This story is going to have serious legs. Everytime someone dies, it's going to be front page again. It'll be a huge election issue as well.
Posted at 2008-08-27 07:08:07 [PermaLink]Regarding the Kinsella link:
"Everyone knows that conservatives hate government - and, when right-wingers get their hands on government, everyone also know they will cut the Hell out of it. When that happened at Walkerton, lots of people died, and lots more had their lives destroyed."
There are few things the left likes more than the big lie. The private sector (i.e. the testing lab) was the only positive in the Walkerton case which was caused by lying, incompetent and stupid government employees who were notoriously unqualified for their job of running the public water works. Just who grandfathered nincompoops like the Koebel brothers ( [External Link]) into positions overseeing the public water supply? Why the Bob Rae New Democrats of course.
I doubt that more inpsectors would have made any difference.
Maple leaf is a VERY responsable company that has had a programme of intensive testing in place for years now.
Inspector DO test products, but questions of money and time limit the number of tests they can do.
This is now the responsability of the pirvate sector.
It should also be noted that these bacteria can change and evolve to resist different cleaning agents.
Many of the meat plants I visit for pre-operational inspections are practically as clean and as antiseptic as a surgical ward.
I feel very badly for the employees of Maple Leaf
"When that happened at Walkerton, lots of people died, and lots more had their lives destroyed."
Who was in power when Walkerton happened?
"Who was in power when Walkerton happened?"
The Harris Tories provincially, and the Chretien Liberals federally.
Let's look at Walkerton as an example of why the private sector does a better job than the public and thus the unions fear for more of this.
The water testing was contracted out to a private firm. For weeks, this lab was informing the public health department that the water was contaminated. For weeks the public servants sat on this information until finally after a couple of deaths they decided to look into it. They found two inept people had been promoted to taking care of the water supply. I guess this is what they mean by promotion based on merit. These public servant brothers fudged the numbers and samples and were drunk more often than not.
The private sector lab was vilified for their work and the public health office was praised for their taking notice of the problem in a timely manner. The brothers were convicted of ineptness in the 8 murders but never served any time in prison for their actions. Those that hired them based on merit were never identified nor reprimanded for their own ineptness. Just the private lab was singled out as being a problem in the whole process.
Making the processing plants responsible for their inspections makes sense because now if they screw up - like at Maple Leaf - they have to face the law suites and their possible demise. What a better alternative to Walkerton than that. Of course, if you are a public sector union you will fear the loss of your monthly union dues.
"Making the processing plants responsible for their inspections makes sense because now if they screw up - like at Maple Leaf -" Fiumara
Look, no one "screwed up".
Maple Leaf has extremely high standards of food hygiene and the very latest in cleaning technologies and cleaning products.
Furthermore, one can't possible test every slice of meat.
The on site inspector does an early morning preoperational tour of the floor, inspecting the machinery and ALL contact surfaces so as to ensure everything is properly cleaned before production even beings.
Listeria,though, can't be seen nor smelled and no matter how clean things look, and no matter how many swab tests one does, it can still be present.
Like I said above, these bacteria can change and evolve to resist certain cleaning agents. Consequently, and this practice has been around a while, companies keep a whole variety of cleaning agents on hand, agents that they alternate from one day to the next to ensure bacteria don't build up a resistance.
It's a sad tragedy that has absolutely NO comparisons to Walkerton.
Sometimes even those airplanes that recieve the very best in maintainence and upkeep crash for unknown and unexpected reasons.
This Maple Leaf incident is to the food industry what wind-shear is to aviation.
To attempt to turn this into a public vs private sector issue is very wrong because it won't help in uncovering the cause of the present probleme and nor will it help to prevent further outbreaks
This is more a case of people expecting miracles and being disappointed than of any negligence.
Maple Leaf is very safety conscious and their recall was as thorough and as timely as could be expected.
Bacteria in food is not a new problem. The industrialization of our food supply has vastly reduced the occurrence of food poisoning, but as a result of moving so much meat through one place, the outbreaks have greater consequences and make bigger headlines.
This goes completely against the new age thinking on food, but the people doing that thinking don't even understand what the word organic means.
Just so everyone's clear, a person who has been immunized against the usual diseases could not be sold as "organic" to cannibals. You would be stocked in the in-organic(?) meat section because of the precautions taken to make sure that you didn't pick up a common disease. That in itself is a reason to pick Maple Leaf over an 'organic' product.
I agree with John and disagree that it's the State's responsibility to "keep the food supply safe".
It's bad at doing it, and has far less incentive to do a good job than the companies themselves do. Taking John and Dara's word for it [having no direct experience with Canadian meat manufacturing], it seems that no increase in State interference could have helped here, and that the existing incentives are already sufficient.
Companies that give customers food poisoning (even non-fatally!) lose business for a long time, and thus have a powerful incentive to keep their food safe. Individual private inspectors *will lose their jobs* (or at least be demoted) if they fail to any significant degree, and nobody believes a company if it says "we don't have the resources to make safe food".
Appointees and elected officials, on the other hand, don't lose anything if someone gets food poisoning on their watch; they can always (and sometimes truthfully, to be fair) blame "the process" or "not enough resources".
And of course the elected officials are never directly and solely responsible for food safety, so they'll never get hit for any level of screwup.
I stand by the libertarian position that the State should limit itself to punishing false claims by sellers about the safety and inspection of the product, rather than taking (any, let alone sole or primary) responsibility for either.
I believe that the food industry, apart from a few corrupt operaters, is EXTREMELY conscientious when it comes to product hygiene and safety.
I work in the milieu and so know what I'm talking about.
And as Sigivald points out above, companies have million dollar reputations to protect, and so are very, very careful with when it comes to food safety.
What Sigi's missing is that there are a lot of small meat processors who DON'T sell brand name products. Their production goes straight to institutions, restaurants, butcher shops, and secondary manufacturers. The Seniors residence is looking at the bottom line, not the brand name.
It's not just meat either; it's why we have regulations defining how much rodent feces and roach bits are allowable in your flour...
"What Sigi's missing is that there are a lot of small meat processors who DON'T sell brand name products. Their production goes straight to institutions, restaurants, butcher shops, and secondary manufacturers."
That's very true, DinV, but those types of operators tend to sell raw product that will then be cooked, whereas in the case of Maple Leaf the recalls are all cooked, ready-to-eat meats.
Cooking destroys many, though not all, pathogens whereas ready-to-eat products, if they've been recontaminated AFTER cooking, can be lethal.