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Starved budgets are a threat to food safety
That’s an absurd choice, and no choice for Canadians.
In the summer of 2008, 22 Canadians died after eating Maple Leaf cold cuts tainted with listeria. Dozens more were left seriously ill.
A federal investigation would later determine that in the years leading up to the listeriosis outbreak, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) was not conducting mandatory safety audits at the Maple Leaf Foods plant that produced the tainted meat.1 The investigator, Sheila Weatherhill, concluded that there were too few inspectors covering too much territory, and that a new meat inspection system implemented shortly before the outbreak was flawed.
That flawed meat inspection system – the Compliance Verification System (CVS) – is still in place today, and continues to rely on the meat industry to police itself. That means inspectors spend more time reviewing the industry’s own reports and test results than doing independent hands-on inspection. Some improvements have been made, but there are still too few inspectors covering too many facilities, making it impossible to verify that all of the meat processing facilities are following the rules that keep Canadians safe.
More than three years after the listeriosis outbreak, Canadians are still being exposed to real and significant public health risks. Each year, Canadians report about 11 million cases of food poisoning: it is estimated that only one in 200 cases are actually reported. Most aren’t serious, but for vulnerable people in our communities, like the ill and elderly, food poisoning is often fatal.
Pre-election promises
In the last federal budget, the government did make a promise to invest $100 million in food inspection over the next five years, with $18 million of that to be invested in 2011 and 2012. And since then, new meat inspectors have been hired and are in training, but nowhere near the number needed to keep Canadians safe.
The problem extends beyond meat processing inspection to programs for fish processing and meat slaughter which are also short staffed. We need more consumer protection inspectors too – these are the people who don’t just ensure food is safe, but verify industry claims about sodium and fat content and other ingredients. In Toronto, for example, there are just three consumer protection inspectors responsible for all the tens of thousands of retail food stores that sell, repackage and process food.
Some Canadians left more vulnerable than others
Recent decisions by the federal government are leaving some Canadians at even higher risk than others. In August 2011 the federal government announced that its CFIA inspectors will be taken out of provincially regulated meat processing plants in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and British Columbia by 2014.
The CFIA has provided this service to the provinces below cost for some years, and with less than half of the required budget, Saskatchewan, BC and Manitoba must now inspect all provincially registered meat production facilities with little in the way of supportive infrastructure and no inspectors.
CFIA inspectors will continue to conduct food safety work in federally registered facilities, widening the existing gap in federal and provincial meat inspection standards.
“To save a few bucks, the federal government is creating a two-tiered meat safety system in which some Canadians enjoy higher standards while others suffer higher risk,” says Agriculture Union President Bob Kingston, who spent 25 years as a CFIA and Agriculture Canada food inspector, including 15 years as a multi-commodity supervisor.
A recent incident at one BC meat processing plant illustrates why a gap between provincial and federal regulations and standards is dangerous. The owner of Pitt Meadows Meats Inc admitted that after seeing test results indicating dangerous E. coli contamination in his facility, he hid them from a federal inspector, then opted out of the federal system and registered as a provincial facility. Why? Because lower standards meant he could keep his plant running.
There are problems in other provinces doing their own inspection. In November 2011, Nova Scotia’s Auditor General released a report finding that the province “is not doing an adequate job of managing the facility audit process” and that the process is therefore “not sufficiently effective in mitigating all public safety risks associated with the slaughtering and processing of meat.”2
Very little imported food is inspected
In September 2010, an internal audit of the CFIA’s imported food safety program condemned the agency’s lack of a strategy, management and accountability for ensuring the foods imported into Canada are safe.
According to the audit, “CFIA Management of Imported Food Safety has deficiencies that represent multiple areas of risk exposure requiring significant improvement related to the governance, control and risk management processes.”
Bob Kingston says Canada’s import food inspection is a patchwork that ignores some products, while others are examined, with little apparent logic to explain why. He says there are only a handful of food safety inspectors assigned to imports.
“Proactive testing and inspection, other than trend monitoring or project work, is beyond the scope of CFIA’s current front line inspection resources,” says Kingston. “In fact, the inspection of food imports in Canada is one of the weakest components of the CFIA’s work.”
What’s more troubling, says Kingston, is that most of the inspectors dedicated to food imports are wholly funded by industry.
“Their purpose is purely commercial, to determine the quality and grade of imported products, and therefore their market value – not to identify threats to public health and safety,” says Kingston.
Ask for something better
The federal government has asked all departments including the CFIA to come up with ideas on how to cut costs by up to 10 per cent – cuts that will be handed down in the 2012 federal budget.
The conversation about what those cuts will mean and where they will take place is happening behind closed doors. It isn’t known whether the cuts will roll back spending promised before the election.
Canadians rely on food inspectors to keep us safe. We need the government to invest in a better food safety system, not cut what we have.
Ask for something better here.
More reading
Food Safety First, a web site with news and action ideas on food safety.
“Canadians unaware they're consuming dangerous levels of salt,” Sarah Schmidt, Postmedia News, December 7, 2011.
“Exclusive: Red tape, corporate `stalling' keeps wrongly labelled food on shelves,” Sarah Schmidt, Postmedia News December 3, 2011.
“Government allows infant-formula claims despite 'no acceptable evidence'”, Sarah Schmidt, Postmedia News November 11, 2011.
“Canadians not confident in safety of imported food, poll finds,” Sarah Schmidt, Postmedia News October 11, 2011
« Moins d’inspections alimentaires à Montréal » Metro Montréal, 17 août 2011
“CMAJ 2011 election survey: food safety,” Roger Collier, Canadian Medical Association Journal, June 14, 2011.
« Des lacunes dans l'inspection des viandes » La Presse, 18 mai 2011.
“Food in Canada: Eat at your own risk,” Ken Flegel MDCM MSc, Noni MacDonald MD MSc, Jane Coutts BA BAA, Paul C. Hébert MD MHSc, Matthew B. Stanbrook MD PhD Canadian Medical Association Journal, April 13, 2011.
« Le gouvernement Harper échoue en listériose », Paul Gaboury, Le Droit, 27 janvier 2010.
“Report of the Independent Investitigator into the 2008 Listeriosis Outbreak,” Listeriosis Investigative Review, Government of Canada, July 21, 2009. See also “Report Card: Federal government fails on food safety inspection & enforcement,” Food Safety First, January 27, 2010.
« Rapport de l'Enquêteure indépendante sur l'éclosion de listériose de 2008 » Révision sur l'enquête relative à la listériose, Gouvernement du Canada, 21 julliet 2009.
« Listériose : les libéraux accusent Harper d'avoir été trop lent à réagir » Paul Gaboury, Le Droit, 17 avril 2009.
« Listériose: une omission suspecte » Le Devoir, 4 mars 2009.
« En bref - Listériose: l'ACIA a modifié ses règles » Le Devoir, 7 octobre 2008.
“Shifting to food industry self-monitoring may be hazardous,” Roger Collier, Canadian Medical Association Journal, October 7, 2008.
“Listeriosis is the least of it,” editorial, Canadian Medical Association Journal, October 7, 2008.
1 “In the lead up to the outbreak the number, capacity and training of inspectors assigned to Bartor Road (the tainted Maple Leaf plant) appear to have been stressed due to their responsibilities at other plants, the complexity of Bartor Road including its size and hours of operation, and necessary adjustments required by the implementation of the CVS.” “Report of the Independent Investitigator into the 2008 Listeriosis Outbreak,” Listeriosis Investigative Review, July 21, 2009. For a summary and analysis of the investigation, see also “Report Card: Federal government fails on food safety inspection & enforcement,” Food Safety First and Options cons, January 27, 2010.
2 “Report to the House of Assembly,” Chapter 3, Nova Scotia Auditor General, October 28, 2011.
Date Modified : 2011/12/15
