Frank Valeriote

[Food Safety, October 3rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Burnaby—New Westminster his thoughtful and passionate remarks. He expressed some alarm over what events occurred on the 13th, alarm with which I, frankly, agree.

I wonder if he has the same alarm, same concern, over the length of time between the date on which Canada became aware of the E. coli on the 4th and the time on the 16th, 12 days later, when it finally issued a recall, 3 days after the event on the 13th when the Americans decertified the plant.

[Food Safety, October 3rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Welland for his thoughtful comments and insight. I have spent some time with him on this issue and I want to thank him for clearing the air on Bill S-11. It is not the panacea for food safety.

As members know, the CFIA already has the authority to demand whatever documents it requires. Frankly, in February of this year, the industry was reminded of that, that anything requested by the CFIA was to be produced and they were legally required to provide that information.

However, my question, more pointedly, is about the comprehensive audit that my party and I have been asking for. Every single time I have asked the parliamentary secretary when the audit would be provided, he has said, “Go to the website. It is there.”

Interestingly, I learned that in November 2010, Carole Swan, the former president of the CFIA, was asked about that very audit and if it had been completed. Do members know what she said? She said that the firm that had been hired, PricewaterhouseCoopers, had not conducted a traditional audit. It did not conduct it as an audit. An audit is a specific process. Instead, it was a detailed review.

I wonder if the member for Welland agrees with me that either the Auditor General or a third party should conduct a comprehensive audit of all of the CFIA resources and the adequacy of those resources, including human resources, to deal with this issue of food safety.

[Food Safety, October 3rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, the member is quite right. There is good meat out there. A lot of ranchers are quite concerned about the impression that has been left by the government and its failure to protect our food supply. I met with some of those ranchers and with other processors today.

We need to reassure Canadians that there is a way to eat safely, notwithstanding the government's failures. I am not a cook or a chef, but I will say that they need to cook their meat to 70^o C or 170^o F, which will actually kill the E. coli.

As quickly as borders were opened, they can be slapped shut instantly by the failures that have been demonstrated by the government. The slapping shut of our borders is our deepest concern on behalf of the ranchers of our country.

[Food Safety, October 3rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my colleague for that question. It is a pleasure to serve with him on the committee.

The facade the government creates is enormous. It keeps talking about all the inspectors it has hired, as my friend has noted. It seems to suggest that these inspectors have been put into the system for the purpose of dealing with food safety at meat processing plants. I found out today that 200 inspectors who were added were added to the invasive alien species program, which is designed to keep harmful organisms out of Canada. They have nothing to do with meat inspection whatsoever.

I have another concern with respect to the Conservatives' continued comments that there are 46 inspectors at this particular Lakeside plant. When I was at that plant several years ago, there were about 3,000 head processed a day. There are now over 4,000 head processed a day. That is a one-third increase. They have not increased the number of inspectors by the same proportion. My concern is that they are cutting corners, and that cutting of corners is what has led to this outbreak.

[Food Safety, October 3rd, 2012]

moved:

That this House do now adjourn.

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Toronto Centre.

For the second time in four years, we are faced with a major breach in food safety in Canada. The first time, we said never again, but one month ago, we were reminded that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency still does not have the resources it requires, and now, once again, people are sick.

On September 16, 2012, the CFIA issued a recall of just over 20 different meat products, originating at the XL Foods facility in Brooks, Alberta, that were possibly contaminated with E.coli 0157, the same virus that killed seven and poisoned thousands of others at Walkerton, Ontario in 2000. It is a pathogen that when consumed can cause vomiting and bloody diarrhea in most but can go on to attack the kidneys and other organs in vulnerable Canadians, such as seniors and children.

This is a significant date, because the recall occurred two weeks after E.coli contamination was found by American inspectors in a shipment of beef destined for the United States.

On September 3, the Americans positively diagnosed E. coli in an XL Foods shipment after stopping the shipment at the border. On September 4, American inspectors notified Canadian officials that our meat was contaminated, and they held subsequent shipments. On September 13, having found two more contaminated shipments 10 days after their initial finding, the United States Food Safety Inspection Service delisted XL's Brooks, Alberta facility, preventing it from exporting any further meat to the United States.

This brings us to September 16, 13 days after the Americans first found E.coli in a shipment of beef from XL. Our inspection agency's first action to recall tainted meat and protect Canadians from a potentially fatal pathogen took two weeks, which many of the 23 Canadians in Alberta and Saskatchewan who are now suffering would argue was two weeks too long. Despite the rapidly expanding recall, it still took 10 days after the recall to finally shut down the XL Foods Brooks facility for clear violations of the standards regulating sanitation, health and safety.

Now, one month on from the Americans' first finding, we are still looking for answers. Like the recall, which has grown to more than 1.5 million pounds of meat across 1,500 different products, day after day we only have more questions for a government that appears more interested in managing its public relations risk than in working on the real damage being created by a critical break in our food safety system. When was the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food made aware that XL Foods shipped meat contaminated with E.coli to the United States? When was he first aware that the XL Foods facility was no longer meeting minimum sanitation requirements? Why did he argue last week that there was no risk of contaminated product reaching store shelves, when clearly, a recall of 1.5 million pounds of meat, the largest in our history, is not merely a preventive matter?

Conservatives would have us believe that $56.1 million in cuts in the spring budget did not have an impact on the resources available to inspectors or that the hundreds of jobs they cut, including 90 biologists and 140 veterinarians, did not have a negative impact on the speed and efficiency of our front-line food safety workers.

Conservatives would have us believe that regardless of the job they did gutting essential resources this year, they have put enough in over the past five years that it should not matter. Clearly, it does. They answer our calls for more inspectors and more financial stability with derision but refuse to answer these questions: If the resources they gave the CFIA were enough, why are 23 Canadians suffering from food-borne illness related to E.coli? Why has the FSIS shut their borders to meat from XL Foods' Brooks facility? How did the facility get so far behind in meeting whatever food safety standards exist?

In 2008, 23 Canadians died, and hundreds more were sick, after consuming listeria-tainted meat in a situation that is eerily beginning to resemble our current state. In her report stemming from an investigation of what went wrong, Sheila Weatherill found a number of key factors that led to a catastrophic breakdown in inspection and prevention. Among those she pointed out was a major disconnect between senior management of both the industry and the CFIA in their approach to food safety, especially as it pertained to monitoring trends that would assist in identifying recurring bacteria presence.

Notably, as recently as last week, Dr. Richard Arsenault, director of meat inspection at the CFIA, said, “We need to do a better job of managing this data and finding these trends ahead of time…as opposed to having to respond to a crisis like this”, all this so that inspectors might connect the dots.

The second key factor noted by Ms. Weatherill was our state of readiness, or the lack thereof. She was concerned about insufficient training for inspectors, in particular.

Yesterday, before the Senate committee on agriculture, Bob Kingston, president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada's Agriculture Union, expressed his concern that only a small number of inspectors at XL Foods are properly trained to manage the compliance verification system, because there are not enough resources or trained inspectors to cover the time and material for bringing all inspectors up to speed.

Ms. Weatherill was concerned that one of the truly fatal flaws during the listeria outbreak was a lack of a sense of urgency at its outset. Concerns about when to notify the public in 2008 were mirrored this month when it took two weeks to notify the Canadian public that there was a threat to their food supply. Ms. Weatherill said: “Until the system is remedied, events like those of the summer of 2008 remain a real risk”.

Despite that being three years ago, here we go again, and her initial concerns still ring true.

Conservatives will tell us that they have fulfilled all the recommendations of the Weatherill report. However, just this year, they removed funding specific to listeria, and they have yet to complete a comprehensive third-party audit of all CFIA resources, including staffing, which she requested as her seventh recommendation.

Allow me to quote Ms. Weatherill further:

Due to the lack of detailed information and differing views heard, we were unable to determine the current level of resources as well as the resources needed to conduct the CVS activities effectively. For the same reason, we were also unable to come to a conclusion concerning the adequacy of the program design implementation plan, training and supervision of inspectors, as well as oversight and performance monitoring.

Accordingly, she recommended:

To accurately determine the demand on its inspection resources and the number of required inspectors, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency should retain third-party experts to conduct a resource audit. The experts should also recommend required changes and implementation strategies. The audit should include analysis as to how many plants an inspector should be responsible for and the appropriateness of rotation of inspectors.

To this day, that has yet to be done.

Conservatives will tell us that they acted on each recommendation. However, they cannot tell us how many inspectors they have, what their roles and responsibilities are, or where they are located. In fact, the only study they engaged in was a superficial review of resources available to the compliance verification system.

They will also accuse us of holding up their newest food safety legislation, which dismantles the various inspection acts, including the Meat Inspection Act, by removing specializations and making inspectors jacks of all trades but masters of none. However, they will not say that we support modernizing our food system, so long as it includes the necessary resources.

Furthermore, contrary to statements by their president earlier today claiming that the CFIA does not currently have the power to compel XL Foods to present proper documentation proving compliance, the Meat Inspection Act provides that:

[A]n inspector may...require any person to produce for inspection, or for the purpose of obtaining copies or extracts, any book, shipping bill, bill of lading or other document or record that the inspector believes on reasonable grounds contains any information relevant to the administration or enforcement of this Act or the regulations.

Moreover, the act compels the operator of the plant not only to comply but to facilitate the process. Hiding behind the imaginary facade of new, enhanced powers should not let anyone off the hook for this blatant failure to act.

The danger posed by Conservative inaction on the food safety file extends beyond the health and safety of Canadians. It is a threat to our ranchers, who have just started to recover from the BSE ordeal.

Borders across the world have finally reopened to our beef trade. Still, the government is currently attempting to negotiate away the very program that caught our contaminated meat at the border.

We have some of the finest inspectors in the world, but they are hamstrung by a lack of resources, leaving them incapable of performing the necessary functions of their jobs. Clearly, we have seen that the industry, while it can work in partnership, can no longer be left alone to police itself.

In terms of immediate action, will the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food finally consent to a comprehensive third-party audit of the resources necessary to operate the CFIA? Will the government finally agree to give our food inspection agency the powers and resources it needs to keep Canadians safe?

[Request for Emergency Debate, October 3rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I rise today pursuant to Standing Order 52 to request an emergency debate on a matter of vital importance to all members of the House and to Canadians across the country: the largest recall of meat in Canadian history following on the heels of an E. coli contamination at XL Foods facility in Brooks, Alberta.

Across the country 1,500 different meat products from XL Foods in Alberta are being pulled off store shelves and the number of sick Canadians, now at 23, is rising. Yet just a week ago the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food rose in this place to trivialize our concerns and state wrongly that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency had the situation under control and that none of the meat from the plant had made it to store shelves.

As members are aware, Standing Order 52 provides that the House can adjourn to hear an emergency debate on a subject that falls within the scope of the government's administrative responsibilities that relates to a matter of genuine emergency and will not be brought before the House in a reasonable time by other means.

It is clear from the timeline of action, two weeks to act on a threat and then two more weeks to finally acknowledge there was one, that neither “reasonable” nor “timely” are watch words for either the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food or the Minister of Health on protecting Canadian consumers from the E. coli 0157, the same pathogen that killed seven people and made thousands of others ill in Walkerton, Ontario.

As an agency of the Government of Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, its protocols, actions and inactions are clearly within the scope of the government's administrative responsibilities and our scrutiny as legislators. More important, public safety and order are among our most sacred and important trusts. In our 2009 report on the listeriosis crisis that claimed 23 lives on this minister's watch, Sheila Weatherill wrote:

As much as there is a legal obligation to uphold the laws and regulations governing food safety in this country, there is a moral duty of care to consumers - especially the most vulnerable. Safeguarding Canadians must be at the centre of the consciousness and collective actions of all those involved in food safety.

Unfortunately, despite repeated requests for actions and answers from the Prime Minister, the minister and his parliamentary secretary, we are hardly further ahead now than we were back in 2008 when the agency and the government similarly lacked urgency, preparation and the ability to communicate vital information to the Canadian public and we in the House as its representatives.

Seemingly more concerned with damage control on the public relations front than the health and safety of Canadians, the government has not made available its minister for questioning this week. Instead, we are left with the cold comfort of talking points about sufficient resources, made irrelevant by the fact that we are presently in a food safety crisis.

That they refuse to table the names, locations and roles of inspectors is an affront to the House and second only to the clear conclusion that regardless of the number of inspectors, the government is not dedicating sufficient resources to our food safety.

As more and more Canadians fall ill and the recall expands to every province, territory and now 41 states across the U.S., as more meat is being removed daily from shelves in stores across the continent, it is vitally urgent that you, Mr. Speaker, grant this request for the House to adjourn in order for us to give this urgent matter the full consideration it deserves.

[Food Safety, October 3rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am starting to understand why the minister is avoiding questions, but showing up at a Calgary lab and then XL Foods today is like visiting an accident scene after he removed the stoplights.

The Conservatives cut $56.1 million from the CFIA, yet claim to have all the inspectors they need. If they exist, can the government table today their names, job descriptions and locations? Can the government answer why, when Sheila Weatherill requested this information and a third party audit specific to all CFIA resources, including staffing, the government failed to do one?

[Food Safety, October 3rd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, I am starting to understand why the minister is avoiding questions--

[Food Safety, October 2nd, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, telling Canadians to trust the safety food safety system because they say so might reassure Conservatives, but it does not wash with consumers. Contrary to the Prime Minister's assertion that they have now acted on the Weatherill report, he is wrong. It has been four years and we are still waiting for the review of the CFIA requested by the Weatherill report on the listeria crisis.

Will the minister amend his new food safety legislation to request an immediate and overdue review of the CFIA and reviews every five years by independent experts and not a biased minister?

[Agriculture and Agri-Food, October 1st, 2012]

Mr. Speaker, talking points are cold comfort to a 4-year-old in Alberta who has kidney failure. Going through the chronology of what happened does not explain all the mistakes that were made.

Since the member opposite is clearly unwilling to consider the safety of Canadians, I will try another tactic, the economy. The government is currently attempting to negotiate away the very program that caught the meat contaminated with E. coli at the border. Ranchers and cattle farmers are concerned that we will ship tainted meat across the border through no fault of their own and those open doors will slam shut again, just like after BSE. Farmers have every right to be concerned and we owe it to them to protect their livelihoods.

No one wants to see another Walkerton. We know that regulation and budget cuts lead to people getting sick. Will the government support us and all Canadians by reversing cuts to food inspection that are allowing incidents like what happened last month at XL Foods?