Monday, January 23, 2012

Kamenz mumbles on eggs



Geri Kamenz, chairman of the Ontario Farm Products Marketing Commission, has yet to show any progress on documented complaints he received in December, 2010, that the public is being exposed to food-safety risks because cracked eggs are being sold as Grade A.

If Kamenz won’t undertake a thorough inquiry into the Ontario egg industry, and report to the public, then why should the McGuinty government have any confidence in his ability to supervise the Egg Farmers of Ontario marketing board?

Kamenz says in a letter to whistleblower Norman Bourdeau, dated Jan. 19, that “under the circumstances, the commission’s ongoing review of your request (for an inquiry) continues to include consideration of how the common and related issues are evolving in the court proceedings.”
He gets a kick at Kamenz

How's that? Would you please stop mumbling!

The letter also notes that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency is responsible for egg grading and food safety and that it received the same information from Bourdeau.



The CFIA has given no indication that it has done anything about the allegations. I've asked today, and maybe I'll get an answer before Valentine's Day. Or maybe not.

One of Gray's finest displays
Kamenz’s letter also refers to “court proceedings” where Bourdeau’s allegations and electronic files he took from L.H. Gray and Sons Ltd. form a key part of the evidence that Svante Lind and his Best Choice Eggs want to introduce into a multi-million-dollar lawsuit filed against Gray, Burnbrae Farms Ltd. and the Egg Farmers of Ontario marketing board.

The egg board acknowledges in its mission statement, posted on its website, that it has a responsibility to ensure that the Ontario market is supplied with wholesome Ontario-produced eggs.

Yet where is the evidence that the egg board has done anything to ensure that Grade A standards are being met? It seems content to simply point to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, despite the evidence in the electronic files from L.H. Gray and Sons Ltd. indicating wholesale violations.

So we now have the egg board and the commission, which is supposed to be the guardian of the public interest in supervising marketing boards, both gazing dumb-struck at their feet while serious allegations of widespread abuses are in the public domain.

When will the McGuinty government decide that enough is enough, and call the commission and the marketing boards it supervises to account?


When will egg farmers decide that enough is enough, and that they have to do something to protect the integrity of their products?