Dun, Dun, Dun

Last Thursday I wrote:

If there are any MSM types out there, perhaps you can ask some food inspectors if they were told to back off and give industry the benefit of the doubt, and if so, when?

Well the good people at the Globe and Mail must have been on the same wavelength because they answered my question today:

And the federal agency responsible for food safety this year began to let the industry conduct its own food testing, The Globe and Mail has learned.

A leaked cabinet document that outlined plans for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to give the food industry a greater role in the inspection process raised the ire of opposition politicians last week.

However, some of the plans have been in place since March 31, according to a CFIA manager and an official from the union that represents the federal inspectors.

At the Maple Leaf plant behind the listeria outbreak, a single federal inspector was relegated to auditing company paperwork and had to deal with several other plants, the manager and the union official said, contradicting the impression that officials had left last week that full-time watchdogs were on-site.

So, the government had already shifted to the Walkerton Model before this outbreak at the Maple Leaf plant. How suddenly very interesting. I wonder if this incident rather than any other, is driving the election timing? I also wonder if the Tories left it a day too late?

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Stephen Harper's Very Own Walkerton

With one person already dead and many more expected to get sick from tainted meat, it sure would be a foolish time to suggest that we should cut money from the food inspection system. Psycho Steve had better hope the the official opposition does its usual crappy job, dealing with this issue, or he is in big, big trouble.

Update: The Globe and Mail has a copy of the report that the government will not give to the opposition, so stonewalling no longer seems like a viable option guys.

Update: If there are any MSM types out there, perhaps you can ask some food inspectors if they were told to back off and give industry the benefit of the doubt, and if so, when? In other words the proposed cuts may have been an acknowledgment of an already established change in procedure (why fund an inspection system if we have told the inspectors to back off?) than a precursor to a change.

Update 3: As for the Tory reaction? It seems it is none of our business, but if we are good boys and girls and elect a Tory majority, we will find out. Please Big Daddy, please give me food poisoning!

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