Ottowa, ON — Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz on Thursday acknowledged last week's massive recall of all Brandt ready-to-eat deli meats exposes gaps in Canada's meat inspection system.
"I'm concerned that the paperwork that Brandt had was less than strenuous, I'll call it. We are in there looking through some of that. We're looking at different protocols, at having them reporting in different ways," Ritz told Postmedia News. "At the end of the day, we'll have a better plant."
Ritz's comments come a day after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed federal meat inspectors didn't find any problems that needed fixing at a meat-processing plant in the months leading up to last week's massive recall of Brandt deli meats, raising concerns about the state of Canada's meat inspection system on the second anniversary of the deadly listeriosis crisis in August 2008 linked to tainted Maple Leaf deli meats.
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