Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Agriculture and Forestry
Issue 21 - Evidence - Meeting of September 27, 2012
OTTAWA, Thursday, September 27, 2012
The Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, to which was referred Bill S-11, An Act respecting food commodities, including their inspection, their safety, their labelling and advertising, their import, export and interprovincial trade, the establishment of standards for them, the registration or licensing of persons who perform certain activities related to them, the establishment of standards governing establishments where those activities are performed and the registration of establishments where those activities are performed, met this day at 8:05 a.m. to give consideration to the bill.
Senator Percy Mockler (Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Chair: I welcome you, senators and witness, to this meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry. My name is Percy Mockler, and I am a senator from New Brunswick and chair of the committee. For the witness, I would now ask all senators to introduce themselves, starting on my left.
Senator Peterson: Bob Peterson from Saskatchewan.
Senator Merchant: Pana Merchant from Saskatchewan.
[Translation]
Senator Robichaud: Fernand Robichaud, Saint-Louis-de-Kent.
[English]
Senator Plett: Don Plett from Manitoba.
Senator Buth: JoAnne Buth from Manitoba.
Senator Eaton: Nicole Eaton, Ontario.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Ghislain Maltais, Quebec.
Senator Rivard: Michel Rivard, the Laurentides, Quebec.
The Chair: Thank you. Today, we are studying Bill S-11, the safe food for Canadians act.
[English]
The Government of Canada introduced the safe food for Canadians act in Parliament to make our food safety system stronger, as well as reducing overlap for Canadian food producers from coast to coast to coast. This act provides industry clear, consistent and straightforward inspection and enforcement rules so that they can best meet their responsibility to put safe food on shelves for Canadians. The bill was sponsored by Senator Plett.
This morning we have on our first witness, honourable senators, Mr. Albert Chambers, Executive Director of the Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition.
Mr. Chambers, thank you for accepting our invitation and sharing your thoughts and comments with the committee looking into Bill S-11. With that, I invite you to make your presentation. It will be followed by questions and answers.
Albert Chambers, Executive Director, Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition: Thank you, Mr. Chair and honourable senators, for inviting the Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition to appear during your hearings on Bill S-11, the safe food for Canadians act. It is a pleasure to be here.
In 2012, your committee is celebrating a worthy achievement: its fortieth anniversary. Since being separated out of the mandate of the Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce in 1972, it has been an active and forward-looking committee. You and your predecessors are to be congratulated.
Bill S-11 represents a long-awaited opportunity to modernize Canada's federal food safety legislation and regulations. However, prior to discussing the bill, I would like to take a minute to introduce our organization.
The coalition was formed in December 2000 and incorporated in 2007 to act as a single, strong voice for industry along the food chain, with the public and government, on industry-wide food safety issues. As of today, the coalition has 38 member organizations, 28 national and 3 provincial or regional associations as full members, and 7 allied members. The latter are companies providing food safety services to food businesses.
Our association members represent businesses at every link in the food supply chain, from input suppliers through primary production, transportation, processing, manufacturing, distribution, and importing to final marketers at export, retail and food service. A list of the members is appended to this submission.
Our vision is that Canada's agriculture, aquatic and food industry will have a world-class reputation for producing and selling safe food. Our mission is to facilitate, through dialogue within the food industry and with all levels of government, the development and implementation of a national coordinated approach to food safety to ensure credibility in domestic and international marketplaces.
Honourable senators, over the past decade or so, many of our trading partners, developed and developing countries alike, have established new food safety strategies and implemented major changes in their food safety legislation and regulations. The submission includes a partial listing of these.
All these initiatives are based on a full supply chain "farm to fork" approach and incorporate at their core the requirement that all food businesses implement preventive controls using HACCP or HACCP-based requirements. Many of the initiatives go much further. Australia and New Zealand, for example, established a joint mechanism for developing food standards, and in Australia, the Commonwealth and state governments have in place a formal process for harmonizing their food safety regulations. Since 2002, we have been advocating that Canada's governments, federal, provincial and territorial, seriously consider this approach.
From a trade perspective, the new U.S. initiative is particularly important. With the 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act, the U.S. will push its food safety requirements well beyond its borders. Mandatory initiatives respecting preventive controls, food defence, traceability, registration, importer responsibilities, third party certification, et cetera, are now putting pressure on Canadian food businesses exporting to the U.S., as well as on their Canadian suppliers. These changes will have ramifications in our domestic market for years to come.
Honourable senators, Bill S-11 is important. It sets the stage for the modernization of Canada's food safety framework, a long overdue exercise. Bill S-11 is, however, not just food safety legislation. Indeed, a close reading of the bill reveals that it is about a great deal more than even its long title suggests. Some would say that it is really a federal food quality and safety bill. This is not a criticism; it is just the facts.
At its core, Bill S-11 is about inspection and enforcement. It is very similar to previous bills that did not pass Parliament. Bill S-11 consolidates and harmonizes the inspection enforcement powers from various inspection acts and extends this new regime to the full supply chain involved in interprovincial trade, imports and exports. The coalition's members consider this to be a very positive step.
Harmonization should facilitate both training and implementation by the government's auditors and inspectors. It will be the basis of the CFIA's inspection modernization initiative. Hopefully it will lead to a higher level of consistency, of oversight across the country and from facility to facility.
The bill also provides for new offences relating to tampering, threats and communicating false or misleading information. These inclusions are long overdue.
Bill S-11, in clause 51(1), is also about providing the Governor-in-Council with the authority to make regulations. Most of these provisions are carried over from existing acts. However, some are very important new provisions that relate to food safety. These include the power to make regulations, in paragraph (g), respecting quality management system programs, quality control programs, safety programs — we are not quite certain what "safety" means in that context as it is usually a matter of labour legislation in that you are concerned about worker safety, so perhaps there is a missing word, "food" safety; I am not certain — or preventive controls or any other similar program; (s) respecting accreditation; (t) respecting recognition of systems; (v) respecting traceability. These and other clauses raise more questions than they answer.
As stated in my introduction, the coalition has for the past 11 years asked federal, provincial and territorial governments to develop a national coordinated approach to food safety to ensure credibility in domestic and international marketplaces. Bill S-11 provides a strong legislative framework for a new federal inspection and enforcement regime and a new and apparently comprehensive tool kit for creating regulation. However, the bill has been put forward without a clear statement as to how the framework and the tool kit are to be used. No road map or strategy has been articulated by the government. This is of great concern to the members of the coalition.
We have given considerable thought to what such a strategy should look like. In 2009 we developed a set of four principles and a number of suggestions concerning the approach that Canada should take. Our principles are, and I have outlined them in the presentation, (1) that food safety is a shared responsibility of all the participants in the food chain and government and consumers; (2) that governments at all levels, the industry and other stakeholders should foster and facilitate a national coordinated approach; (3) that industry and government food safety initiatives should encourage the implementation of HACCP or HACCP-based food safety systems by businesses all along the supply chain; and (4) that food businesses, governments and other stakeholders have a responsibility to adequately resource, proactively manage, update, maintain and continually improve their individual and collaborative food safety systems and food safety initiatives.
Obviously, we see this as very much a collaborative issue that needs the involvement of both government and industry.
In June, three years ago, we presented our ideas to the Subcommittee on Food Safety in the other place. That subcommittee endorsed our principles and its report adopted our recommendation for a national food strategy, stating that governments at all levels, the agri-food industry and other stakeholders should be invited to participate in the development of such a strategy.
We are also pleased that the subcommittee restated our declaration that Canadians, no matter where they reside or purchase their food, are entitled to the same level of assurances about its safety, assurances that should be based on common standards and expectations.
We cannot overemphasize the importance of moving forward now while Bill S-11 is before Parliament to develop a national food safety strategy. The federal government has recently recognized this need and accepted our offer to work together on a strategy document. Since your hearings commenced in June, we have had several preliminary meetings with senior and working-level officials. We are now working our way through a set of substantive questions and I hope will have something that industry and government can look to as a basis of a good solid consultation document before the end of this year.
In reviewing Bill S-11, our members have identified matters that are uncertain or confusing. Several of these have been mentioned in earlier presentations to your committee. I noticed on Tuesday evening some of them were raised again: access to computers and computer data and the taking of photographs; the meaning of outcome-based requirements and the future role that the agency's current tools have in this new process; unintentional or unavoidable contamination that does not pose a threat to human health — this concerns suggestions made last June in your hearings; which parts of the food chain will be included under the act and when? This is particularly the case with the primary sector, which is covered by the new definition of food commodity. The question is, when will it be covered by the regulation? Licensing and registration, what will they cover and how will they work?
Other matters include prohibitions on imports that are currently admitted for reprocessing for either domestic or for re-export. Other concerns that we have identified include the future role of on-farm food safety and post-farm food safety programs developed collaboratively by industry and government over the past two decades, and harmonization of the new requirements with the U.S. legislation and regulation.
Some of these issues have been framed as potential amendments. Others have been put forward as questions. In either case, we urge you to give them serious consideration in your hearings and during clause-by-clause review.
We would like to note that industry is starting to get some of the answers to these questions from CFIA. The agency, as you know, is engaged in several wide-ranging consultations. Unfortunately, these answers are not always consistent. This is a matter that has been drawn to the attention of the agency's senior management and is a matter that we are confident they will resolve shortly.
In conclusion, the Canadian Supply Chain Food Safety Coalition would like to thank the committee for asking it to make this submission. Our first priority is that Canada have a world-class reputation for producing and selling safe food. To achieve this vision, we must put the principles that we have articulated into action. This requires industry and governments to work together and within their respective spheres. To ensure the collaborative effort is successful we need a clear national strategy and the legislation and regulations to underpin it. Bill S-11 provides a good legislative base. The dialogue that we have now started with government should provide the strategy and lead to good regulation. Then the heavy lifting, the implementation of a modern food safety regime, will need to move into high gear. That, too, will require cooperation, collaboration and investment by both industry and government.
As a final point, we would like to say that on behalf of our members the coalition is ready to engage you further after this meeting if you require further information.
Senator Plett: Thank you for coming this morning and giving us your presentation. We certainly appreciate you taking the time. You have raised some issues and, as you already stated, I am sure we would be happy if you would, through the clerk and through the chair, submit any further recommendations that you might have in this regard that we could look at, as you say, during clause-by-clause consideration of the bill or make sure that the interpretations are in fact consistent with what our minister believes they are and your interpretation of them. We would look forward to that.
You did talk a little bit about some of the other countries. Do you believe that Bill S-11 brings us in line and in harmonization with many of the other countries, especially our allies? Are we being consistent with what they are doing? Are we ahead of the curve or behind the curve with Bill S-11?
Mr. Chambers: Our analysis would be that this brings us up to where the pack is running in terms of food safety modernization around the world. The Europeans were the first block of countries to move in that direction, nearly a decade ago, and in the intervening decade many other countries have moved in that direction. Now we see the Americans have moved that way in the past year or so. This certainly puts us into that same ballpark and running with the pack.
Senator Plett: The proposed legislation will consolidate inspection systems for fish and meat. Agricultural products will all come together. We know that the food inspection systems, although they have similarities, have many distinctions and are specific to each food commodity. Do you have concerns regarding the consolidation of the MIA, the FIA and the CAPA under Bill S-11 with respect to the efficiency of the integrated inspection system?
Mr. Chambers: The coalition members have, for some time, taken the position that we were looking for a harmonized approach within the federal jurisdiction and between federal and provincial jurisdictions. Given our understanding of the direction that the government is proposing to take with Bill S-11 once it is passed, we are very happy with the consolidation and harmonization that is proposed.
Senator Peterson: As you have indicated, there have been a number of attempts to get a safe food bill, and I think that we are perilously close to getting there right now. That is very encouraging and good to see. One of the important aspects of any food bill is the inspection side. You can say, "Here is what we are going to do or here is what we want to do," but if there is not adequate funding and front-line inspectors, one would think that we could get into problems. Part of this even alludes to the fact that industry would self-regulate. It seems to me that, in a safe food act, you would want to minimize any industry self-regulating. You would want to have sufficient inspectors there to do the job. In looking at that aspect of the bill, how do you feel the two have to work together for the funding part?
Mr. Chambers: I would like to tackle the scope issue first and come back to funding if I might, senator. The bill proposes to change the approach that the federal government uses to oversee food safety for all food businesses in Canada that are engaged in interprovincial, import, or export. The food inspection acts currently cover a subset of that broader food industry and supply chain. Clearly, in implementing this new approach, the government cannot allocate the same kind of resources and that same intensity of oversight that it has allocated for meat, fish and the other inspections it engages in under the current acts to all the food businesses in Canada, many of which have had occasional or when-needed inspections and have been outside of the area in which there have been previous efforts at intensive inspection. The scope of the new legislation and what it brings into the systems that we are looking at require a reallocation of resources. We are looking very favourably on the government's proposals to do that with a risk-based approach. That will mean — and we are very much in favour of that — that a certain amount of self regulation is going to be required. We have spent the past 20 years in Canada building industry-led food safety programs. Several were mentioned the other night from the on-farm side, but we also have industry and government collectively invested in developing programs for the packaging industry, trucking, retail, distributors and the bottled water industry. There is a wide range of industry initiatives beyond the on-farm ones that are out there and have the potential to mature into credible and impartial certification schemes. There are, as well, many industry programs that our businesses are being asked to implement and that come from around the world. You will have heard of the Global Food Safety Initiative programs, some of which have been mentioned in previous sessions. Third party audits, self regulation, and government oversight are going to have to be balanced in this new system. We need to have a reasoned discussion as to how those pieces will fit together within this new framework.
Senator Peterson: The reason that I bring that up is that you are probably aware of the recent incident in the Alberta food packing plant where there was a problem with E. coli. It would give every indication that there was a lack of front-line inspectors there to catch that because it was caught at the border by the Americans. In this era of budget cuts, is there not a danger that we will keep losing that and have more of those types of incidents because resources are not put in the right place?
Mr. Chambers: I am not in a position to comment on the particulars of the current situation. It is something that I am not sufficiently aware of to comment on. Are we in danger of having further incidents like that, depending on the cause of that incident? I have seen various things reported. The potential is yes. Systems fail. People fail. Inspectors fail. None of us is, fortunately, perfect, or perhaps we would not all be required. I do not know.
The question we have to look at is not just whether or not the current level of resources is necessary in the sectors where the government applies intensive oversight, but also how we are going to deal with what are called the nonregistered establishments — the trucking industry, packaging, all of these other areas that the scope of this legislation now covers and where we have not had that same daily inspection approach that we have had in fish, meat or dairy plants. We have to have a reasoned and very open discussion as to how to put a new package, using the new tools, together for oversight of the system in a way that is credible to our Canadian consumers and to our foreign markets. It is not simply a question of whether there are enough dollars today for enough inspectors in the plants in which we have them today.
Senator Peterson: Canadians rely on that quite heavily though. They are concerned about food safety. They just see those two things. They see E. coli and think "Why?" That is what I am getting at. One has to focus on that. That is what the act says.
Mr. Chambers: I appreciate your concern, senator.
Senator Buth: I have a question about HACCP. Could you briefly explain what HACCP or HACCP-like programs are and then relate that back to some of the concerns you raised over the regulations and the recognition of systems? Do you expect that the industry HACCP programs would fit under that clause in terms of making regulations?
Mr. Chambers: Explaining HACCP and HACCP-like is a pretty long lecture, so I will be brief on that part.
As I think one of the previous witnesses indicated on Tuesday night, it has its origin in the space program and that kind of thing. Basically, the predominant approach to food safety that governments around the world have recognized requires a food business to undertake a hazard analysis to look at potential hazards related to the process and the products it produces and to develop a set of controls — food safety actions — that minimize, reduce or even eliminate the risk of a food safety incident. That whole approach has the codename HACCP or HACCP-like. Back in the early 1990s, here in Canada, the government did a lot of work in this area. Canada was then, and still is, a world leader in the development of approaches to dealing with HACCP. In the mid-1990s, we started to transfer those concepts to what we called industry-led programs. The other night you mentioned Verified Beef Production and the Canadian Quality Milk Program. There are 20 some in the primary sector and 13 or 14 in post-farm. Instead of the individual farm, small trucker or small distributor undertaking to do their own hazard analysis, which costs a lot of money in terms of both resources and expertise, we structured an approach where industry associations did that work, developed a generic model, produced a set of requirements and made that available to the farmer or trucker or others in the program to use.
In 2001, we started a process between the industry and governments to recognize those programs. We still have not completed that process, and it is 11 years later. It is complex and involves federal and provincial levels of government — all the usual stuff like that. However, we have somewhere between 25 and 30 programs out there that industry is running where auditors go in and check whether those systems are working on farms, in trucking establishments, in bottled water plants, feed mills, et cetera. Those are industry-led programs.
The proposed legislation, for the first time, provides a legislative hook for the government to engage in officially recognizing those programs. It is a very positive development. It raises questions, though: When we have a framework for recognizing Canadian programs, if we can just get it finalized sometime in the next few years, how will we recognize foreign programs? How will we recognize the programs of foreign governments? These very important tools are part of self-regulation and are very effective. They could be even more effective, but we need to entrench them into the system and then work out with our trading partners how we are to do this. We were not the only country doing that kind of thing. I hope that answers your question.
Senator Buth: You mentioned several clauses where the bill will give the minister the power to make regulations, and you expressed concerns over some of that wording. However, you also said that this is the normal process of a bill going through. You outlined the powers given to the minister to make regulations, and then regulations are made in consultation with industry. Based on your past experience with the CFIA and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada in the development of regulations, tell us your experience in terms of the consultation process and whether you have been satisfied with the amount of consultation that has taken place.
Mr. Chambers: I would rather put it in the context of our current experience.
Senator Buth: Okay.
Mr. Chambers: Consultation over time comes and goes. It depends on government policy and on how the agency is being run and who its senior management is. We go through periods of ups and downs, and I would like to leave it at that. Since the beginning of this year, we think that we have entered into a new environment and a new very positive dialogue around consultations. Of course, one of the problems industry is suffering from at the moment is that instead of the agency launching one ship to deal with food safety modernization, it launched a flotilla of consultations. At times we are getting mixed messages in terms of that so we see the need to pull this all back together, at least from a food safety perspective, around a core strategic statement that both industry and government can endorse as to the direction that we should be going. This takes me back to my sense that this is a good framework.
The powers all seem to be there, and it seems to be a comprehensive tool kit, but we need to explore in great detail how we will roll these things out. What does the term "preventive controls" really mean, for example? Does it mean a list of prerequisite programs or does it mean sophisticated food safety management systems? The market is asking food businesses, whether they are farmers with their CQM Program or food processors, to have in place sophisticated food safety management systems. Is that what the government means by "preventive controls" or is that not what it means by "preventive controls?" We have issues like that to work out. What does "traceability" mean? Traceability, of course, is dealt with in two parts of the bill: The area you were discussing the other evening was on the clause dealing with the health of animals. In clause 51(1) there is a whole section on traceability as well that applies to everybody covered by the act.
We have some issues we need to work through. We are now in a very positive situation, the first in my experience, where we have government fully engaged as the proposed legislation is moving forward. They fully understand that they have a massive job of regulatory reform to engage in to reduce the regulations that Senator Plett was referring to from the various acts into one regulation, or maybe two — one for food safety and one for quality. We have a lot of work to do with industry. We are getting very good signals, but sometimes they are mixed at the moment.
Senator Merchant: Welcome, Mr. Chambers. I am very happy to see you after so many years.
You spoke about the bill enhancing Canada's reputation as a world-class leader in food safety. Many European countries, especially big markets like Germany, are concerned — some might say obsessed — about genetically modified foods because sometimes Canada's products do not pass the European standards on GM foods.
I have three questions: First, do these changes address GM labelling and inspection that would pass European standards? Second, should we in Canada depreciate GM products by identification? Third, I am being told that there are mixed reports about the seeds, such as Roundup Ready seed, feeding the world because some think that the long- term use is bad for the soil and lessens production. Do you think that there is little risk in using this kind of seed or that it is worth the risk?
Mr. Chambers: The coalition's position on this is very clear. We have endorsed the approach that successive governments in Canada have taken in terms of the introduction of novel foods. A rigorous and science-based approach and set of evaluations need to be undertaken before a genetically modified or other novel food can be introduced into the Canadian marketplace or a product can be introduced for use as a crop, et cetera.
We support that approach, and we believe strongly that it has performed very well for Canadians. Also, we have seen in recent weeks that when concerns are raised, Health Canada has been very quick to indicate that it is prepared to look at the new scientific evidence and to make decisions based on the quality of that evidence.
We believe that Canadians should be very confident in both the tools put in place to evaluate and recognize novel foods and in the willingness of the government to respond when there is new information. What the result of that will be, I am not in a position to say. I am not even in a position to evaluate the document that has caused the current review. Our position is that there is a system in place that works well and that what is happening now further demonstrates the confidence that we should have in it.
[Translation]
Senator Rivard: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Welcome, sir.
I would like to talk to you about the fines for non-compliance. In Bill S-11, there is now a maximum penalty of $5 million, or even more, depending on a judge's decision, whereas, in the present Act, which has not yet been amended, the amount was $250,000. In actual fact, there has never been a fine higher than $100,000.
Could this new maximum penalty be such that it would discourage anything at all?
Do you think it would be necessary for large companies liable for fines of $5 million to take out liability insurance in case of a disaster like that?
I am no expert in the matter, but I believe that there is a liability insurance that is also called umbrella insurance. Here is my question: is it useful and necessary to set the fines at such a large amount?
[English]
Mr. Chambers: First, it is my understanding that the fines pertain to offences under the act. These are fines that would be sought by the Crown in a case where they were bringing a party to court for an offence under the act. I do not think this is a civil issue. It is a matter of how things would be dealt with in terms of the offences under the act.
Second, in my discussions with members of the coalition over the past three or four months, I have not heard any of our members expressing concerns about the new levels of fines that are being put in the act. That comment may prompt a lot of emails from members who had not thought to raise it with me, but it is my understanding that the industry is supportive of a change in the regime.
[Translation]
Senator Rivard: We know that more and more documents are in electronic form, and that more and more "hotshot kids" are able to change or even delete them. Do you feel that the fact that there are more and more electronic documents could be a problem? Have the members of your coalition taken the precautions necessary to prevent fraud being committed by way of electronic documents?
[English]
Mr. Chambers: I am not an expert in electronic documentation. They certainly have become very widespread. It is clear to me that there has been an equally strong development of forensic techniques to identify whether electronic documents have been tampered with. Sloppy documentation does happen. Not every worker, not every manager, not every food business puts the same emphasis on proper recordkeeping, et cetera. We have had problems in the past where documentation has been a problem and we will have problems in the future.
I have seen nothing that leads me to be concerned that the use of electronic documentation presents a problem. If a company wanted to run a double set of books to keep the inspector happy, that could be done with paper documentation as I suppose it could be done with electronic documentation. It means that employees of the agency who will be engaged in oversight will have to be more competent with different skills than they had been in the past, not to track down phoney documentation but to be able to handle the new oversight and enforcement challenges. In many cases they will have to be auditors instead of inspectors. They will no longer be online checking whether a chicken looks good or does not look good. They will be looking at records and watching work patterns, things that some of them have not done in the past. There will be new requirements for training and, over time, new requirements for competencies.
Senator Robichaud: You mentioned that this is an effort of the whole industry, with the agency being part of it. You also mentioned third-party audits. Would you expand on that, please?
Mr. Chambers: It has become very common in the food industry to use an accredited certification body to provide a third-party audit to a food safety management system. A third-party auditor works for an organization that is independent of both the customer, that is, the person who is demanding the audit, and the auditee, although clearly there is the risk to impartiality in the fact that someone is paying for the audit.
For the most part, third-party audits are now conducted by organizations that operate according to ISO standards and that are overseen by bodies like the Standards Council of Canada and other such bodies around the world. They have a very clear set of requirements and rules with which they must operate in terms of how they do an audit, and they audit to a standard.
There have been challenges in the past. It is a new industry that is growing in terms of food safety. There are issues that we have to deal with. Over the past two years have been working on a number of initiatives that have been directed at the question of whether food safety auditors have the right knowledge and skills, whether we are asking for the right competencies when looking for food safety auditors. That is the same question that I posed in the context of officials that will be working for this agency in this new environment.
We have a significant challenge in terms of defining, in the new environment, what those new requirements should be and finding the right people to do the work. We have begun that process from both the industry and the government perspective.
Third-party audit provides something that is not truly self-regulation, that is, I am auditing myself, and it is not a government audit. It is a third party that functions in a system where there are strict rules and requirements that are constantly improving.
Senator Robichaud: You said that there will have to be new requirements because you will need people to audit other people's practices. How do we put that together? You say you are working at it.
Mr. Chambers: It is a challenge, senator. The coalition started a dialogue in January, and we have had participation by the agency and provincial governments in that dialogue on what a Canadian approach to the competencies and training for food safety auditors should be looking forward. In the broader world, the International Organization for Standardization and some of the other parts of the international standards system are working on some revision of that as well. I will be attending a meeting at the end of October in Japan where a working group with representatives from many countries will be wrestling with whether we have sufficient requirements now or whether we need to improve them.
The Global Food Safety Initiative has been looking at auditor competency for the schemes that they benchmark, which is something that would require explanation.
The U.S. is engaged in a process of trying to bring the federal and the state governments together in a common approach to competency and training for all the people who work in inspection and audit in the new system that they are creating as a result of the Food Safety Modernization Act.
There is much discussion around the world from which we can benefit in Canada in terms of defining the competencies, knowledge and skills that are necessary for someone to be in this position. It will take us some time to put that into place and then for the people to be trained. However, it is a government problem, an industry problem and a third-party problem. Many food businesses have internal auditors whose job it is to ensure that their systems are running appropriately. They are not financial internal auditors but rather auditors of their food safety management systems or their quality systems.
We are upgrading everywhere, and there are some challenges. There will be much investment by both government and industry in this over the next five or six years.
Senator Eaton: I am very interested in the free-trade negotiations we are carrying on now with Korea, Japan and the TPP. Will Bill S-11 stand up to international scrutiny? I am thinking of New Zealand and Australia. When they start looking closely at our food safety and food-safety standards throughout the chain, will they stand up or will we have trouble internationally?
Mr. Chambers: Bill S-11 provides us with the legal framework and the regulatory tool kit to put in place a system that will certainly stand up to scrutiny.
We have to make the right choices on the way there. We have the tools, and now we have to make the right choices about how to use them.
Senator Eaton: When you say the "tools," are you talking about the regulations that we now have to build on in the legislative framework?
Mr. Chambers: Yes.
Senator Peterson: In your opinion, sir, would the Auditor General qualify as a third-party auditor?
Mr. Chambers: It is my understanding that Parliament views it as a third-party auditor. I do not understand your question. It is in comparison to what?
Senator Peterson: We are talking about having third-party audits done. If you go externally, what are the qualifications? How does it get done? Who should do it? You get bogged down. The Auditor General has done this for years and years as an officer of Parliament, and the results of the audit are made public.
In order to get this going, there are many concerns. There is a lot of agreement that there should be some type of audit somewhere in the system, sometime, although not every year.
Mr. Chambers: Yes, now I understand.
Senator Peterson: As we move along, I think that should be in place with the bill.
Mr. Chambers: Sorry, senator, I was thinking of trying to match the Auditor General with the problem of undertaking third-party audits of an individual company's food safety management system, and that is where we had been and I had to jump back. I apologize.
The coalition has not taken any particular positions on the role of the Auditor General in terms of auditing the agency or not auditing the agency, those kinds of questions. I am not in a position to comment.
Senator Peterson: You have taken the position that you do support some type of third-party audit. You said that earlier.
Mr. Chambers: Yes. We need to differentiate between my comments about how the federal jurisdiction, the new federal system, will balance oversight of food safety in food businesses and all along the supply chain as opposed to how Parliament might decide to have oversight over the agencies and the government's performance in terms of its food safety oversight.
My comments were directed specifically to the former part, not the latter.
Senator Peterson: I am referring to the oversight of the bill as the bill moves forward.
Mr. Chambers: Yes. Certainly, senator, from what we understand of both proposals that you discussed in the spring and that Senator Plett has put forward — we have not seen the wording — on Tuesday evening, there would be a requirement in the legislation for the minister to conduct a review every five years. As I understood it, it would be of both the content of the act and the resources that have been applied to its effective implementation, and the coalition would very much support that.
We certainly, in the early discussions, were encouraged that they were talking about putting a 10-year-renewal review piece into the bill. Having one based on five years is very positive, although recognizing that that clock begins when the bill comes into force, which might not be for two or three years from now anyway.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: Welcome, Mr. Chambers. In the United States, they say that the Food Safety Modernization Act is the most sweeping legislation in 70 years in terms of food safety. How were things beforehand? Before that legislation, what were the points of comparison between Canada and the United States?
[English]
Mr. Chambers: If I understand your question, senator, prior to the U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act, our systems were quite similar. We had very intensive oversight in a limited and important part of our food industry: fish inspection, meat inspection, poultry inspection, dairy plants, some other areas, and limited — but still oversight — of the other parts of the supply chain and other types of food businesses.
What the Food Safety Modernization Act in the U.S. did was to broaden the oversight and increase the intensity in the U.S. of the approach and to shift it from a reactive approach and one that was based on simply saying, "Thou shall not sell into the market a contaminated food product," to one that said, "Thou shall have in place preventive controls, food defence, traceability," et cetera.
In 2011, the U.S. moved into the modern era in terms of an approach to food safety. This bill permits us to do the same thing.
[Translation]
Senator Maltais: But, at the moment, can Canadian consumers put their minds at rest about all those imported products that come in cans, glass containers or jars? The products you find in all the grocery stores, the regular ones as well as the specialty ones? Are those products properly inspected, so that Canadian consumers can rest easy?
[English]
Mr. Chambers: Senator, I think the minister and the officials from the agency, in their appearances before you earlier in the year, indicated that one of the major reasons for the introduction of this legislation was to modernize Canada's approach to dealing with imports and to put a system in place that would provide greater assurance that imported products meet the Canadian standard. It is also, of course, designed to increase the Canadian standard. Both of those will rise on the system.
It is our understanding that the expectation is, and certainly the coalition fully supports the idea, that we will now have registration of importers, just as we will have registration or licensing of all food-safety businesses in Canada that are involved in interprovincial export, as well as import, so we will have the capacity to know who imports. We will have better assurances around the products that come in, that they have been produced according to Canadian requirements, which will now include preventive controls, et cetera. I think we will have better assurances than we have had in the past that all products, domestic and imported, meet Canadian requirements.
Senator Robichaud: I would like to return to third-party audits.
Mr. Chambers: I am prepared to come and do a whole session just on that.
Senator Robichaud: I am sure you would, and we would benefit from all of that information. You made the point very clearly that the third-party audit is a third party. It is one that is not involved in the operations or the putting in place of whatever controls there should be.
Does the minister doing an audit of the CFIA meet the criteria of a third party?
Mr. Chambers: It is a very good question, senator. I do not have a position from my members on that particular issue.
Senator Robichaud: You are a good politician.
Mr. Chambers: Senator, I have been well trained. My first job in Ottawa was for a senator and my second job was working for this committee. I have watched a lot of professionals do their jobs very well.
The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Chambers. I think that answers Senator Robichaud. I will ask Senator Plett to conclude.
Senator Plett: In light of time, I will be very brief and just ask two questions. Bill S-11 really affects only federal inspections. There have been critics who say we are creating a two-tier system by having a federal bill and provincial inspections. What is your coalition's opinion on it; are you among those critics?
Mr. Chambers: We are of the optimistic viewpoint. We believe that Canada should have national standards and approaches on an issue as important as food safety.
The raison d'être of the coalition itself was to try and persuade all levels of government to have a common approach. We are encouraged that the federal government is taking a leadership position in terms of this bill and is modernizing its legislation and engaging in a process to modernize its regulations within its jurisdiction. However, as I said in my remarks, the coalition would still very much like to see the provinces, territories and federal government sit down and agree on a common approach.
For some parts of the food chain, that need even extends down to the challenges they have between municipalities. Someone operating a food service business in one municipality might have to cross a street into another municipality and could find that the inspection and other requirements are different there. These create problems, not just between the federal government and the provinces in tiers, but also within provinces.
We believe that a national approach is the best approach. We have also spent 11 years trying to persuade people to do that, so we take our gains where we get them. We are happy that the federal government has taken this position in terms of moving ahead on this issue. Previous attempts have failed. We hope this one will succeed.
Senator Plett: You must take some credit for Bill S-11 when it passes.
Is there enough in Bill S-11 regarding traceability?
Mr. Chambers: This goes back to one of my previous questions. I have been around this town for almost 40 years — it will be 40 in January. Legislation has moved from an approach to legislation that provided a lot of details as to what was meant but we now have an approach whereby the Governor-in-Council has the power to make regulations respecting very broad terms.
Is there enough? We have to work out between industry and government what we mean by traceability now and for the next decade in Canada. How can we work with it? What standards will we use? Will we base it on international approaches? Do we have a new Canadian approach to use?
As one of the previous witnesses said, there are lots of details that bedevil us yet and we have to work those through. However, the framework is now there for a requirement for every food business that is under the act to require a traceability system. That is very positive.
Senator Plett: Thank you very much, sir.
The Chair: On behalf of the committee, Mr. Chambers, thank you very much for sharing your thoughts. Like you said in your presentation, it is a toolkit.
Honourable senators, the committee will now hear our second panel of witnesses. Thank you for accepting our invitation and sharing your thoughts and comments with the committee.
On the second panel we have Bill Jeffery, National Coordinator, Centre for Science in the Public Interest; and from Manitoba, we have Rick Holley, Professor, University of Manitoba, Food Science.
Mr. Jeffery the floor is yours.
Bill Jeffery, National Coordinator, Centre for Science in the Public Interest: Thank you. I am the National Coordinator of the Centre for Science in the Public Interest, a non-profit health advocacy organization that specializes in nutrition and food safety issues. We do not accept funding from industry or government. We have a successful newsletter with almost 100,000 subscribers in Canada. We have learned that works out to be about one subscribing household within a one block radius of every Canadian street corner.
This bill is called the safe food for Canadians act, but we believe it has implications for nutrition, so I will talk about the financial and human toll of nutrition-related disease.
According to World Health Organization estimates, about 20 per cent of all deaths are caused by nutrition-related risk factors. In Canada, that corresponds to about 48,000 deaths a year. The economic toll of that has been estimated by various health economists and ranges from $7 billion to $30 billion a year.
The costs of health care are borne largely by provincial governments, but the federal government is in a position to regulate the food supply. As senators know, so much of the food supply is international and national, and crosses borders internationally and provincially. In many ways, provincial governments lack the resources and scientific expertise to properly govern that system.
There are two ways in which public health could be improved by the federal government. It is not done in this bill, but I want to draw to your attention that the federal government has failed to implement the Sodium Reduction Strategy for Canada. That strategy was created by an expert group commissioned by the Minister of Health two years ago. It proposed a number of measures to ensure that sodium is used judiciously by food companies, not gratuitously, and that at an absolute minimum, consumers have objective information about the levels of sodium in food. Estimates are that excess sodium in the food supply and the diets of Canadians is responsible for up to 16,000 premature deaths annually.
Likewise, according to Health Canada's own estimates, the number of heart attack and stroke deaths attributed to trans fats in the food supply may exceed 1,000 per year. We have estimated 1,800, yet recommendations of the Trans Fat Task Force to issue regulations to essentially eliminate synthetic trans fat from the food supply have been ignored. This is despite the fact that, according to Health Canada's estimates, it could save the economy between $250 million and $450 million per year.
With respect to specific comments on Bill S-11, we have 10. I will canvass them briefly.
Number 1 states that the future status of protections in the Food and Drugs Act and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act should be put on the public record. Many of the provisions in Bill S-11 appear to mimic protections in the Food and Drugs Act in particular. I think it would be useful for the government to clarify whether it intends to ultimately repeal those provisions.
Number 2 states that Parliament needs to raise corresponding fine limits in the Food and Drugs Act and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act to the levels proposed in Bill S-11.
Number 3 states that a public interest intervener mechanism is needed at the board of arbitration and tribunal to balance the interests of companies on one hand, and advocates or public health and consumers on the other.
Number 4 states that the proposal to incorporate-by-reference standards may permit conflicts of interest to influence policy-making and could, in the case of incorporating documents "as it is amended from time to time," be a complete abdication of government oversight.
Number 5 states that large-scale registration efforts contemplated by Bill S-11 for companies that trade food across provincial and international borders could require many additional resources. If those resources are not available in the short run, it could distract CFIA officials from their important responsibilities to monitor the food supply.
Number 6 states that a new due diligence defence that is proposed in the bill could significantly insulate companies from prosecution. My understanding is that U.S. legislation does not allow such a defence and that a proposal to consider one in the United Kingdom was decided against because of concerns that it would not meet European Union standards.
Number 7 states that in our experience, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency devalues nutrition information on food labels by referring to it as a quality issue rather than health and safety. That is one of the reasons why there have been so few prosecutions for incorrect nutrition information despite reports from CFIA indicating it was incorrect in many cases.
Number 8 states that the impact of raising fine maxima may be minor in light of the history of very low fines. I understand some witnesses have been asked about this. We noticed over the past two or three years that about two thirds of fines have been for 1 per cent or less of the maximum fine for indictable offences. In the year 2011, we did not find any fines exceeding 20 per cent of the fine maximum, and the average fine was about 5 per cent. It is interesting to note that the average fine per inspector was a little over $100 per year, which seems low to me.
Number 9 states that evaluating the impact of food safety measures on public health requires better and more transparent surveillance of outbreaks of food-borne illness and deaths and serious illnesses caused by nutrition and food safety related illnesses.
Number 10 states that private prosecutors need stronger measures to discourage risky behaviours by food companies. If the federal government aims at relying on private parties such as class action firms to enforce consumer protection laws, as it did in the case of the Maple Leaf listeriosis outbreak that killed as many as 23 Canadians and led to no fines, the Food and Drugs Act and other legislation should at least be modified to give courts ample authority to impose punitive damages, treble damages awards, profit disgorgement or other extraordinary measures to better discourage dangerous, fraudulent and reckless behaviour.
Rick Holley, Professor, Food Science, University of Manitoba: Thank you for the opportunity to speak to the committee today.
I will provide specific comments relative to items in the bill that I think require additional refinement or attention. I will then address issues associated with food safety that are not addressed by this current bill.
Front and centre, my opinion is that it is a good idea to have this bill put in place. I think that the title of the bill is very misleading, and, in fact, if a food product were to carry such a notation on it with the extent of belief on the part of the public that this bill will protect them from contaminated food, such a food product with a misleading label would be subject to an instant recall.
Under subclauses 39(1) to (4) in Bill S-11, I think that the penalties that are proposed are extreme and, as indicated by Mr. Jeffery a few moments ago, if you take a look at the current penalties, they are rarely assessed at their maximum. With the level of penalties that are proposed in the bill, they will actually serve as a deterrent to prosecution, just the exact opposite of what you would think.
Clauses 46 and 47 deal with issues associated with disclosure of information — private information, proprietary information on the part of companies that are involved in issues that are questionable — and this information can be as a result of what is written in this bill made available to countries other than Canada. I think that there needs to be some statement put in there to control or qualify that permission. I think that disclosure of some information is important, but I see or feel the need for some element of control over that whole issue. I know it is there largely to satisfy our largest trading partners, but that should not be an excuse to put Canadian industry at some peril.
Clause 47 contains provisions for monitoring the effectiveness of recalls. That is a problem currently. We all want government to react very quickly when there is an outbreak and get back the food that could be a problem, and the CFIA will monitor the effectiveness of the recall. There is no process in place that is used to monitor the effectiveness of recalls. That is a joke.
Clause 59 indicates that the government accepts no liability whatsoever. Parties to the offences, even if they are not prosecuted, are liable. That includes members of boards of directors that have not been charged with an offence, on the one hand, and folks who work for the government. They are completely immune to incompetent activity. That does not seem to me to be a level playing field. It does not look good in the public eye, in my view.
Back to the issue of the title of the bill, you have already addressed issues associated with the double standard in Canada. We have two standards in Canada. We have the federal standards, two tiers of inspection. This is an inspection bill; this is not, in my view, an overall food safety bill. It is not the same as the Food Safety and Modernization Act in the United States. That act is far more proactive and puts into place the requirement for businesses above a certain size to have hazard analysis critical control point programs in place. There is not the requirement here for plants that are responsible for 50 per cent of the production that comes under the jurisdictions of the provincial governments. This bill will not make all food safer. Do not be deluded by the title. This title should refer to uniform food inspection at the federal level. I do not know how you put the words in place to better describe it, but I think you are obliged to address that issue and not give the public the false impression that this is a bill that will save them from contaminated food because it is not.
There are some very major issues associated with food safety in Canada that have not been addressed. If this bill is seen by the government as the final response to the Weatherill report, then I am disappointed because there are issues associated with food-borne illness surveillance that have not changed in the last 20 years. We do not know what foods cause the most cases of food-borne illness, and we do not know what organisms cause the most cases of food-borne illness. If you do not know that, how can you possibly put into place effective measures to prevent it from happening? How can you monitor what you are doing in terms of yearly performance one year after another? Are the things we are putting in place having the effect of reducing the frequencies of illnesses? We do not know this. We borrow information from the United States and other countries in order to plan an effective approach with issues associated with food-borne illness. That is not terribly responsible because when we look at the data we know that people in different regions of Canada eat different foods. People in different countries eat different foods. There are different bacteria in the foods. They are prepared in different ways.
As for the risk, well, everything we do in Canada is risk-based, right, science-based risk assessment. I question what science is being used because we do not have the data in order to make a meaningful decision on Friday of this week, and it is a travesty, ladies and gentlemen.
Two tiers of inspection enforced by three levels of government — federal, provincial and municipal — is an issue that has not been addressed in this country, and it is high time. The issues of the different sets of inspection regulations and the training of inspectors will not be solved by unifying the meat and fish and Canadian Agricultural Products Act inspection regulations. They just will not. They will not affect roughly 50 per cent of the food that is consumed by Canadians. How responsible is this action? I know it is a constitutional impasse, and it has been addressed by government after government after government, but it is about high time it was done in a more intuitive way.
I think I am probably running out of time. End product testing and traceability are touted as actions the government can take that are meaningful for the public to understand, and actions are being taken. They should not be used as excuses for action when other, more important issues have to be addressed.
Thank you for your time.
The Chair: Thank you, professor.
Senator Plett: Thank you, gentlemen. My first question is to Mr. Jeffery. By all means, Professor Holley, if you want to jump in on any of these, I would be happy to hear from you. I asked our previous witness this question, and I will ask you as well.
Do you think we are getting in line with other countries, or are we ahead of the curve, behind the curve? How do we stack up with other countries once Bill S-11 becomes law, if you could offer us your opinion on that?
Mr. Jeffery: I think Dr. Holley probably has something useful to share on this as well, but I will say that the end goal should be to get results. So long as we are not publicly reporting food outbreaks, we are not demonstrating these links and we do not know, as Dr. Holley said, what foods and what pathogens are causing the most illnesses. We speculate and we use World Health Organization multipliers and other U.S. studies in nutrition about trans fat and sodium, but as long as we are not monitoring those things, it is foolhardy to make estimates about whether we are aligned with other countries or where we fit in.
Mr. Holley: When you look at the criteria used by economists who evaluate performance of food safety systems, Canada ranks very high, within the top four internationally, and that is in terms of technology, regulations and transparency. All of these things add up to a reputation that Canada has built over the years, which is regarded fairly highly.
To get to your point, when this bill is brought in, nothing is going to change in terms of the level of performance of the food safety system. With respect to these major gaps in the system, the overlaps and the constraints, government interface is an icy barrier to communication and cooperation among federal, provincial and municipal governments, and it will remain so. If it was something like radio and television communications or air transportation, where there are uniform laws enforced at the federal level, that is a solution. Food safety and health are provincial responsibilities. Until this issue is resolved, we are not going to make any meaningful, long-term progress in terms of improving the level of food safety in Canada.
This bill will certainly provide the Canadian Food Inspection Agency with the opportunity to standardize its inspection activity and training programs and then offer a further opportunity to prioritize and assess the risks along the different types of food product they have responsibility for. That, I am afraid, is the extent of change.
Senator Plett: Mr. Jeffery, thank you for your 10 very clear recommendations. I think they are certainly helpful. When I say "clear," I did not understand one of them, so maybe they were not quite clear enough.
You had two recommendations related to fines. The second one I certainly understood, and I would like your opinion a little further on that. I think the first one was your second or third recommendation. I would like you to explain that one to me a little bit further because I did not quite follow it.
Mr. Jeffery: As I understand Bill S-11, it creates a new regime of fines with much higher levels, and those fines are overseen by this board of arbitration, not by the courts. If it is true that the government intends to leave intact the Food and Drugs Act and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency Act, which are administered by the courts, they should raise the fine levels on those two to the same levels because unless they are raised, they will remain at their current low levels.
Senator Plett: Speaking of the fines in your second recommendation, I have an opinion on that. I think typically maybe judges are afraid to hand out maximum fines, and I think you said something about most fines were about 20 per cent of what the maximum is now. Maybe that is not what you said, but in any event, if the fine is increased tenfold, do you not agree that judges might be a little easier in increasing that, if it is 20 per cent, by going to within 20 per cent of the maximum and the fines would significantly increase?
Mr. Jeffery: To be clear, senator, I said that the vast majority of fines were 1 per cent or less of the current maximum, and the highest fine that I found in I think it was 2011 was 20 per cent.
Senator Plett: Okay. Sorry.
Mr. Jeffery: I did not investigate far enough to learn whether CFIA officials were calling for much higher fines and being disappointed routinely by judges. My sense is that is not the case.
In fact, another problem is that the fine measure is not used very often. I think a couple of years ago there were only eight or ten fines during that entire year. As I said, on average, that is about $100 per inspector per year. Therefore, my question to the government through you, Mr. Chair, is: Is there an expectation that if the fine levels do go up, food inspection agencies will use them more energetically and will call for higher fines? Or will it just be kind of a continuation of the current trends?
Senator Plett: I think our hope would be they would be used more, and I think that is the reason for it. Nevertheless, I have one last question on the first round, if I could.
Mr. Jeffery, in your recommendations you talked about registration "could" require additional resources. You did not say that it "will" require. Do you have information or statistics that it might require additional resources? How did you come up with the notion that it "could" require additional resources?
Mr. Jeffery: I do not know the extent to which this information is already in the hands of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, but as we all learned with the gun registry, it is hard to predict how these things will go. I do not know if there will be an uprising by the food industry saying they should not be required to register or what the result would be, but this is something that could be fairly efficient. You set up a website and call on all companies to post their information on it and have some kind of method for vetting it.
If it is a matter of food inspection agency officials, dozens or hundreds of them, taking time out of every week to type in information that is mailed in to them, I can see how that could be a very long, arduous process, particularly if some of these companies are reluctant to provide the information or are stingy with the details.
Senator Plett: We certainly hope and believe that this will be much more successful than the gun registry.
Senator Peterson: Thank you, gentlemen, for your presentations. As we move forward on this bill, I am reminded of the statement of Salvador Dali who said "Have no fear of perfection; you will never reach it." We are doing our best here to try and make this a good bill.
Mr. Jeffery, in your presentation you were focusing a lot on nutrition and labelling. During this past summer, did you have an opportunity to meet with government officials moving forward on this bill? Have you met with Health Canada? What role do you think they should be playing in this? Should they be a bigger presence in this bill, or do we have to go and do that separately again?
Mr. Jeffery: We typically meet with Health Canada on a range of issues. We did not meet with them on this bill. I am not sure if we were invited. I know that I did discuss some of the issues related to this bill months before it was introduced, but it was just introduced in June and there has not been an opportunity to get together on this.
As I said, one of our key recommendations is using the authority of the Senate, or the government's authority, to stipulate that nutrition is a health and safety matter. It was very puzzling for me to learn, over a lot of experience with Canadian Food Inspection Agency officials, that they consider that to be a quality issue, not a health and safety issue. For that reason, they seem to accord it a very low enforcement priority, which is evidenced by the fact that, as I said, I think in three years there has not been a single prosecution for incorrect food labelling, even though the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's own surveys have demonstrated, in some cases, widespread errors.
Senator Peterson: Do you think there is enough transparency in the bill that, as we move forward and these issues are identified, the bill, in future, could be strengthened in relation to that?
Mr. Jeffery: I am coming forward to this committee in good faith, assuming there are opportunities to strengthen the bill. I would be happy to provide text if the committee is interested.
Senator Peterson: Dr. Holley, as we negotiate more free trade agreements, is there a danger of incompatibility of standards between various countries and Canada that will blur the enforcement of this act as we are moving forward?
Mr. Holley: That is a really good question. An example of the kind of thing that can evolve is the ongoing recall of beef out of plant #38 by XL in Alberta with E. coli 0157:H7 contamination. This is a raw product, folks. The reason for the recall is the contaminating bacteria that can cause people to become ill. However, if that contamination had been found at a provincial plant, ladies and gentlemen, the beef would not have been recalled, because Health Canada does not have a zero tolerance policy like the American government does. These plants that are inspected at the federal level are compliant with the American standards. Now, this organism does not just make Americans sick; it makes Canadians sick, right?
I am not a proponent of a zero standard for E. coli in ground beef. I am a proponent for better education and that consumers should cook their beef well and kill this organism, period. E. coli 0157:H7 probably has a greater risk to exist in provincially inspected meat than in federally inspected meat because the federally inspected plants have a HACCP program requirement, and it is recommended at the provincial level. Here is a situation where we have two standards that are very obvious, and puzzling at the same time, to the public at large, as a result of the free trade agreement with the United States.
Yes, I think there is potential for future issues that evolve as a result of those kinds of international agreements that will apply to the federally inspected plants but not the provincial ones, absolutely.
Senator Eaton: Dr. Holley, we have heard from many of our witnesses that if we could standardize federal and provincial regulations in meat, it would be easier, because provinces could transport across the provincial barriers; it would be better for everybody.
Mr. Holley: Not better for everybody. It is going to have a major impact on the —
Senator Eaton: It might give us greater choice.
Mr. Holley: From a consumer perspective, absolutely, in some regions. However, in the more remote regions of Canada, it is going to put out of business the local butcher because he just will not be able to afford to comply with the regulations, and those economic issues also have to be considered.
Senator Eaton: I do not disagree with you. It is a complex subject.
Mr. Jeffery, you are talking about a sodium strategy and a trans fat strategy. You do not think that providing Canadians with information and good labelling is enough; you believe it should be regulated?
Mr. Jeffery: Many of the recommendations of the Sodium Working Group, in particular, were meant to provide information on better ways to change the so-called daily value for sodium to what is currently recommended by public health experts, and to make the information clear, to standardize serving sizes. It is very confusing for consumers; no question there.
Certainly with trans fat, the case is clear. It is a synthetic fat that became popular essentially in the 1970s. There is no health upside to it. It is synthetic. It has not been part of our food supply for thousands of years. The public health and economic benefits of removing it by regulation are quite considerable. Sodium is a little bit more difficult.
Senator Eaton: Because the same amount of salt has different effects on different people?
Mr. Jeffery: The public health recommendations vary by age a little bit, but the simple fact is that virtually every Canadian gets way more salt than is recommended.
Senator Eaton: I know, but we do not live in a nanny state. I guess I am trying to tell you that perhaps we should spend more time on education. Regulation is not going to stop Senator Mahovlich or me taking the salt shaker and going like mad on tomatoes or steak.
Mr. Jeffery: That is true, senator, and that is the way it should be. If you want to add a bunch of salt to it, then you should be free to do that and I do not think anybody should stand over you and prevent you from doing that. The problem is that often you are presented with a salty food supply. The salt is pre-added by manufacturers and you do not really have a choice, unless you really scrutinize the labels.
Senator Eaton: Is that not where we should be going, is teaching people to scrutinize the labels and teaching them not to eat so much processed food?
Mr. Jeffery: We think that people ought to be able to eat processed food. However, as I said, we have made some very specific recommendations about change in the labelling, which have largely been ignored. The expectation was that companies would do this voluntarily. In fact, many companies and industry associations were part of the Sodium Working Group and they pledged to support it, and then afterwards it became clear that they were not going to support it. They have not been forthcoming with information about sodium levels in their products, and so it was not happening on a voluntary basis. Sixteen thousand premature deaths a year, senator, is a very significant public health issue.
Senator Eaton: I do not disagree with you. I guess we disagree on the way of preventing them. I was appalled when Mayor Bloomberg disallowed 20-ounce pop containers in New York City.
I think portion control is the big thing. I think portion size kills more people than salt or trans fats together. Why do we not talk to people about portion control? You do not need a 12-ounce hamburger; you need a 4-ounce hamburger. You do not need to eat white bread.
I guess what I am saying to you is that you are just the beginning of a long education process, and I do not think it has anything to do with food safety; I think it has to do with choice.
Mr. Jeffery: I agree. I have been doing this for 15 years, and so it is not really the beginning, I suppose. It is a lot of years of experience with governments doing very little to educate people and companies doing very little to reformulate their foods to take the sodium out.
Senator Eaton: Is that not where you come in, to educate people?
Mr. Jeffery: We do a lot of it. As I say, we have 100,000 subscribers to our newsletter, but that is just 1 per cent of the households in Canada. Others can do some education. However, getting trans fat, to my mind, that is not an education issue. Trans fat is a synthetic fat, and it is simply causing too many heart attack deaths, 1,000 a year. Two hundred and fifty million dollars is a real incursion on the public finances. Likewise, sodium is a much bigger problem from a health and economic standpoint.
Senator Merchant: I will deal with two aspects of the bill. First, it introduces provisions against tampering, hoaxes, deception and threats in relation to food. There was an item in the news the other day relating to the U.S.; a box of cereal had the claim that there were pieces of blueberries in the cereal, but it turns out it was colouring; some of the flakes or something were the colour of blueberries. Do you get many incidents reported to you of these kinds of deceptions or hoaxes? How does the bill remedy that?
Mr. Jeffery: We occasionally feature stories in our newsletter about this sort of thing. There was a product made with blueberries that just had blueberry powder in it, but there were many pictures of blueberries on the front. It has health implications because dieticians recommend that people consume more fruits and vegetables, and that is one way of doing it, but this is an example of an issue that the food inspection agency considers to be a quality issue and, therefore, apparently has decided they are not fining anyone for that. To my mind, it is mass fraud and corrective action should be taken. Companies should feel that there will be penalties more than a stern letter from the regulator, that their profits will be disgorged if it is decided that they have been cheating their customers, but that is not the environment that we are working in.
Senator Merchant: Second, this bill introduces the authority for the minister to disclose. You have spoken a lot about the fines. If the minister gets the authority to disclose, that is good in the short term for the food safety and health of Canadians, but it has implications into the future because it will discourage some of the companies from revealing. Let us say Maple Leaf Foods have found a problem at one of their plants. They could now try to work with the inspectors to correct that problem, but if this bill gives the minister the authority to disclose, that has implications because companies would be afraid of litigation. You have mentioned huge fines. Actually, those fines are not that large when you compare them with the cost to the company, for instance, of a class action lawsuit. Those are huge fines.
Fines of $5 million, even though they are not given, as you said, might sound like a really huge fine, but in relationship to what may happen, if they now told the truth to the inspectors, there would be the fear that their business would go down, their product would not be bought, and they would be subject to huge litigation. I am thinking this may give the minister too much power to disclose.
Mr. Jeffery: We are advocates of transparency, senator, but I do not think that as governments we can rely on class action lawyers to ensure that we have a safe and nutritious food supply. The truth is that class action lawyers and plaintiffs go through a complicated economic calculation to decide what class actions they will pursue and where the causality issues are simplest and often has already been the subject of an enforcement action by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency or the Commissioner of Competition, and it is almost random from a public health standpoint as to what things could be the subject of a class action. It does seem like it was an important factor in the listeriosis outbreak involving Maple Leaf, but we cannot count on that always being the case.
Mr. Holley: May I comment?
Senator Merchant: Please.
The Chair: Absolutely.
Mr. Holley: I think your point is well taken. My only concern with the large size of the fines is the unanticipated effect it may have, given the current levels of attitude toward application or enforcement of large fines, and the history, as pointed out here by Mr. Jeffery, is very clear on that subject matter.
More important with respect to disclosure you mentioned by the minister, and I have some concerns about that that I voiced earlier, is the requirement — and I think this is an important part of the bill — for the company itself, if it is aware of an issue that has an impact on food safety, to be obligated to report that, and that is just super. That is equivalent to the requirement in the Food Safety Modernization Act in the United States. There is an equivalence there.
Senator Mahovlich: Dr. Holley, you were saying that Canada is fourth in the world in food safety. Where do we stand in the category of living to a ripe older age? I am being retired shortly, and I was wondering where we stand. I hear that in Northern Russia some people live well over 100 years. They have the highest average, and it is a certain grape they eat or their diet.
Mr. Holley: Senator, I am not qualified to answer your question, but I think the average age for males is in the vicinity of 80 and for females is 82. I do not know where you are on the chronology. You have a good athletic history. That should stand you well in your elder years.
Senator Mahovlich: I think it should. It is about my knees.
Mr. Jeffery, you were saying that we are devouring too much sodium. I often go shopping for our family and I get sodium-free soda water. Are you saying that all soda pop and soda water should be sodium free, that you want the government to pass a bill making all drinks sodium free?
Mr. Jeffery: No, senator. The Sodium Working Group report recommended targets for certain food categories, and I am not even sure that soda water is one of them. There are some food categories that are identified as major sources of sodium. As we have learned from reports looking at this, there are some food categories where the amount of sodium in the food varies widely. It is not always evident in the label and certainly not at restaurants. It is possible to make foods with a little bit less sodium or a lot less sodium.
Senator Mahovlich: Does it change the taste?
Mr. Jeffery: In some cases, reducing the amount of sodium by as much as 25 per cent, people do not even notice. It varies by the food. In other types of foods it is more noticeable.
There are different techniques that manufacturers can use, like adding the sodium so that it sticks to the exterior of the food and then you can taste it on your tongue, but it is not all over the inside of it, so it still tastes like it is salty, although the major problem is that there is so much sodium added to food in countries like Canada that people have grown accustomed to this taste and they have a palate for it. That palate, as we learned from the United Kingdom, can change. If you gradually reduce the amount of sodium, people then find salty food unpalatable, and there are health benefits from it.
On the point about longevity, senator, we do have a long lifespan in Canada on average compared to other countries. I think it is partly as a result of our health care system. One of the things that surprised me looking at some of these issues internationally is that nutrition-related deaths are responsible for between 20 and 25 per cent of deaths around the world. The problem is in countries with no health care system and no access to antihypertensive drugs and anti-cholesterol drugs is that they die much younger. You get diabetes; you cannot afford dialysis; you just die in your 30s, as an example.
Senator Robichaud: Mr. Holley, you question the effectiveness of recalls. Would you elaborate on that, please?
Mr. Holley: Most certainly. Please do not misunderstand. Recalls, when they occur, can either be of two types of effect. They can either be positive or negative. Recall is an important part of a proactive program of food safety. There is absolutely no question in my mind about that, and please do not misunderstand my intent.
When food recalls are used, the number of them is used to characterize the effectiveness of a food safety oversight program. I think this is ill will. Food recalls are effective when they bring food back before it causes people to become ill. Food recalls are after the fact, when people get sick. Most of our activities in food safety in Canada that are reactive rather than proactive fail, in my mind. Food recalls are important when they prevent illnesses.
Mr. Jeffery: I wanted to add a quick comment on that. It looks like one of the provisions added by Bill S-11 gives companies the option of challenging decisions by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to issue a mandatory recall. I do not think that power existed before other than using the courts for judicial review. The committees in both houses should be circumspect about a time when speedy action may be needed to save lives and whether putting that kind of appeal mechanism in place may not be good from a public health perspective.
Mr. Holley: To follow along in answering the question with respect to my concern about recalls and this bill, there is an omission — that is, there currently is not, and it is not evident to me from the bill, an indication as to whether a mechanism will be put in place. Good heavens, I guess we will have to wait for the regulations. However, there is no mechanism to evaluate the effectiveness of a recall. Yes, there are words in place that the CFIA has responsibility to monitor the effectiveness of the recall, but I challenge the CFIA to prove to me that they do.
The Chair: Thank you, sir.
In closing, I go now to the sponsor of the bill, Senator Plett.
Senator Plett: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have one question for Professor Holley.
I got some mixed signals in one of your statements and then in your response to my colleague Senator Eaton. I felt you said in your testimony — maybe you did not — that you believed in one level of inspection; you thought we had too many levels of inspection. Yet, when you responded to Senator Eaton you said that some of the interprovincial barriers that we have were good because some of the northern folk would have problems if we had just one level.
Could you elaborate a bit? Do you think we should have one level of inspection?
Mr. Holley: Yes and no.
Senator Plett: Thank you for being so clear.
Mr. Holley: In an ideal world, senator, it would be absolutely wonderful to be able to say that we have a level playing field in terms of standards. I think we should work toward that. The reality is that the character of our country does not easily allow that to happen. Certainly there has been discussion and decisions ad nauseam to attempt to bring this issue to some resolution. I am a firm supporter of every one of those initiatives, but the reality is also very clear in my mind that we may never get there because of the practical requirement in our society that small businesses need to exist and do perform a function. They can do it just as well as the large ones, provided they have standards that achieve the same end. Those regulations that they would operate under are going to be different because in a normal HACCP plan, you need an auditor separate from the person who runs the plant. What do you do if there is only one person in the business? That is the dichotomy in my position. The goal is in safe food.
We really need a champion or some champions to address this issue and to come around the issues of the constitutional barrier and, for that matter, the intergovernmental interface issue. It has been said that it has been addressed, but I see no evidence of that. Certainly this bill will not address that problem either. These are things that just have to be a part of a bill that intends to deliver safe food to Canadians. Maybe that is a challenge that is so large that it must be put into the future, but, by God, we need to have a plan to work toward and we just do not.
Thank heavens for the Auditor General. Separate from the third party audits, I could not believe comments earlier. The Auditor General plays an essential role in ensuring the performance of many government organizations in this country and has historically delivered scathing, important, constructive criticism of the food safety systems operations in Canada.
Senator Plett: Mr. Jeffery, do you also have a clear stand on this as Mr. Holley does?
Mr. Jeffery: No, I was going to change the topic, senator. I wanted to add that we will be sending in our technical brief probably next week with all the footnotes, and so forth.
Senator Plett: That, then, concludes my questions.
Senator Robichaud: Coming to Mr. Jeffery's last remark, we will be going into clause-by-clause study of this bill next Thursday morning at this time. If you are sending something, please do it at your most convenient time and for the committee's study also.
The Chair: On that note, it is very important that if you want to provide additional information, please do it through the clerk. As was specified, clause by clause will be next Thursday.
With that, I thank the witnesses very much. We appreciate what you have shared with us this morning.
(The committee adjourned.)