It shouldn’t be this way, but it is.  Quoting from a Canadian Press report,  “Three more deaths in Ontario are being attributed to the cross-Canada outbreak of a dangerous bacterial infection that’s been linked to tainted meat.  The additional deaths bring to six the total number in Ontario in which officials have concluded listeriosis was either the principal cause or a contributing factor.”(Canadian Press Aug 25, 2008)  For a hungry public, which takes food for granted, this latest food safety scare should serve as an example that no food safety system is perfect.  However, for all its warts, here in Canada we’ve got one of the best.

Many of you might have heard Patricia Weaver-Blonde’s commentary on the Monday Noon CFCO farm show.  Every week Patricia chimes in with the history and heritage of local agriculture.  For those of you a long way from the farm, you’ll often hear her comment on the olden days when people mostly lived on farms and ate what they produced.  At the time they had there own food safety system.  However, as production increased and the public turned more and more urban, any tie to that local food production mostly disappeared.  The move to a society where people trusted what was in the can of peas came to fruition.

So here we find ourselves with listeriosis.  That’s a lot different than mad cow disease in Canadian cattle.  When that first hit way back in 2003, the American shut their border to Canadian cattle and it looked like Canadian beef country would never recover.  Nonetheless Canadians responded that summer by eating four times the hamburger they had eaten the summer before.  This time around with something called listeriosis, our public health minister is recommending everybody throw what you have in the fridge away.  You can almost hear the lunchmeat and ready to eat lunch snacks collectively landing in the compost pit.

Of course the difference this time is that people died and our food supply was compromised.  In the case of Mad Cow, none of it reached the food chain.  Maple Leaf foods and its plant in Toronto has been fingered as the source of listeriosis.  Recovering from this debacle will not be easy.  Michael McCain, the principal owner of Maple Leaf Foods has already released a video on You Tube saying they were sorry.  For those smaller locally owned meat packers in competition with Maple Leaf, seeing the big guy in trouble will surely represent opportunity.

If you still don’t get it when it comes to food safety let me tell you a story.  As many of you know from time to time I travel to Bangladesh.  While there I hang out with my faithful friend and partner in crime Dr. A.K. Enamul Haque.  In Bangladesh for the most part, food is either fresh or it will kill you.  That might be a bit of a stretch but for the most part it is true.  Enamul doesn’t do any shopping.  He has somebody buy his food for him.  He does that because he doesn’t have time to shop, but he also does it because those who buy for him know who’s selling safe food.  At the end of the day, his system works because everybody down the line wants to keep getting paid.

On one of my trips there in 2000, I visited Teknaf, a small town at the southern tip of Bangladesh on the Myanmar border.  While waiting for Enamul outside on the street, I watched a vendor making what looked to be these very tasty deep fried, road stand treats.  They looked delectable.  The vendor seeing this big white guy, motioned me over, but I didn’t go.  Finally seeing Enamul, I asked him if he thought I should get one of those delectable treats.  Enamul told me absolutely not.  They were unsafe in his estimation.  I moved on.

Now, that’s not saying you couldn’t be poisoned, get sick or die from something you picked up on Canadian streets.  However, we have stringent health and food safety system here.  Almost always, Canadian can buy food without a worry.

That’s a major reason why this latest example of tainted food coming out of a Maple Leaf plant in Toronto is such a shock.  In the Canadian agricultural world farmers often lament Canadian consumer’s penchant for cheap food.  However, even farmers take for granted how safe that cheap food really is.  Maintaining that after this current crisis subsides will need to be job one.