The Office of the Inspector General says the United States
auditors who check up on Canadian meat-packing plants and laboratories are not
doing an adequate job.
After a detailed check on the audits conducted in all
countries shipping meat to the United States, the Office of the Inspector
General has made eight recommendations for improvements.
In the case of Canada, the inspectors found that auditors
did not always check all of the items on a list they are supposed to fill out
for each packing plant and laboratory they audit.
They also found that not all auditors have been applying the
same criteria and standards. For example, one was satisfied with checking 30
days of records, another checked 90 days.
In general, the Office of the Inspector General said the
United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service
needs to spell out more specific and detailed requirements and standards for
audits.
Occasionally U.S. inspectors, who tour Canadian plants in
the company of head-office staff from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, find
enough faults that they ban sales from the facility to the U.S.
In almost all cases, the plants under U.S. bans continue
supplying Canadian clients.
Sometimes they are able to fix the issues raised by the
inspectors within a day or week, but there have also been times when major
repairs that take longer have been necessary and Canadian officials have
allowed production to continue.
The U.S. audits are for two basic criteria – first, whether the
foreign country’s standards are equivalent with U.S. standards, and second,
whether the plant or lab being inspected lives up to the foreign country’s
standards.
