University of
Dr. Rick Holley -
Farmscape for November 3,
2008 (Episode 3005)
The
A series of deadly food borne illness outbreaks has rocked
the confidence of consumers in
Dr. Rick Holley, a professor of food safety and food microbiology
with the
The food inspection system in Canada is operated at three levels
of government and two sets of regulations and there needs to some coordination
of food inspection activity in Canada at the federal level, at the provincial
level and at the regional municipality levels.
Some cities have their own health departments or environment
departments that look after surveillance at food service and retail.
Some provinces have environment departments that do
inspection of food plants but those are only provincial plants.
Then we have the federal government, the Canadian Food
Inspection Agency, that has its own set of regulations
that are directed toward inspection of federally registered plants that export
product from provinces and from the country.
We need to better coordinate and exchange information both
in the inspection system to establish standardized training protocols and we
also need to exchange information on food borne illness surveillance among the
three levels of government that are involved in monitoring the health of
Canadians.
Dr. Holley suggests the system is not proactive and is not
directed toward the prevention of food borne illness outbreaks.
He hopes, with public interest and pressure, we'll be able
to find the resources to address the deficiencies in
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.
*Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork Council
Wonderworks
farmscape.com