Failing inspection

The Star's reports on what's happened within the Canada Food Inspection Agency since last year's listeria outbreak. And the picture only seems to look worse and worse as time goes by.

Sure, it's bad enough that CFIA inspectors were ordered to start conducting tests without being trained to do so:

Swab tests collected in meat plants over the past month are being questioned because the testers have not yet been trained, says Bob Kingston, head of the agriculture union that represents CFIA inspectors.

He says some inspectors will be trained shortly to conduct the tests according to proper protocols – training that hadn't been done when the program was first announced.

But isn't it even more problematic that the CFIA is shutting down its own enforcement operations at the behest of the industry it's supposed to be regulating?

Inspectors for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency started testing in food plants in February, looking for traces of the deadly bacteria in poultry and ready-to-eat meats.

But the testing has been put on hold until next month after some inconsistencies were found in the initial tests, and because the inspectors have yet to receive proper training...

Paul Mayers, associate vice-president for programs for the CFIA, said meat plant operators raised concerns about a lack of consistency in the way inspectors were conducting the tests.

"We identified some training gaps," he said in an interview yesterday. "It's very reasonable that the industry itself, where it sees slight differences, will raise those to our attention. That's useful to us."

Despite questions about the validity of the test results, Mayers said they will still be assessed. "If there are positives, they'll be acted on."...

CFIA inspectors must do their own testing in each plant at least six times a year.

That testing, according to CFIA officials, will begin next month.

Just so we're clear, then...

The recommendations arising out of last year's outbreak included a requirement that the CFIA carry out its own testing "at least six times a year" in each plant - i.e. at least every couple of months starting this January.

Despite the fact that the Cons didn't bother to ensure that CFIA inspectors were trained to do their jobs, they're at least able to conduct tests with enough validity that the results are worth following up on. So it doesn't appear accurate to say that the testing lacked any value in improving food safety.

But based on what sounds like relatively minor complaints from meat packers, the inspectors were instead ordered to stop performing tests until the end of March. Which means that they'll now be carrying out zero direct oversight of meat-packing plants, rather than the bi-monthly testing which has been identified as necessary to ensure the safety of Canadian consumers.

And if there was any hope of matters improving based on a greater focus on food safety, that's not about to happen either:

"The more layers an organization has, the people at the top don't get to hear very much from people at the bottom in terms of readiness to carry out a program," said Kingston. "(The CFIA) have no additional resources to deliver this program."

So in sum, the CFIA:
- is dumping new work on its employees without any increase in available resources to carry out the added tasks;
- doesn't communicate with the staff responsible for carrying out those orders; and
- is willing to shut the inspection process down entirely based on the word of the industry it's supposed to be regulating.

All of which suggests that the Cons are once again spreading their anti-regulation message by putting Canada's actual regulators in a position where they can't do their jobs.