(Posted September 7, 2008)

(The Agriculture Union on August 29 isued the following public rebuttal to misleading and outright inacccurate comments made by Agrioculture Minister Gerry Ritz reagrding the listeria issue and the bona fides of our National President, Bob Kingston.)

Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz and officials from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have attempted to persuade Canadians that all is well with the food inspection system in the wake of the food borne disease outbreak.

We wish Canadians could count on their assurances that all is well. Unfortunately, we can’t.

In press briefings during the past two days, the Minister and his officials have misled Canadians with false statements that deserve correction. With the stakes so high, Canadians deserve to know the truth.

Falsehood #1: CFIA has hired 200 new inspectors, 175 of whom work in meat inspection.

Minister Ritz has repeatedly assured Canadians that the government has hired 200 new inspectors clearly stating most if not all of these new hires are supervising the meat industry. At yesterday’s media briefing, CFIA officials repeated this claim:

Paul Mayers, Acting Associate Vice-President for Programs, CFIA:

“So the issue of the staffing that’s been noted, we’ve added a significant number of new meat inspectors over the last two years.

Question: How many?

Paul Mayers: 175.

Question: In the processing plants?

Paul Mayers: In meat inspection. I can’t say that they’re all in processing because I just don’t know if they’re all in processing.

In fact, the lion’s share of new hires have been deployed to programs other than meat inspection, such as the Invasive Alien Species program to deal with a variety of problem species including: Potato Cyst Nematode, Asian Longhorn Beetle, Sudden Oak Death, Emerald Ash Borer, Light Brown Apple Moth. In addition, new hires have been deployed to Animal Feed programs. Neither of these two programs has anything to do with meat or food inspection as the Minister and his officials would have Canadians believe.

This is borne out by feedback from inspectors working in the field who know these new hires are not working in meat inspection. This email was received overnight:

“In response to the 200 inspectors hired, I KNOW for a fact that 75 of them were hired this spring as summer students to soil sample for PCN in the potato fields around Edmonton.”

There is also a huge difference in the number of positions and actual number of staff. An inspector’s message addresses this issue:

“200 new inspectors? This is sure interesting as the new hires I doubt coped with the attrition rates per departures per retirements, fed up and left, and DI's. Wondering if the new hires are term. student and seasonal? How about the increase in services per 24/7 operations - 200 does not even meet the change in production and requirement for services since 2006.”

Falsehood #2: The new inspection protocols were introduced without problems or Inspector Union concerns.

On Wednesday, Minister Ritz claimed to have union support for the new inspection protocols:

The Hon. Gerry Ritz: “Actually, the HACCP system and the building on that with the compliance verification system is well embraced by the union.”

And yesterday, a CFIA official claimed there were consultations with the Inspectors Union to iron out problems with the new programs:

Paul Mayers: “...what I can say is in the process of developing and implementing the inspection approach, there was consultation with our staff, with the unions representing our staff...”

In fact, warnings about workload during the piloting of the new CVS program were ignored by CFIA and requests to discuss the inspector union’s concerns at the national level have been ignored.

Staffing concerns were raised at the local Union/Management Committee in the GTA during the pilot project in April, 2008.

Here’s an excerpt from the minutes of the Central Region (GTA) UMC meeting held on April 17, 2008:

CVS - A. Santucci (a local union official) raised a concern that CVS input at smaller plants has increased staffing requirements. Employees are now required to perform their regular job duties in addition to CVS.

At the national level an Inspection Modernization Consultative committee was established. Its first and only meeting took place in January 2008. A promised meeting scheduled for April never materialized and Agriculture Union requests for additional meetings went unanswered.

On June 11, a union official wrote to Dr. Arsenault head of CSV implementation to remind him of the promised April meeting and to request another opportunity to discuss CVS issues including staffing.

No response to the request.

On June 17, the same union official sent another request to meet. Again, Dr. Arsenault failed to respond.

Finally on August 13 on the eve of the current crisis, Dr. Arsenault offered a meeting.

Falsehood #3: Bob Kingston is not a CFIA inspector

At the news conference yesterday, Minister Ritz attacked the credibility to the Inspector’s Union President Bob Kingston:

The Hon. Gerry Ritz: “...since Mr. Kingston and I have something in common, we’ve never been an inspector. I’ll turn that question over to Garfield who has 10 years as an inspector and two years as a supervisor of inspectors.

Question: I thought he had been an inspector.

The Hon. Gerry Ritz: No.

In fact, Mr. Kingston is an Inspection Supervisor on leave from CFIA. Before going on a leave of absence to serve as an elected union officer, Kingston spent 25 years as a CFIA and Agriculture Canada inspector, including 15 years as a multi-commodity supervisor, a senior level inspector position. Mr. Kingston continues to be an employee of Mr. Ritz.