Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Okay, thank you very much.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  First, if the seamless system is working and we have open disclosure, and everybody is at the table--the way I imagine the model I'm proposing--with a sense of confidence and sharing, it would have allowed us to respond by declaring the outbreak a number of days earlier. Part of that aspect is like the issue the previous member asked about--the discussion around the laboratory testing and the poor quality of the samples.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  When we had our cases and we did our notification through CIOSC, that meant my fellow CMOHs across the country would be checking their cases as well to see if they had an increased number of listeriosis cases. That's one aspect. When we identify that through the hypothesis generation and agreement around that period of August 18 and August 19, they said they had closed packages from the plant.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  The other provinces became aware that they were exposed to whatever we were dealing with in Ontario. At first you'd wonder if it was an Ontario-only issue, because of the determination of where the source was. Since that source had more than an Ontario-only distribution, that moved it from the side of being, I would assume, in one of the provinces of interest and from you just checking to see if you have anything from there, to saying that this has now landed in your jurisdiction and you're going to have to investigate it further.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  One of the points in my recommendation is around the facilitation and efficiency of food sampling processes. It was frustrating to some of us in Ontario that when our trained staff, who know how to do sampling with a sterile and careful technique...instead of 36 health units sending in 10 to 20 one-kilogram bags to a centre to get assessed, they could take some samples and send them in.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  The overall purpose of my report is more of the other side of what you're speaking to. I don't think there's any benefit in saying that if something was on one day or that day and necessarily in small details.... We can talk about those at different times. I like to focus more on the higher level of seeking system solutions to the coordination, not wanting to pass the buck in that sense.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  To answer the question, yes, I did receive the letter. I would also indicate that in the letter from the three officials, they did comment in the first paragraph, “We welcome the report's intended purpose of demonstrating the accountabilities and the opportunities that exist...”.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Most of the time when we're operating, even at the provincial level, I expect that the public health officials will be speaking and leading on the issues, the same as in our province. If our minister chooses to speak on the matter, he has the full privilege to do so. We keep him informed on the matter.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  We have the examples of the CIOSC postings, which are public and out in the community, including at the federal level. We can look at the other ones.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Yes, that is the record we have.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  That's a good point. I think the issue, as I have always said, is that when we engage in our risk assessment, risk management, and risk communication, the key is that when we have reasonable and probable grounds and we go forward, we want to communicate. When we communicate with the public, we do so not just because we want to talk about it; we have to engage the public in a trust, in a confidence, in a working relationship, because if we ask them to avoid something and they have no concern, there's not much of a response.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  The key to that is the quality of your surveillance. That means you have to have surveillance, surveillance, and more surveillance. Moreover, it has to get better and better. Part of this is the data that comes in. When things go awry, it is often because people are working with limited or poor data.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  First, the protocol, as it was developed, is a protocol. It was known from the outset that it's not binding. Therefore, that was one of our struggles. If we're going to have a protocol and we all sign on to it, we should agree that it has to apply to all the partners involved. It was meant to be a guidance document, and we've heard at times that others didn't have to follow all the steps they didn't want to.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I think Dr. McKeown said that. They weren't tuned into what the protocol was, how it was effective, and how it was used at different levels. I think the point of the reasonable and probable grounds in our legislation in Ontario is that it says that where a health hazard exists, or may exist, on reasonable and probable grounds, the medical officer of health can act.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  That's in my report because it wasn't clear when it went into a national-level outbreak that it was the chief public health officer of Canada leading and coordinating the response of CFIA, Health Canada, and the Public Health Agency of Canada. Is it clear that it was the leadership that was ascribed to him in that response?