NOVA SCOTIA: Auditor raises concerns about safety of meat inspections

16.nov.11
The Chronicle Herald

The Agriculture Department isn’t doing a good job keeping an eye on Nova Scotia’s (a province in Canada) slaughterhouses and meat processing plants, raising the risk of tainted meat hitting the market, says auditor general Jacques Lapointe.
Lapointe detailed problems with the province’s inspection program in a report released Wednesday.
Lapointe reported that there’s no requirement for meat facilities to test for bacteria. Inspectors do visual inspections, and there’s also no definition of sanitary conditions.
The report also details the lack of regular monthly inspections and inconsistent followup when deficiencies are found.
"I have quite a concern about the process increasing public health risk unnecessarily," Lapointe said at a news conference.
"With production of food of any kind, there’s always a certain amount of risk; you can’t eliminate it. But the whole inspection process is designed to minimize that risk and bring it down to an acceptable level. The inspection process that’s in place now is not adequate to reduce the risk, and it’s hard to say what impact it’s having at all because it is so severely deficient."
Lapointe said in the report that he wasn’t coming to a conclusion on whether provincially inspected meat was safe for human consumption.
The Agriculture Department is responsible for all meat slaughtered and sold in the province. Ottawa is responsible for meat that crosses provincial boundaries.
There are 28 slaughterhouses and 14 meat processing plants in the province. The department has 14 meat inspectors.
Lapointe’s office examined files from April 2009 to December 2010. Four slaughterhouses — not all were operating for the entire 21 months — had no inspections done in that time.
Auditors looked at 133 deficiencies found by inspectors at the facilities. The deficiencies got a grade of 1 (minor), 2 (must be corrected immediately) or 3 (discontinue use until corrected).
The report said 11 of those deficiencies were repeated in two or more inspection reports. One wasn’t corrected for 2½ years.
Lapointe said there didn’t seem to be any enforcement action when deficiencies weren’t corrected. He’s recommending consistent inspection standards and the option of fining delinquents.
Agriculture Minister John MacDonell insisted meat from the facilities is safe.
"I’ve (been an MLA) for 13 years, but there’s never been an incident of a health issue that’s been connected to any of our slaughterhouses or processing facilities that we have ever been aware of," MacDonell said.
MacDonell said his department will address the issues Lapointe raised and plans to have fixes, including bacteria testing, in place by next summer.
Liberal agriculture critic Leo Glavine said he thinks the department should move quicker, referencing the 2008 listeriosis outbreak traced to a contaminated meat slicer at a Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto. A 2009 report on the outbreak, which resulted in more than 20 deaths, said government had made mistakes.
"We know what can happen, what has happened, and Nova Scotia is not immune to that taking place, so I’m hoping that we can move on this very, very quickly," Glavine said.