Health Committee on Nov. 4th, 2010

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

What about for Canadian facilities?

[Paul Mayers]

All facilities in Canada, both those exporting to the U.S. and those not exporting to the U.S., receive a daily inspection visit.

[Ruby Dhalla, Liberal, Brampton—Springdale, ON]

Both products going into the Canadian market and products going into—

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Dr. Carrie.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

I was just going to ask my colleague what recommendation in the Weatherill report this line of questioning refers to.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Well, I was just about to say that our time is up, so it's totally irrelevant.

We'll go to the next one. Mr. Uppal.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I will share some of my time, if Mr. Shipley has some follow-up questions.

I will direct this to Dr. Plummer. What I want to know is what the Public Health Agency of Canada's part is in implementing the recommendations on lab technologies and what has been done.

[Dr. Frank Plummer]

Thank you for the question.

The role of the Public Health Agency, through its national microbiology laboratory, is to coordinate the overall PulseNet system, which is a network of provincial and federal laboratories that spans the country. The role of the national microbiology laboratory is coordinating this, providing training and certification of training to laboratory technicians across the country. We also manage the database that keeps track of fingerprints that are generated from labs across the country. We would provide surge capacity for certain provinces or other laboratories in the event that their capacity becomes overwhelmed. We also manage the connections with other PulseNet systems in other countries. So for instance we have a memorandum of understanding with the United States, CDC, that allows us to query its database and it is able to query ours, because very frequently these outbreaks occur across borders. We are working with Mexico and partners in Europe to help them get up to speed with similar kinds of systems for the same kind of reason.

We're kind of the hub of this network, with overall responsibility for coordination, training, and standard setting, etc.

[Tim Uppal, Conservative, Edmonton—Sherwood Park, AB]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

I think you wanted to make a comment. Go ahead, please.

[Dr. Jeff Farber]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

From Health Canada's standpoint, we've also been doing a number of things. We've been working on a new rapid method for listeria monocytogenes, which will very soon be validated. We're also working with the National Research Council on a unique tool--and I have something here that I've brought; it's actually a lab on a chip. On a little microscope here, we'll be able to detect listeria monocytogenes within 24 to 48 hours. It's a novel technology we're working on.

We're also working with Dr. Plummer's group. We've actually taken all these strains of listeria that have caused cases in Canada and we're sequencing the DNA to find out the important virulence factors that cause disease, and then, once we have this information, what we can actually do about that.

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

Thank you very much. And I thank my colleague.

The OECD actually recognizes Canada as a superior food safety system. It ranks as the best in the world. And I'm glad that Dr. Farber just showed us something right now.

In terms of the inspections, health, food safety, are we actually doing the same things we were doing before? I keep going back because my colleagues on the other side are hung up on something about getting the number of people.

I'm going to ask you the question on that. Was the union actually at the table with your recommendations, and did they sign off? If they did, are you following those recommendations in terms of the number of inspectors?

[Carole Swan]

The union did participate when we met with inspectors across the country to understand how CVS was working, and to improve CVS. We had some very good suggestions from our inspectors on what to do to make the system better, and we are implementing those.

The union was present, as I say, at the meetings. We produced a report that I believe is available to the committee. It is attached to the latest food safety progress report, and that is a report of our meetings with the union with all the inspectors.

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

And they agreed with that report?

[Carole Swan]

I would say they did agree with the report. They were certainly present at the discussions, and the report was a reflection of the discussions and recommendations that had come from the inspectors.

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

Can you tell me a little regarding the inspections? What are we actually doing different, then? What are we doing now? I mean, we just saw an illustration in terms of being able to identify a problem much earlier.

Are there some other processes that maybe I don't know about--maybe the rest of you know--that are becoming much more effective, efficient, in terms of providing food safety for Canadians? And it's not just for Canadians, but for people we ship food out to.

I'm always amazed. Dr. Jones said when you talk about food going from the farm to the plate--I guess to the end-user, which is us--most food-borne diseases come after it gets to the consumer and we consume it.

That was just a comment.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Who would like to respond?

[Paul Mayers]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

For the sake of brevity, there are significant numbers of continuous improvements in the system, but as it relates to listeria particularly, given the focus of today's discussion there are three areas I would note. One is that we significantly enhanced the testing that the industry undertakes in terms of environmental sampling and the information they provide. Second, we enhanced the testing that we do to verify the safety controls the industry undertakes. Thirdly, what I spoke of before is the incorporation of trend analysis in our processes. Within the context of the inspection system, there have been a number of improvements.

In addition to that, of course, there's the work that Health Canada has been doing in terms of listeria policy itself, which will also introduce enhancements right across the food safety system.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

If you would like to make a comment as well, go ahead, please.

[Dr. Jeff Farber]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Another important piece of the puzzle, as you realize, is the consumer. The consumer also has a role to play in food safety. Health Canada has come out with very sound advice to high-risk groups, because as you know, listeria really attacks, in the majority of cases, high-risk groups. So we've done a very good job in reaching out in magazines and in pamphlets and with information on our website trying to target these high-risk groups. So that's another important piece of the puzzle.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Joy Smith]

Thank you.

Ms. Hughes.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

I have a question with respect to the recently released Treasury Board performance report for CFIA and other government department agencies.

According to this report, the actual funding CFIA has received for food safety and nutrition risk has basically flatlined since 2006-2007. Has CFIA been forced to bleed other inspection programs in order to beef up the meat hygiene program? As I'm looking at this graph--

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

Madam Chair, on a point of order, I would just like my colleague to clarify how this relates to the Weatherill report before she continues with her line of questioning.

[Carol Hughes, NDP, Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing, ON]

Well, I think how it relates to it is pretty evident. It concerns funding and whether they are actually able to protect Canadians in this regard.

[Colin Carrie, Conservative, Oshawa, ON]

What recommendation in the Weatherill report are you addressing then? It's not evident to me.