The Globe and Mail reports, “Critics say the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) increasingly leaves monitoring up to companies under its supervision rather than undertaking testing itself. …Federal layoffs (by the Harper government) could cut 100 jobs from the CFIA by 2015, according to the Public Service Alliance of Canada.”
“(Now) Alberta has a brewing beef crisis on its hands. Nine people in the province have fallen ill, including four who ate steaks linked to the XL Foods slaughterhouse. Hundreds of products have been recalled from 10 provinces, two territories, 41 U.S. states and Puerto Rico. …The lucrative American market has shut out the plant, one of the three biggest in Canada, and 2,200 people are out of work indefinitely. …The system clearly didn’t work. If it had, (CFIA staff) say, the tainted meat wouldn’t have left the plant.”
For commentary by our friends at Food and Water Watch on the failures of the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) in this matter, please see http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/pressreleases/wheres-the-recall-tainted-canadian-beef-presently-in-the-u-s-deregulation-plans-underway-would-bring-more/.
