Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on May 6th, 2009

[Lynn Wilcott]

I can give you several examples. We get the same information the public gets with recalls, so whatever public notice is given, that's the information we receive. We don't receive any other information regarding, say, bacterial species, or any fingerprint information, or on distribution of the product. Whatever the public sees is what we see. If we want additional information that could be useful for outbreak investigations, we have to ask for it. Sometimes we get it, sometimes we don't. If we do get it, it will be delayed. And any delay in an outbreak investigation potentially means that more people will become ill, there will be secondary infections, etc. That's one thing.

Another example is there are certain recalls that are not publicized that we're aware of. These may be recalls that are a result of bacterial test results that a company may have done, or test results that the CFIA may have done. The CFIA--and I'm not sure what the reasoning is--do not publicize these recalls. These could be products that were distributed to institutions only, or only to restaurants. I'm speculating here, but I guess they figure there is no reason to tell the public. If they don't tell the public, we don't find out about it either. That's another example. Again, for potential outbreak investigations, that could be very useful. We could have an outbreak occurring and we wouldn't know the cause of it, but if we had that information we would be able to act.

Those are two specific examples. I can give you other ones that have happened as well.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

I imagine you have already notified the CFIA and its management that you failed to receive adequate information, and that you need to have all available information provided in a timely fashion.

What reason were you given for the agency's failure to share all information with you?

[Lynn Wilcott]

You would have to ask them.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Did you already put that question to them?

[Lynn Wilcott]

We have asked and they said it's not their policy, or there is potential liability. I would say we haven't had a real reason given.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

Did you try going up one level, to the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, and ask him to rectify the problem? If you did, what answer did you get?

[Lynn Wilcott]

To my knowledge, we haven't gone to that level. We have had our provincial health officer, Dr. Perry Kendall, meet and discuss this with--and I can't remember who it was--the regional director or possibly the director of CFIA. I don't know what level that was at, but I know we have asked and we've been told, we'll give it to you sometimes, but other times it's not forwarded.

Again, there are other situations where if we don't know what we don't know, then we don't know what to ask because we're not always given the information.

[André Bellavance, Bloc, Richmond—Arthabaska, QC]

When you sit on this subcommittee, you hear all kinds of things that make no sense.

I'm going to tell you about something that occurred and you will tell me if you have ever experienced a similar situation. On April 20, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the Public Health Agency of Canada, and the Deputy Minister of Health Canada wrote to Dr. Williams, Ontario's Chief Medical Officer of Health.

I mentioned this to Mr. Butler-Jones, who heads the Public Health Agency of Canada. He did not clearly remember whether he wrote such comments.

The blame was laid squarely on Ontario, not necessarily for what happened, but for the delay in confirming the contamination source. Ontario was being blamed for that, because the Toronto Public Health Office had sent samples to the wrong laboratory for analysis. The samples should have been sent to the Agency's regional laboratory in Scarborough, but instead were sent to the Listeriosis Reference Service at the Health Canada laboratory in Ottawa. Thus when others were asked questions, we were told that the Agency's laboratory in Scarborough was not certified at the time the Listeriosis crisis occurred. So there are contradictions there.

I'm wondering if that isn't the way the Agency goes about things—trying to offload any potential problems onto the provinces.

Have you ever been in a position where you were told that, in fact, it was you who had done the wrong thing? Given what I have just told you, is there a specific procedure that the province is required to follow in the event of a crisis like this, or is the procedure somewhat random?

[Lynn Wilcott]

Well, we don't work in a haphazard fashion. Outbreak investigations tend to vary depending on the situation. As I said, when you start an investigation, you are completely in the dark in most cases. When we have enough information that we feel there are foods potentially implicated, that's the point—if it's an imported or processed food—when we contact the CFIA to give them the information we have. We provide all the information we have.

I'm speaking for British Columbia. I can't speak about the example you provided with what happened in Ontario. At that point, as I said before, we often ask for other information. We need more information to be able to confirm whether or not the foods we've implicated—and often there is more than one food.... We want to be able to narrow it down. We ask for information, and, as I said, we don't always get the information we're looking for.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay. Thank you. Your time has expired, Mr. Bellavance.

Mr. Allen, for seven minutes.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to everyone who has come.

My first statement is actually more of a request of Mr. Fuller, Mr. McLean, and—I'm sorry, I can't see the gentleman's name. Ferguson? Okay. You all referenced the HACCP plans you have in each of your individual industries. What I'm going to ask you to do is send the committee copies of those, if indeed you can. If that's available, I'd greatly appreciate that—and indeed from Mr. Jennery as well, because I believe you mentioned that. Mr. De Valk, if you have one as well and you want to send that in, we'll be glad to take that one too, just to make it easier for me than having to track it down. Sometimes I don't get things in a very quick manner. Perhaps I'll get it quicker this way.

Mr. Jennery, you made an interesting comment, I thought, as part of your response to a question. You said Dr. Evans was the lead spokesperson on BSE, when that tragedy occurred, and Dr. Butler-Jones was indeed the spokesperson...and is at this present time for H1N1, and you said he was doing a terrific job—I'm using your words, of course. I would tend to agree with you. He tends to be the public face. The question really isn't for you, sir; I'm just simply referencing what you said.

Yet, when it came to listeriosis, the public face was Michael McCain. In two other serious incidents in the past six years, we saw Public Health and CFIA. Now we see the industry. The only thing I see different between the three is that in the first two—at this point in time, at least, under H1N1—we haven't had a serious illness leading to death. But in the case of listeriosis, we saw 22 people die.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You have a point of order, Mr. Lemieux.

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

I just want to identify that the minister was very present during this listeriosis crisis. He did numerous press conferences communicating with the public, and Mr. Allen is simply casting aspersions here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Go ahead, Mr. Allen.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I want to thank my colleague for his non-point of order.

The simple case is that Mr. McCain, in his testimony before us, said that he was the public face of this particular illness. The public, according to the media reports, also said that. Notwithstanding the government side's belief that they did some things, and clearly the minister was out and spoke a few times and CFIA spoke a few times, Ms. Swan said in testimony—and my colleague on this side has already said it—that she believed industry was responsible for food safety. It seems quite obvious, then, that Mr. McCain should be the lead spokesperson.

Mr. Wilcott, sir, there is this whole sense of information sharing, because we're talking about public safety and ultimately public health in the food system. If we're to have real security in the sense of truly believing our food system is as safe as it humanly can be, what do we need to do to open up the channels of communication? What do we need to do to ensure that when you're sending things to the federal agency, we're indeed getting things back to us at the provincial level so that you can actually help the public get to the place that it needs to be, which is either to a physician or to safe practices, or to all of those things you're seeing? I hear what you're saying about how difficult it is. It's a little bit here, a little bit there. How do we put the puzzle together? It's like building a puzzle, it seems to me, without one of the corner pieces, which means you really can't get it done.

How would you want to see the information sharing change?

[Lynn Wilcott]

From our viewpoint, we would be looking for complete, open, and free information sharing, at not withholding any information. At times, there could be information that one agency may have that they feel maybe isn't relevant and they don't pass it on.

In an outbreak investigation, it could be relevant. That's as simple as I can put it--a very open and free sharing of information. From a provincial viewpoint, at least in British Columbia, we provide everything we have, because we want to identify the food source as quickly as possible. We don't always get that back.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Perhaps the CFIA needs a HACCP plan, so that they can actually identify the critical points and get them back to you.

How can we, in your estimation, sir, ensure that through regulation, through statute, or through mandate, we get that information to the public health authorities across the country? Clearly, it is the public health authorities, whether they be localized or not. I can't speak to every province because I come from Ontario. Clearly, we have public agencies that are regionally based when it comes to public health in Ontario. We have a public health officer for the province that folks are feeding information into. From this perspective, in your sense, what would you like to see us do to ensure that this flow actually happens?

What I'm hearing from two public health officials—one now in Ontario and one now in B.C.—is that it's not happening.

[Lynn Wilcott]

I'm not a parliamentarian; I don't pass laws.

I simply do my job to try to prevent illnesses. How you have that done by CFIA...I'm not really sure how you can do it. What we would be looking for is simply the outcome, that open flow of information.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I appreciate that.

[Nick Jennery]

Mr. Chairman, perhaps I could just answer the question that originally came my way. My point was really around providing consumers with a clear context, as opposed to my understanding of what Mr. McCain was speaking about.

He was explaining about the issue and about what the company was doing. My point was that consumers really want to know. Some of them hadn't even heard of listeriosis before. What are those symptoms? Who are the people at risk? What should you be doing? There is information on some of the Government of Canada websites. I'm just suggesting that there be an enhancement in trying to bring forward that information about who's at risk.

It's that contextual information as opposed to an explanation of what was unfolding at the time. That was my point.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. de Valk, you had your hand up. Did you want to speak to that as well?

[Robert de Valk, Director, Canadian Partnership for Consumer Food Safety Education]

Yes, I think there is a model we can use to help the flow of information between the provinces and federal government agencies like the CFIA. The public health authority has what are called sentinel sites--there's one in Guelph--where Canadians can report their results when they get sick, and they're tracked very closely.

As we found out in this particular case, the field results often identify a crisis first. So there is information sharing at these sentinel sites between the provinces and the federal government. I understand we're in the process of developing 10 sites, but we've only had one now for three years. If we had more sentinel sites and more of that information was shared, we would probably be a lot more comfortable about sharing information back and forth between governments and agencies.

So that may be a helpful tool.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Mr. Lemieux, you have seven minutes.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I thank our witnesses for being here today.

What I've heard from each of you, either directly or indirectly, is that food safety is indeed a shared responsibility because there are so many different key players involved in the food process. We've heard from producers about systems and processes they implement at the farm gate and right through to processing. We've heard about food preparation and the impact it can have on food safety. Then of course it flows right through to consumers, who end up doing the final food preparation if they happen to be consuming it at home.

Mr. Wilcott certainly described well the challenges that are present when trying to define whether it is an outbreak. I appreciated your point that it's usually first discovered in the field. Then it's a matter of trying to piece the problem together from there by interviewing people: “Is more than one person ill? What did they eat two weeks ago? What is the source of the problem?” It's a complex problem and there are many interfaces.

One of the things that concerns me--from some of the questions my colleagues asked--is that I sometimes think their mission is to lay blame. They want to nail somebody for this. When my colleagues and I voted on establishing this committee, its working hours, and the kinds of witnesses we wanted, the aim was not to lay blame. The aim was to find out what happened, who the different players involved were, and what the interfaces were and how to better manage them. To me that's key, and we all need to work together to move things forward.

The lessons learned reports will help move things forward. They have been tabled by different organizations, and we certainly need to communicate better. I appreciated Mr. Jennery's comments on communicating key information to industry and the public. Again, interfaces between different governmental organizations need to be improved.

Let me follow up on one of the comments Mr. Jennery made on communication. You said that industry should find out before the media, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on the practical application of that. Given the society we live in today--especially since we're all interconnected on a high-speed communications network--there's often a lot going on at once, but the media, industry, and the public must be finding out at the same time. Maybe you could elaborate.

I'm concerned that if we start putting a step-by-step process in place to share information, it will become more bureaucratic. Then people will say, “Listen it broke down here, and that's why the public didn't find out. It broke down there, and that's why industry didn't find out.” I'm wondering if you can comment on what you mean by this flow of information and who should find out first.

[Nick Jennery]

Mr. Chairman, my point was really that I think there should be one source of truth and that information is one to many. Over the years Canada has built up an enviable electronic real-time system of one to many. Anybody can sign up to that, so we all get the information at the same time.

When you have the complications of a rolling recall--and, as Mr. Wilcott pointed out, this was a difficult recall--there is a temptation to have some sidebar conversations, and then the media start to speculate and report on things. I think we all play a role in this, but I would encourage support for the CFIA system to be out there. We know it works.

In the bisphenol A situation, the media were speculating on what the standard would be. From our standpoint, we did not react to that. We waited until Health Canada actually made a definitive statement, and I'm glad we did, because the speculation was based on wrong information. I would encourage total and absolute respect for the CFIA system, because that is the only trigger we respond to. When there are discussions with media, etc., it can sometimes complicate things.