A friend has provided me with a copy of the information whistleblower Norman Bourdeau has provided to a number of regulatory agencies, including the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission.
Among items not so far reported by anyone are:
- The Canadian Food Inspection Agency granted Gray the right to reduce wash-water temperatures from 40 to 32 degrees Celsius. An e-mail between Peter Westelaken and Scott Brookshaw indicates aerobic bacteria colony counts on three samples were 1.8 million, three million and 2.7 million: the target is less than 100,000.
- Bourdeau's allegation, backed by e-mail correspondence, that L.H. Gray and Son Ltd. "sold" worthless cracks and dirts culled from regular pickups at farms as "nest-run" program eggs to the Ontario Egg Board at $1.50per dozen. An e-mail from Scott Brookshaw, vice-president of operations, says "make sure production staff knows to keep up taking the dirty out of the pack as they are being sent Nest Run."
- Ian McKillop, past president of the Ontario Cattlemen's Association, and his brother, Alan, benefitted from Gray's practice of putting cracks and dirts into Grade A retail cartons. For example, a pickup of 7,200 dozen on Aug, 24, 2009, contained 105 dozen cracks and 22 dozen dirts, but Gray's report to the Egg Farmers of Ontario Marketing Board was that there were only 68 dozen cracks and no dirts. This discrepancy was worth $164.97on that pickup.
- The McKillop discrepancy is peanuts compared with one or two thousand dollars per pickup for some other farmers.
- The documents indicate that the better the eggs the farmers shipped, the lower the "discrepancies". For example, on a Nov. 11, 2009, shipment from Griffith Farms, the discrepancy on a pickup of 8,100 dozen was $1,114.84. On Dec. 15, 2009, Playford shipped 4,260 dozen and the discrepancy was only $30.97.
- Gray cheated the egg board on bird counts. On June 14, 2009, Ross Snyder e-mailed Scott Brookshaw that inspector Chris Vanderkooy was coming to count birds in early September, and he asked whether he should "open the wall and let them go" so the excess birds in barn 31 could mingle "with older birds. Then we would go undetected."
I have also learned that the British Columbia Farm Industry Review Board has been informed about similar Gray grading practices at Golden Valley egg grading, which accounts for about 80 per cent of the B.C. market. Since egg farmers, including some directors on the B.C. egg marketing board, are in a co-operative that shares ownership of Golden Valley, I wonder how vigorous the B.C. authorities will be about cracking down.
If they take their cues from Geri Kamenz, chairman of the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission, they will stick their heads firmly in the sand.
Kamenz is refusing to conduct an inquiry on the grounds that Bourdeau's allegations are before the courts. Only a small fraction of the alleged wrongdoing is before the courts. For example, the allegation that Gray sells culls to the board as "nest run" program eggs is certainly not before the courts and surely worthy of an investigation on behalf of egg farmers and the public.
For the record, Gray denies any wrongdoing. The allegations and Gray claims of innocence have yet to be tested in court.
