The union representing XL Foods workers, as well as several former and current employees, say food safety was regularly jeopardized inside the Brooks, Alta.-based plant at the centre of an E. coli scare. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency shut down the Alberta plant last week, and its licence to operate the plant was temporarily suspended in the midst of a nationwide meat recall.
OTTAWA– Liberal Leader Bob Rae took the Harper government to task after a massive outbreak of e.coli found at an Alberta meat plant.
“How did the 46 Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) inspectors in the XL plant miss the evidence that would have prevented the outbreak? Why doesn’t the CFIA have a firm threshold for when companies like XL Foods should divert or dispose of beef that tests positive for E. coli, something which could have prevented this outbreak? Why are the CFIA rules less stringent than what American regulators have said is needed to protect consumers? And why, in the wake of listeriosis, the implementation of all recommendations made in the Weatherhill Report, and the government’s claim that they have hired more inspectors, did CFIA oversight fail so terribly?”
The union representing XL Foods workers, as well as several former and current employees, say food safety was regularly jeopardized inside the Brooks, Alta.-based plant at the centre of an E. coli scare.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency shut down the Alberta plant last week, and its licence to operate the plant was temporarily suspended in the midst of a nationwide meat recall.
Conservatives also waited to inform Canadians about the e.coli crisis.
“Why did the CFIA wait until September 27 to shut down XL Food’s operations in Canada, when XL Foods was removed from the list of companies that could ship meat to the United States two week earlier?
Why did CFIA wait until September 28 to publicly announce that XL Foods had been de-listed from being able to ship meat to the United States?”
Rae further added that given CFIA has 46 inspectors stationed in the XL Foods plant that do weekly checks to ensure that XL Foods complies with their CFIA-approved food safety plan, why did none of the CFIA inspections between when the contamination first occurred (August 23-24) and when the United States first made Canada aware of a positive E. coli test (September 3) turn up any problems?”
Tom Hesse with the United Food and Commercial Workers said the union has heard from employees about problems that could lead to tainted meat.
Hesse said Management turned a blind eye.
One man who worked for an industrial company that had a contract with XL Foods told CBC News that he saw an employee go into the washroom wearing his protective gear during one of his trips to the plant.
“Throwing it on the washroom floor in front of all the urinals and relieving himself and then picking up his garments off the floor. Picking up his scabbord with his knives off the floor and then returning to the production facility,” said the man, whose identity the CBC agreed to conceal.
