2008 Election

As a New Democrat I have had many concerns with our last governments’ commitment to the Security and Prosperity Partnership  of North America on continental integration.  This partnership will bring us down to the lowest common denominatior on many policy issues including food safety.  As New Democrats, we are committed to stop the privatization of food inspection and will work to stop any program that jeopardizes the safety of our food.

has allowed food safety standards to detiorate to the point where Canadians are dying! If elected, this is one of the issues that I will be addressing with extreme vigour. Thanks…. Peter Johnston

- The editor-in-chief of the Canadian Medical Association Journal and five others took the unusual step of blasting the Gov’t for this in an editorial in last week’s CMAJ. They wrote, Gov’t policy errors helped bring about this epidemic. Yet surprisingly, Govt has taken no remedial steps beyond issuing a food recall. Instead, officials praise the success of our infectious disease surveillance system — as if, with 16 dead, there were cause to celebrate — while food safety standards remain as low as ever. The Listeriosis epidemic is a timely reminder that the Harper Govt has reversed much of the progress that previous Govt made on governing for public health.

- The same Nov. 2007 cabinet decision also handed self-inspection to the owner of meat plants and did the same for operators of animal feed mills and cut back the avian influenza preparedness program – yet & in an influenza pandemic tends of thousands of Canadians may die. They call for a full-scale public inquiry into the Listeria outbreak rather than the very limited, closed-door, non-arms-length investigation Harper has called for.

- This is Walkerton all over again – the Gov’t stepping back from inspections, resulting in slackening of the standards, with dire consequences. And it’s the same cast of characters – Flaherty, Baird, Clement

The Green Party is absolutely committed to ensuring that food in Canada — wherever and whenever it is purchased — is safe to eat.

At the farm level, we want to strengthen the Plant Protection and Health of Animals Programs, and help provinces ensure animal by-products are not used in animal feed.  (This is a concern with mad cow syndrome.)

For processed foods (including meats) we want to increase government monitoring.  Where pesticides, growth hormones and other contaminants are detectable, we will encourage action by processors to bring these down to undetectable levels.  From the business side, this will help the processors market their products in other products.

The Liberal Party believes that it is important to learn the lessons of the Walkerton tragedy and put a real focus on ensuring that the food that we all eat is as safe as it can be.

To ensure that lunch meats and other foods are safe for all of us, a Liberal government will invest an additional $50 million to build a more robust food safetynet.  We want to get inspectors back on floors of the plant, focusing on keeping the food we eat safe rather than paperwork. Through the recruitment of more inspectors, ensuring inspectors have access to the best technology and expanding inspection efforts of both home grown and imported foods, Canadians will be able to have greater faith in the food we all eat. More inspection means more safety for all Canadians.

A Liberal Gov’t will hire 100 new inspectors ASAP.

Food safety is critical and I will certainly fight to ensure it has priority with a Liberal gov’t.

It’s time for a change. It’s time to vote Liberal.

We cannot and should not rely on in house inspection alone, We must hire more inspectors to inspect and protect our foods and any other products that we consume in our daily life.

With your help and the friends and families of Portage Lisgar, when elected, I shall recomend that the public audit system be restored. This is my Commitment to you.

I guess, for Mr Clement, that 13 people dying is proof that the system works much better that 23 people dying and hundreds more becoming ill from the tainted water tragedy in Walkerton, Ont, when he was provincial health minister.

Will we ever learn?

for local products.People will support it.Hense the transportation,and worry of foods coming from other countries will be reduced.

The Green Party will press for a full judicial investigation into Canadas troubled meat inspection system and reverse the Conservative government’s effort to undermine this countrys food safety program. Read

We cannot trust this government with food, nor much else.  Will people heed the lesson?

Phyllis

Regulation is meaningless without adequate, independent inspection.  I take the commitment, with the proviso that I would support hiring whatever number of veterinarians and inspectors is required to ensure the safety of Canada’s food supply.  As a small organic hobby farmer I also concur with the comments of NDP candidate John Rafferty of Thunder Bay Rainy Rivier

I would definitely work towards ensuring food safety within the scope of GPC policies and platform, which is an outstanding document and commitment to food security. Moreover, it is a fundamental principle in the Green Party’s platform to ensure quality nutrition. The GPC is also committed to the protection, development, support, and enhancement of resources that provide us food.

The above position is absolutely vital to me as someone with education and knowledge about nutrition and the poor state of our health and health care services. Good nutrition can make a world of difference to many of our social ills.

* I hope this helps; and thank you so very much for your interest and sense of responsibility in contacting us.

* I will post my above response to food safety on the link you provided. Taking the Food Safety Commitment, by allowing the arrow to stand in the applicable box below, would require me to work within a finance committee orientation and opportunity to examine the full extent of what is necessary, so I would prefer not to commit so specifically at this time. Please be assured, however, that the GPC is very flexible and creative in its approach to meeting the needs of Canadians.

This is why we pay taxes!!!!

What we should be demanding of politicians is that food companies be required to implement solutions to track and trace such as the one Matiq, Norway’s largest meat supplier, is implementing from butcher shop to the store. read article

Now that we have increased public scrutiny and awareness of these safety issues, I believe that there will be an overhaul in the inspection system to improve processes. However, this is just the first step that needs to be taken in order to ensure the safety of consumers. We also need to determine exactly what caused the problems in the first place, and what should have been done in order to prevent them from happening. I would support regulatory changes to the inspection and safety system as well.

The Liberals would invest $50million to ensure that there are enough food safety inspectors and that the industry is not self-regulating.

Basically, I support your goals, but flatly refuse to have some jerk wave this survey under my nose a few years down the road and try to insist that I’ve failed to live up to my commitment.  I am an honourable person (and I don’t mean that in the elected sense), and will not have my honour questioned because perhaps I chose to support 900 inspectors, or even some technological answer such as visual scanning.

Safe food is my concern.  The specific details of attaining it, less so.

The Liberal Budget of 1995 also undertook opportunities for privatization and states: The Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food will share responsibilities and streamline arrangements with industry for inspection and regulation activities. (Budget 1995)

In contrast, the Conservative government has invested in food safety, hired 200 new inspectors, strengthened regulation, and initiated an independent investigation to improve our system.

The Liberal record on health safety is summed up best by former Finance Minister Paul Martin when he said in his 1996 budget speech: Surely we can all agree that it is simply silly for a food processing plant to have a federal meat inspector, a federal health inspector, a federal fish inspector, not to mention a provincial health inspector and a provincial food inspector tripping over themselves on the same day, in the same plant, doing essentially the same thing.
(read)

This Conservative government has a strong record of investing to correct deficiencies created by 13 years of Liberal cuts.

A New Democrat government would substantially increase the number of food safety inspectors and veterinarians, however assigning an arbitrary number prior to a proper review of the size of the problem would not be good governance as this figure may not actually reflect the number of personnel needed to ensure food safety. Our government will also ensure food inspectors and veterinarians are actually spending time on the floor and not filling out paperwork.

2. Place an immediate moratorium on industry self-policing policies

New Democrats are disturbed that the Conservatives are willing to jeopardize the health and safety of Canadians, by privatizing food inspection just to save a few dollars is not acceptable. New Democrats strongly believe that a central role of government is to ensure the health and safety of Canadians. We are strongly opposed to the changes to Canada’s Food Inspection Agency wrought by Liberal and Conservative governments.

New Democrats would ensure Canada’s food inspection system has the necessary resources to ensure the food Canadians eat is safe. Later in this election, New Democrats will be releasing a comprehensive plan for food safety and agriculture.

Remove obstacles preventing CFIA inspectors & vets from taking immediate action. Preventing any kind of safety inspector from taking immediate action makes a mockery of the entire idea of independent inspection. New Democrats would ensure that CFIA inspectors and veterinarians have the necessary authority and resources to keep the food Canadians eat safe.

3. Restore the system of public audit reports which were cancelled under pressure from the meat industry.

A New Democrat government would reverse the harmful, cavalier and foolhardy actions of the Harper Conservatives and restore full public accountability of Canada’s food industry.

The PC plan to have the industry police itself is ludicrous. What if the physicians aslo policed themselves, and the lawyers, and the RCMP? They all have and should have an independent body to do so.

Betsy Mcgregor

Place an immediate moratorium on industry  elf-policing policies
New Democrats are disturbed that the Conservatives are willing to jeopardize the health and safety of Canadians, by privatizing food inspection just to save a few dollars is not acceptable. New Democrats strongly believe that a central role of government is to ensure the health and safety of Canadians. We are strongly opposed to the changes to Canadas Food Inspection Agency wrought by Liberal and Conservative governments. New Democrats would ensure Canadas food inspection system has the necessary resources to ensure the food Canadians eat is safe. Later in this election, New Democrats will be releasing a comprehensive plan for food safety and agriculture. Remove obstacles preventing CFIA inspectors & vets from taking immediate action.
Preventing any kind of safety inspector from taking immediate action makes a mockery of the entire idea of independent inspection. New Democrats would ensure that CFIA inspectors and veterinarians have the necessary authority and resources to keep the food Canadians eat safe. Restore the system of public audit reports which were cancelled under pressure from the meat industry.

A New Democrat government would reverse the harmful, cavalier and foolhardy actions of the Harper Conservatives and restore full public accountability of Canada’s food industry.

Self-regulations is a dangerous practice as it involves inherect conflict of interest between the company profit and the reality of test results.

we should also be encouraging organic methods, minimising chemical use, raising meat-production animals in healthy, humane conditions with low or no reliance on antibiotics.

nous voulons engager plus d’inspecteurs selon le besoin.