Subcommittee on Food Safety Committee on May 25th, 2009

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Thank you. Good.

The other point, Nelson, and I'll get to Mr. Caron in the next round, is that you mentioned that the.... There are two points. One is the critical point system under HACCP, and what was the other?

[Nelson Vessey]

The prerequisite program.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Yes, the prerequisite program. How does that compare with before HACCP came in? The point I'm trying to make is that now we depend more on industry for food safety under the HACCP program than we do on the independent agency of the Government of Canada. I guess key to that is--and we had an earlier discussion of this as well--do we want to get to a privatization of the system? I personally think not, but is this HACCP movement going down that road?

[Nelson Vessey]

Not necessarily, as I said. I don't know whether the best way might not be to give you an example.

When we talk about things being prevented, we talk about something within a plant. Let's take the example that pest control is one of the prerequisites in a plant. If you actually see there's a record at the plant that there are pests in the plant, whether it's the potential for mice or flies or other pests within the plant, that's an indication that the program has failed, because the objective is to keep those pests outside the plant. That's done through your prerequisite program. I'm simplifying it because that's the easiest way to understand what the prerequisite program does. It would probably say at one point--for instance, for rodents getting into the plant--that your grass be kept short. Lots of plants put gravel out for eighteen inches, and that's quite common today, so rodents can't run around your premises and get in. However, if you were saying that you were catching them in the plant, that particular program wouldn't be working.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

I'm sorry, Mr. Easter. You're well over. We can come back to that.

Mr. Bellavance, for seven minutes.

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

You both have at least 35 years' experience in food inspection. For us, this is a very interesting source of information. You're able to testify as to how work in the plants has evolved as far as food inspection and food safety are concerned, over quite a long period.

Without going into all the details of your experience during those years, could you describe to me any differences you've noticed between the beginning of your career and your recent retirement? I think that was in 2005 in the case of Mr. Caron and 2007 in the case of Mr. Vessey.

Regarding the measures taken in food inspection, have you observed a positive evolution? Have you noticed ups and downs, depending on the government in power? What was your experience like in those years? Towards the end, when you were about to retire, what was the food inspection environment like, in your opinion? I'd like to know whether there are still some improvements to be made, to your mind?

[Paul Caron]

One area in which I see a big decline is training. When Nelson and I started as meat inspectors, you had to start out in a slaughter plant and work with all the different species. You worked in plants for hogs, beef, poultry, veal, lamb--everything. You received guidance and training and attended courses. You wrote exams and tests. You were under the guidance of a senior inspector who was your mentor and guided you through a lot of things. At the end of a two-year period you wrote an exam that was quite intensive and covered every aspect of meat inspection. Only then were you considered to be a working inspector.

In the area of import inspection, when I was training import inspectors the first core group that went through were all experienced inspectors, and they absorbed the material given to them quite readily. As time went on, some in the new crop of inspectors had only been hired two or three months before and they were doing import meat inspection. The things I explained to them, in particular pathology, labelling, and dressing defects, went right over their heads. They didn't have a clue what I was talking about, yet they were doing import meat inspections.

To be a good import meat inspector you have to have a good background in meat inspection. You have to know pathology. You have to know dressing defects. You have to know when to seal a truck and all those things. You need to have an idea how the system works and how loads are cleared through the border. People are being put in this position who don't have a clue what they're doing.

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

Mr. Caron, let me interrupt you. Do you have any idea why there's a training deficiency? Is it because the Agency has been asked to save on its budget, for example?

[Paul Caron]

Yes.

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

Or is it because the companies are doing more and more inspections themselves? How do you explain that?

[Paul Caron]

I have a theory, and I don't know if it's accurate or not. When Nelson and I started, the managers were all meat people. They were all veterinarians and had worked as inspectors. Now at CFIA you might be reporting to somebody with a plant background. They don't put the same importance on the training aspect of meat inspection because they don't know what's involved in it.

When I was a meat inspector with CFIA, I think a lot of meat inspectors were looked upon as second-class citizens, to be quite honest. Look at how they described them when they went through reclassification. They called meat inspectors slaughter inspectors. It was a kind of demeaning term, and a lot of people were offended by it. I think it's because they don't put importance on this type of inspection. I don't think they understand the extensive training involved in it, because they don't have the experience.

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

In my opinion, this is a very important job. Furthermore, according to a survey commissioned by the Agriculture Union—it was mentioned earlier when Mr. Kingston appeared—most people, the population in general, trust inspectors but have a lot less trust in the companies themselves when it comes time to do inspections and talk about their health and the safety of the food they themselves eat and that they feed their families.

Obviously it's a very honourable job, but at some point, for simple economic reasons, if people begin to say that they'll make it so that companies themselves can handle their own inspections...

As far as the inspectors per se are concerned, earlier we had someone one here who works in an office. I'm not denigrating his work, I'm not saying that his work isn't important, but this person checks the information given to him by the company.

Is that how the work has become over the years? Has it become more an office job than a working job?

My question is for either one of you.

[Paul Caron]

I'm working in the industry now, and it has become more of an office job. CFIA has put more trust in the plants. Fortunately, I work at a plant that takes the HACCP program seriously; they try to follow it to the best of their abilities. But I know of other situations where a lot of the records are fudged. They will go for days without filling out forms, and all of a sudden they know there's an audit coming up. CFIA announces audits, incidentally. They give you enough notice that an audit is coming, so a plant has time to get all their records in order. That's quite a common practice within the industry. Not all plants are like that, but quite a few will do that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Thank you, your time has expired.

Mr. Allen, seven minutes.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to you both, gentlemen.

Mr. Vessey, you talked about establishing a system with a known outcome—and correct me if I'm wrong—and you listed a litany of programs that you've witnessed over the 40 years you were in the different...groups, we'll call them—whatever the latest acronym you have, and you have numerous acronyms. It seemed to me you were suggesting that the outcomes were driven by a group of managers who developed these programs. It really didn't necessarily have to do with the ultimate goal of reducing food-borne illness, it had something to do more or less with trying to become a more efficient operation, if you will, inside the department.

Did I catch that correctly, or was I off-kilter on that?

[Nelson Vessey]

No, I think you're right on with that.

On the first one we talked about, there was full-time inspection until the early 1980s in all processing plants. In other words, when the plant was operating, whether it was daytime or whether it was overtime, there was an inspector there. That's how the system went until—I don't want to cite the exact year—they came in with a program called FOIL, frequency of inspection level, where somebody decided that instead of being there, depending on the type of operation, there was a formula where you had two or three days a week. That is the way it happened.

In essence, one might not have argued that it was a bad move. That's why I made my comment that it depends on how it was done. But you have your inspectors in these plants; they're there every day. They actually went in and did the pre-operation inspection. That was a requirement of the employees with Agriculture Canada at that time. That was part of the inspector's job. They actually checked each piece of equipment to make sure it was clean before they stated to operate in the day.

All of a sudden, a week later, two weeks later, a month later, they say, “You don't have to be there every day. That's really a plant responsibility. Let them go to it.” Because of this new process, people were taken away from it. The inspectors in there realized that every day they were in there they saw problems. They didn't go away; they're still there. So I said that because part of that circle has to be to make sure, when any new system goes in place, that it works, it's effective, and it does what it's intended to do before you put it fully in place.

I think that ties in with some of the programs, like the food safety enhancement program, which was put in for a different reason. It goes along with the fact that there tends to be a difference if you have a team of auditors as opposed to one person doing the job. Really what I was trying to summarize was the fact that, yes, somebody needs to know that these programs are working, and you need to put them in in such a way that there are trials. I heard somebody talk here earlier today about the fact that maybe there weren't enough trials or testing of this. The deadline for CVS was a deadline to do, as I understand it, a budget as opposed to making sure the program is working.

I'm not suggesting that particular program is not capable of working. If the people I know are involved in putting it together, it will work, because they're excellent employees. One of the persons from Atlantic Canada worked a lot on that program. I have every confidence that this person would put together a good program. The question is, will it work, or will there be flaws in it? You need to know this before you take one and replace the other, in my opinion.

[Malcolm Allen, NDP, Welland, ON]

I agree. I did hear, and I said it earlier this evening, about this science-based program. Folks come to us to tell us that's really what it should be about. Again, you're the second person this evening who has talked about CVS, and I appreciate your putting it in a historical context and telling us how we've moved along that continuum.

We have a program we're relying on that has been tested in the sense that it has been piloted and it has been in the field, but it has never been verified. Yet it's a verification process itself. I mean, that's what it talks about: verification. But the system itself has never been verified. It's akin to someone saying, “There are supposed to be four wheels on the car but I'm not going to actually walk around it to make sure they're all on. There may only be two, but we're not certain. We're pretty certain the car's going to run, but we haven't had anybody verify that.” I really find it strange for a science-based organization not to take the extra step to actually verify a compliance system that's supposed to be about verification.

I want to talk about the HACCP piece. You intrigued me with how you explained it, especially about the critical control points. I actually worked in the manufacturing sector at one time, so I know all about doing preventive maintenance, because that's what some of us used to do. We used to do it off-shift, if you will, when things were down. You talked about how inspectors would know what the critical points are.

We heard testimony earlier about the slicing machine, whether it be at Maple Leaf or somewhere else, because they're somewhat similar in nature. Some are larger, some are smaller, obviously, and it's large equipment. If an inspector knew that this was a critical point--and they're no longer there on a daily basis, as you pointed out, as these systems have moved on--and a HACCP plan is written up with the manufacturer's suggested cleaning system, not necessarily the one that the inspector has either talked about before or knows might have to be done at some point in time, because of history.... If that's not in the HACCP plan and the inspector is not there, have we really identified a critical control point or have we missed one?

[Nelson Vessey]

It depends, I guess. On a slicer, your critical control point would probably be where the meat product is contacting the surface, or anything that would contact the meat or that might contact the packaging material or anything like that. It would probably be defined in that way. But the other things are part of your prerequisite program, which should be part of your sanitation program and all the other things I discussed, and as I said, even looking at new equipment coming in.

Probably everybody in Canada is looking at slicers, but there are all kinds of other equipment out there apart from slicers. We look at slicers now, but I don't know whether there has been a full review of the different pieces of equipment that might cause the same thing.

You always have to keep in mind that this program is preventive. To answer the question you asked earlier, the organization that I was part of expected industry to have a HACCP-type program and be able to demonstrate that they're doing things as they go along. I don't understand why the organization would not have a HACCP-type system to be able to prevent things from happening within its own scope.

[The Chair, Conservative, Larry Miller]

Okay, your time has expired, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Vessey.

Mr. Shipley, seven minutes.

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

I'll start, and if I run out, my colleague will pick up on my time.

Thank you very much for coming, folks.

Mr. Caron, I listened with interest to your presentation. Actually, I'm surprised that anybody's alive in Canada. You're pretty pessimistic about Canada's food safety and the food we eat, which really surprised me.

I think you said you had 35 years with Agriculture Canada, CFIA, meat inspection, imports. What was your position?

[Paul Caron]

I was an EG3, a multi-commodity inspector.

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

Did you have any influence at that time in terms of changes to be made?

[Paul Caron]

I became part of the national import team. I was involved in rewriting chapter 10 of the Meat Hygiene Manual of Procedures.

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

When was that?

[Paul Caron]

In 2002, 2003. In the late 1990s I started developing this training course for inspectors, and up until the end of my career I was training inspectors.