Confusion around CFIA budget cuts

Budget cuts at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency won’t weaken food safety protection, says Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz. “Food safety is a priority for this government,” Ritz told the Commons agriculture committee, adding a big chunk of the planned cost cutting will come from the winding down of the listeria inquiry into the 2008 tainted


Food panel releases first study results

Eating out appears to be a once-a-week occasion for most Manitobans. We have strong views about local food but differing definitions of what “local” means. Most of us have never eaten buckwheat, hemp or flax-based foods. And while a little over 40 per cent of Manitobans buy organic food, an equal number don’t think organic

Retire redundant regulations rapidly

Too many government farm regulations waste time and do nothing to improve health and safety of consumers, says a report from the Canadian Federation of Independent Business. Farmers in Canada are hardest hit by regulations, an alphabet soup of rules including land-use restrictions, product labelling, food safety, border inspection, pesticides and data collection, said Virginia


Letters — for Feb. 2, 2012

Are court cases really baseless Mr. Ritz? It was really quite funny to watch the minister of agriculture strut around in front of his flock at the recent Western Canadian Wheat Growers conference. He used his bully pulpit to call the recent court cases, against his government implementing legislation dismantling of the Canadian Wheat Board’s

Food industry wants say in new legislation

Food safety is a job for the companies that make food, and government should focus on setting nutrition and health standards and policing the industry. That’s the pitch being made by large processors as the federal government prepares to revamp food-safety legislation. “Let’s not lose perspective: We can’t regulate bugs out of our food,” said


Uncertainty surrounds food safety legislation

The food industry wants meaningful consultations with the federal government while it’s preparing new food safety legislation, but so far is only being served promises of more advisory committee meetings. Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz plans to introduce legislation in 2012 to overhaul the roles of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Health Canada, and the Public

More on uncertainty and food safety investigations

Our summary last month of the largest foodborne illness outbreak of the last decade in the U.S. (salmonella in green peppers) and in Europe (E. coli in organic sprouts) demonstrated the diabolical complexity faced by food safety regulators when they carry out investigations characterized by deep factual and scientific uncertainty. In both cases, investigators were


Lessons For Canada From The Food Safety Modernization Act

FOOD LAWYER / OTTAWA The new Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) signed into law by President Barack Obama on Jan. 4 is a model of how not to make food safety law. The Americans laboured long and hard and delivered a mouse. Under the FSMA, some powers of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are

Farmers Turn To The Web To Burnish Image

October is a busy month for Kansas farmer Darin Grimm. With 2,000 acres of corn and soybeans to harvest, the third-generation family farmer is running a combine nearly dawn to dusk. But he still makes time to tweet. Whether it s touting the benefits of a new fertilizer, sharing photos of a newborn calf, debating