Prime Time Crime
Canadian Food Industry
Some organic produce in Canada contains pesticides, according to government inspection documents obtained by CBC News. (CBC) RELATED: Something fishy about eco-labels on seafood
OTTAWA - Inspectors complain there just aren’t enough resources to deal with misleading food labels. (PostMedia) PREVIOUS: KISS principle
OTTAWA - The amended rules target food allergens, gluten sources and sulphites, which will have to be explicitly identified on packaging. (CBC) MORE: Food allergen labelling regulations Beer companies get extension on labelling rules
Canadian Food Inspection Agency documents often painted an inaccurate picture of the conditions at some of Canada's meat and poultry plants where sanitation problems persisted, an American audit has found. (CP)
Agricultural officials on PEI are trying to determine how many tonnes of wheat were dumped in the mistaken belief it was not fit for human consumption. (CBC)
Still fishy at the fish counter
Consumer, beware: When you're buying fish, you may not get what you pay for. About a quarter of 500 fish samples turned out to be misidentified or mislabelled. They were genetically tested and matched using the world-famous Barcode of Life DNA database at the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario. (Toronto Star) PREVIOUS: Raw deal Canadian Barcode of Life Fishy labelling Something's often fishy Something's fishy Food agency to investigate
NORTH BAY - A $50M class-action lawsuit has commenced against the company that owns the Harvey's brand over an E. coli outbreak linked to a Harvey's restaurant in North Bay, Ont. (CanWest)
VICTORIA - Last fall, new regulations came into being forcing poultry farmers to process their livestock through government-licenced inspection plants before meat could be sold to the public. (Victoria Times Colonist)
UXBRIDGE - An Uxbridge farmer who buried 70,000 car tires on his land is under investigation by the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority - almost a decade after the province gave him permission to do so. (Toronto Star) PREVIOUS: Buried tires fuel anger
EDMONTON - Edmonton-area farms are the epicentre of a new and devastating outbreak threatening Alberta's $3.2-billion canola industry, authorities say. Provincial and county governments are trying to contain the rapidly spreading and incurable soil-borne disease called clubroot. (Edmonton Journal)
OTTAWA - Health Canada will delay regulation of trans fats in Canadian food products for at least two years, calling instead for industry to voluntarily limit use of the heart-clogging compounds. (Toronto Star) PREVIOUS: CHR to take action on trans fats Trans fat lawsuit based on junk science 10 top junk science moments of 2006 CHR boss: Health care not in crisis
TORONTO - A Toronto caterer that provided more than 1M meals to day cares across the province has shut down in the wake of a Star investigation showing the fly-by-night operation might be endangering children’s lives. Toronto Star) MORE: School cancels food catering pact
OTTAWA - The federal government is starting to out meat plants that run into serious trouble with inspectors as well as food importers whose products are refused entry into Canada. The new transparency plan went live with new quarterly statistics posted online at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency website. (PostMedia)
OTTAWA - A new report says renewable water resources have declined in Southern Canada over the past three decades. (CP) REPORT: Freshwater supply and demand in Canada Freshwater levels drop 8.5% in S Canada
Many artificial food dyes that colour everything from breakfast cereal to ice cream should be banned because they pose cancer risks, a new report from the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) says. (QMI) REPORT: Rainbow of risks .pdf
Calgary's police chief slammed the "idiots" behind a rash of food tampering in the city, as two locations of the Real Canadian Superstore became the latest targets. There have now been a total of 11 food-tampering cases at nine different grocery stores across the city since January. (CBC) MORE: Grocery crimes tough to crack
New research published by World Action on Salt and Health (WASH) shows that a large number of food items sold in Canada contain significantly more sodium than the very same products sold in other countries - in some cases more than twice the daily maximum limit for an adult in a single meal. (CTV)
FDA inspection system outdated
WASHINGTON - The US Food and Drug Administration's system that monitors inspections of drug manufacturing plants worldwide is outdated and inaccurate, according to a government report released on Wednesday. (Reuters) REPORT: GAO drug safety
OTTAWA - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is warning the public not to consume no-name brand all-purpose flour because the product may contain excessively high levels of folic acid, iron, niacin, riboflavin and thiamine. (CanWest)
OTTAWA - Yet another potential E. coli contamination stung North America's produce sector Monday morning, when the Canadian Food Inspection Agency issued an official public warning about Dole brand Hearts Delight lettuce salad. (CityNews)
OTTAWA - The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is warning that some bottles of Stella Artois beer may have been tampered with. The agency says it knows of six bottles into which someone added concentrated alcohol. There are some reported cases of people being sickened after drinking the contaminated beer. (CanWest) PREVIOUS: CFIA warning on Chili Canned meat recall expanded Castleberry's Food Co. Salmonella alert Health Canada to crack down on fake pills
Police say recalled chocolate was stolen
TORONTO - Police have arrested two men they allege stole recalled Hershey's chocolates that were intended for disposal but ended up in stores. (CP) PREVIOUS: Arrest leads to warning about tainted Chocolates in stores Salmonella scare sparks Hershey recall Canadian food inspection agency hazard alert
Canned tuna exceeds guidelines on mercury
OTTAWA - Following a CBC investigation that found mercury levels above the allowed limit, Health Canada issued new consumption guidelines for canned albacore tuna for women and children. (CBC)
A growing number of food companies are pumping nutrients into their packaged products to increase the health benefits to consumers, but Canadians aren't allowed to know what many of those advantages are. (CanWest) PREVIOUS: Functional food
34M Canadians keep 13K dairy farmers happy
OTTAWA - If the Harper government were truly devoted to free markets and smaller government, supply management in Canadian dairy would be dead, dead, dead. (PostMedia)
Daily protection non-negotiable
Farmers wary of free trade talk
Is the price of milk too high?
CWB goes against their own advice
Western Wheat Board's sad fate
Court must butt out of barley biz
WRHA chairman defends salaries
Consider salaries during hearings
Property-tax system in dispute
Proposals for a property-tax system
Wheat board takes Ottawa to court
MONTREAL - Even if you don't travel beyond your grocery store, chances are that spiraling gas prices are taking a big bite out of your pocket book. . (CTV)
Higher food prices here to stay
Ottawa is hitting the brakes on its controversial Nutrition North Canada program in the wake of complaints by Northerners that the scheme actually drove up food prices instead of lowering them. (Nunatsiaq News)
Northern food subsidies extended
Government of Canada Nutrition North
'Unintended' negative consequences
Rising food prices push 44M into poverty
Food inflation rate set to rise
VANCOUVER - Raw dairy enthusiasts are challenging lab results by the BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC), saying samples of unpasteurized milk (raw milk) deemed dangerous by the agency does not prove the product is unfit for consumption. (CTV)
Farmer asks for maximum sentence
Milk raid compared to drug bust
OTTAWA - Dow Agrosciences insists Quebec's province-wide ban on the residential use of weed-killing chemicals breaches legal protections owed by Canada to US investors under the NAFTA. The Dow claim is the latest in a long string of disputes to arise under Chapter 11 of the NAFTA - a legal back channel which permits foreign investors to detour around local courts and sue the federal government before an international tribunal. (Embassy)
Critics slam US chemical report
Plastics industry behind FDA research
Feds to declare bisphenol A toxic
Plastic bottle chemical may be harmful
OTTAWA - A void of leadership, inadequate decision-making, an insufficient focus on food safety and a lack of planning and communication all contributed to the listeriosis outbreak last summer and the poor handling of it by industry and government officials. (CanWest)
2008 Canadian listeriosis outbreak
Canadian food inspection agency
Outbreak points at a broken system
Listeriosis investigative review
Listeria found in nursing homes, hospitals
Reporting rule dropped before crisis
Inspection agency admits errors
Province not given full story in outbreak
Focus on how firms manage liability
Food industry bitten by its lobbying success
Conserving water in Canada will require new collaborative government measures as consumption swells - which means the country may have to charge industries more for its use, a new report says. (CBC)
Round Table on the Environment
Businesses are recycling bad boys
Water woes: public urged to conserve
Charting a course .pdf
Halifax Water review .pdf
SASKATOON - Saskatchewan's agriculture minister says plans to provide pork to the province's food banks from animals culled under a national cull breeding swine program is a clear example of turning a negative into a positive. (FarmScape)
Canadian slaughtered pigs used for pet food
Food banks benefit from pork cull
Hog cull aid falls short: marketing board
Canada kept detection of salmon virus secret
SEATTLE - A decade before this fall's salmon-virus scare, a Canadian government researcher said she found a similar virus in more than 100 wild fish from Alaska to Vancouver Island. (Seattle Times)
Best and brightest embarrassed
Salmon farm battle about 'competition'
Numbers crash as bust replaces bounty
Genomic signatures predict migration and spawning failure
Mystery disease in Pacific salmon
Genetically modified salmon hearings
Super salmon or 'Frankenfish'?
Parasites driving wild salmon to extinction
Fishing money not misspent: DFO
Sustainable fish stocks in the NW Atlantic
Former judge slams Fisheries funding
Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Fraser River sockeye fishery in crisis: report
BC loses salmon farm jurisdiction
Extinction threat to wild salmon
2009 BCSC 136 .pdf
Water rights battle hits court
CALGARY - The first legal challenge of the province's southern water limits will surface in a Calgary courtroom as a new report warns Alberta's scarcity is a wake-up call to the rest of Canada. (Calgary Herald)
City comes clean over river's toilet treatment
Cities fouling Great Lakes with raw sewage
Great Lakes chemical pollution
1 in 3 say water isn't safe to drink
Crisis feared as water supplies dry up
'Water fight' takes on new meaning in stores
Province won't release drinking-water report
Water still a problem on 76 reserves
Aboriginal Waters: A Slow Boil
Water bottlers still draining Ontario for free
Farmer wins case over tainted water
CTV study finds flame retardants in many foods
CTV and The Globe and Mail decided to find out just how bad the problem is and what it means for our health. The flame retardants are called PBDEs, or polybrominated diphenyl ethers, a class of about 25 industrial chemicals that are sprayed on textiles, plastics and electronics to prevent or slow the rate at which they will ignite. (CTV)
CURITIBA, Brazil - On March 24, Canada's continued efforts to undermine and eventually eliminate the ban on so-called terminator seed technology suffered a severe setback. Terminator technology refers to seed genetically modified to produce sterile seeds, which cannot be planted. (The Tyee)
Ban on Terminator Seeds stands despite Canadian Government Stance
Experts warn spinach flare-up sign of bigger problem
OTTAWA - The spreading E. coli outbreak that prompted the federal government to warn Canadians not to eat US spinach is the symptom of widespread problems in the food system and raises serious questions about the increasing prevalence of fresh produce contaminated by bacteria, warn food experts. (CanWest)
Weak links in Canada's food supply chain
Canada widens spinach warnings
Lettuce link probed in e-coli outbreaks
Tainted eateries get many chances
E. coli exposes weakness in food chain
Food safety offences shut 48 city eateries
CALGARY - A case of mad cow disease has been found in a dairy cow in Alberta, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) confirmed. (CBC)
Mad cow disease case confirmed
Confirmed mad cow in mature Alberta bull
Mad cow disease confirmed in BC
BC's first ever mad cow infection
Mad cow class action suit to continue
Canada poured millions into US Timber biz
Harper successful where many have failed
Softwood deal 'good, not perfect'
Forestry & Forest Products Lobbying
Coalition for fair lumber imports
US corn hit with tariff in trade war
Alberta government declares emergency
Slow BSE testing could keep borders closed
World Trade talks end in agreement
US producers buying cheap Canadian cattle
Meat packers to testify on high beef prices
Report on the Alberta government's BSE-related assistance programs
The largest fleet of self-unloading vessels in the world.
The meat Packers:
Cargill - is the world's largest privately owned corporation and it is also the worlds largest private grain company controlling over ¼ of the worlds grain production.
A subsidiary of Tyson Foods Inc
Tyson foods sued for race bias
Indictment to smuggle illegal aliens