AT THE CORE of the sometimes-hysterical debate about the effectiveness of the Canadian food inspection system is a deep public misunderstanding about how the inspection system works.
It is fanned by some of the players who know better but see an advantage in perpetrating a “good old days” myth.
And it is a myth that easily gets legs because the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is not known, to be kind, as one of the most effective communications and public education machines in government.
The myth goes like this: Once upon a time, Canadians could be certain that their food supply was safe because all food on store shelves was inspected.
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- ow, through a combination of under-funding and an ideological passion for privatization, companies inspect themselves, government inspectors are reduced to the role of overworked paper auditors and therein may lie the answer to last year’s listeriosis food safety tragedy that killed at least 22 Canadians.
This is a argument that serves the interest of the inspectors’ union that would like to see more resources invested in staff.
It is a myth that serves the interests of some urban media that thrive on stories of malfeasance.
It is a myth that serves the interests of opposition politicians who see a food safety crisis with CFIA workers pointing fingers at government as a perfect opportunity to pin the tale of ideological recklessness on the government.
But it is a myth nonetheless, whatever the failures of CFIA in the listeriosis incident turn out to have been.
There once was a time when the food industry was smaller, fewer inspectors were needed and government inspectors were more visible on the floor.
But there was never a time, as CFIA founding president Ron Doering likes to say, when a government employee inspected every chicken bum passing on the plant line.
In fact, it was made clear more than 12 years ago when the CFIA was being created that a goal was to reduce the role of visual inspection and to increase the role of food company safety precaution practices.
“The agency will be much better able to respond to industry’s call for the re-engineering of the Canadian food inspection system by changing the role of government from one of being essentially a hands-on, carcass-by-carcass inspector to being an auditor of industry’s risk assessment systems,” Doering told the House of Commons agriculture committee Oct. 30, 1996 when it was studying the bill creating CFIA.
It was a Liberal government. There was no opposition filibuster to stop this “privatization” scheme.
In light of the fact that the Liberal government had sharply cut inspection system spending in the deficit-fighting budget of 1995, increased efficiency was generally seen as a good thing.
- ow, the opposition is determined to fault the Conservatives for helping cause the listeria crisis before the evidence is in. Still, Liberal Wayne Easter could say with a straight face last week: “I hope it doesn’t get political.”
The Liberals are looking for blood, the Conservatives are claiming to have restored things the Liberals never cut and consumers are led to believe the system is less safe than it was in the good old days.
Let’s hope it doesn’t get political.
