Listeriosis investigator set to hand in report

By Steve Rennie (CP) - July 20, 2009

OTTAWA - The top investigator into last year's deadly listeriosis crisis
will release her long-awaited report Tuesday, The Canadian Press has
learned.

Sheila Weatherill has handed in her report to Agriculture Minister Gerry
Ritz. She is expected to hold a news conference Tuesday to discuss her
findings.

Weatherill's report will assess how the federal government responded to
the crisis in which 22 people died and hundreds more fell ill after
eating contaminated deli meats.

The report will not express findings of criminal or civil liability, but
it will make recommendations on how to prevent similar outbreaks.

Weatherill and her team conducted more than 100 interviews and amassed
some five million pages of information during their six-month probe.

The investigators held closed-door meetings with cabinet ministers and
their top aides, senior bureaucrats, various experts, and industry and
consumer groups.

Secrecy shrouded their work. Weatherill only once spoke publicly when
she appeared in April before MPs on a special panel studying food
safety.

Afterwards, reporters had to chase her through the corridors of
Parliament's Hill's West Block just to get her to clarify that she had
not yet questioned Ritz.

She refuses to grant interviews. The government has retained a public
relations firm to keep journalists at bay.

So far only dribs and drabs have trickled out. Michael Doyle, a listeria
expert who advised Weatherill during the investigation, said the report
looks at both the outbreak itself and more generally at food safety in
Canada.

"What I've seen, I think, is a pretty good, balanced report," he said.

"I think it does a pretty good job of addressing the issue of the day,
which is listeriosis and Maple Leaf product."

Rick Holley, a food safety expert at the University of Manitoba, met
Weatherill this spring in her office at Ottawa's Experimental Farm.

"I still have the impression she's being very conscientious in exploring
issues that are somewhat broader than just the specific listeriosis
event," he said.

Weatherill is delivering her report four months past the original March
15 deadline set when Prime Minister Stephen Harper promised an
"arm's-length" investigation last September.

Since then, a half -dozen listeriosis reports have been released.

The unwritten conclusion of reports by Health Canada, the Canadian Food
Inspection Agency and the Public Health Agency of Canada is that poor
co-ordination among governments and agencies over food safety is putting
Canadians at risk.

The Ontario government released its own post-mortem rapping the knuckles
of federal and provincial health authorities for failing to work
together during the outbreak.

A House of Commons subcommittee studying food safety couldn't reach a
consensus after hearing from dozens of witnesses this spring, so it
released two dissenting reports.

Opposition MPs called for a public inquiry into the outbreak, while the
smaller number of Conservative MPs on the panel made no mention of an
inquiry in their report and pledged to await Weatherill's findings.

Copyright (c) 2009 The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.