CANADA: Inspector told to alter Maple Leaf reports

29.apr.09
National Post
Sarah Schmidt, Canwest News Service

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency instructed one of its inspectors stationed at
the Maple Leaf Foods plant that produced contaminated meat last year to amend some
of his records at the height of the media coverage on the outbreak to minimize
concerns and highlight there was "no food safety risk," Canwest News Service has
learned.
The CFIA confirmed yesterday that the food safety evaluation team assigned to the
plant to investigate any immediate food-safety issues asked the inspector to add the
information to the worksheets because it determined that "some observations recorded
on earlier worksheets were not as detailed as the inspector's recollection of the
events."
This way, "the worksheet would capture all information in a written format," the
agency said in a statement.
Wayne Easter, agriculture critic for the Liberals and former parliamentary secretary
for agriculture, said it is not unusual for an inspector to add notes within a few
days of performing a verification task, but not months later at the height of a
politically charged listeriosis outbreak.
"From our understanding, there was an order for records to be altered after 12
listeriosis deaths had been confirmed. There's a serious breach of something here,"
said Mr. Easter.
Malcolm Allen, food safety critic for the New Democrats, said any decision to "alter
reports" in the middle of the crisis "clouds the whole issue about the transparency
of how you're doing things, regardless of what the intention was."
Mr. Allen added that this is particularly important given these written verification
worksheets are so central to Canada's food-inspection system. "It destroys the
credibility of the paperwork that they're asking to log if they're asked to add
things during a crisis."
In a statement, Gerry Ritz, the Minster of Agriculture, said CFIA is an independent
regulatory agency and day-today inspection activities are "completed independently"
of his office and the Ministry.