PETERBOROUGH - Provincial meat inspectors need more support from senior management if they are to keep the food supply safe, their union says.

“In order to protect food safety, front-line meat inspectors in Ontario must get just as much support from their chain of command as police officers get from theirs,” said Leah Casselman, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union. “Right now, that’s not happening, and it has to change.”

Casselman made the remarks today to the Meat Inspection Review being conducted by Justice Roland Haines.

“It is an all-too-frequent occurrence that when an inspector stops a kill, senior management [at the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food] instructs the inspector to back off,” she said. “We can’t afford to put short-term business success ahead of food safety.”

OPSEU made a total of 43 recommendations to the Haines Review. Among other things, the union believes OMAF should:

· require managers to support all enforcement decisions of inspectors unless the manager is physically present to make a ruling;

· provide more flexible enforcement tools for inspectors, such as the ability to issue tickets for minor infractions the way public health inspectors do;

· provide more extensive and ongoing training for inspectors;

· hire 40 more inspectors; and

· publish the enforcement records of each provincially-inspected abattoir, including the results of annual audits.

The union is also calling on the Review to recommend elimination of conflicts of interest that interfere with enforcement. Fifty-seven of 128 provincial meat inspectors are contract employees who may find themselves in situations where, if they enforce the law, they do not get paid. For example, in an abattoir that is shut down because of a bad water sample, a contract inspector assigned to that plant would be out of work until the plant re-opened.

“An enforcement system that fires the police officer for catching lawbreakers doesn’t make any sense,” said Casselman. “Meat inspectors need permanent full-time positions so their job status doesn’t conflict with the performance of their duties.”

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For more information:

Randy Robinson (416) 448-7441; (416) 788-9134