Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on May 25th, 2009

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Chair, we as a committee have a responsibility to make recommendations in the future, and I can guarantee you that if we're going to be recommending privatization of the system, I'm going to be concerned about it.

Could Mr. Stamatakis answer the question? Would you feel more pressure if the ownership of the plant were giving you the paycheque versus third party independents with the Government of Canada?

[James Stamatakis]

That is a very difficult question to ask. It's like saying that you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you. I've not been put in that position ever. I would say.... Actually, I have to think about that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Your time has expired.

[James Stamatakis]

I wouldn't want to be in the position to try it, though. Let's put it that way.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Your time has expired. Thank you.

Mr. Bellavance, if you want to ask one quick question, I think we have time for that.

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

My questions are for all the witnesses.

Mr. Stamatakis told me he'd been doing this work for 20 years. I imagine that you've been employed by The Canadian Food Inspection Agency for a number of years. Over the years, has the nature of your work changed? Have you noticed, especially recently, that inspections are being done more and more often by employees of the plants where you work rather than by your inspector colleagues and yourselves? Have you noticed that you've been doing more and more office work than on-site work, as an inspector?

[James Stamatakis]

Do you want to answer that?

[Jenifer Fowler]

Yes, it has changed, but it has become more science-based. What you have to understand is that the HACCP system is written by the company. It is their responsibility to write what they're actually doing, and it is our job to make sure they are doing what they have written. So we just can't go micromanaging. We look at their records. We walk around the plant whenever the occasion calls for it. So at no point in time....

What the monitors are doing for the test is their job. That's not our job. Our job is to verify that they are doing what they say they are doing. We can find out whether they are actually doing the task by looking at their records, by looking at their written program, and also by having on-site verification from time to time.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you.

Mr. Allen, you asked for half a minute, and if you keep it to 30 seconds, I'll give it to you. But we have to get to the vote.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

The question of who called the witnesses was asked. Mr. Anderson has capably helped us out, except with the fourth one. I've checked my list. Ms. Airth is not on mine. I've asked Mr. Bellavance to have a look at his list, and she's not on theirs. So the only point I would have for you, Mr. Chair, is that when we asked for two other folks to be with Mr. Kingston, they were denied. If Ms. Airth is not on the list, she shouldn't have been at the table.

I think that was 29 seconds.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

It's a double standard.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

We'll not likely get back here before the 7 p.m. duration, but we do have to go and vote, so thanks very much for being here.

We'll adjourn until right after votes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay. I believe we have everyone in the room.

I'm sorry about the delay for votes, gentlemen.

Mr. Vessey and Mr. Caron, thanks very much for coming. I presume that you both have a presentation. If you could keep it to 10 minutes or less, I'd appreciate it.

Go ahead, Mr. Caron.

[Paul Caron, As an Individual]

As a Canadian Food Inspection Agency inspector for 35 years, I worked in meat slaughter plants and processing plants and spent a majority of my career as a CFIA border inspector. I was an inspector in charge of two CFIA-approved import meat inspection establishments.

I wrote a CFIA import meat inspection training manual and developed and delivered an import meat inspection training program to CFIA inspectors in the Ontario area. This course was used as the basis for the national import training course. I assisted in the rewriting of the new chapter 10 of the meat inspection manual of procedures, which deals with the importation of meat.

In 2005 I retired from CFIA and am now working within the meat industry on a private basis. During the course of my career with CFIA and now, while working in the industry, I have witnessed first-hand many shortcomings with the way CFIA conducts its meat import program.

First of all, I want to make it clear that the majority of Canadian meat importers want to import meat products that are wholesome and meet all CFIA requirements. In no way do they make an attempt to circumvent the system and put Canadians at risk. However, CFIA has created an avenue for unscrupulous importers and exporters to dump substandard meat products that do put Canadians at risk. CFIA has also put the reputation of Canadian meat importers at risk by not inspecting meat products properly to ensure that they are wholesome and meet Canadian standards. This increases the risk for them to unknowingly receive and distribute meat products that are substandard.

I would like to describe to this committee six major issues I have witnessed while a CFIA inspector and in working in the industry now.

Issue one: there are no longer CFIA inspectors at the ports of entry. As of today, CFIA inspectors are not located at nor do they provide services at border entry points. Only live animals receive CFIA veterinary inspection. I feel that this is a real and growing threat to public security and bioterrorism. Unlike the United States, which is increasing inspections and inspectors at ports of entry, Canada, through CFIA, has eliminated inspectors at all ports of entry.

CFIA has given this responsibility to the Canada Border Services Agency, which has no expertise or training in detecting evidence of unwholesomeness and abuse of a meat product. Front-line CBSA officers are not equipped or do not have the confidence to identify and deal with meat shipments that are out of compliance with the Canada Meat Inspection Act.

When I was a CFIA inspector at the border, I discovered several shipments of meat a month loaded in transport containers that were dirty, had foul odours of chemicals and fish, were poorly constructed with holes in the floor, or had refrigeration units that were not operating properly, and with meat and poultry off condition and meat and poultry not as described on the meat certificate and customs documents.

Issue two: exporters know between 72 hours and 30 days in advance whether their meat shipment to Canada will require visual inspection, full inspection, or no inspection. The result is that exporters to Canada can choose what meat goes into a load that will be inspected. This results in some unsavoury exporters to Canada dumping inferior and unsafe meat product into the Canadian market. An ideal means to carry out an act of bioterrorism is created. Importers are able to misrepresent import poultry shipments, resulting in breaches of Canada's supply management quota system.

Because it is known in advance whether the shipment will be inspected, meat shipments are a means of smuggling contraband. CBSA, for example, has discovered illicit drugs mixed in with imported food products. Exporters of meat products to the United States do not know whether their meat shipment will be inspected until they reach a meat inspection facility approved by the Department of Homeland Security and located in close proximity to the border. It's a contradiction to what Canada is doing.

Issue three: numerous meat shipments assigned a full or visual inspection were not presented by importers for inspection. According to statistics I obtained through the Access to Information Act, from January 1, 2000, to December 2007, 2,936 shipments that had been ordered by CFIA to be inspected were not inspected. No one knows whether these loads contained the declared food or possibly an illegal substance such as drugs, biohazards, etc., and if food, whether it met Canadian food safety standards. There were no penalties taken against these importers of record.

In the United States, the exporter, not the importer, is responsible for presenting the load for inspection. The exporter has to purchase a U.S. customs bond equivalent to three times the value of the shipment. Failure to present the shipment for inspection results in the exporter paying a penalty of three times the value of the shipment, plus costs for recalling the meat shipment.

Issue four: CFIA laboratory sampling schedules for bacterial analysis, residue monitoring, etc., for import meat are not carried out by CFIA import meat inspectors. This increases the risk of the introduction of pathogens that can cause illness or death and also increases the potential threat of bioterrorism. Through ATIP, I learned that from January 1, 2006, to November 13, 2008, only 370 samples of imported ready-to-eat fermented meat products were submitted by CFIA inspectors for microbiological analysis. This was far from the minimum standard required by CFIA. Of these samples, eight tested positive for listeria monocytogenes, four tested positive for salmonella, one tested positive for staphylococcus, and four tested positive for another type of listeria.

Issue five: CFIA has developed a non-productive internal culture. The inspectors do not always follow proper procedures for inspection of import meat shipments, because of apathy, shortage of staff, and lack of training. Inspectors have to try to incorporate imported meat inspection duties into other demands for service, such as inspection of processing in slaughter plants, and other commodity requirements.

Recently, CFIA established a time-consuming compliance verification system, and you heard testimony earlier that inspectors had to cut corners to get this particular activity done.

Ironically, it is a U.S. requirement that a CFIA establishment be visited daily by a CFIA inspector during its operations to allow that establishment to export its meat products to the U.S. This increases the inspection and travel time of the CFIA inspectors. It seems that CFIA is putting more emphasis on exports than imports.

Managers encourage import meat inspectors to cut corners to satisfy client demands, as I mentioned, and most import meat inspectors are not properly trained. To be an effective CFIA meat inspector, an inspector must have received training. He must have knowledge of pathology and dressing defects, and he must have successfully completed the CFIA meat processing course and the metal can integrity course, and he must be certified by Health Canada. In addition, he must have completed the CFIA meat cutters course and the CFIA national training course for import meat inspection, and he must know the CFIA label requirements of meat products. He must be able to esthetically take samples and submit them to a laboratory, along with proper documentation. He also must know the shipping requirements of import meat products and have knowledge of CBSA and CFIA service centre operations and procedures for clearance of imported meat shipments. He must be certified as a poultry grader to inspect imported graded poultry and have knowledge of the multi-commodity activities program, MCAP, and the import control and tracking system, and have complete knowledge of chapter 10 of the Meat Hygiene Manual of Procedures.

This training requires hours of classroom time and months of hands-on training in meat processing and slaughter plants, as well as practical experience shadowing an experienced import meat inspector. The current practice is that after only a few weeks of training, people are given the assignment of doing import meat inspection.

Issue six: there's a conflict of interest. Many meat processing plants do import meat inspection. Fresh meat shipments are often just-in-time deliveries, and CFIA inspectors are pressured to quickly inspect the meat shipment and not to follow procedures. In some cases when defects are found, instead of refusing entry, the inspector is pressured to allow the reworking of the product. According to section 9 of the Meat Inspection Act, no meat product can be reworked to meet Canadian standards; it must be refused.

There are other issues of concern, such as the risk of foreign audits. If we do not do our import inspection properly, and if imported meat products are used in processing our own meat products and are exported, this could create a problem if we don't inspect them properly.

There are also problems with the CFIA import tracking system, and there is incorrect code in the harmonized system, HSS, a system that is used electronically to describe import meat shipments in the CBSA database. By just switching one number of a 10-digit number, you can change a commodity from just being soup to vegetable beef soup, which requires more certification and inspection.

There is a huge incentive to misrepresent the amounts of chicken and turkey in import shipments. Canada's poultry system is protected by a controlled supply system, with high tariffs on imported poultry to protect Canadian producers. To bypass these tariffs, importers have quotas available and can secure a permit from DFAIT, the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, stating the amount and kinds of poultry they can import. This should be of concern to poultry producers in Canada, because importers can misrepresent the poultry. They can put down types of poultry that don't require a quota.

I guess I should wrap this up. In conclusion, I would like to read the following excerpts from the CFIA report to Parliament: “Since the Agency’s creation in 1997, imports and exports of products subject to CFIA regulation have increased by 45.6 percent.” And I'll give you another one from the report: import meat samples have not been and continue to not be sampled according to the sampling plans outlined in chapter 10, Meat Hygiene Manual of Procedures.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Vessey, for 10 minutes.

[Nelson Vessey, As an Individual]

Thank you very much.

I'll try as well as I can to stay close to that, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of issues that I want to get to, and some of the things I mention might have been asked earlier and I certainly will take questions on those.

I'll take a few moments to give you a bit of my background. I retired in 2007 with 40 years with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, previously Agriculture Canada or Canada Agriculture, whichever it was at the time. I was involved over that period in the inspection of everything from whales to chickens on a hands-on basis. I also supervised processing operations and supervised slaughter operations.

Since the formation of the agency, I have been involved as a resource and planning officer. I've been involved as part of the resource management system and part of work planning. Then finally, for the last number of years, I was a meat hygiene program specialist for the Atlantic area. That job involved giving advice to inspectors in the field, part of the program section. Also, part of the responsibilities of that position were to do with developing of programs and what have you.

I'd like to talk about a couple of things. Somebody talked earlier today about full-time inspection. Since the early eighties, we've gone from full-time inspection to frequency of inspection level, and to a modernized system of inspection of processing establishments, with the acronym MSIPE. We went from TIP 1, which was the inspection program, to TIP 2--and there was a TIP 3 developed, but it wasn't used in some areas--to the multi-commodity, which they first called the audit program, and then it was redefined as the multi-commodity activities program; and then there was the multi-commodity activities program with HACCP; and then we went from that to HACCP and audits. And then in some plants where daily inspection was required, it went from HACCP and audits and/or offset verifications. And now, as you know, we're with HACCP and CVS and audits. And I should mention that a cost recovery in the process was added into that mix.

The common theme in a lot of those things was the fact that the motivation for change wasn't the motivation to make a good program. The motivation for change, in my opinion, in a lot of cases had to do with diminishing resources--people and money. There were occasions where the changes had to be made. For instance, you talked about the food safety enhancement program verification. Instead of doing audits, that's where one individual would, over the period of a month, do the activities of an audit. That was caused by the fact that the USDA required a presence in those establishments on a daily basis.

I feel that during those different processes there has been an ongoing lack of ensuring that the procedure has the desired results before putting it in place.

And in training activities within the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and as part of different exercises I've done, one of the things they always talked about was the Taguchi method. That is the method concerned with the optimization of process. One of the things that are talked highly of in that...and as I've said, I won't go in depth on that, but I will mention that before you put any process or new program in place, you must test it out. You test it, and if it doesn't do what it's supposed to do, you go back to the drawing board.

I think there have been some questions raised in different instances I could mention. And I can tell you how that affects people trying to do all these multitude of programs over those years because there's a constant change.

The second thing I want to mention is the development of HACCP systems. As you know probably, HACCP systems were developed for the space program. The purpose was pretty simple, so people wouldn't get sick in space. You can imagine.... We just had 22 people die, and that's tragic. And I can't help but think what if it was my parent, my child, my friend, my relative, my buddy, or any one of you. The purpose of a HACCP system is to be preventive. And the protective system we're talking about wasn't preventive. Those deaths represented the failure of the HACCP system in the establishment.

The HACCP system consists of two parts.

The prerequisite program consists of all the things that need to be in place to make sure there's proper sanitation, which was talked about, and to make sure all the other activities done in the plant—refrigeration, cleaning, construction of the plant—are in place.

The second part of your HACCP system is your critical points. The critical point we're talking about in this particular instance was that slicer. I would be sure that was a critical control point, and the critical control point would have been to make sure there was no contamination on the product from that slicer.

But there was more behind it than that, and I guess after hearing lots of times on the news that this was deep inside that piece of equipment, and it had to do with the manufacturer's specifications, I understand that. I understand what that's talking about. But behind all this in the prerequisite program, there probably was some failure of their sanitation program. There probably was a failure of an assessment of the required sanitation program for specific pieces of equipment. There probably was a failure to demonstrate that sanitation standards were being met on a daily or an ongoing basis. It could have been a failure of the plant's assessment of the suitability of the equipment. Equipment going into the plants is supposed to be assessed for suitability, which includes design and construction. It could be a failure of the preventative maintenance program. People mentioned bearings and that type of thing earlier. Bearings will wear out, and they will cause contamination. They will cause areas where a product can be and cause that contamination, which subsequently can affect the product. Last but not least, failure of the annual review of the HACCP system could have been another indicator, because there's a requirement every year that the HACCP system be reviewed in its entirety to make sure it is still functioning the way it's designed to function.

On the other side, an acceptable audit regime by CFIA could have identified in any one of those instances that there was a problem. So I think we realize—and I did read the information from Maple Leaf and Mr. McCain—that they did come up with a six-point program. I must assume that happened some time during 2008. So with this program that was developed—this six-point program, which is supposed to be preventative—I can't follow why there was a problem in January 2009, because the whole concept has to do with prevention.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You still had over a minute. Thanks very much, Mr. Vessey.

I'll turn it over to Mr. Easter for seven minutes.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

There are lots of questions here, but we'll start with you, Nelson.

First of all, thank you both for coming. We appreciate your coming before the committee.

I think one of the key points you made is about an acceptable audit regime. We were told when McCains were here--I guess it was by CFIA, and I guess it was Dr. Evans, or it might have been one of the others--that to disassemble these slicing machines would be a problem; they're huge. But as I understand it, the pharmaceutical industry has to disassemble their machines at every product line run, and they're huge too.

On the preventive side, are there areas we can move in in this way to prevent this from happening again? Is audit part of it? Is it only part of it? You've been with the system 40 years. You've seen when audits were required. I don't disagree with you at all in terms of all the changes that have been made. Usually they're not made in terms of food safety, I think it's sad to say. They're usually made as a result of government cutbacks, resources, and people--doing more with less money. It's not the way you build an excellent food safety system in the country. And that's not a political comment or a partisan comment; that's government.

What would you recommend in that area in terms of audits? Do we have to go back to where we were? Do we have more stringent requirements? Do we have audits and manufacturers' recommendations or what?

[Nelson Vessey]

I think the people here talked about the new system and CVS, and there's an audit function in CVS, as you know. That goes back to reviewing the programs.

One thing I should take you back to is when HACCP first came in, during the late nineties. It came in because there was a requirement. If plants shipped to the U.S., they had to have a HACCP program in their plant. For that reason, a lot of emphasis was put on...and they tended to be the major players because that's who was doing a lot of the shipping. The bigger plants tended to be shipping to the U.S. There was a lot of emphasis. Big teams of people were sent to those plants by the agency to go through it. By the time it became mandatory in 2005 for the other plants...and I've always had this concern. A lot of those were the small plants, because the smaller plants didn't necessarily ship out of the country. By the time it became mandatory for them, there was more of a hands-off approach by the agency, which was saying they really didn't have the resources to spend the same amount of time with those people, that it was really up to them to write their own plan, and what have you. It was quite a different dynamic.

The base in all of this is the auditing of the written program. If there's a flaw in the written part, and I say that because the concept is that you say what you do, you do what you say, and you prove it. So your first step is to say what you do. So if there's a failure in saying what you do to indicate any of those that could be critical areas, if there's a failure, for instance, to look at the design and construction of equipment coming in and you find out there's a place inside that equipment that harbours contamination and that the juices run out of to other areas of the equipment from your clean-down, then that's a critical part. So the reviews have to be part of your HACCP plan. That's where the audit function or now the audit and the CVS functions should come in.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

But these audits are really not taking place now, are they?

[Nelson Vessey]

I'm not going to comment on that, because you've had that comment...you've had the other group here that are doing them. I'm not working on them anymore.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Yes, I know that.

You've likely had some experience looking at the U.S. system. How do we compare with the U.S. on audits? Mr. Caron mentioned that maybe CFIA is emphasizing its export inspections more than its import inspections, which protect Canadians. I understand that. We just came from a Canada-U.S. meeting where that was talked about.

How do we compare with the U.S. on the auditing side?

[Nelson Vessey]

I don't think it would be fair for me to comment on the U.S., because there could have been changes within the last year and a half that I'm not familiar with. I might lead you astray on that, so I don't think it would be fair.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

How much time do I have left, Mr. Chair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

You have a minute and a half.