As early as the 2001 and for years after, Canada’s chief veterinary officer Brian Evans was the Canadian face of the BSE crisis.
When Canada imposed restrictions on Brazilian beef in 2001 because of perceived lax record-keeping, he flew to the outraged country to explain the decision. He faced anti-Canadian demonstrations.
Then when the disease struck Canada in 2003 and in subsequent cases in later years, Evans was on airplanes heading with federal ministers around the world to explain what Canada was doing even as borders slammed shut.
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He spent endless hours on flights and in meetings in Paris trying to convinced the OIE (the international animal health organization) that Canada had taken the appropriate steps. Eventually he succeeded in winning approval for the “controlled” status designation that has led to border openings.
Through all this, the quiet-spoken one-time Ontario country vet was the voice of Canadian food safety, animal disease vulnerability and reaction.
These days, the issue has died down, the occasional finding of another case hardly makes the news and Evans spends more of his time being Canada’s chief food safety officer.
And it gives him the opportunity to reference the BSE crisis with humour to make a point.
For several years when speaking to students at Canada’s veterinary colleges, he has worn a T-shirt designed by Western Producer graphics editor Michelle Houlden for a 2004 meeting of WP national staff.
It depicts a media spelling bee in which Hazel, representing the Western Producer, is about to triumph over her mainstream rivals when they were asked to spell bovine spongiform encephalopathy.
The T-shirt was designed for staff but a few years ago, I gave a copy to Evans, Mr. BSE.
He loved it and now wears it as a prop to explain the need to be prepared for animal safety emergencies.
Feb. 21 was payback time.
For months, he had been promising a t-shirt in return. He produced two that took pokes at my journalist tribe.
My favourite says: “Writer’s Block. When your imaginary friends won’t talk to you.”
Ouch. I plan to wear it.
But in an Ottawa where journalists and the Conservative government often are at loggerheads and bureaucrats are afraid to be seen in the company of writers lest they be thought to be disloyal to ‘the centre’, it is comforting to meet a senior bureaucrat unafraid to meet in a public food court, exchange t-shirts, have a laugh and not see an official handler in sight.
