OTTAWA — Union reps are concerned about the food-safety inspector cuts recently announced by the federal government.
Bob Kingston, president of the agriculture union within the Public Service Alliance of Canada, took to CBC’s The House radio program on Saturday to debate recent plans to lay off at least 100 food-safety inspectors and the possibility of reclassifying 40 federal meat inspectors as provincial.
“From what we’ve seen, the provinces have no intention of delivering the service at the same level the Canadian Food Inspection Agency did, and that’s been our concern from the get-go,” Kingston said, of the government’s plan to have the provinces deliver food-safety services.
Canada’s Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz argued the reclassification will not put Canadians at risk. “Those provincial sites will be inspected at the same level they were before by someone wearing a provincial badge, not a federal one,” he said on the radio program.
