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再看看政府的回答，也是英文報紙的：
Food agency can't force meat plants into 'aggressive cleaning'
Sarah Schmidt , Canwest News Service
Published: Wednesday, September 10, 2008
OTTAWA - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has no power to force the majority of ready-to-eat meat plants in Canada to disassemble their slicing equipment and perform an "aggressive cleaning" in the wake of the nationwide listeria outbreak.
The company at the centre of the outbreak has identified the bacteria lurking inside two massive automated slicing machines as the "most likely source" of the contamination.
In an advisory issued last week to federally regulated plants, the agency advised them to disassemble and perform a "systematic and thorough aggressive cleaning and sanitation procedure" of all meat slicing equipment, including all internal parts. The directive came immediately after Maple Leaf Foods announced bacteria building up "deep inside" the slicing machines was likely to blame for the deadly outbreak.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has no power to force meat plants to disassemble slicing equipment for 'aggressive cleaning,' officials said Wednesday.
Rick MacWilliam/Edmonton Journal
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Font:****But there are many more provincially registered plants in the country that aren't covered by CFIA rules, and they don't have to follow the directive. Provincial officials defend the patchwork inspection system, saying even though their systems are less prescriptive, operators are required to maintain sanitary conditions in their plant.
Christopher Kyte, head of the Food Processors of Canada, says the current situation - a federal advisory with no teeth - boosts the group's long-standing position that all domestic plants and imports should be held to the same inspection standards.
Provincially licensed meat plants are barred from interprovincial trade and foreign markets, and can only provide products for consumers in their home provinces. Federally registered plants follow a different inspection system that gives them access to out-of-province markets; they must follow even more rigid inspection protocols, including daily visits from a CFIA inspector, if they want to ship their products to the United States.
"We just feel that there should be one superior standard for all processing plants for shipping into Canada and shipping across Canada," Kyte said. "It doesn't make sense to have two standards - one high standard and one less high."
Standards at provincially registered meat plants "are not as high, but they are making progress," he said.
A spokeswoman for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture said the province is in the process of forwarding the advisory on cleaning the meat slicing equipment to the 221 provincially registered ready-to-eat meat plants, and is "encouraging" them to follow it.
According to the most recently compiled data by Health Canada, non-federally registered manufacturers in Quebec outnumber those under CFIA's jurisdiction 120 to 80. In Atlantic Canada, the difference is even greater, 50 to 11. In Ontario, the Health Canada data listed 64 federally registered manufacturers.
In Alberta, there are 42 provincially registered meat plants and about 10 of them use meat slicers, according to the Ministry of Agriculture. Bob Holowaychuk, head of Alberta's meat inspection branch, said the provincial government can't legally compel them to disassemble their slicing equipment to do a thorough cleaning. But letters are being drafted to tell companies "we'd like this done as far as sanitation goes."
Holowaychuk added he's confident the plants will work with provincial inspectors to do deep clean of the equipment. He also said the province will review whether disassembly of slicers should become mandatory.
"We want the equipment clean, that's the bottom line. Does that mean disassembly five times a year or once a year? I don't have an answer for that," said Holowaychuk.
Maple Leaf Foods announced last week that while the company sanitized the meat slicers daily, it only found the "collection point" for the bacteria after inspectors and company staff took the four-metre-long machines apart and tested the rollers and rotating knives inside.
The machines are manufactured by Ohio-based Formax Inc. The company on Wednesday said it has two other customers in Canada using the same Formax S-180 machine. |
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