The Canadian government is under fire from union and farm representatives who say it has been sending out mixed and confusing messages about whether it supports increased food company control over the safety inspection of their products.
They are asking agriculture minister Lyle Vanclief to clarify the issue, preferably on the side of continued government control of the inspection system.
The confusion began at the end of July when a senior official of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency assured farm leaders that Canada will not follow Australia’s lead in moving toward more private control of the food inspection system.
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Agency vice-president Ron Doering told the Canadian Federation of Agriculture board of directors that Canada will not accept product from five Australian plants involved in a pilot project to test the export market with meat inspected by plant workers, who are subject to government monitoring.
Four days later, inspection agency meat and poultry product division director Merv Baker sent a letter to American government officials praising the Australian proposal.
“The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is pleased to endorse Australia’s proposal in principle and commend Australia for its systematic, progressive and transparent efforts to ‘modernize’ its meat inspection program,” he wrote July 29.
Larry Leng, president of the Agriculture Union which represents food inspectors and opposes privatization, read the two comments and last week sent a letter to the agency, asking for clarification.
“They seem to be saying one thing in public and one thing to the Americans,” Leng said in an interview.
CFA president Jack Wilkinson, who asked Doering the July 25 question about Canada’s stance on the Australian proposal, said he too is confused.
“We are hearing at least two versions and whether people are just playing with words, I don’t know,” he said Aug. 16. “I will be writing to (agriculture minister Lyle) Vanclief to find out what in hell is going on.”
He said Doering had been “very clear” in rejecting a move toward more private control of food inspection. “I thought he was very emphatic that we would not be going down the Australian road. Now, I’m not so sure.”
Food Inspection Agency president Art Olson said the confusion may be because there are two different Australian projects. Canada supports one and rejects the other.
In Victoria state, the companies do their own food inspection and a private company has been hired to audit the process. “In the Victoria model, the regulator is not in the room and I have some real trouble with that,” Olson said.
The proposal to allow export companies to inspect their own product, with government monitors in the plant, is another matter.
“That’s similar to what we’re doing with poultry, where the more routine things we ask the plant to do and we’ll continue to do a portion of the inspecting and carry out the monitoring and auditing,” he said. “Australia is going a bit further than we are and we are hoping to learn from that process.”
But while endorsing in principle Australia’s export proposal, Olson said Canada is not yet prepared to accept product from those plants.
“We support it,” he said. “However, we’re not prepared to accept any product from those plants until we’re sure the pilot works.”
