Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on May 25th, 2009

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Please be brief, Mr. Kingston.

[Bob Kingston]

I would agree. And it's not with the system that we're finding we have a problem; all we're saying is, do the system. You wrote a great system; do it. Make sure you have the resources to do it and do it the way you say it's supposed to be done.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Anderson, you have five minutes.

[David Anderson]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll share my time with Mr. Shipley.

Earlier, you left a couple of us with the impression that the only reason this wasn't caught last year is that there weren't enough inspectors--if there had been inspectors, they would have seen the material and would have insisted that the machines be torn down. But did you know that the CFIA did not have any specific requirement for slicer cleaning and disinfection practices prior to September 5? Their requirements included sanitization once a day. Those procedures had to be documented by the companies, verified, and validated, and it was on September 5, 2008, that they issued the advisory to industry that gave them very specific instructions for the full assembly of these slicers.

You had mentioned that CFIA inspectors know better than plant employees about the manufacturers' guidelines, but the reality is that neither the manufacturers nor the government—no one—anticipated that this was an issue in these machines, including, I assume, you and the folks at union headquarters and the folks who work for you.

As someone—I think Mr. Allen—mentioned, and we've heard it here before, the risk cannot be brought to zero. You left the impression that you would have been doing this, but in fact you would not have been doing it at the time, would you? Even if you had had inspectors there, you wouldn't have been doing this.

[Bob Kingston]

Visual pre-operation inspection checks are a part of CVS. They weren't being done at the time. That is where such things as improperly cleaned machinery come to light. Now—

[David Anderson]

Am I hearing you say, then, that the companies were not doing that? They're required to do it every day, and it had to be document-verified. I assume those documents are kept on hand. I think this testifies to the fact that something like CVS is probably what is really necessary, because there's a collection of data that then can be checked and analyzed, which seems to be far more efficient and effective than just someone inspecting on a micro level.

The reality is that the listeriosis samples, from my understanding, were very intermittent. They had been trying to find it and they didn't, but I don't think you can say, given this, that if we'd had more inspectors we would have been more successful at finding it.

[Bob Kingston]

There are a couple of things.

First of all, the inspectors historically, when they see a piece of machinery they don't feel is cleaned properly, don't refer to the manufacturer's specifications to see whether they should be ordering it taken apart or not. If they think it needs to be taken apart to be cleaned, they simply order it taken apart to be cleaned. From that perspective, what they're worried about is getting the machine cleaned. They're not worried about whether it's going to cut into production time and they're not worried about whether or not it's going to cost somebody some time to take it apart. They order it taken apart and cleaned. They have a perspective on it that's different from one of just following the manufacturer's specifications.

Let's see, what was the other part of the question?

[David Anderson]

Well, it's CVS again, the reality that you have a series of data and are analyzing it.

[Bob Kingston]

Yes, it's the collection of data.

Again, you have to have time for the inspector to actually see those data. When you talk about intermittent finds, you're talking about a high percentage of product positives that were coming off that line and out of that facility, which even Michael McCain suggests now he didn't realize was a problem. It is obviously a case of 20:20 hindsight.

The other thing was that in the environmental tests themselves, never mind the product tests, there was a trend of positive finds. That went unnoticed by CFIA because it was not brought to the inspector's attention, and the inspector didn't have the required time to monitor as closely as he would have with a properly resourced CVS system.

[David Anderson]

That has been changed now.

[Bob Kingston]

No. What has been changed now is the requirement for the plant to bring these to the attention of the inspector, rather like what was in the old manual prior to the plant's taking over that function in 2005. However, the resources needed to do all the monitoring of the tests by the inspectors hasn't changed. It has at this one facility where it actually happened, because they have one person looking after that facility, period. But across the board, for the rest of the country, it hasn't happened. You're still looking at a resource-starved organization.

[David Anderson]

And again, that's why we have put the $250 million into the labs, the 200 inspectors.

[Bob Kingston]

It doesn't do the trick.

[David Anderson]

It may not do the trick for you, but it's doing the trick for the system.

[Bob Kingston]

Well, I have direct feedback from some directors at CFIA who say, there's no way I'm hiring front-line people with that money; I'm hiring biologists who are going to sit here at regional office so they can keep me informed.

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

Help me. I'm just trying to understand a little about inspectors. We seem to be talking a lot about inspectors and not having enough. Just help me to understand this. If an inspector is certified as a meat inspector, will any of those inspectors be also certified for horticulture, for plants? You mentioned the nematode. Can an inspector have two certifications?

[Bob Kingston]

Absolutely.

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

Does their having two certifications mean that they can actually be called from one area into another area, depending on the circumstances?

[Bob Kingston]

Of course.

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

Would that have anything to do with why it's sometimes harder to say exactly how many meat inspectors you have at any one place at one time—that a circumstance may change?

[Bob Kingston]

No. First of all, the people who work in meat hygiene are less likely to have that crossover than most, unless it's a crossover with animal health. In meat hygiene, the people who work in plants are, among CFIA inspectors, the least likely to be cross-utilized with a totally other program.

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

Are there any other ones who come in or out, though?

[Bob Kingston]

First of all, it would be rare. Second of all, there's a tracking mechanism for every single inspector wherein there's a breakdown of the percentage of time they spend in every program. I used to sign those documents. Some places do them for the year, some places do them on a month-by-month basis, but in the corner of the expense claims and time sheets for each inspector, there's a breakdown by percentage of how much time they spend in every single program.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much, Mr. Shipley.

Thanks, Mr. Kingston, for being here today.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Hold it, Mr. Chair. He's supposed to have two hours.