Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Thank you.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Yes, I think your point about the importance of the validation process is very well taken. I'd also like to point out that when we're talking about disasters, to me the whole process of looking into this disaster is flawed in many ways. I don't think the members of this committee would view this process as being as comprehensive and as thorough as the public would like.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  It's hard for me to say, but when I look around at.... I work across many sectors, and what I see happening is a pattern across many sectors of responsibility that has been taken away from government, handed to industry, oversight being reduced. I see oversight agencies being starved of resources, being given management that may not be completely in tune with what they're supposed to be doing, pressured to approve actions or industry initiatives that are not appropriate.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I've no way of making that comparison, but I don't have any great confidence that the system is as safe as it needs to be.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I think you make a very good point about the timeliness of this type of information. I don't want to start commenting on the specifics of Maple Leaf, other than what I know from public information, but it would appear from what we've heard in testimony before this committee that the failing they fell into was a fairly common one of gathering information that was very valuable for process control purposes and then failing to analyze it in a way that would show where the problem was.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Yes, one of the points I would come back to is that I think it's a grave mistake to take on trust that an organization has a functioning management system until you've verified that for yourself in a fairly comprehensive way. If you don't do that, then you run the risk of allowing an organization to maintain a facade.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  Yes. It's actually one of the principles of this whole field that, where it makes sense, people should try to take it up the line through management in their own organization before they go outside. If the organization clearly has a track record of paying no attention to those and punishing people, then obviously they shouldn't bother with that process.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  What I did was read very carefully everything that appeared in the media about it. I did actually make some attempts to contact Mr. Pomerleau. The message I got, I think from his union, was that it wasn't a whistle-blower issue. He didn't want to be seen as a whistle-blower, and it shouldn't concern us.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  What would have happened is that he would have perhaps felt confident that he could go to the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner and that his case would have been investigated. If it were found, for example, that he had suffered reprisals as a result of what he had done, then the people responsible for that could be disciplined, up to and including the point of losing their jobs.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I don't think it has really been discussed within the food industry. I hope that an enlightened management would see this as a plus, but there's always the fear in any organization that by giving some protection to people who know about problems, you may be exposing yourself to embarrassment and negative publicity, whereas the reality is that if they were to pay more attention to people who have the courage to talk about the problems, they would be able to deal with them at an early stage and, therefore, avoid the sort of problems we've seen with this outbreak.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I don't have any specific knowledge about Maple Leaf, but I would say it's one thing for an organization to claim that it protects whistle-blowers, and it's another thing for it to be real. If you look at our own crown corporations here, there is actually a requirement as part of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act for all government departments and crown corporations to have an internal disclosure system that people can use, if they choose, before they go to the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I think it's very important when we look at whistle-blower protection to include the public servants, because what we see happening in other jurisdictions--and there's evidence of this in Canada too--is that agencies with the job of providing oversight actually discourage their inspectors from reporting.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I think you need some legislation that would cover all employees. Basically, the idea is to make it an offence to retaliate in any way against someone who raises concerns and to give them a safe place to go in addition to their management. They should go to their own management first, but there should be somewhere they can go if their management doesn't listen, or if the management starts to make reprisals, and raise it to another level.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  My remark was not aimed at farms particularly, but at the industrialization of the industry and operating on a larger scale. My point is that when you're in that situation—and I made the analogy with aviation, where you're flying larger planes and more people—it means that when there is some kind of problem, it can be a much more serious problem with more loss of life.

Subcommittee on Food Safety committee  I don't think I'm particularly qualified to answer that question.