Auditor-General Kenneth Ferguson is highly critical of the
meat inspectors running the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
In a report presented to the House of Commons Tuesday,
Ferguson says the CFIA created a lot of confusion when XL Foods Inc. was in the
midst of a crisis trying to handle the largest beef recall in Canadian history.
He says the CFIA staff presented a lot of demands that
over-burdened a company already struggling to deal with the situation.
The
recall also took longer than necessary because the distribution records the
company turned over to the CFIA took several days to convert into electronic
files the CFIA could use.
But once things got sorted out, Ferguson said that recall
went reasonably well.
Other recalls have not gone nearly as well, he reports. In
many cases the CFIA failed to follow up to determine whether the recall was complete and what needed to be done to improve company operations.
Now that Health Minister Rona Ambrose has taken over
responsibility from Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz for the CFIA’s food safety
programs, she has promised swift action to correct the deficiencies Ferguson
has identified.
A few days before he issued his report, Ambrose also
announced that the CFIA will start to fine meat packers for failures to comply
with food-safety standards and procedures.
The CFIA has had this power to impose “administrative
monetary penalties” for years, but so far has not used it to discipline meat
packers, although it has used it to discipline others such as farmers and
truckers.
