Six months after an independent commission recommended an overhaul of Canada’s food inspection and safety system, virtually nothing has happened, food inspector union and consumer leaders complained last week.
Both agriculture minister Gerry Ritz and Canadian Food Inspection Agency executive vice-president Brian Evans said the allegation is wrong.
“My view is that there have been significant changes made and more will be made,” Evans said in a Jan. 29 interview. “We are making demonstrable progress.”
At a Jan. 27 news conference, agriculture union president Bob Kingston, representing CFIA inspectors, said the Conservative government has done little to implement the six-month-old recommendations from commissioner Sheila Weatherill.
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She was appointed after at least 22 Canadians died in 2008 from food poisoning originating from contaminated meat from a Toronto Maple Leaf Foods plant.
She recommended sweeping changes to the food inspection system, all of which agriculture minister Gerry Ritz said in September he accepted and would implement.
Kingston insisted little has been done because of a lack of government will.
“The CFIA is doing what it can but with no political support and next to no additional resources to help, making our food safer will remain an objective rather than an achievement,” he said.
Anu Bose of the large Quebec-based consumer advocacy group Option Consommateurs complained that the government has ignored Weatherill’s advice to conduct wide consultations on how to strengthen the food inspection system.
“Consumers are important stakeholders, their buying power generates government revenue and business profits but their voice is not heard at any of the CFIA tables,” she told the news conference. “Consumers want and need a level playing field with food processors and other commercial interests.”
Ritz’s office issued an e-mail statement Jan. 27 in which he insisted the government has moved on all 57 recommendations, although he did not claim any solutions had been fully implemented.
The minister said the government had invested $75 million in the food safety system.
“This government has given more resources to CFIA and put more inspectors on the ground than ever before,” he said. “We’ve also strengthened protocols such as reinstating mandatory environmental testing for ready-to-eat meats, a requirement that was cancelled in 2005.”
