Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for that accommodation.
Thank you, members of the committee, for allowing Chicken Farmers of Canada to present before you today on judicious use of antibiotics in livestock production.
Chicken Farmers of Canada is a national organization that represents the 2,800 chicken farmers in Canada and the Canadian chicken industry. I'm joined today by Dr. Leigh Rosengren. She is an independent veterinary epidemiologist with ten years of experience. She has worked for governments and industry on these issues of research and issues of antibiotic resistance.
I'm going to focus my comments today. You have our submission, but I'm going to focus down on five key points: some misconceptions that are out there with antibiotic use; CFC's support for government regulation and monitoring; CFC's support for judicious use of antibiotics; an outline of the five-point plan we follow in terms of addressing antimicrobial use and resistance; and finally a couple of recommendations, if I might, for the committee.
Before I move on to our policies, I think it's important that we address the elephant in the room, as it were: a CBC Marketplace episode that aired recently, which was designed by its nature to be sensationalistic. However, as such it painted an inaccurate and incomplete picture of the Canadian chicken industry, production, and antibiotic use and resistance. It certainly did not provide a factual or a scientific basis from which government can or should derive policy or options.
I just want to give you a couple of examples. While it was not expressly stated, viewers were left with the impression that the cases presented in the show of human antibiotic resistance were the result of eating chicken. No connection was made, and there is no connection there.
Second, viewers were left with the impression that all antibiotic resistance found in chickens is because of antibiotic use at the farm. As was stated by my colleagues, this is a complex area. Bacteria are endemic, and there are numerous sources. The CBC test results found resistance to antibiotics that are not used in poultry production in Canada. They found resistance to more antibiotics than would be given to a chicken flock. They reported on resistances to antibiotics that have nothing to do with drug use. For example, salmonella and e.coli have a natural resistance with erythromycin, when that drug was never designed for that use, and would never be prescribed for that use.
Third, contrary to what was repeated on the show, the government does have control over antibiotic approvals, it does have control over monitoring and use, and the chicken industry does report on the use of antibiotics.
These examples, and there are more, describe how the episode was misleading and shouldn't be the basis for government policy going forward.
In terms of government regulations, my colleagues here have already outlined the approval processes of Health Canada, the veterinary drugs directorate, and CFIA, so I won't go into that further. It's important, however, to note that all chicken farmers are required by federal regulation to report on the use of antibiotics before the flock is sent to a processing plant. CFIA veterinarians verify these reports and determine that antibiotics are used properly. Any chicken failing this investigation is not allowed to enter the food system.
Taking a further step, Canada has a leading edge surveillance program in the Public Health Agency of Canada's CIPARS, which is internationally respected and is an important component in government oversight and in developing public policy.
On judicious use, CFC has a clear policy. We approve judicious use of antibiotics that have been approved by Health Canada. Antibiotic use in chicken is for the treatment of birds to prevent disease and to prevent potential food safety problems. Antibiotics play a key role in ensuring that only healthy birds enter the food chain for consumption.
Antibiotics are a critical issue for us in terms of consumer trust. Without consumer trust, we don't have an industry. So anything but judicious use would be unacceptable.
I think it's also important to note that a significant amount of the drugs we use on a preventative basis are what are called class 4 drugs, or ionophores, and they are the types of drugs that are of little importance for human medicine. They are the preferred antibiotics we want to move to in terms of ensuring we are keeping those antibiotics that are of importance for human medicine and their efficacy in place.
In terms of the five-point plan that CFC has put in place, we have an on-farm food safety program where all farms have to report mandatory recording and reporting. This is in addition to what they have to provide to the CFIA veterinarian. They are audited on an annual basis. We have 97% of the farms in Canada certified on this program.
Second, we are working with CIPARS on surveillance. We've designed an on-farm surveillance program. Right now there's only on-farm surveillance in hogs and in cattle. We would like to see that extended to the farm level on poultry and we would look for that to be done. We're not waiting for that to be done. We've done some research with the University of Guelph in order to do a pre-pilot project.
Third, we are actively funding research. We've spent almost $5.1 million over the last several years in terms of research into probiotics, developing vaccines, and alternatives.