Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  In the food environment our experience is that we're not selecting for superbugs. In a nosocomial environment, yes. So the wise application of a variety of different hurdles has worked for us, and the listeria, as associated with the outbreak in question, in my understanding, was not a superbug.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you. If we can be of further help, we would be more than happy to try....

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  That's a good question. The early warning sign is the safety system. The new attempt by the CFIA to get early warning of impending problems--that is, buildup of these organisms on the equipment and growing in the crud that occurs in the bearing traces and in the joints inside the machine--by swabbing the food contact surfaces on a regular basis will provide a history.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I think that the potential for what you're intimating has been realized certainly in the hospital nosocomial environment, where we're using lots of anti-microbials on a constant basis, and those anti-microbials are used in patients who are immuno-compromised, in general. So that provides an opportunity for natural selection to occur.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Absolutely. Keep it clean. It's a no-brainer, and I don't mean to make fun. The more we know about the limits associated with the ability of this organism to grow, the more we'll be able to control it. Health Canada brought out, September 8, permission, which they had been sitting on, to allow the use of sodium diacetate in these kinds of products that cause people, mostly in Ontario, to die from listeriosis.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Yes. In a broad sense, things like bakery products, cereal products, biscuits, cookies, pasta, peanut butter, infant formula, unpasteurized juice--I can go on--spices. Anything that is not covered by the Fish Inspection Act, the Meat Inspection Act, or the Canada Agricultural Products Act is not inspected by the federal government, the CFIA.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  The organism is what we call a psychotroph. It will grow very, very slowly at refrigerator temperatures, so four degrees is not a problem, and it will get to very, very high numbers over a period of 59 days, which is the shelf life of a cooked, cured meat product in a vacuum package.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  There were two issues I wanted to speak to. The first has to do with the double standard. I would reiterate what Dr. Usborne has said, but until we resolve this issue, I think there should be a single standard. We are going to always face problems in terms of imported products coming into Canada that meet the provincial but not the federal standard.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I don't think it is. Whether they're small or large companies, these companies are in business to stay in business. In those cases where they're either federally or provincially registered plants, they're working with food safety programs that are founded on the basis of experience, and it's in their best interests to do so.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Your question is very perceptive. The issue of permission with respect to 100 listeria per gram is generally qualified with a statement that the listeria cannot grow in the products in which 100 are allowable, so whether it's 100 at the beginning of shelf life or 10 days later, it's only going to be 100.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Please don't misunderstand; I don't think we do a bad job in Canada in terms of food safety. I don't have a problem eating either domestically grown food or food from other countries, too, for that matter. I think we want to do food inspection in a mature and intelligent fashion in Canada, but historically, the way in which inspection has been done....

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  What do you mean less? I'm a university professor.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  God bless you. Ladies and gentlemen, it's a pleasure for me to actually walk the halls of this building. It's been a long time since I've been in this building. By way of background, I've been at the University of Manitoba as a professor in food microbiology and food safety for going on 15 years now.