The Saskatchewan government is considering a single meat inspection system for slaughter plants currently covered by two different ministries.
According to Volume 2 of the Provincial Auditor’s report released Dec. 12, the health ministry inspects 80 facilities and the agriculture ministry inspects 10.
The health ministry uses public health officials to examine facilities, while agriculture uses third party inspectors to examine the meat produced at the plants for which it is responsible.
There are also federally inspected plants, and farmgate sales aren’t inspected at all.
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The auditor’s office had previously raised concerns about uninspected meat making its way to market, and in 2012 recommended that the province consider updating its regulations. Saskatchewan is the only province that has two systems.
“Having two ministries responsible for this task increases the risk that the government will not know how many animals are slaughtered in the province or how much meat enters the food chain without being inspected,” said the 2017 report.
Tim Macaulay, director of environmental health in the health ministry, said work has been done on implementing auditor recommendations, but they are on hold until a decision is made about the inspection system.
For example, the auditor has recommended that the health ministry draft new slaughter plant standards.
“Our proposed standards are more in line with what agriculture requires,” Macaulay said.
“Our goal is to ensure the meat products are safe for the people of Saskatchewan, but we need to be looking closely at what are the implications with any direction that we’ll consider going towards.”
The auditor also recommended more frequent inspections and making the results of them public. Macaulay said the Public Health Act was amended in 2016 to allow for regulations to be developed, but again this hinges on the final meat inspection system.
A decision is expected next year.
