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The Weatherill report on the causes of and factor influencing last year's Listeriosis outbreak (the one that resulted in the deaths of 20 people) was leaked to CTV last night. Impolitical has picked up on several really bad decisions, and gives cogent explanations of why they're bad.
In a nutshell, the Harper government, and Harper appointeees
Memo to Mr. Harper and his idiot flunkies:
The entire reason for having government is so that a large, well funded, national body can look out for the welfare of everyone. Sometimes, I know, it's difficult to know how best to do that. Sometimes the welfare of one group of people and the welfare of another group come into conflict, and the role of government can be difficult to understand.
This is not one of those times.
Safe food is good for everyone. Unsafe food is bad for everyone. The regulations for food safety should conform to the highest standards—not the lowest, not the cheapest, not the most efficient, and certainly not those that are the best for shareholders.
Individual citizens of Canada do not have the wherewithal to test their own food products for bacterial contamination or check the reports coming from the facilities at which food is prepared and packaged. Corporations, faced with the opportunity to self-regulate, must take into account their shareholders' demands, their production deadlines, and their other commitments. Even with the best of intentions, they cannot be trusted. That's why we have government inspection. We are supposed to have an independent set of standards and procedures developed for the sole reason of making sure that food sold in Canada is safe to eat.Industry cannot be relied upon to regulate itself, especially when the regulatory bodies report only to the bodies they are regulating and the external "supervision" lacks authority, responsibility, and full-time staff.
That should be a no-brainer, even for people who believe in small government, an absurd post-Keynesian tax-free economy, and a "mandate" delivered by less than 50% of Canadians.
Public welfare: Ur doin it rong.
Sincerely,
-z.
In a nutshell, the Harper government, and Harper appointeees
- reduced the reporting requirements, stating that facilities need only report problems likely to cause public health concerns, and removed the Canada Food Inspection Agency's responsibility for overseeing cleanup at any facilities that reported positive bacteria tests.
- got rid of any representation for the Public Health Agency of Canada at the Cabinet level, so that public health concerns were subsumed in the Ministry of Health portfolio
- more or less killed CFIA as an inspecting body, relegating it to a supervisory role. What would CFIA be supervising? The inspections performed and reported on by a "self-regulating" industry
Memo to Mr. Harper and his idiot flunkies:
The entire reason for having government is so that a large, well funded, national body can look out for the welfare of everyone. Sometimes, I know, it's difficult to know how best to do that. Sometimes the welfare of one group of people and the welfare of another group come into conflict, and the role of government can be difficult to understand.
This is not one of those times.
Safe food is good for everyone. Unsafe food is bad for everyone. The regulations for food safety should conform to the highest standards—not the lowest, not the cheapest, not the most efficient, and certainly not those that are the best for shareholders.
Individual citizens of Canada do not have the wherewithal to test their own food products for bacterial contamination or check the reports coming from the facilities at which food is prepared and packaged. Corporations, faced with the opportunity to self-regulate, must take into account their shareholders' demands, their production deadlines, and their other commitments. Even with the best of intentions, they cannot be trusted. That's why we have government inspection. We are supposed to have an independent set of standards and procedures developed for the sole reason of making sure that food sold in Canada is safe to eat.Industry cannot be relied upon to regulate itself, especially when the regulatory bodies report only to the bodies they are regulating and the external "supervision" lacks authority, responsibility, and full-time staff.
That should be a no-brainer, even for people who believe in small government, an absurd post-Keynesian tax-free economy, and a "mandate" delivered by less than 50% of Canadians.
Public welfare: Ur doin it rong.
Sincerely,
-z.
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
That's the bigger crime, because he could actually do something about it, if he wasn't a self-serving, power-hungry egoist.