Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on May 25th, 2009

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

President Kingston, welcome.

My question to you will be based on what appears to be a contradiction between the union and the management.

In the briefing note issued by the Agriculture Union on April 20, 2009, to the committee, on page 3 it stated:

Faced with budget constraints the CFIA has taken a variety of cost cutting measures such as banning overtime before last summer's tragedy. As a result, CFIA inspectors were unable to verify that pre-operation and sanitation inspections at Ready-to-Eat meat processing plants in Ontario and Quebec were properly conducted...including at the Maple Leaf plant that was the source of the contaminated product.

In reply, Mr. Cameron Prince, CFIA's vice-president of operations, told the committee on April 20, 2009:

Last summer there was really no change in terms of cancellation of overtime. In fact, we've always approved essential overtime.

He continued by saying:

The overtime policy did not get in the way of completion of the compliance verification tasks.

President Kingston, would you comment on what appears to be a contradiction between the union and the management?

[Bob Kingston]

Based on our feedback from inspectors in both Quebec and Ontario, they were routinely refused overtime to come in early to do either the pre-operation or the sanitation verification checks. I understand that in some areas that might have been more of a communication issue than an overtime ban, but the effect from the inspectors' perspective was a ban.

We've checked this out through many sources. The local in Toronto raised this issue with management down there at union-management meetings on several occasions. It was all about cost-cutting. CFIA did not have the resources. This is what they were told.

As I said, there are a couple of people here who could have given you first-hand information about that, one of whom is the person who brought the issue forward to management, and the other is the person who experienced it first-hand in the Montreal region. So that's the contradiction.

At the end of the day, those inspections were not done. Those visual inspections were not done at the Bartor Road Maple Leaf site, and neither were audits leading up to that crisis.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Could you tell me--

[Bob Kingston]

Why? As far as why goes, the CFIA would say there are no issues about that. I have no idea. I did approach the same person who told you that about comments along those lines in front of another committee--that was the Senate finance committee--and reminded him of bringing this to his attention last summer. He said he would investigate the issue at that point. I don't think he managed to get that done before he spoke to you.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

In the Toronto Public Health background document, the critics of the compliance verification system conveyed that “concerns have been expressed by health authorities and others about the effectiveness of the federal Compliance Verification System and its self-monitoring features”. It was stated that these concerns suggested “that there is too much reliance on information supplied by plant operators” and that “it is reasonable to expect that the direct inspection by trained staff of a public agency may provide greater assurance that standards are indeed being met in all food industry premises”.

Again, Mr. President, do you have those concerns currently?

[Bob Kingston]

Well, as we've been saying, more presence means more compliance. It's a historical fact. On the evaluation that was done, the draft evaluation that never went further than that because it was too flawed, even there it showed that for plants that received more visits the level of compliance was higher. That's just a simple fact of human nature: when people think they're being observed by a regulatory authority, they behave differently.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

We'll move to Mr. Shipley for five minutes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to the witness for coming here today.

Do you think food in Canada is safe?

[Bob Kingston]

Relatively, yes. Could it be safer? Yes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

Earlier I listened to some of the questions and answers regarding the investment that we've tried to do as a government in terms of inspectors, food product safety, and also in laboratories. Again, that's $113 million for food and product safety. We've hired 200 new inspectors and now you're saying that none of them went to meat.

Also, in the budget we included $250 million for improving federal labs. A lot of this discussion, actually, with others had a lot to do with the direction where samples went and the laboratories not being kept up in the past and needing investment. Is that wasted investment?

[Bob Kingston]

I think one of the things you're going to find, if you do a proper analysis of CFIA, is that they need investment in several areas. Beefing up the labs in CFIA certainly is not wasted investment.

On the 200 new inspectors, the one thing I find interesting is that they hired 200 inspectors under the invasive alien species program, and at the end of the day you have an increase of 200 EGs in CFIA, which probably means that other programs ended up going down. They did hire new people to work in labs--I know that for a fact--so that adds to the number of 200. The 200--

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

In terms of the inspections, you were pretty critical earlier that all of these didn't go into meat inspections. Does that mean that the other areas where there was a balance of inspectors spread around don't have the same priority as meat?

[Bob Kingston]

As a matter of fact, I think they do, very much. What I took exception to was the characterization that these people were front-line food inspectors and they were going to somehow alleviate the problems associated with what happened last summer.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

I understand that in the meat inspection 14% went in and 7% of them were front-line, so there was a movement of inspectors into the meat inspection area.

If you had two times the number of inspectors, would this event not have happened?

[Bob Kingston]

If you had two times the number of inspectors in processed meat inspection and they were able to do all the verification tasks as laid out on paper--which means all the visual checks for pre-operation and sanitation would have been done--I think it's likely that it may not have happened. They might have seen the problem, because they have done so many times in the past. We're talking about a situation where you've removed them.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

You're moving on the point that we need to have twice as many inspectors. I'm saying that if you're having twice as many inspectors.... We keep hearing how bad this was, because we lost 22 lives. It was terrible. The issue is that from that side the fingers want to point to somebody. Michael McCain has taken the responsibility, and we can all learn a lot, quite honestly, all of us, from how he stepped up to the plate and dealt with this issue.

I'm not hearing that if you had had twice as many inspectors this wouldn't have happened. I don't think you can guarantee that. In fact, I don't think anybody can guarantee it, because what you said was that you do a visual and look for debris on the equipment and that it hasn't always been cleaned up. Is that what you're saying happened at the Maple Leaf plant?

[Bob Kingston]

That they were not looked at. That's true.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

There was debris on it. Is that what caused it?

[Bob Kingston]

There was organic material on and in those cutting machines, yes.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

My understanding is that it was found deep.

[Bob Kingston]

The listeria was found deep inside. Symptoms of not cleaning can be seen easier than that and often are. That's why machines are ordered taken apart.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

They were following the manufacturer's requirements.

[Bob Kingston]

The plant employees were. CFIA inspectors don't, because they know better.

[Bev Shipley, Conservative, Lambton—Kent—Middlesex, ON]

If you go back to “if we had been there”, I think it has as much to do with “if the policy had been there”. The environmental testing that was removed in 2005—I'm sure you know this, but maybe you don't--did not require, to my understanding, Maple Leaf or any other plant to actually, when they took the swabs, make a mandatory report. The previous government cancelled the environmental testing. So what Maple Leaf was able to do was take tests, and sometimes it showed up and sometimes it didn't. If it didn't, it went in a file and went on the shelf.

I am asking you the question. We instituted and brought back the environmental testing. It was a recommendation. It was a critical part of prevention. Do you agree with that?

[Bob Kingston]

Absolutely.