The Weatherill Report oozes into summer

The report of the inquiry into the listeriosis outbreak last year is slowly working its way to the streets. The way the initial "leak" is being reported by CTV it would give you the impression that food inspection had always been deficient in Canada.

That impression would be wrong.

Food inspection and the safety of the food supply was a responsibility of the federal government which was dumped as a part of the ideological shift imposed by the Harper government. Those who died or became ill were the collateral damage of the Harper push to get rid of government.

In order to understand that, you need some context. Right here.

Genetically modified genocide

DailyMail : GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using genetically modified crops

Here's how that works.
India gets IMF loans in exchange for allowing western companies like Monsanto access to the billion-strong Indian markets.
Government seed banks ban traditional seeds to promote uptake of GM seeds.
Farmers are pitched the very expensive "magic seeds", Monsanto's BT Cotton.
Farmers take out loans to buy them.
Drought. Too bad because GM seeds require twice the water of traditional seeds.
Crops die and farmers are unable to save seeds to plant next year because of course there are no seeds.
Farmers takes out additional loans to buy more seeds.
More drought plus parasitic bollworms. Crop failure.
Farmers can't pay off loans. Lose land. Suicide.

Monsanto official : "Suicides have always been part of rural Indian life."

Nice. And for what? Are more people fed?
No, because GM crops produce lower yields than traditional plantings.
So the entire purpose of GM is so that a few multinat corpses can own the entire food chain.

Prince Charles is on the case "setting up a charity, the Bhumi Vardaan Foundation, to help those affected and promote organic Indian crops instead of GM."
But Prince Charles has his own problems at home :

Independent : Europe's secret plan to boost GM crop production

"Gordon Brown and other European leaders are secretly preparing an unprecedented campaign to spread GM crops and foods in Britain and throughout the continent, confidential documents obtained by The Independent on Sunday reveal.
The documents – minutes of a series of private meetings of representatives of 27 governments – disclose plans to "speed up" the introduction of the modified crops and foods and to "deal with" public resistance to them.
And they show that the leaders want "agricultural representatives" and "industry" – presumably including giant biotech firms such as Monsanto – to be more vocal to counteract the "vested interests" of environmentalists"

Currently GM is only grown on .1% - that's point one percent - of agricultural land in Europe : none in Britain, France has suspended cultivation, and resistance is growing in Spain and Portugal.

And Canada? Well, we're riddled with the stuff - one of the world's largest producers of GMs.
A seldom mentioned aspect of the recent listeriosis story was the Ministry of Trade's decision to allow industry to oversee its own product labelling, meaning we're unlikely to become better informed of which foods are GM any time soon.
At present GM food labelling in Canada is voluntary.
In the absence of any other, I'd like to propose a genocide label.

Cross-posted at Creekside

SPP and Election '08 : From Star Wars to listeriosis

Margaret Atwood gets it. (h/t West End Bob)

So does Kevin Brooker, columnist at the Calgary Herald :
Beware Government deals made secretly

"With all of the structural problems in the U.S. economy, is now the time to give deep integrationalists encouragement to do what we never asked them to do in the first place?"

Mr. Brooker is refering to the Con's summer release of their Competition Review Panel report "Compete to Win" , which recommends loosening up foreign investment restrictions and ending the prohibition on bank mergers.

Well just lol. The U.S. economy is tanking and we already have one of the world's most foreign dominated economies, but as usual, not U.S.-dominated/decimated enough for the North American Competitiveness Council, aka the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

Let's do a little review of "Compete to Win", in their own words, courtesy of Integrate This! :

"The chief mechanism to deal with Canada–US border issues, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), has yielded too little progress in improving crossborder flows. In this context, the Panel believes that it is imperative to intensify our bilateral effort with the US, focusing on facilitating the flow of goods, services and people across the Canada–US border"

URANIUM MINING
"The Minister of Natural Resources should issue a policy directive to liberalize the non-resident ownership policy on uranium mining..."

COMPETITION
"The Minister of Industry should introduce amendments to the Competition Act (to) align the merger notification process under the Competition Act more closely with the merger review process in the United States..."

TAXATION
"The federal, provincial and territorial governments should continue to reduce corporate tax rates to create a competitive advantage for Canada, particularly relative to the United States."

CANADA-U.S. ECONOMIC TIES
"Addressing the thickening of the Canada–US border should be the number one trade priority for Canada, and requires heightened direct bilateral engagement at the highest political levels."

REGULATION
"Canada should harmonize its product and professional standards with those of the US, except in cases where, and then only to the extent that, it can be demonstrated that the impairment of the regulatory objective outweighs the competitiveness benefit that would arise from harmonizing."

As Mr. Brooker notes :

"When these people sit down to discuss, say, environmental regulation, do you think it is to make those laws tougher?
Do you suppose they're spending much time thinking about how to preserve workers' rights?

And how about Canada's vast freshwater resources, which were specifically excluded from NAFTA. What are the chances that emergent "security" needs will put water back on the table and thus guarantee the U.S. permanent access, just like they got with our oil?"

The always incisive Laura Carlsen, director of Americas Policy program at the Center for International Policy, answers Mr. Brooker's questions with a quote from someone who should know :

"In April 2007, on the eve of the North American Trilateral Summit, Thomas Shannon, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs, described the SPP's purpose with remarkable candor: The SPP, he declared, "understands North America as a shared economic space," one that "we need to protect," not only on the border but "more broadly throughout North America" through improved "security cooperation." He added: "To a certain extent, we're armoring NAFTA."

Carlsen notes: "This was the first time that a U.S. official had stated outright that regional security was no longer focused on keeping the citizens of the United States, Canada, and Mexico safe from harm, but was now about protecting a regional economic model."

Of course the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, Canadian wing of the NACC, not only have always known this, they are very keen to take credit for the idea. From their website :

"As our Council made clear in launching our North American Security and Prosperity Initiative in 2003, it is in Canada’s fundamental interest to pursue bilateral and trilateral agreements that will keep our border with the United States as open as possible, and this requires hard work on issues related to security....In this context, we would restate our view that it is in Canada’s interest to participate in the ballistic missile defence program."

Oh goodie! Pudding!


While I was over at the CCCE website perusing their "Blueprint", I ran in to this :

"In 2003, our Council proposed that the federal government adopt a “five percent solution”, which would require that each year, each minister and each deputy minister identify the least effective five percent of spending under their direction. This identification of relatively ineffective spending would provide a pool of resources that could be reallocated to new purposes if and when needed."

A 5% cut in each department's operating budget?
That sounds oddly familiar. And voilà!

"A Canadian Food Inspection Agency employee was fired on Friday for sharing with his union information he found in a Treasury Board document that CFIA planned to make a 5% cut in its operating budget by outsourcing responsibility for food inspections and the labelling of products to industry.

It's like watching a prophecy unfold, isn't it?
The CCCE proposes something; the Cons turn it into listeriosis.

On Oct 14, be sure you are not voting for these puddin' heads.

Cross-posted at Creekside

Harper's boys are such kidders...

Except that their sense of humour seems to come at the expense of dead Canadians and contaminated food. It seems to be a habit with this lot.

Remember, the first we heard of the humourous aspect of a tainted food tragedy was from Harper's Health Minister, Tony Clement. Instead of staying in Canada and managing his portion of a file which saw over a dozen Canadians dead and over 40 seriously ill, he went to Denver to get some face time with Harper's oil buddies. At a posh little lunch affair, hosted by our dollars, Clement unfolded a little funny. (Emphasis mine)

The Canadian government sponsored a swish lunch reception at its consul-general's Denver residence.

The food included bite-sized bits of beef, shrimp, tortellini and potatoes gratin. Health Minister Tony Clement, whose absence from Canada during the tainted meat crisis has not gone unnoticed, was there and introduced himself:

"I'm Health Minister Tony Clement, and I have to say I approved this food."

Oh, I say, Tony old boy. How very drole.

Then along comes information that Gerry Ritz, Harper's Agriculture Minister (who had taken over lead on the file) was unable to keep his funny-bone covered up.

Sources who took notes during the call said Ritz fretted about the political dangers of the affair before quipping:

"This is like a death by a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts."

The disease was linked to cold cuts from Maple Leaf Meats.

And when told about a new death in Prince Edward Island, Ritz said: "Please tell me it's (Liberal MP) Wayne Easter."

Easter is the Liberal critic shadowing Ritz's Agriculture Department.

Yeah, you guys are just killing us. As Aaron Wherry asks,

Would Gerry Ritz still be the Agriculture Minister if he’d been caught joking about 17 Canadians dying in a bus crash? What about if it was the deaths of 17 Canadian soldiers? Or if the deaths had simply been more centralized around a single place (a la Walkerton)? If the answer is no to any of those scenarios, what makes this situation different?

The "joking" however, is a trait of this bunch. These are right-wing authoritarian scumbags. To them the misfortune of others is always funny. We shouldn't really be surprised.

What is more interesting is that, in both the case of Clement and Ritz, their initial concern was the political risks they were now facing; not the fact that people were dying. They made it all about themselves. Once both of these clowns were faced with their own misspeaks however, notice how the grins disappeared from their faces. Not because they really regret saying what they did, but because they got caught doing it.

What is more serious however, is that while they made light of a tragedy and then wrung their hands over the political minefield that lay ahead, not once did they acknowledged that this entire event was a thing of their own making done at the insistence of Harper. And that's what really matters. It was their de-regulation of meat inspection which led to this. It was their failure to accept the basic responsibility of government in the safety of the Canadian food supply.

As Ross says, forget Ritz. It goes higher than him. This is a fundamental failure of leadership right at the top. This is the Harper school of government: You're on your own. Get sick from bad meat? Oh well. Canary in the coalmine. It's cheaper than actually doing inspections and look at how we cut taxes for all those who survived.

It's not over yet. As Scott points out, there is a lot more to come if Harper regains a government from this election.

While we do not yet know if this case is in any way related to the Maple Leaf Foods listeriosis outbreak, perhaps we can get a preview of the ministerial humour on the subject.

Wow! 58 new CFIA inspectors!

While Tony Clement dines in excellence at Denver and ponders how to diddle with the safety of Canadian food, this announcement hits the street.

The Conservative government promised yesterday to hire 58 more food inspectors and said discussions are under way about the merits of adopting more rigorous U.S. meat safety measures.

Facing allegations from opposition MPs that federal ministers have been less than forthright in explaining their plans for food inspection reform, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said his government continues to improve food safety.

"We are targeting another 58 people to be on the front lines," said Mr. Ritz, as he and federal officials briefed reporters in Ottawa.

So, a little look at Maple Leaf Foods produces the following:

MLF production plants: 29

MLF distribution centres: 29

Number of MLF federally registered facilities: 58

What a coincidence!! After an attempt by the Conservatives to de-regulate the industry, (something McCain of Maple Leaf Foods is against) it looks like MLF is going to get 100% on site inspection. But what about all the other major, centralized food producers? Y'know, Lilydale, Kraft, etc.

Something which has a few food industry insiders* raising questions is the content of the CFIA website. According to some of them the CFIA should have, by now, posted detailed instructions to retail outlets about the proper disposal and cleaning procedures of recalled foods. At the time of writing, I couldn't find it.

* Direct source

Tony's overwhelming sense of urgency

So, how are things in Denver today, Mr. Health minister? Having fun are we? Did you get some good face time with Harper's oil industry buddies?

Don't let a major national health crisis get in the way of your itinerary. Why worry about it? Once they're dead, they're of no further use to you.

I could not possibly add to Impolitical, POGGE, BCer in TO or Accidental Deliberations. Except to point out that this detached, imperious behaviour is becoming something of a habit among the Harperites along with bouts of dereliction of duty.

Adding to the disaster...

This comes from CBC and makes the Listeriosis outbreak an even bigger problem.

Two brands of Quebec-made cheese have been pulled from store shelves after provincial health officials found contamination from a strain of listeria.

Quebec's Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food ordered the recall Tuesday of two soft cheeses - Riopelle and Mont Jacob. Listeria was discovered in a Riopelle sample from a Quebec City store, as well as in Mont Jacob sold at a deli in Jonquière.

Officials said the strain is different from the one found in meat products from Maple Leaf Foods that has been linked to a nationwide listeriosis outbreak and 15 deaths.

Horatio Arruda, Quebec's public health director, said there are at least nine suspected cases of listeriosis associated with the recalled cheeses.

There are two important points to be brought out here:

1. This is in no way related to the problem with Maple Leaf Foods. It is completely separate.

2. This is a product sold solely in Quebec. It is not subject to federal regulations and is inspected by provincial authorities.

That doesn't make anybody feel any better, does it?

Hat tip reader Cat

Free market food safety

Inspectors failed to adopt more rigorous U.S. measures reads the G&M headline and the accompanying article includes this statement from Steve :

"Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said that the massive Maple Leaf meat recall highlights the need for Ottawa to overhaul its meat-inspection regime.
"It's necessary to reform and revamp our food- and product-inspection regime after some years of neglect," he said yesterday. "As you know, in the recent budget, we put considerably more inspectors and resources into this."

But scroll down to read former CFIA inspector Bob Kingston :

"Under the old system, inspectors had a more hands-on role on the plant floor, did more of the tests themselves and had more freedom to investigate.
Under the new rules, instead of heading to the plant floor to inspect with their own eyes, inspectors are sent to the office to confirm that the meat packer has performed the required tests and the results are satisfactory."

"We don't swab for listeria any more. The industry does all that themselves," he said. "They just document all this stuff. We read their reports. If their reports say they do everything fine, then they do everything fine."

The Maple Leaf Toronto plant was one of the plants where the CFIA began testing the new industry-based inspection system a year ago. To date 15 victims of listeriosis have died.

Health Minister Tony Clement :

"Government policy was to hire 200 more inspectors, that's what we've done since we achieved power in January '06," he said from the U.S. Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colo.

"When it comes to health and safety, you can't scrimp and save; you've got to do your job on behalf of Canadians and that's what we're doing."

What you're doing, Tony, is privatizing food safety as outlined in the SPP and lying about it.
Presumably a full scale government assault on CFIA for being unable to deliver under these conditions is now underway and more industry-based oversight will be recommended.

SPP : Outsourcing food safety to industry - Part 1 and Part 2