Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on May 6th, 2009

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I will also ask a question about recalls.

You made some comments about recalls. How do grocery distributors handle a recall, and do they differentiate between a voluntary recall and a mandatory recall? Is the paperwork different? Is the communication method different?

[Nick Jennery]

Within the grocery infrastructure, whether you're a department head, a store manager, or a corporate officer, it is recognized that a recall situation--and there's a standard format for that--is not a time to discuss or to ask questions; you pull it off the shelf. You just get it off the shelf.

What do you do with the product afterwards? You'll figure it out. It can depend on the situation. It depends on the manufacturer, the product, and all sorts of things. The point is that you get it away from the point of sale and then figure out what the issue is from there.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Is there only one issuer of recalls? For example, can a company undertake a voluntary recall? Do you get recalls only from the government, or do you get recalls that are not actually on government letterhead, recalls from the manufacturers themselves?

[Jackie Crichton, Vice-President, Food Safety and Labelling, Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors]

Generally speaking, when it's a recall, it is from CFIA. In terms of voluntary versus mandatory, there really isn't a difference. The mandatory recall occurs only if a firm was determining that it would not do a recall when CFIA thought it should be. All recalls are reacted to in the same fashion, and the information that triggers the recall is the information that comes from CFIA.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Your time has expired, Mr. Lemieux.

I don't want anybody to be alarmed. The bells are going off because we have votes.

If I have unanimous consent, I'm going to suggest that we have one five-minute round. Ms. Bennett can have five minutes. I think we have time.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I think the bells are only ringing for 15 minutes, so I would recommend that we suspend the meeting and come back.

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

I actually have to have dinner with the Minister of Health at 6 p.m. I'd like to sneak in the five minutes, if that's okay.

[Pierre Lemieux, Conservative, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

I understand now. You want to start the second round with five minutes but not complete it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Certainly not. We'll just be five minutes. I think we'll have enough time.

Go ahead, Ms. Bennett.

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

Thanks very much.

Dr. Wilcott, how many cases of listeriosis did you have in B.C.?

[Lynn Wilcott]

I know we had four or five deaths, but I can't recall the total number of cases.

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

Have you done a look-back study of the kind they did in Ontario? Does BCCDC have a lessons learned exercise?

[Lynn Wilcott]

We do, and we did go through that exercise.

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

Would you be able to table it with this committee?

[Lynn Wilcott]

I would think so, yes.

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

Have you looked at the Ontario report at all?

[Lynn Wilcott]

I can't recall if I have; I may have.

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

It sounds like Dr. Williams' conclusions are very close to yours in terms of clarifying the roles. They needed to strengthen their laboratory capacity, probably because you don't, and improve communications. As my colleague said, what we learned from SARS was collaboration, cooperation, communication, and clarity of who does what when. That was in Dr. Naylor's report, and somehow it didn't happen this time.

I'm concerned that in the chronology and what you've said is that once it hits the food chain and there is illness or possible illness or the potential of adverse publicity, all of a sudden the communication slows down in some way. I was wondering how you can sort of demonstrate that for us in real time in the real cases. Is there something that would just show us that you would have expected that? Do you use IFIS, and would you not expect things to be posted there as soon as they see anything? Did that not happen this time?

[Lynn Wilcott]

With the listeriosis outbreak?

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

Yes.

[Lynn Wilcott]

I can't recall. I'm not trying to be difficult. I just can't recall.

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

I think one of our concerns was that once we knew that the plant had national distribution, you would have liked to have known everywhere it had been, in order to be able to do your public health job properly. Is that...?

[Lynn Wilcott]

At that point, really, the information we're looking for is prior to that knowledge, knowing what product it was and that it was distributed nationally. Often in an investigation you still don't know for sure which product it is, and that's the time when you need as much information as possible regarding an implicated food: how it has been distributed, timelines, etc. That's the time. Once it's all known, that's it, the information is out there. But it's prior to that.

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

Even before the genes are mapped and they know it's coming from the same source? What kind of information did you need from CFIA that you didn't get?

[Lynn Wilcott]

Initially it was found in Ontario. I wouldn't say it was ground zero, but that's where it was identified. So it's difficult for me to speak specifically about that investigation because we just weren't that involved with it at that point.

I'm sorry, what was your question?