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.”
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| 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.
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| 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?
