The Canadian government has fixed food safety.

They said so in a press release.

The person who is inexplicably still – still -- Minister of Agriculture in Canada, Gerry-death-by-a-1,000-cold-cuts-Ritz, said tonight, "Food safety is a priority for this Government. We continue to work with consumers, producers, industry and our provincial and territorial partners to ensure that our food safety system remains one of the best in the world."

At least he didn’t say best in the world.

The self-adoration comes as the Government of Canada released its final report to Canadians on the action it has taken to respond to all recommendations by Ms. Sheila Weatherill outlined in the Report of the Independent Investigator into the 2008 Listeriosis Outbreak.

The Maple Leaf listeria-in-cold cuts outbreak that killed 23 people and sickened 55 in 2008. Self-adoration by government and health-types was rampant during the outbreak even though it was a disaster.

The bureaucrats talk about increased surveillance, more money for inspectors, better testing, more information, but provide little in the way of evidence to support the claim they have addressed all of Weatherill’s 57 recommendations.

Weatherill, who zeroed in on a "vacuum in senior leadership" among government officials, directed almost half of her recommendations on preventing another outbreak toward CFIA.

She also focused on the lack of food safety culture amongst health types and Maple Leaf.

"One of the tangible results of the recommendations is that they collectively impress on all stakeholders involved in food safety the need to adopt a culture of continuous improvement," Brian Evans, the government's chief food safety officer, says in the report.

Not quite.

Culture encompasses the shared values, mores, customary practices, inherited traditions, and prevailing habits of communities. The culture of today’s food system (including its farms, food processing facilities, domestic and international distribution channels, retail outlets, restaurants, and domestic kitchens) is saturated with information but short on behavioral-change insights. Creating a culture of food safety requires application of the best science with the best management and communication systems, including compelling, rapid, relevant, reliable and repeated, multi-linguistic and culturally-sensitive messages.

And where is the compassionate concerned communicator, Michael McCain of Maple Leaf?

Government is fairly hopeless about these food safety things; and it’s not their job. Maple Leaf makes the profit, Maple Leaf product killed and sickened all those people, Maple Leaf should be leaders. Throwing around phrases like food safety culture because it is fashionable doesn’t count. Actions count.

The best food producers, processors, retailers and restaurants will go above and beyond minimal government and auditor standards and sell food safety solutions directly to the public. The best organizations will use their own people to demand ingredients from the best suppliers; use a mixture of encouragement and enforcement to foster a food safety culture; and use technology to be transparent -- whether it's live webcams in the facility or real-time test results on the website -- to help restore the shattered trust with the buying public.

And the best cold-cut companies may stop dancing around and tell pregnant women, old people and other immunocompromised folks, don't eat this food unless it's heated (watch the cross-contamination though).

It’s accepted wisdom among government workers who play hockey that Canada has an outstanding international reputation for designing regulations and is equally terrible at enforcement.

Ron Doering, a former president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency who practices food law in the Ottawa offices of Gowling Lafleur Henderson LLP, writes in his monthly column that despite all the hype, the new U.S. Food Safety Modern¬ization Act (FSMA) signed into law by President Obama on Jan. 4, 2011, is a model of how not to make food safety law.

The Americans labored long and hard and delivered a mouse.

Under the FSMA, some powers of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are enhanced or clarified. For example, the FDA has powers to demand access to and copies of records when there is potential for serious health consequences (Canada has always had this). The FDA has also finally been given the power of mandatory recall after a Hearing (Canada has had this since 1997, without the right of a Hearing); and the FDA has the right to hold food products it has reason to believe are adulterated or misbranded (Canada has always had this).

But FMSA has two fundamental flaws, flaws so serious that the law may end up doing more harm than good. First, the Act provides a broad framework leaving to future regulations the real law. As everyone knows, the FDA is profoundly under-resourced to carry out its exist¬ing mandate — and the House Appropriations Committee recently recommended $285 million in cuts — and yet FMSA requires it to bring in more than 12 Rulemak¬ing regulations and more than 10 Guidance documents. The FDA has admitted it is already behind and that it may take many years before the regulations are enacted.

In the meantime, there will be real legal uncertainty for industry and consumers as the new law will be fully en¬forceable with little guidance on how it will be enforced.

The most serious flaw is the profound disconnect be¬tween the rhetoric about major improvements in food safety and the complete absence of new resources to walk the talk. For example, FDA is required to do 600 foreign facility audits next year and to double the number of audits every year for five years. The FDA has admitted this is completely impossible. As Peter Hutt, the dean of American food law lawyers, has recently observed: “The lack of reality in the statute is staggering.”

The import provisions of FSMA are the most relevant to Canadian exporters and, again, the law is confusing. Under section 301, every U.S. importer is required by January 2013 to carry out foreign supplier verification programs to provide assurances that the imported food meets the same level of public health protection as required of U.S. companies. Yet guidance on how this should be done will not be available on time.

In the meantime, effective immediately under section 303, the FDA has the power to require certification before the product can be imported. Certification can be provided by third-party auditors, but there are no guidelines on how this would be implemented or which entities would be acceptable third-party auditors. At the moment, the FDA is reluctant to accept private-sector audits done, for instance, under the Global Food Safety Initiative, even though they may be the best hope for improving food safety when there are more than 10 million importations of food every year into the U.S. under FDA jurisdiction carried out by over 150,000 importers.

There are lessons here for Canada. Don’t accept the facile argument that the state must move from reaction to prevention. The primary responsibility for food safety rests with industry — the role of the state is to make laws that it enforces, to audit industry’s risk management systems, and to be very good at reacting swiftly and fearlessly to protect the public when there’s a problem. Don’t mislead your citizens by telling them that you’re doing more than you are. And don’t legislate what you can’t enforce.

Ronald L. Doering, BA, LL.B, MA, LL.D, can be reached at: Ronald.doering@gowlings.com

In CFIA-speak, ‘no confirmed illnesses’ means there are sick people, but we can’t say so until we’re super-duper sure through testing, no matter how many more people get sick. It’s part of a disturbing trend where government agencies are pressured to downgrade the findings of epidemiology and rely only on positive test results. It’s on display in the Del Monte vs. Oregon lawsuit, and was on full display in the Maple Leaf listeria outbreak of 2008 that saw 23 people die and 53 others sickened; CFIA led with a press statement then “There have been no confirmed illnesses associated with the consumption of these products.”

So no one should be comforted after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency reported this morning that certain prepackaged raw shelled walnut products described below are being voluntarily recalled because they may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7.

“There have been no confirmed illnesses associated with the consumption of these products.”

Uh-oh.

When no one is sick, CFIA says, “there have been no illnesses associated with the consumption of these products.”

It’s the kind of wiggle-room bureaucrats thrive on – and shows the overall importance of public health.

The following raw shelled walnut products, imported from USA and packaged in Canada, are affected by this alert.

President’s Choice
Raw California Walnut Halves Unsalted 250 g 0 60383 87185 7 Best Before 2012 OC 07
Reddi Snack Hand Selected
California Walnuts 350 g 0 64777 28695 1 16581

Earlier this year, 14 people were sickened after eating E. coli-contaminated walnuts distributed by Montreal-based Amira Enterprises.

One patient in Quebec with an underlying medical condition died during the outbreak, which also affected people in Ontario and New Brunswick.
 

In another case of government-types burying the lede, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency on Sunday warned consumers not to eat certain B.C. mussels.

Half-way through the press release, CFIA stated, “There have been reported illnesses associated with the consumption of these mussels.”

Yesterday, News1130 reported the number of people sick from a bad batch of mussels from Salt Spring Island is now up to 50.

Doctor Eleni Galanis with the BC Centre for Disease Control says they may be contaminated with Diarrhetic Shellfish Poisoning biotoxin or DSP.

"Unfortunately, it's not a toxin that can be denatured or killed by cooking so even though the mussels have been well cooked, people can still become ill."

The affected mussels were harvested by Island Sea Farms Inc. from the harvest location “Area: BC 13, Sub Area: 15”or “BC 13-15” between July 19 and August 2, 2011.

The following mussels are affected by this alert:

Saltspring Island Mussels
Aquacultured Edulis Mussels
5 lbs (2.27 kg)
All lots up to and including Lot # 289; all harvest dates up to and including August 2, 2011 (2011AU02)
Albion Fisheries Ltd
Mussel N/Shell Saltspring Isl
5 lbs
All harvest dates up to and including August 4, 2011 (8/04/2011)
Pacific Rim Shellfish Corp.
Mussels or Gallo Mussels
Various weights
All harvest dates up to and including July 31, 2011
Albion
SSI Mussels
Various weights
Ship dates of July 20 to August 4, 2011 inclusive
B & C Food
Mussels
Various weights
Processing dates of July 20 to August 4, 2011 inclusive

Retailers and restaurants are advised to check the tags or labels on mussel packages or with their supplier to determine if they have the affected product.