THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2012
VOL. 90 | NO. 44 | $4.25
SERVING WESTERN CANADIAN FARM FAMILIES SINCE 1923
|
WWW.PRODUCER.COM
WHEN SECURITY BONDS GO, WHAT COMES NEXT? | P92
FROSTY ROUNDUP
FEDERAL BUDGET | REVIEW
CGC changes to be hurried into law BY BARRY WILSON OTTAWA BUREAU
Despite government signals that changes were coming to the Canadian Grain Commission, its actions continue to produce surprises. First, the government embedded significant changes to the grain regulatory system in a budget implementation bill of more than 400 pages. Then, after opposition complaints that only the finance committee would review legislation included in the omnibus budget bill, the government surprised by promising to send segments, including Canada Grain Act changes, to competent committees such as agriculture. However, the Conservative majority rejected NDP proposals that the budget bill be broken up into separate bills dealing with distinct topics. The Budget Implementation Act will receive just five days of Commons debate and will clear second reading approval-in-principle this week. SEE CHANGES HURRIED, PAGE 2
Amid snow and freezing rain, Miguel Pavillard prepares to move cattle to a field nearer to Adderson’s Bar AD Ranch west of Longview, Alta., on Oct. 22. Pavillard, a student from Spain, is working at the ranch through a volunteer international work program called the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. | MIKE STURK PHOTO
u|xhHEEJBy00001pzYv%:%
Safety compliance system ‘stupid’ New system needed | Industry veteran says existing meat safety system too convoluted SASKATOON NEWSROOM
The E. coli contamination at XL Foods highlights the need to get rid of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s deeply flawed compliance verification system, says an industry veteran. “That thing needs to be chucked out. It needs to be chucked out, not revamped,” said Gerald Third, who spent 32 years in the meat packing business building and operating plants and consulting for packers around the world. “It is the most ridiculously stupid, redundant program that was ever put on paper, and it doesn’t work.” The CVS was implemented in all of Canada’s federally registered meat
packing plants April 1, 2008. It is a system for federal food inspectors to verify that plants are complying with their hazard analysis critical control points (HACCP) plans. The CFIA says consumers benefit from CVS because it ensures inspections have been done in a consistent, uniform and efficient way regardless of who is conducting the inspection. But Third, who left the packing business two years ago, said it is a convoluted system that everybody despises and that contributed to the E. coli contamination at XL Foods and the 2008 listeria outbreak at Maple Leaf Foods. “The program is broken. There is no other way to describe it. It never did work,” he said. “The (CVS) forces HACCP personnel to lie and forge
documents in order to succeed.” Paul Mayers, associate vice-president for policy and programs at the CFIA, said that is a misleading allegation. “The characterization that companies are fraudulently providing action plans is a little problematic for me because that has not been our experience.” He said there is a high level of compliance with corrective action requests issued by inspectors, and when there isn’t, as was the case with XL Foods, the CFIA can suspend a company’s operating licence. “We have ver y strong tools to respond to situations where companies are only paying lip service to action plans,” said Mayers. Third said the corrective action requests, which are used by inspec-
tors to correct errors or deficiencies observed in a plant, are bureaucratic and complicated documents that create mass confusion. He said a plant that seeks clarity on one of these requests is told inspectors are not allowed to elaborate for liability reasons and that it will have to figure out what it means on its own. “Now the plant is stumped. They don’t know what these people are thinking,” said Third. He believes the corrective action re q u e s t s t h re at e n f o o d s a f e t y because they allow a plant to continue operating despite a major deviation from its HACCP plan, as long as it has an action plan in place to eventually fix the poorly defined problem. SEE SAFETY SYSTEM FLAWED, PAGE 3
»
NOVEMBER 1, 2012 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Box 2500, Saskatoon, SK. S7K 2C4 The Western Producer is published in Saskatoon by Western Producer Publications, which is owned by GVIC Communications Corp. Publications Mail Agreement No. 40069240; Registration No. 10676
FOOD SAFETY | REGULATIONS
BY SEAN PRATT
»