On Nov. 8 last year, a “suspicious package” was delivered to a Customs
Canada office in Sydney, N.S. The manager who opened the package found
an unknown powder and sent it to a laboratory for testing.
He died that night.
In the atmosphere of fear that had followed the September terrorist
attacks two months before and a series of anthrax incidents in the
United States, staff in the office refused to return to work the next
day and stayed away until the tests were back.
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The substance was not anthrax and an autopsy showed the manager died
from natural causes.
Still, government documents obtained by Ottawa-based Access to
Information researcher Ken Rubin show an emergency system that was
reeling a year ago from fears and false threats of terrorist attacks.
In Barrie, Ont., someone was leaving packages of bread and religious
messages at a Canadian Food Inspection Agency office.
At Toronto’s Pearson Airport, an anthrax threat was made against a
flight on Nov. 4.
In October, the chief scientific officer for the RCMP’s forensic
laboratory services warned that threats and follow-up investigations
were swamping the Canadian emergency system.
“Since the Sept. 11 attack, there have been a series of events in the
U.S. and Canada requiring a biological and-or chemical response,”
Joseph Buckle told a meeting of officials from federal labs in October
2001, including officials from the CFIA.
“Thus far, these events in Canada have been false alarms or hoaxes. The
emergency response required, however, has overwhelmed the capacity of
some agencies.”
Officials in Agriculture Canada and the CFIA scrambled to assess
potential threats to the food system.
Polls were showing a public nervousness about food safety. At the CFIA,
the emphasis was on making sure the food inspection system was
strengthened and the food recall system in place.
“While the economic impact of a deliberate introduction of a foreign
animal disease may be severe and food is an inefficient vector to
introduce widespread illness or death, public concern still has focused
more on the safety of the food supply than on other elements of
agro-terrorism,” said a CFIA communications plan report written Nov. 5,
2001.
“Industry and government stakeholders need to know about CFIA’s
specific actions and any changes to existing procedures.”
The message was that while “it is impossible to guarantee the safety of
the food supply, animal industries or plant systems with 100 percent
certainty,” consumers and the industry were to be reassured that the
government was doing what it could to prevent food contamination.
Government planners said the danger of public panic was high.
“A food-related terrorist event in the U.S. or elsewhere may generate
near-panic conditions with the public,” the communications plan warned.
The key message to get out was that “the CFIA has emergency plans in
place to respond to accidental or deliberate situations and is working
with its partners to continually enhance and expand those plans.”
