Science Union Calls for Quick Action on Food Inspection Services

OTTAWA — The union representing scientists working for the federal government is calling for an immediate moratorium on the deregulation of food inspection in Canada.

The Campaign for Public Science, to be launched Monday, is also calling on the new health minister to commit to immediate reform on the decades-old Hazardous Products Act that leaves government powerless to recall unsafe consumer products.

The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada says swift action is needed in the wake of the listeriosis tragedy and a continuing crisis with tainted food and unsafe consumer products.

Rejean Simard, president of the institute's applied science group and scientist at Transport Canada, said the Canadian Food Inspection Agency should learn from the same mistake made 10 years ago in railway and civil aviation, when industry was charged with policing itself.

"As a public servant and a scientist, we need to start to talk to the public. Here's what's happening to your science and don't let it get away because it's your own safety that will depend on it," said Simard.

Things came to a head on the food-inspection file earlier this year when a scientist at the CFIA was fired after sharing with his union a classified document he found improperly posted on agency's server outlining plans to turn over more inspections to the food industry.

The blueprint includes a plan to shift away from a "full-time presence" of veterinarians at abattoirs to an "oversight role, allowing industry to implement food safety control programs and to manage key risks," outlined in a November, 2007 cabinet document obtained last July by Canwest News Service.

Source: Canwest News Service