Editor:
The latest news regarding the infection of meat with the listeria bacteria shows how dangerous Stephen Harper and the Conservatives' policies are to the health of Canadians. According to news stories published on August 30th Harper and his band of free marketers bent to pressure from the meat industry and cut back on inspections by meat inspectors across Canada.
Most Canadians think their inspection regimes are tougher than the American ones, but not in the case of meat inspection. The policies of the Canadian Department of Agriculture are significantly weaker than those of the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). However, because many meat-processing plants export to the USA, Canadian processors must open their doors to USDA inspectors who then take their reports back to the USA to inform USA consumers. Canadian consumers are left in the dark. But freedom of information requests to the US government are very revealing. An example is one at a PEI company where the floor drainage was so poor that a worker had to stand surrounded by water with blood in it.
Cutbacks to inspectors began with the Liberals under Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin and have picked up pace with Stephen Harper whose government now wants to turn over inspection of food processing plants to the companies themselves with the federal inspectors simply auditing the work now and then. Like putting the foxes in charge of the henhouse.
Canadians should turf out Harper and turn over government to a party that's not in bed with the corporations.
Mark Sandilands
NDP Candidate, Lethbridge Federal
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