The Rural Voice, 2003-08, Page 16WEST WAWANOSH
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12 THE RURAL VOICE
Jeffrey Carter
Provincial meat inspection flawed
Jeffrey
Carter is a
freelance
journalist
based in
Dresden,
Ontario.
Helen Johns, Ontar o's agriculture
minister, needs to rethink the way
provincially -regulated abattoirs are
inspected and audited.
The bureaucratic system that's
been put in place is adequate and
might even be described as
exceptional. Unfortunately, any
system is only strong as its weakest
link. The weak link, in this case, are
the contracted meat inspectors.
That point is being raised by the
contract inspectors themselves. They
say job dissatisfaction has led to a
situation in which there's an
annual turnover rate of 32 per cent,
although a source at the minister's
office puts the number at about 20
per cent.
No matter. Whether it's 32 per
cent or 20 per cent, the number is too
high. Prospective contract meat
inspectors first receive four weeks of
classroom training. Then they're
turned into the field for further
on-the-job training beside inspectors
already in the system.
That's when things begin to fall
apart, according to Brian Burdick,
one of the more experienced
inspectors still in the system. Burdick
says the quality of the system is being
eroded. With the high turnover rate,
new inspectors are increasingly being
trained by inspectors with relatively
little experience themselves.
Abattoir owner Neal Metheral
near Creemore agrees, although he
says consumers should only be
concerned about the tiny minority of
abattoirs where safety protocols are
less than scrupulous.
" Now they're more interested in
their computers and the temperature
of the freezer than what's happening
on the kill floor ... they're
inexperienced," Metheral says.
Johns disagrees. She blew off the
complaints of Metheral and of the
contract meat inspectors and
maintained that the inspection
process in Ontario is the best in the
world.
"Anyone who says we don't have
the highest food safety system is just
wrong," she says.
There was a different answer,
however, from another Conservative
MPP, a person familiar with the
situation. That person suggests that
Burdick does indeed have a point;
that there's a need to improve the
way inspectors are compensated so
that they'll stay with their jobs
longer.
Most of today's contract meat
inspection positions were created as a
part of Conservative cost saving
measures in 1997. They receive $2b
an hour, but no benefits, travel
allowance, or job security. So they're
moving on to better paying positions,
as they can find them, either with the
Canadian Food Inspection Agency or
private industry.
It's true that Burdick and his
group are raising the food safety issue
to better their own positions but they
also have a legitimate and reasonable
point.
The current government of divine
mandate needs to get off its high
horse and listen to the people on the
front lines. If Ernie Eves and his
colleagues hope to form another
government, they should act to
correct the situation, before it's too
late.
How big a price should be put on
food safety in Ontario? Must we wait
until there's a disaster — shades of
Walkerton — until the situation is
addressed?0
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