Toronto Star
Tories failed to act on meat warning
Ministry officials raised alarm more than a year ago
Report calls food-borne illness a growing problem

ROBERT CRIBB AND RICHARD BRENNAN
STAFF REPORTERS

The Ontario government was warned more than a year ago by its own officials
that its meat inspection system was a risk to both public health and the
province's economy, according to an internal cabinet document obtained by
the Star.

The government has yet to act on a series of recommendations from its own
minister of agriculture that would address the growing problem of
food-borne illnesses from tainted meat.

"Outbreaks of food-borne illness are larger and of a more serious nature,"
says the confidential 2002 document entitled Updating Ontario's Meat
Inspection Program, presented to cabinet in April, 2002, by Agriculture
Minister Helen Johns and senior staff. That was the month that Ernie Eves
was sworn in as premier.

The 56-page document states that the "current meat inspection legislation
and regulations are outdated" and recommended an array of improvements,
including more full-time inspectors, national standards, food handler
training and provincial inspection of meat processing plants now
administered by municipalities.

None of the recommendations has been adopted, sources say.

Cabinet discussed the meat inspection problems more than a year before a
meat packing plant in Aylmer was closed down late last month and meat
seized because of alleged illegal processing of meat. There are several
police and government investigations ongoing about the plant.

Neither Johns, nor any communications staff at the ministry, returned calls
from the Star yesterday.

Ministry projections for last year showed meat products ? including
poultry, beef, ready-to-eat meats and other meat products ? cause nearly
58,000 illnesses, more than a dozen deaths and cost the province's
health-care system nearly $200 million.

Modernizing the meat inspection system in Ontario would result in the
"reduction of food-borne illnesses and deaths, and the associated costs,"
the document reads. "Health benefits were estimated based on a reduction in
fatalities, cases of chronic effects, hospitalization days, costs of
doctors visits and time loss."

All of that adds up to estimated savings of $78 million to $172 million
annually, the document says.

"If our meat inspection system is not modernized, there will be a
continuing loss of markets," says the submission, which echoes many of the
same concerns from an earlier ministry study in August, 2001.

"Additionally, there will be an increased burden of costs to the public
health-care system. ... Ontario's agri-food industry must modernize its
system now to reduce food safety risk and to maintain and expand market
share and consumer confidence."

The document also says incidents of unsafe food pose the "increased risk"
of "reduced competitiveness," "possible lawsuits," and "great potential for
significant damage to the Ontario economy and to Ontario's international
reputation as a good place to do business."

Randy Robinson, a spokesperson for the Ontario Public Service Employees
Union, which represents the province's 10 full-time meat inspectors, said
the cabinet document confirms allegations repeatedly raised by his members
over the past few years.

"We see the Walkerton pattern repeated here. What happened with our water
system was vicious cuts and ill-thought-out privatization ... What's really
shocking is that they've ignored this advice even though they were fully
aware of the risks to human health and of the risks to the farm economy in
Ontario."

Johns' cabinet document points to a number of problems with current
provincial regulations around meat inspection including criticism that it
"contains outdated standards, is not responsive to technological advances,
is not keeping pace with industry initiatives and market demands, does not
provide a level playing field for the processing industry, is not
consistent with national standards and is unable to respond to current
issues."

While the importance of food safety is detailed in the report, it seems to
have made little impact on the Conservative government. According to the
provincial Liberals, the Tories are currently promising about $5 billion
worth of new programs over the next four years. But nowhere have they
dedicated money for an improved meat inspection system.

In December, 2001, the province's Food Safety and Quality Act received
royal assent. But opposition critics say regulations that would give the
act teeth have been slow to come forward, including a regulation that would
have dealt with the handling of deadstock ?animals that die before reaching
a slaughterhouse.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
`We see the Walkerton pattern repeated here. ...What's really shocking is
that they've ignored this advice.'

OPSEU spokesperson Randy Robinson

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Despite the concerns raised in the document, it recommends a communications
strategy designed to tell the public that Ontario "has an excellent food
safety track record" and it is "continually strengthening our food safety
system by upgrading our standards and inspection programs."

The cabinet submission makes a series of recommendations for updating and
strengthening the province's meat inspection system, including:

More full-time inspectors: The province has radically reduced the number of
full-time inspectors in recent years causing a "high turnover rate" that
has reached "critical levels, threatening (the ministry's) ability to
deliver services required by legislation ...

"The majority of inspectors have been on the job less than three years and
on occasion several inspectors have worked in plants alone without having
fully completed comprehensive training."

The number of full-time inspectors in Ontario has dropped to 10 from 103 as
part of overall government cost cutting. The vast majority of inspectors
are now part-time contract workers.

The cabinet submission says the current system of meat inspection
"primarily through the use of contract meat inspectors has been proven to
be unsustainable."

As a potential solution, the document says the agriculture ministry
investigated the possibility of handing over responsibility for meat plant
inspection to the federal government but abandoned the idea because it was
too expensive.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which inspects federally licensed meat
plants, told the province it would charge $19 million per year for "basic
slaughter inspection," the document reads, about three times the ministry's
"current cost of approximately $6.8 million per year."

The ministry's annual budget for this year is $622 million.

On the campaign trail in recent weeks, Eves has said the number of hours
worked by the province's meat inspectors has risen to 196,000 hours a year
from 177,000 hours a year in 1995 .

But OPSEU's Robinson says his members challenge those figures.

"There's something that smells funny about those numbers he's putting out.
Our inspectors simply don't believe what the Premier is saying because they
aren't seeing it in the abattoirs."

Inspecting meat processors: There are approximately 680 meat-processing
plants across the province that are not covered by provincial inspection
despite the fact that the facilities are considered "high risk."

While municipal health inspectors are assigned to visit the facilities
three times a year, inspection rates vary and

"these facilities are not licensed and therefore no database is maintained
... The discrepancy in standards and inspection frequency between
provincially licensed and municipally inspected processing facilities
creates an unlevel playing field and food safety risks for consumers."

To address that "inconsistency of inspection," the document reads, "it is
proposed that the current regulation expand its scope to license and
inspect free-standing meat processors."

Meat processing facilities in Ontario are still excluded from provincial
inspection.

Mandatory food handler training: Most food safety violations in the food
service sector happen "because people do not understand basic safe food
handling principles," the document reads.

No such mandatory food handler training exists in Ontario.

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