The Auditor General'Report says the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (Plant and Animal) was four months behind schedule as of June 1998. The Report expresses concern that the Agency does not have time to become compliant by 2000. As of August the Auditor General was informed that CFIA was preparing detailed contingency plans. The Agency now says it will be ready for 2000. There is no explanation about how these four months were caught up. It appears that there are no "detailed contingency plans". Can someone explain to me what the affect on the general public will be if this agency fails?

-- lisa (hagen@pangea.ca), December 02, 1998

Answers

In some potential scenarios, it won't matter whether or not food is properly inspected, since production and transport may be unavailable or severely disrupted. And if the power grid should fail, refrigeration in the summertime will be hard to find.

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 02, 1998.