Are Canada’s Meat Transport Practices Substandard?
In the past five years, mad cow disease and listeriosis outbreaks in Canada have led to the deaths of Canadian citizens. Each crisis was a severe blow to the country’s meat industry, causing untold damage from lost lives, lost revenues and an overall waning confidence in Canadian meat. The unfortunate events put pressure on the federal government and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), as many critics came out against what they viewed as substandard health practices within the meat industry. That criticism has once again come to light in a high-profile story in last week’s Globe and Mail, which detailed the contents of a new study by the World Society for the Protection of Animals — due to be released some time this week — that investigated the transportation conditions for animals destined for processing plants in Canada. The study is based on CFIA inspection reports for the period between Oct. 9, 2008, and Jan. 9, 2009, when the agency launched an investigation of the meat in
