Province’s food inspection lags: auditor

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This article was published 14/01/2012 (5040 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The province is falling behind on food inspections at a time when it’s about to assume responsibility for inspecting all of Winnipeg’s restaurants.

In a report this week, Manitoba’s auditor general, Carol Bellringer, said at the rate the government is carrying out inspections, it would take 21/2 years for it to examine every restaurant — and 2.8 years to visit every food processor.

The province’s goal is to visit each establishment once a year. For the year ended June 30, 2010, Health Department staff inspected just 49 per cent of Winnipeg eating establishments and food retailers under their jurisdiction. In rural areas, the inspection rate was as low as 30 per cent annually.

Since 1972, the city and province have shared restaurant-inspection duties in Manitoba’s capital, with city staff keeping an eye on eateries within the city’s old boundaries and the province inspecting the suburbs. It’s also been long noted that city inspectors come calling on restaurants much more frequently than provincial ones.

On April 1, though, the province takes charge of all restaurant and food-processing inspections in Manitoba. At least one Winnipeg city councillor is nervous about that development.

“From the standpoint of a consumer, it’s safer to eat in a restaurant in downtown Winnipeg than it is outside of downtown Winnipeg,” Transcona Coun. Russ Wyatt said Friday.

“They’re completely out of line with the national average in terms of the amount of inspectors per capita,” he said of the province.

The city claims its inspectors visit restaurants and retailers an average of twice a year.

Peter Parys, in charge of inspections for the provincial Health Department, said 18 city inspectors will move under provincial control in April. He promised the province would maintain “the same level of service” in areas of the city formerly under civic control.

The city sets the frequency of health inspections according to business type and whether it’s had any past violations. That same risk-based system is followed in many other Canadian jurisdictions. But the province, till now, has given equal weight to all food processors and restaurants under its jurisdiction, inspecting them one by one.

Bellringer has recommended Manitoba adopt the risk-based model, and provincial officials say they’re working to implement this approach. However, they couldn’t say this week when the new system would be implemented.

“I couldn’t tell you offhand but we’re working toward that. Maybe in a half a year or a year’s time,” said Parys.

Provincial food and restaurant inspections fall under the Health and Agriculture departments. Health deals with eateries and food retailers, while Agriculture monitors food producers and processors.

The auditor found the Agriculture Department, which assumed responsibility for inspecting food processors and warehouses in June 2009, was failing to follow up on violations it discovered at these facilities.

In one sampling of 20 food-processing facility and warehouse-inspection reports containing 90 violations, Bellringer discovered none of the transgressions were followed up on. Fourteen of these were “critical violations,” she wrote.

In total, Bellringer made 23 recommendations for food-safety inspection improvements to both provincial departments. She said Friday that she plans to check up on how the province is doing in the future.

The provincial government promised to act on all the auditor’s recommendations. “We’re sitting down and working through them all jointly,” Parys said of the Health and Agriculture departments.

Dr. Wayne Lees, responsible for Agriculture Department inspections, said the province recognizes that it needs “to bolster our staff resources. And so we’re working on a plan to do that.”

larry.kusch@freepress.mb.ca