Canadian Government Debates Food Safety and Risk Management

A deadly outbreak of listeria infection in Ontario due to tainted meat products is prompting a debate in Canada on how best to manage risks when it comes to the food supply.

According to an editorial in the Globe and Mail, the outbreak may have killed at least five people, and made dozens of others ill. The source of the infection is a bacteria at a meat production facility.

“Providing citizens with a reasonable assurance that they will not be poisoned by what they eat or drink is one of the most basic functions of modern government,” the article says. “It is no accident that laws governing the safe manufacture of food were among the first examples of meaningful state regulation in most developed countries; the possible consequences of tainted food are tremendous, and preventing them is a matter of critical public interest.”

How can we manage the risks associated with food? The article points at that although Canada’s current meat inspection process, administered partly by a network of federal inspectors in processing plants and slaughterhouses, is “widely respected.” However, the process fails to prevent the entry of a bacterium into products at the meat production facility in question.

Possible solutions include shifting from full-time, in-plant meat inspectors to an industry-led regime, with government taking on a supervisory role. “In Britain, the Meat Hygiene Service adopted a similar approach last year, establishing a system of ‘earned autonomy’ in enforcing food-safety standards for good corporate citizens, replacing some in-plant inspectors with a rigorous system of spot checks, and focusing freed-up inspection resources on producers that are deemed to be greater risks,” the article says.

To read the full article, click here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20080822.EMEAT22/TPStory/TPComment/Ontario/