One of the most fierce critics of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency recently called for the agency to be disbanded as a failed experiment.
Michael McBane of the Canadian Health Coalition told the House of Commons agriculture committee that the agency has lowered food inspection standards, become too cozy with agribusiness and been derelict in not using the precautionary principle to ban any possibility that BSE-contaminated material might still be in the livestock feed system.
He asked MPs to reject Bill C-27, aimed at giving the eight-year-old agency a legislative base and increased powers to inspect licenced food-producing premises, close them down if violations are found, prosecute people suspected of tampering with food products and co-ordinate food inspection rules and practices with American food inspectors.
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McBane said the legislation would legitimize the CFIA record over the past eight years and that should not be the case.
Instead, he recommended, “the government of Canada terminate the failed experiment at the CFIA and house responsibility for health and safety of Canada’s food supply with an independent agency that reports directly to Parliament.”
McBane said the government should review the failures of the CFIA, including moving from a “command and control” system of food inspection and safety that included on-site inspections to a paper audit system and “increased reliance on industry to self-regulate.”
He continued to insist that the CFIA’s refusal to ban blood protein from animal feed leaves the Canadian herd vulnerable to BSE.
McBane said the CFIA has cost the Canadian cattle industry billions of dollars since 1997 when its feed ban regulations did not “shut the door on BSE transmission with a complete ban on all ruminant protein recycling, including beef blood, road kill, deer and elk. How much money has this CFIA approach to regulation, inspection and compliance cost beef farmers and the Canadian taxpayer?”
He said the CFIA has had “two incompatible mandates Ñ promoting trade and contributing to food safety.”
David Bennett, national director for health, safety and environment in the Canadian Labour Congress, which supports the Canadian Health Coalition, made the same point during the April 14 committee meeting.
CFIA employees are “caught in the middle,” he said, trying to perform a food safety job while being pressured to promote Canada’s trade prospects by declaring products safe.
Bennett joined CFIA critics who said responsibility for the agency should be shifted to the health department or a stand-alone agency.
“The bill as it stands is contrary to the public interest,” he said. “It weakens the food safety regime in the interests of trade and commerce.”
‘Radical reworking’
If the bill is not rejected by MPs, it at least needs a “radical reworking,” said the CLC executive.
The committee plans two more weeks of hearings on the legislation before beginning clause-by-clause review.
If expectations of a spring election turn out to be accurate, the legislation will die.
At the very least, MPs from all parties say they want to amend the legislation to provide tougher oversight for the agency.
