December 3, 2012
Canada has refuted claims that it has a "two-tiered" food inspection system that puts the quality of beef exports ahead of meat consumed at home.
A memo from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to its employees at the XL Foods processing plant in Brooks, Alberta, instructed some inspectors to ignore contamination on cattle carcasses unless they were destined for Japan.
The agency responded Thursday (Nov 29) by saying the same safety standards apply to meat for domestic consumption and for overseas exports, and reports to the contrary are "categorically false."
"As the CFIA has confirmed, the meat sold in Canada is just as safe as meat exported to other countries," Prime Minister Stephen Harper told the House of Commons. "There are strict food safety standards in this country. That is the law."
XL Foods became the epicentre of one of the largest beef recalls in Canadian history earlier this year after meat contaminated with E. coli was stopped at the Canada-US border in September. People in at least four provinces were found to have been made ill by the E. coli strain; it was not until October that the XL plant was allowed to resume production.
Agency officials said Thursday (Nov 29) they recommended last week to the USDA that XL Foods be resisted, and provided the USDA with an "in-depth assessment" of the plant in an effort to reopen the American market to XL products.
Reports on the CFIA inspection memo will not help. The issue dominated the opening salvos of question period Thursday, with the NDP's Nycole Turmel asking provocatively, "What rate of faecal contamination are the Conservatives prepared to accept?"
As is often the case, reality is more nuanced than the rhetoric. The XL plant does indeed have a Japan-specific inspection station, Paul Mayers, the CFIA's vice-president of programmes, explained in a conference call.
Japan only allows the import of beef from cattle younger than 20 months. Those export carcasses for Japan must be free of elements such as spinal columns, faecal and intestinal materials - conditions that also apply to all Canada's domestic and export beef.
Malcolm Allen, the NDP agriculture critic, said the Japan station is the last point of inspection. "In that slaughterhouse there is one station left before it exits the plant and it's a shower. It gets showered," fumed the MP. "The shower will not wash off faecal material. In fact, we have it on authority from one of the chief veterinarians that it actually may just spread it around the meat, in which case the carcass would be even more contaminated than if you just simply cut it off."
A CFIA memo to inspectors, dated September 2008 and repeated yearly since, instructed them to ensure "100% verification" that all Japan-eligible beef was free from contaminants. As for non-Japanese-eligible carcasses older than 20 months, the memo stated, "ignore them."
A new memo, issued in mid-November after the matter was brought to the CFIA's attention by the XL plant's union, makes clear that the station should focus only on Japan-eligible beef, while offering more specific instructions on dealing with other problems.
