The New Food Safety Bill

This is the same bill that removes wieghts and measures from the CFIAs list of responsibilities. With this government, you can be pretty sure that it doesn't have our best interests at heart.
From the CBC:

In the aftermath of the massive E. coli scare at the XL Foods plant in Brooks, Alta., the House of Commons has passed legislation to modernize, consolidate and add consistency to Canada's food inspection system.
While the legislation is not a direct response to September's XL Foods shutdown, federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz said Bill S-11 will provide a "more consistent" approach to food inspection, allowing a "uniform approach" across all food commodities.
Bill S-11 originated in the Senate in June. It passed a third reading unanimously Tuesday evening and only royal assent remains before the bill becomes law.
Speaking before the final vote on Tuesday, Ritz highlighted several improvements contained in the Safe Food for Canadians Act:

• Better traceability in the food system, making it easier to recall products if safety issues arise somewhere in the food chain.
• New record-keeping requirements for regulated facilities and more powers for inspectors to compel the production of documents in useable formats.
• Tougher penalties for those who violate established safety standards, increasing maximum fines from $250,000 to up to $5 million, or even higher at the court’s discretion.
• New penalties for "recklessly endangering the lives of Canadians" through tampering, deceptive practices or hoaxes.
• Registration for all importers, to add a greater degree of certainty to the food safety system.
• More authority for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to certify exporters, if required by other countries to facilitate trade.

What Exactly Are They Trying To Say?

Hidden away in the omnibus bill called a budget, the federal Conservatives have decided not to chase down food package infractions anymore. From the CBC:

Canada's Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz is defending his government's decision to deregulate food packaging.
The proposal is part of the omnibus budget bill.
Ritz said food safety will be improved because less time will be spent chasing minor packing infractions.
Food packaging size is currently monitored by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, under the Ministry of Agriculture.
Ritz said officials "spend more time than you'd think" enforcing the sizes.
"We’ll spend days chasing down a honey container that is a half an ounce out. And the quality of the product is never suspect inside the container," Ritz said. "We need to focus our resources on food safety."

Really, Gerry? So now it will be okay for companies to simply mislabel the volume on a label to make you think you're getting 400 grams at $0.99/100g, but you're really only getting 350 grams? And that is a "a non-tariff trade barrier"?
I'll say it again; there is a strong stench of criminality, corruption, and just plain incompetence around this government.

A Rare Level of Stupid

*Sigh*  The Harper government's pursuit of ideology over facts is reaching levels of absurdity that I could never have predicted. The Vancouver Sun is reporting:

Health Canada has rejected the advice of its own advisory panel of food experts to renew monitoring of trans-fat levels in processed foods and send a "strong signal" to companies that regulations are on the table if levels don't drop.
The department's Food Expert Advisory Committee made the recommendations in June 2011 after Health Canada asked its external advisers on food policy about how best to manage trans-fat levels in the Canadian food supply.
At the time, departmental officials were revisiting the issue of trans fats after Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq quietly killed a plan drafted in December 2009 to bring in regulations to limit trans-fat levels in processed foods.
Aglukkaq made the decision even though senior officials had briefed her on a cost-benefit analysis commissioned by Health Canada showing a "significant net benefit to Canadian society" of up to $9 billion over 20 years if trans-fat caps were imposed.

[clip]

Trans fats, created by pumping hydrogen into liquid oil at an elevated temperature, raise the levels of low-density lipoprotein or "bad" cholesterol in the body and can lead to clogged arteries and heart disease.
The latest development on the trans fat file comes after Aglukkaq prematurely disbanded her much-touted expert panel on sodium in December 2010. The Sodium Working Group was created in 2007 and had unveiled a plan in July 2010 to track, over the next five years, whether companies were reducing the level of salt in processed foods.

Additives 1

This interesting piece from the Food Integrity Campaign:

As the health debate over soda continues, new test results reignite concerns regarding manufactured ingredients commonly used in soft drinks and other processed foods. It was enough that mercury has been found in products with high fructose corn syrup thanks to industrial processing, but now industrially produced caramel coloring (ubiquitous in soda to create a more appealing, dark color) has been linked to a carcinogen known as 4-MI.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) found "alarming levels" of the cancer-causing chemical 4 methylimidizole (4-MI) in Coca-Cola drinks around the world. It forms when a solution of sugars is heated with ammonia to make the artificial brown coloring, which is also used in baked goods, soy sauces, gravies and beer.
As of January 2012, California requires a cancer-warning label on soft drinks and other widely consumed products that lead to people consuming at least 30 micrograms of 4-MI per day. In response to that rule, Coke started using an alternative caramel coloring with considerably lower 4-MI levels … but has yet to market the less-contaminated drinks outside California

And then, the interesting part. A chart of 4-MI content by country. And look at who's number two...

 

This on the heels of renewed interest in how fast food / industrial food manufacturers are using the same deflect and deny tactics employed so successfully by the tobacco industry for so long. And what difference will this make to our current government? I predict "none at all." The current Tory government isn't simply business friendly, it's more like international business' crack whore. The evidence, on the other hand, just keeps piling up: if it has been commercially grown, or modified from the field in any way, it is probably better not to eat it. The only way to have true food security is to democratise the food system. By that I mean to distribute production across as many people as possible, to export nothing we do not priduce in surplus, and to import as little as possible. Canada needs to pursue food sovereigity before it pursues export capacity or the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Special Rapporteur Spanks Canada

Yesterday, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to food delivered his preliminary reflections [pdf] on his eleven day trip to Canada. Olivier De Schutter's press conference and report on the state of food security in Canada and our progress on the human right to food spanked Canada pretty good. You could tell how accurate it was by the three members of cabinet that attacked him, claiming he knew nothing of Canada and shouldn't have been here anyway--even though he was here at the invitation of the federal government.


The CBC report on De Shutter's Visit

The reason for the Harper government's upset is mentioned in the report from the CBC: De Shutter's report to the UN Human Rights Commission becomes part of Canada's human rights record at the UN. And the report is quite critical about Canada's food security status.
The Special Rapporteur visited four provinces (Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, and Alberta) and convened eight civil society meetings in which he met with farmer's organizations,food security groups, human rights organizations, academics, researchers, and communities. He also read a number of written submissions from individuals and communities.
Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq was one of the Harper government's attack dogs, saying that as De Shutter had not visited her home community, there was no way he could comment on the food security status of Canada's First nations people. On the CBC program Power and Politics, De Shutter pointed out that a trip to Aglukkaq's home would have involved two days travel each way. In his preliminary remarks, he does mention that he met with First Nation's groups and communities in all four provinces, including the Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami and the Congress of Aboriginal Peoples. He then thanks a number of First Nation's organizations and chiefs, council, and community members with whom he visited. Having failed to travel two days to a remote village doesn't really seem to have affected his meeting with a wide variety and cross-section of Canada's First People.
De Shutter's report doesn't say anything really new--anyone paying attention to poverty and/or food security issues in Canada over the last 35 years will not be at all surprised.

A growing number of people across Canada remain unable to meet their basic food needs. In 2007/2008, approximately 7.7 per cent of households in Canada reported experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity.4 Approximately 1.92 million people in Canada, aged 12 or older, lived in food insecure households in 2007/2008 and a staggering 1 in 10 families, 10.8 per cent, with at least one child under the age of six were food insecure during the same period
Fifty-five per cent of households in which the main source of income was social assistance are food insecure, the result of a huge discrepancy between social assistance levels and the rising costs of
living.6 The failures of social assistance levels to meet the basic needs of households, have resulted in the proliferation of private and charity-based food supplements. In 2011, Food Banks Canada
calculated that close to 900,000 Canadians were accessing food banks for assistance each month, slightly over half of whom were receiving social assistance.
The Special Rapporteur was disconcerted by the deep and severe food insecurity faced by aboriginal peoples across Canada living both on- and off-reserve in remote and urban areas. Statistics on First Nations specific food insecurity are few, however the First Nations Regional Longitudinal Health Survey (RHS 2008/10) indicates that 17.8 per cent of First Nations adults (age 25–39) and 16.1 per cent of First Nations adults (age 40–54) reported being hungry but did not eat due to lack of money for food in 2007/2008.

[from the preliminary  remarks page 2]

But the Special Rapporteur's remarks have made it very clear why the Harper government went on the attack so quickly; after pointing out how many strong actions have been taken on the human right to food and food security at the municipal and provincial level, he points clearly to the lack of a national food strategy in Canada. During his interview with Evan Solomon on Power and Politics, De Shutter comments on the strong grassroots commitment and concern over food and food security issues in Canada--a constituency he feels is unrecognized at the federal level.


Evan Solomon interviewing Olivier De Shutter on CBC's Power and Politics

Olivier De Shutter has been the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food since March of 2008, and this was his first visit to a developed country like Canada. I, for one, was pleased that he held Canada to the same standards that he would a country in the developing world. he has also been paying attention to the agroecological movement taking place in the developing world--which he talks about in the following video clip:




UPDATE:
Food Secure Canada  has a transcript of the questions asked in the House about the Special Rapporteur's preliminary report. Depressingly low-quality questions and answers.

Why "Organic" Does Not Mean What You Think It Means

From OrganicSalmon.org

New Canadian ‘Organic’ Aquaculture Standard Fails to Meet True Organic Principles

For Immediate Release
May 9th, 2012
East and West Coast conservation organisations today expressed united concern over the undermining of the Canadian ‘organic’ label by a new organic standard that would allow net-pen aquaculture products to be certified.
By including open-net pen finfish in to the organic aquaculture standard, the standard fails miserably at one of its claimed principles, to ‘Protect the environment, minimize benthic degradation and erosion and water quality degradation, decrease pollution, optimize biological productivity and promote a sound state of health’.
“The finfish standards would allow conventional open net pen farmed salmon to be certified organic despite the large body of scientific evidence linking this farming practice to detrimental impacts on wild salmon and on the marine environment,” stated Matt Abbott from the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.   “Organic producers and customers should be concerned as this weak aquaculture standard threatens the integrity of all organic labels,” concluded Abbott.
The Conservation Council of New Brunswick, Living Oceans Society and three other voting members including organic associations,  formally voted ‘No’ to the new Canadian Organic Aquaculture Standard as members of the standard committee. However the standard still passed the Canadian General Standards Board (CGSB)’s requirement of 50% plus one vote.
The restrictive voting membership of the committee was heavily government and industry based, including a number of the largest salmon aquaculture companies and their associations. “The bias of the membership base, definitely aided this standard being passed,” said Kelly Roebuck from Living Oceans Society, a member group of the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR).  “In fact the standard sponsor, Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has been a major driver for obtaining an organic standard for open net pen farmed salmon” stated Roebuck.
The Canadian so-called ‘Organic’ Aquaculture Standard allows:

• The use of synthetic pesticides;
• The continued, uncontrollable spread of disease and parasites to wild fish;
• Uncontrolled disposal of fish feces into the ocean;
• Escapes of farmed fish that compete or interbreed with wild fish;
• Entanglement and drowning deaths of marine mammals;
• The unrestricted use of feed from non-organic, potentially unsustainable sources, as opposed to the 100 per cent organic feed requirement currently in place for all other organic livestock;
• The unlimited use of wild fish in feed. Since operations use substantially more wild fish in feed than farmed salmon produced, this allows farmed fish to be certified “organic” despite contributing to a net loss of marine protein and a drain on already strained global fish stocks.

“With growing consumer interest in sustainable, local and organic food – this organic labelling will undermine public confidence in all organic and sustainable labels,” stated Rob Johnson of the Ecology Action Centre. “With this standard for open net pen fish, we’re seeing greenwashing being taken to an entirely new level,” concluded Johnson.
Innovative technology such as closed containment systems can greatly reduce or eliminate environmental risks such as escapes, diseases and parasites, waste discharge and pesticide use, yet  these aquaculture production systems that are more compatible with organic principles have not been prioritized within the standard.
The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR), Conservation Council of New Brunswick and Ecology Action Centre today launched the website www.organicsalmon.org to provide more information on the concerns associated with the Canadian Organic Aquaculture Standard and how shoppers can make a difference by supporting aquaculture producers who are farming more sustainably.
For more information, please contact:
Kelly Roebuck, Living Oceans Society (CAAR member group)
604.696.5044/Cell: 778.232.0329
kroebuck@livingoceans.org
Matthew Abbott, Conservation Council of New Brunswick
506-529-8838/Cell: 506-321-0429
marine@conservationcouncil.ca
Rob Johnson, Ecology Action Centre
902-222-4933
rob@ecologyaction.ca
About the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR)
CAAR was formed in 2001 to ensure salmon farming in British Columbia is safe for wild salmon, marine ecosystems, coastal communities and human health. Today the coalition has over 10,000 supporters across four continents and is comprised of the following conservation groups:

• David Suzuki Foundation
• Georgia Strait Alliance
• Living Oceans Society
• T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation

About Conservation Council of New Brunswick (CCNB)
CCNB is a membership-based organization that has been at the forefront of environmental action in New Brunswick since 1969. CCNB believes the future of all life depends on bringing human activity in balance with ecological limits. CCNB is a citizens’ action group that creates awareness of environmental problems and advocates solutions through research, education and interventions.
About Ecology Action Centre (EAC)
Since 1971, the EAC has been working to build a healthier, more sustainable Nova Scotia. The Ecology Action Centre works closely with social and natural scientists and makes strong use of science in communicating its message to the public. The Centre’s earliest projects included recycling, composting, and energy conservation, and these are now widely recognized environmental issues. Our current areas of focus include Built Environment, Marine Issues, Coastal Issues, Wilderness, Food, Transportation and Energy Issues.

Intense (ive) Agriculture

Two innovative projects popped up on my radar (thanks, Jeff!) involving urban farming this week. One is a storefront farm in Hackney, London, called FARM:shop, and the other is Riverpark Farm in New York City.
Both are responses to the fallout from 2008 and the ongoing international economic crisis sparked by American corporate criminality. In Hackney, the number of disused storefronts has sparked a municipal initiative to fill them at least temporarily with art projects and the like. Something and Son took a look at the cubic footage they had available, and created a café/workspace/venue/ and an intensive food production space.

Honestly, Something and Son has the air of an art installation, talking about how their “displays” change with the seasons. They claim to be the world's first “urban farming hub” (whatever that is supposed to mean), but the ideas they've used involving food production are not all that innovative. FARM:shop's food production is directly descended from the work of the New Alchemy Institute (NAI), which, from 1971 through 1991 conducted a major research and education initiative on a farm in Massachusetts. They explored green-housing/aquaculture synergies, formulated the 90-day-compost plans used by most gardeners today, and rigorously documented their work. They even built one of their “Ark “ projects in Prince Edward Island, testing their theories in a less hospitable clime.
The New Alchemists weren't the first either, building on both academic and farm-based work that had gone before them. But, thankfully, they were a part of the 60s diaspora that documented their work,leaving behind not only a record of their work, but a group of people still pushing forward environmental design.

The Far North

     Of all the places in Canada, the North is the most food insecure. The North faces a number of factors that intensify problems north of sixty. The Yukon is at high risk for earthquakes (in 1964 a quake killed 134 people in Alaska), highways face more extreme conditions while dependance on trucked-in produce is high and energy prices are heading up, extreme weather conditions make flown-in produce both dear and uncertain, and local production is almost non-existent.
     The Yukon does not grow its own food. The Globe and Mail reports that the total population of food animals, for example, is about that of a large southern farm: 220 cattle, 160 hogs, 62 farmed elk, 130 goats and sheep, and 150 farmed bison. That is the population of farmed animals for the whole of the Territory. Production of grains and vegetables is similarly anaemic.
     It is true that conditions are not the best for southern-style agribusiness. After all, the number of frost-free days ranges from 93 down to 21. But that doesn't mean that local production can't exist; there was a government program back in 1988 that studied how to grow wheat, peas, and oilseed. And an Albertan couple have spent the last seven years overcoming the crap conditions and poor soils to grow oats, barley, carrots and potatoes. The couple, Steve and Bonnie Mackenzie-Grieve, have taken almost the whole food chain under their control, milling their own grain, and washing and bagging their own potatoes.
     But although there is a history of small-scale agriculture in the Yukon, there is currently significant resistance to agriculture in the North. Rick Tone, executive director of the Yukon Agricultural Association, is quoted in the G&M as saying "They [much of the northern population] see agriculture here as a blot on the environment." Fair enough, but what then of wild harvesting? Migratory populations have long served to keep the northern population fed (and housed, and clothed). Part of the problem is cramming too many people into an environment not equipped to handle them, but also by that population's reliance on a southern diet of chicken, pork, and beef. The Lapp of Finland have successfully ranched reindeer for generations; what is there to stop northerners from doing the same? This would mesh northern requirements with northern conditions. It doesn't meet the requirements for produce, but raising local food production from the current ~2 percent of needs, well, any increase would help.
     Ultimately, of course, maintenance of a northern population requires both local food production, southern supplement (particularly with the extreme conditions of the North), and a sustainable population size. There was a reason that the Inuit were never too populous--they lived in an environment that restricted population growth. Modern northern populations are dependant on fossil fuels; the houses are not built for the northern environment, but rather to be heated with imported fuel. Food is transported, the local population is abstracted from the environment, and if the oil stops, everything stops. Essentially, these are the problems we all face, just writ large. And the solutions are the same; solutions that are local, sustainable, and environmentally sensitive.

Tough Times Ahead

     The headline on the front page of the 08 February 2011 Globe and Mail reads "A Warning to Canada: Start Growing", and opens with:

Canada has lost its statue as a food-producing superpower and needs a drastic overhaul of its agricultural policy if it hopes to compete in world markets and feed more of its own people.
The country, hobbled by out-of-date policies and a continuing battle for scarce government dollars, has dropped from third-largest global exporter of food to No. 7 at a time when we can least afford it: Climate change and population growth are putting enormous pressure on the food system while diet-related healthcare costs are weighing on the national economy.

     The article is by Jessica Leeder, the full time "global food reporter" at the G&M. Leeder also reported on the cuts at NSERC a while back. And I've gotta say, she's doing a bang-up job of reporting on global food issues. But that the G&M has felt it necessary to appoint a full time reporter shows that we're about five years past the tipping point on the issue.
The problems we face here in Canada can, according to Leeder, be boiled down to three points:

• Farm incomes have stagnated over the last two decades, debt levels are "soaring", even with direct government subsidies tripling to $8 billion over the same time period.
• "Food processors have also struggled, squeezed by demanding retailers who have been lured by higher margins they can reap by selling cheaper imported food."
• "Consumers, in turn, have grown used to spending only a fraction of their income on food and demand cheap prices--at any cost."

Funnily enough, these three problems look familiar. They look exactly like the problems being encountered by other producers and manufacturers in a globalized neo-liberal economic regime.

Short-sighted cuts at NSERC

     The Globe and Mail (12 January, 2011, p. A8) reports that the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) has removed food-related research from its target funding areas this year. This means that research into new plant breeds and better farming techniques will continue to be slowed. Of course, this comes just as several organizations, including the United Nations, are warning that we are entering a period of global food crisis.

In the first half of this century, as the world’s population grows to around 9 billion, global demand for food, feed and fibre will nearly double while, increasingly, crops may also be used for bioenergy and other industrial purposes. New and traditional demand for agricultural produce will thus put growing pressure on already scarce agricultural resources. And while agriculture will be forced to compete for land and water with sprawling urban settlements, it will also be required to serve on other major fronts: adapting to and contributing to the mitigation of climate change, helping preserve natural habitats, protecting endangered species and maintaining a high level of biodiversity. As though this were not challenging enough, in most regions fewer people will be living in rural areas and even fewer will be farmers. They will need new technologies to grow more from less land, with fewer hands.

     NSERC insists, in a statement, that "food-related research, despite not being listed as a target area, continues to be a priority for NSERC funding." NSERC funding has been commonly in the areas of traditional plant breeding--like canola, which was developed by Canadian scientists in the 1960s with government funding, and led to increased oil yields per acre.