Via CBC News in Edmonton, still more unpleasant surprises about this story: U.S. officials halt ground beef exports from Alberta plant. As I just learned on a CBC TV politics program, it was the USDA, not the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, that spotted the E. coli problem in our meat—back on September 4. But CFIA did do more tests, which took until September 13. In the meantime, Canadians were unaware of the problem. Excerpt:
Bob Jackson, a longtime meat inspector and regional vice-president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, says the recall should have been initiated a lot sooner.
“It’s very disturbing that the product was still on shelves and still being sold in stores for that length of time before the recall was made public,” he said.
"It’s not the first time and it is quite alarming, the fact that it was found by the United States.”
A Calgary-based beef expert says the ripple effect from the ban is also concerning for Canada's beef industry.
“For an industry it means a reduction of demand and that can back up beef product and increase inventories in Canada, reduce prices and in time, which appears to be happening, it reduces that company's ability to purchase cattle on the local market reducing the value of those cattle and the hardship just spreads to the rest of the industry,” said Ted Haney, who has a long history with the Canada Beef Export Federation.
Currently, there are eight confirmed E. coli cases in Alberta: three in Calgary, four in Edmonton and one in central Alberta.
Alberta Health Services has not linked the illnesses to the contamination at XL Foods.The fact that CFIA missed the problem appears to be related to our government's cuts to the CFIA budget—not only food inspectors but also lab technicians.
