Listeriosis inquiry stall is dangerous

Times Colonist, BC
Published: Monday, January 12, 2009

When Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz was caught making offensive jokes
about tainted meat that killed 20 Canadians, he reinforced the
impression that the Conservative government did not take the health
crisis seriously.

Ritz, in a conference call with 30 government officials, joked about the
possibility of the Liberal critic dying from listeriosis. And the
transcript revealed a focus on the government's image, not public
health.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's inaction on a promised investigation of
the death confirms that the government is not particularly interested in
identifying the problems that led to the listeriosis outbreak.

Harper ruled out a public inquiry into the outbreak, which was traced to
a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto.

Days before the last election, he did promise an "arms-length
investigation" to establish whether there were problems with the food
inspection system. The day before the vote was called, Harper announced
the terms of reference and set a reporting deadline of March 15.

But four months later, Harper has still not named a lead investigator to
conduct the investigation. The March reporting deadline will not be met;
at the current rate of progress, it's reasonable to wonder if there will
ever be an investigation of any kind.

Why? Ritz, still the agriculture minister, referred questions to the
Prime Minister's Office. "An announcement will be made in due course," a
spokesman said.

Harper has been able to appoint 18 senators and approve appointments to
a large number of political positions. But he has failed to take the
most basic step to deliver the promised investigation into food safety.

The government's inaction will raise concerns -- that it has something
to hide, or simply doesn't believe in the importance of appropriate
regulation, even in such a critical area.

That is especially true given the large number of questions about the
government's general handling of food inspection and this specific case.

Canadian Food Inspection Agency inspectors, for example, say a system
introduced last year left them overloaded with paperwork, responsible
for too many different facilities and unable to ensure safety. The
government has also moved toward shifting responsibility for inspections
to industry, arguing companies have an interest in safety. The outbreak
is estimated to have cost Maple Leaf Foods about $75 million.

Questions remain about the response to the problem between June, when
Ontario public health units began to notice an unusual number of
listeriosis cases, and eventual product recalls in mid-August.

Similarly, Health Canada had warned in 2005 about the risk of
listeriosis from sliced lunch meats and advised that pregnant women, the
elderly and those with weakened immune systems should not eat the
products. Yet hospitals and seniors' care facilities in B.C. and other
provinces were serving the deli meats to patients at the time of this
outbreak.

And a Canadian Medical Association Journal editorial charged that
"government policy errors" contributed to disaster and called for a full
public inquiry into Canada's food inspection system.

Those are among the serious, credible questions about Canada's food
safety that Harper appears uninterested in seeing answered.