By early 2014, the federal government will end its decades-old practice of supplying federal meat inspectors to visit provincially licensed plants in Manitoba, Saskatchewan and British Columbia for a fee.
The decision, which the provinces learned of in June but just became public last week, will force the three provinces to create their own inspection staffs to service provincial plants operating under rules different from federally licensed plants.
Provincial plants are not allowed to export product outside the province. All other provinces with provincial plants have their own inspection staffs.
Federal agriculture minister Gerry Ritz insisted last week that there will be no impact on the safety of meat produced by the change in inspectors.
Canadian Food Inspection Agency associate vice-president for operations, Catherine Airth, says the move was made to allow CFIA to concentrate on its core mandate of inspecting federal plants.
She also noted that providing inspectors in the three western provinces cost the agency $6 million annually and provincial payments to Ottawa were just $2 million.
Airth said there will be no lowering of standards for meat produced from those plants.
“Ultimately, food safety outcomes from the food inspection system won’t change because all meat produced in Canada, whether it’s a federal facility or provincially licensed and inspected, must meet the standard of the federal Food and Drugs Act,” she said in an interview. “My view is that food safety is not going to change and we will work closely with our provincial partners through the transition to make sure there aren’t any gaps in the system.”
Despite those official assurances, opposition agriculture critics immediately accused the Conservatives of putting food safety standards at risk just to save a few million dollars.
Bob Kingston, president of the agriculture union of the Public Service Alliance of Canada that represents federal CFIA inspectors, predicted the new provincial inspection services to be created over the next 30 months will not be up to the CFIA standard nor be as well funded.
Kingston made the government decision public at a Vancouver news conference Aug. 10.
He predicted in a letter to agriculture minister Gerry Ritz that once the transfer takes place, “inspection of meat from provincially registered facilities in these provinces will fall below acceptable standards and will certainly be beneath the standards and meat inspection practices enjoyed by Canadians living elsewhere.”
Ritz shot back that the critics were reflecting an NDP “big government union agenda.”
Food safety experts including Rick Holley from the University of Manitoba food science department said the switch from federal to provincial inspectors will not change much since the rules they implement will remain the same.
