It is a formidable task to go through millions of pages of documents and come up with a report that actually builds a stronger food safety system in this country. I know she has the time, the talent, and the qualifications to do this. I only met her for about 10 or 15 minutes early on when she was just getting settled in. I have not talked to her since, but I see through media reports and the committee hearings that she's had a good response from everybody. She has not had a problem in getting access to anything and everything she wanted. She has asked me to meet with her in the coming days. I have told her, “Absolutely, let me know where and when and I will be there”. I'm quite excited to chat with her about this.
Having said that, I'm quite concerned when I keep hearing that somehow there's been political interference. I know that question has been asked of Dr. David Butler-Jones, of the CFIA, and of Sheila Weatherill. They have all denied that. All independently have said that there hasn't been any. In fact, Dr. Butler-Jones said that if this had ever happened he would have walked away and gone straight to the media with it.
I have a lot of respect for these people. They put their talents, time, and integrity on the line by dealing with politicians. If the public has any concerns out there at all, it's that politics will override the good work done by some of these investigations. That's my major concern.
I think Ms. Weatherill will weather the storm. I think she will do a great job. I'm not going to predetermine the outcome of her reports, but I can pledge to this committee and to Canadians that the recommendations that come forward through the lessons-learned reports and through the report that Ms. Weatherill will table will be followed up on and will be implemented.
4:55 p.m.
Conservative
Brian Storseth Conservative Westlock—St. Paul, AB
Thank you, Mr. Minister.
I think there are some very important things during a crisis like this. Your leadership was front and centre during this crisis throughout August and September. I think it's important that the Canadian public sees, as we have heard from you, the compassion. We've heard about the action this government has taken. Another thing that's important for the Canadian public to see sometimes is the perspective of how these things actually work out.
I'd like to ask you a little bit about the press conferences and the communications plan that you had. Maybe you could give us a bit of perspective as to how often you were having press conferences at the end of August, beginning of September, and what some of the communications plan was from your point of view.
5 p.m.
Conservative
Gerry Ritz Conservative Battlefords—Lloydminster, SK
It was a changing plan--I will say that. Every day there was new information coming in. By the time we actually--how can I put this so that it doesn't get misinterpreted--got rolling with information to Canadians, a lot of the damage was already done. Of course, we didn't know that. I know Dr. Evans showed you a chart, and I know Dr. Butler-Jones did as well, as to how the timeline unfolded. As we strove to do the recalls and so on, the cases were actually waning, which was a good thing. I know the chart that I saw, which Dr. Evans presented to this committee, is very dramatic in the way that it shows how this climbed and then just stopped because the product was recalled. Everybody out there, with the help of the media, Internet, and everything else, and with the great work that Public Health and CFIA did, got around the fact that they had to get this product out of their freezers.
We actually did a second push right after Labour Day, and just before Labour Day for that matter, because we knew people were going to go up and close their cottages. It was actually Dr. Evans who brought this point up at one of our morning brainstorming sessions when we were wondering what we were missing. That's what we kept thinking. Is another shoe going to drop? What are we missing? How do we get ahead of this.
Out of the blue, Brian said people were going to their cottages that weekend, and they were going to open the freezer and have this product in there and not recognize it. They were going to use up whatever it was. So, again, we put out another push to make sure that people, when they went to their cottages, went through the freezer and didn't use that product. It was the same thing when they came back. If they'd spent the last two weeks on holidays in August and came back to their condominium, or house, or whatever, we wanted to make sure that they hadn't missed the media and hadn't missed the recalls. That was always uppermost in our minds.
Our days usually began in the 6:30 to 7:00 a.m. range because of time zones across the country. We were talking with provinces and territories. There was information coming in. We quarterbacked it out of my department, out of my level of the farm building there. Public Health, Health Canada, the provincial folks, CFIA, and all of us were on these calls. They were almost unmanageable because of everyone wanting to know what was happening and how it was happening, and everybody wanting this information at once. That's why we started doing the daily press conferences.
I think they were exceptional. I give a lot of credit to the stamina of the folks around me, and of course the folks involved from PMO, PCO, and Public Health. Everybody involved did a fantastic job in making sure that information got out to Canadians on a timely basis.
It was disheartening at times when we talked about the people who were involved, those affected. Also, the death count, as it kept going up, was disheartening. At the end of the day, looking back in hindsight, I'm looking forward to these reports because I think they will give us a new basis to build a better system.
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Minister, and to all your company. Thanks very much to the rest of the witnesses from CFIA and what have you. We very much appreciate your time here.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
On a point of order, Mr. Chairman, we had requested that this committee receive documentation from the minister and all notes, etc. We haven't received that, or certainly I haven't had a copy of it as yet.
It just came now? It just came by e-mail now.
Mr. Chair, I'm certainly going to issue a complaint. I'm told that it just came by e-mail now . If we're going to--
5 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
Listen, Mr. Chair, if we're going to do a proper investigation, any investigation provides documentation before a witness is here. For us to have the minister here, not having the documentation beforehand is unacceptable.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
No, I'm talking about the documentation that we asked for as a committee. How come that documentation wasn't here before today?
5 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Larry Miller
If it's the stuff that I'm thinking of, you got it two weeks ago.
5 p.m.
Liberal
Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE
No, we didn't have the documentation. It came in at 4:57 on e-mail today. You committed that we would have a binder of all information, etc., with the minister's correspondence, e-mails, etc. We haven't received that as yet. Now, if you've received it, I haven't. Have any of the other opposition members received it?
5 p.m.
Conservative