Health Committee on June 10th, 2010

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

I guess my concern is that after the death of 22 Canadians, I think the ability to trace tainted foods really should be a number one priority.

I'm wondering what specific actions have been taken to trace food from the farm to the fork—you mentioned production—and include all the agencies and industry participants along the way.

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

Can I suggest that is in fact within the agriculture portfolio? We'd be happy to take that question back to CFIA and Agriculture, but our part is the actual dealing with the human impacts, the identification of risky foods, etc.

The purpose of what they're talking about in that study is that if you have a cow with mad cow disease or whatever, you're able to trace that through the system. We deal with the issue of what people are eating, not other parts of the system. That's where the human health direct implications occur and that's what we're able to identify.

We'd be happy to take that question back to CFIA, because they're the ones actually doing that part of the system.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Are we able to provide answers? Maybe we should have had CFIA here.

I think one of the concerns from the Weatherill report was actually the lack of communication, the lack of—

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

A point of order, Madam Chair.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Dr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

We did agree to have the committee look at this issue, but we want to focus on the health issues. CFIA--that's a whole other committee looking at this whole thing. We don't want to duplicate.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Okay. Thank you for your comment. It is Dr. Duncan's turn.

I think it's fair enough—

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

It was a point of order.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

—for her to make that observation.

Continue.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'm wondering what countries are at the top of the 2010 food safety performance world ranking and why they outperform Canada.

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

Again, that's a focus for the agriculture part of the system, not the human health part of the system. It's something that would be better addressed to CFIA.

Quite honestly, I don't have that answer.

[Kirsty Duncan, Liberal, Etobicoke North, ON]

Could Canada's food safety system be the best in the world? If so, what specific changes would need to be made?

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

If we're not the best, then I think we're one of the best in terms of outcomes. I mean, that is the issue; there are certain things that could improve it, but in terms of the outcomes, which is human health risk and disease, Canada is among the best, if not the best, in the world. That's our focus.

There are always ways we can improve. From an agriculture standpoint, probably they would like to have some better points of traceability, etc., and that's what they're working on. But it's not a simple process and it's a very expensive process to track every single cow, etc.

I'm not an expert in that area. I do know that with respect to what we see in terms of food-borne outbreaks in Canada, sourced in Canada, we have an exceptionally good record. At the end of the day, it's interesting that with everything we did with H1, we actually saw reduced transmission of a range of infections, including food-borne infections--at least those that relate to home--where, if we don't wash our hands or we cross-contaminate, etc., most of the food poisonings actually come from.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Thank you.

It is Mr. Dufour's turn.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Thanks to the witnesses for being here today.

Ms. Ballantyne, in your brief, you told us that guidelines to assist the industry are being developed and that you expect to have the final version of those guidelines in the fall of 2010. You also told us that the department will continue to increase its capacity by adding specialized expertise and by training more staff to conduct health risk assessments in order to continue to provide around the clock coverage and to enhance preparedness in crisis situations. I feel that we have to underline the words “crisis situation”.

If I understand correctly, your problem is the way in which responsibilities are shared between Agriculture Canada and Health Canada. You are actually only responsible in crisis situations. Prevention is a problem. In the mid-90s, Agriculture Canada put in place a large number of food inspectors, and it created a kind of imbalance.

There are a lot of inspectors in my constituency. I recall them telling me that, previously, there were preventive inspections. Inspectors went into supermarkets almost every day to conduct checks and surprise inspections. Some were done at industry level. Today, there are precious few anymore.

As a result, there is precious little prevention anymore. You are dealing with this problem because you only get involved in crisis situations. As I understand it, you ride to the rescue at the last minute. It is all very well to adopt guidelines and develop plans. But if there is no prevention on site, if there are no inspectors, if you cannot hire any to do the checking before a crisis begins, you will always have to be managing the situation from crisis to crisis rather than doing basic prevention so that the crises never arise. Am I mistaken?

[Meena Ballantyne]

Thank you for the questions. I would like to ask Dr. Godefroy to answer.

[Dr. Samuel Godefroy]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

In the food safety system, Health Canada's role is above all in prevention. That is the core of our mission. The department's responsibility is to define the standards that set production conditions that ensure that food products are safe and cause no harm.

The department's role is also to facilitate risk assessments in investigations—food-related investigations, that is—when there has been no incident. If you look at all the incidents that I will call “food related”—involving potential contamination—the large majority of them have no effect on human health. Hence the importance of that prevention role. This is the context in which we intervene.

To answer the first part of your question about what will become available in the fall of 2010, I think you are referring to food additives and to the process of intervention in food production in order to limit contamination. Health Canada has, in fact, worked on this specific recommendation from the investigator. We have already reviewed all the submissions made by the industry, on food additives, for example, or on technological agents that can have an immediate effect on public health—a positive, preventative effect—such as antimicrobial agents. We have prioritized our assessment of these agents. I could tell committee members about this assessment. There are no more agents undergoing scientific and technical assessment in terms of their safety and their positive effect on the system.

[Nicolas Dufour, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I am sorry to interrupt you, Dr. Godefroy.

First and foremost, the processing site needs to be hygienic. This is not just about what is put into the food. I think that it is a little sad. It may not be the role of the Standing Committee on Health to assess this aspect. We actually thought that it was to be excluded, but your prevention role is limited to some aspects only. Your work has limits. As long as Agriculture Canada is not able to extend its inspection role, you are going to be stuck. The food is one thing, but then there is the packaging.

[Dr. Samuel Godefroy]

To address that aspect specifically, I will say the policy on listeria monocytogenes, which was amended by Health Canada and which was made available in an initial version this spring, specifically sets safe production conditions and gives the industry the framework necessary to avoid any possibility of contamination at all stages of processing from the raw materials to the final product. That is part of Health Canada's prevention role. We have to set the guidelines that the industry must follow and under which the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is going to monitor compliance. We have actually made steady progress in that area.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

Thank you, Dr. Godefroy.

Dr. Butler-Jones had something to add.

[Dr. David Butler-Jones]

Thank you.

The gist of your question is about local and provincial public health inspectors. In the last decade, we have recognized the need for a risk balanced approach, as we call it.

“risk-balanced approach”.

Convenience stores do not present the same risks as other producers. Most inspections focus on high and medium levels of risk. If there is a problem, a lot of inspections are done. In other cases, it may be once per year.

It's the same thing, I think, in CFI and others. There is the recognition that you go where the problems are, and on those that are low-problem you don't spend as much time. You make sure that people understand what things they can do to reduce the risk and focus on that rather than just look at things going by. That's a principle in public health that we've applied for the last 20 years, and it resulted in a change in the way we do inspections.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Joyce Murray]

I'm sorry; there's no more time in this section.

Dr. Farber, you can contribute your ideas perhaps through one of the other discussions.

It's now Ms. Leslie's turn.

[Megan Leslie, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Thank you Madam Chair.

Thanks go to all the witnesses for appearing before this committee.

My first question is for Ms. Ballantyne.

You said that there is a strengthened listeria policy. Can you tell us what that is? How is it strengthened? What does it look like?

[Meena Ballantyne]

This is Dr. Jeff Farber's area, so I think he would be best placed to give you a precise answer.

[Dr. Jeff Farber, Director, Bureau of Microbial Hazards, Health Products and Food Branch, Department of Health]

Thank you very much for the question.

Just to start off, the main focus of the listeria policy is on prevention and early detection. The proposed changes that we've made to the policy will encourage early identification of contamination in the plant environment.

This would help take corrective actions earlier and help avoid contamination of the finished product. It's based on looking at the environment and trying to find the sources of listeria, because listeria is a very complex organism, and it likes to hide out in little niches. The whole idea is to try to find those niches in the plant where listeria is hiding.