By Jamie Komarnicki, Calgary Herald October 11, 2012

CALGARY — Premier Alison Redford shot down calls from opposition parties and the union representing workers at the XL Foods plant for a public inquiry to get to the bottom of the huge beef recall stemming from E. coli tainted product at the Brooks facility.

“Every single time that something doesn’t go well, we don’t need to have a public inquiry,” Redford told reporters in Calgary Thursday.

“We have to learn, we have to take the time to sort out what has happened, where we can improve systems, where the CFIA can improve systems, where commercial enterprises may be able to improve systems,” she said.

“Every single time does not require a public inquiry and I certainly won’t be supporting a public inquiry.”

The premier’s comments come the day after the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401 called for the public probe, claiming better training and work conditions are required to ensure meat is safe.

But a statement from XL Foods late Wednesday said the company has an “open door policy” for workers and welcomes input on plant operations.

“I am saddened that the UFCW has chosen to attack the workmanship of its many members,” co-CEO Brian Nilsson said in the statement.

“We have extensive training programs for new workers and hold our workers in the highest regard for their abilities,” he said.

According to Nilsson, XL’s line speeds are “less than industry average” for a plant the size of the Brook facility, which processes about 4,000 cattle a day.

Meanwhile, two weeks after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency temporarily pulled the XL Foods plant’s operating licence, workers are now back on the line today.

The federal agency is allowing workers to process more than 5,000 carcasses from cattle slaughtered in the days before the plant was temporarily shuttered.

The processing, which will take place under close CFIA watch, will also allow the federal agency to scrutinize whether the plant has improved its food safety controls, said Dr. Harpreet Kochhar, the CFIA’s executive director of western operations.

“This will allow the CFIA to review in a controlled manner the company’s improvements made to all previously addressed deficiencies,” he said.

The processed meat won’t be allowed to leave the plant at this point, said Kochhar.

The plant won’t be allowed to get completely back to work slaughtering and processing new cattle until the CFIA confirms in writing that it’s safe to do so, he added.

Redford called Thursday’s development good progress.

It’s “very good news to see that we’re going to be able to see activity that’s going to generate economic support for beef produces in Alberta very soon,” she said.

The premier said while Alberta’s cattle producers may face some difficulties in the wake of the beef recall crisis, the province has an insurance fund in place that will support the industry.

The Brooks plant is at the heart of a massive beef recall, that’s seen hundreds of products yanked off shelves in Canada, the United States and as far away as Hong Kong.

Its operating licence was suspended Sept. 27.

According to public health officials, 12 cases of E. coli poisoning, including seven in Alberta, have been genetically linked to the specific strain of E. coli 157: H7 found during investigation of contaminated meat at the XL plant.

At the request of XL Foods, CFIA inspectors began an in-depth review of the plant this week to see if it was ready to get back to work.

That review determined the plant has been sanitized, and condensation, ice build up and drainage issues have been fixed, Kochhar said.

The plant will be subject to “enhanced inspection,” including two inspectors — in addition to the 40 inspectors and six veterinarians already working full time at the plant — who will “focus on oversight of E. coli controls, sanitation, general food hygiene,” Kochhar told reporters Thursday.

The meat being processed starting Thursday comes from the roughly 5,100 cattle slaughtered in the day’s leading up to the plant being shuttered, said Kochhar.

According to Kochhar, 99 per cent of that beef tested negatively for E. coli. The carcasses with E. coli contamination — and the carcasses that came before and after it on the line — have been destroyed, he added.

NDP Leader Brian Mason said Thursday the province must account for a grant it gave XL to speed up production, and whether proper steps were taken to ensure federal inspection kept pace with increased speed.

In 2011, XL Foods was given a $1.6-million grant for upgrading its facility and to double its per-day capacity for ground beef.

“The government did not take into account the impact the grants would have on food safety, nor was there an understanding or appreciation for the capacity of inspection and how it needed to be increased,” he said.

But Redford said the Tory government’s job is to spur economic development in the province.

“I think that Mr. Mason needs to better understand a commercial project such as this before he makes those comments,” she said.

“XL is a commercial entity. They make the decisions they make. Our job is to create an environment in this province where we have strong economic conditions.”

With files from Kelly Cryderman, Calgary Herald

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© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Original source article: Redford rejects calls for public inquiry into tainted beef

By Sarah Schmidt, Postmedia News October 12, 2012 8:54 AM

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

By Darcy Henton, CALGARY HERALD October 10, 2012

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Original source article: Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith calls for “full and complete” investigation into XL Foods

By Peter O’Neil, Vancouver Sun October 9, 2012

One of Canada’s most outspoken champions of the oil and gas industry has doubts whether Enbridge will ever build a pipeline to the B.C. coast – even if the $6-billion project gets federal approval.

Former B.C. energy minister Richard Neufeld, now a Conservative senator, said he strongly supports the construction of pipelines to the B.C. coast so Canada can ship Alberta’s diluted bitumen crude to booming Asian markets.

But he said Enbridge has so badly mismanaged the $6-billion project that he questions whether the Calgary company has the public credibility to proceed with the megaproject even if the National Energy Board approves the application next year.

“I don’t know whether Enbridge has actually screwed up bad enough that even if it was OK’d, whether let’s say the NEB says, ‘Hey, this plan looks good, we can go ahead,’ that Enbridge would be able to actually build that pipeline,” he told The Vancouver Sun.

“I just think Enbridge has left such a sour taste in most peoples’ mouths.”

Neufeld also said he supports B.C. Premier Christy Clark’s demand to get a bigger share of cash for B.C. from the project before approving it.

He supports Premier Alison Redford’s position that B.C. has no right to claim a share of Alberta’s royalties, but said Victoria should have no trouble using its taxing authority to raise money from the project.

He questioned, however, Clark’s apparent hard line against the Alberta government and the oilpatch, in particular her veiled threat in Calgary last week to withhold electric power needed to operate the pipeline and Kitimat terminal in B.C.

“Those kind of things shouldn’t be said. You just don’t do that,” he said, adding that former premier Gordon Campbell spent years trying to build a close relationship between Alberta and B.C.

“This is kind of tearing it apart and I don’t think it’s good … I don’t know the reasoning behind that but if I’d been there (in the B.C. cabinet) it’s something I would have talked against.”

An Enbridge spokesman rejected Neufeld’s assertion that the company failed to adequately consult British Columbians and especially First Nations.

“Our work on Northern Gateway has included the most extensive consultation process ever undertaken for a Canadian pipeline project: over 2,500 meetings, 123 open houses, 150 presentations, and 64 workshops,” Todd Nogier said in an email interview.

“That far exceeds anything required by the regulator.”

Neufeld, 67, was former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell’s energy minister from 2001 until shortly after his appointment to the Senate in December 2008.

He has long called for a robust Canadian energy industry and for years promoted oil and gas exploration off the B.C. coast – an option Neufeld acknowledges isn’t viable due to political opposition combined with vast shale gas reserves that are now being exploited in B.C.

And he’ll go to the barricades to defend the Alberta and federal government position that the oilsands industry needs access to B.C.’s ports to diversify its markets away from the U.S., which is growing increasingly self-sufficient in oil and gas.

But Neufeld said Enbridge didn’t adequately recognize that B.C. is far different from Alberta when it began consultations on its proposed 1,177-kilometre twin pipelines from the Edmonton area to Kitimat.

He said the company, which on its website under “Benefits for British Columbians” promises 3,000 construction jobs and 560 long-term jobs, isn’t being straight with the public.

“I’ve had briefings (with Enbridge), they talk about all the jobs and the economic activity in B.C. And I said, ‘Look, I’ve been in the oilpatch and the world long enough to know that that pipeline will be built in a hurry, and that means people come from all over the place. Don’t tell me all of those jobs will involves British Columbians. It just won’t happen.

“So let’s be honest with those numbers. Let’s tell the people what is truthful.”

He also said the company didn’t do enough to win support from British Columbians in remote regions along the route, and especially First Nations.

Enbridge’s Nogier said the company has already proven it is listening to British Columbians, and said the commitment of up to $500 million in new safety measures should be viewed more positively.

“We felt we already had an industry-leading project in terms of safety and these enhancements were intended to make the project even safer,” he wrote.

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© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Original source article: Energy advocate Richard Neufeld doubts Enbridge will build pipeline to coast

By John Seewer, The Associated Press October 8, 2012

SWANTON, Ohio – Mitt Romney’s administration on Day One would approve a pipeline that would run from Canada to U.S. refineries in Texas, creating thousands of jobs and pushing America on its way to energy independence, Republican vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Monday.

Ryan told supporters during his third trip to swing state Ohio in the last two weeks that there are enough energy resources for North America to become energy independent within eight years.

“We need to unlock the energy we have in this country to create jobs,” he said.

Ryan blamed President Barack Obama for standing in the way of the Keystone XL pipeline and pushing too many environmental regulations that have cost jobs in the coal industry — a thorny issue for the president in southeast Ohio, where coal has a large footprint.

Obama earlier this year objected to the pipeline’s proposed route over environmental concerns, suggesting that Calgary-based TransCanada Corp.’s (TSX:TRP) pipeline should go around a sensitive aquifer in Nebraska.

Obama encouraged the company to pursue a shorter project from Oklahoma to the Gulf Coast.

But Ryan said Monday that approving the pipeline in its entirety would get people back to work in construction and factories.

“Think of the jobs right there,” he said.

The Wisconsin congressman said coming up with new energy sources and improving job training programs will go a long way in helping Ohio and other industrial states that have lost jobs over the last four years.

Late last year, the U.S. State Department, which has final say over the Keystone XL pipeline because it crosses an international border, demanded TransCanada work out a new route through Nebraska to address the ecological concerns over the Sandhills and the Ogallala aquifer.

Republican politicians annoyed with the delay sought to speed up the process through various legislative manoeuvres, prompting the Obama administration to reject the US$7.6-billion Alberta-to-Texas pipeline in its entirety in February.

The State Department stressed that the rejection was due to the fact that it would not have had enough time to properly weigh the new Nebraska route, not because of the merits of the pipeline itself.

It left the door open for TransCanada to apply for a new permit, which it did in May.

In early September, TransCanada then filed its new Nebraska route in a supplemental environmental report to Nebraska’s department of environmental quality.

By Matthew McClure, Calgary Herald October 4, 2012 6:15 AM

CALGARY – Canada’s food inspection agency admitted Wednesday that, on some days in late August and early September, over five per cent of the beef produced at an Alberta plant was likely testing positive for a potentially fatal bacteria.

Under industry norms and voluntary U.S. guidelines, that level of contamination should have prompted XL Foods Inc. to divert every single kilogram of meat to cooking or a landfill.

But instead, possibly tainted fresh product — now part of the country’s biggest ever beef recall — was shipped to restaurants and grocery stores across the continent.

“There were days, perhaps, that were over five per cent,” said Richard Arsenault, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s director of meat inspections.

“When we have something like this, we know the answer to the question. We’re not going to pretend we got it right. We’re going to do everything we can to get it right moving forward.”

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service issued guidelines to packers south of the border in May to divert all product if five per cent of a day’s production tests positive for E. coli 157: H7 because it indicates tainted product is very likely to be slipping through undetected.

“A systemic breakdown of the slaughter dressing operation has occurred and has created an insanitary condition that’s applicable to all parts of the beef carcass,” the guideline said.

The document said almost two-thirds of the U.S. industry’s large players — including Cargill Inc., which operates a plant in High River — were already meeting that mark.

Asked if the agency would now impose mandatory testing and diversion rules on the meat packing industry, Arsenault deferred.

“I won’t predict that outcome until I can sit down and write and get the signatures, but we are certainly going to have the lessons applied across the board,” he said.

“If that means we will issue guidance or instructions, we are certainly not going to hesitate from doing that.”

Debate about the lack of any firm guidelines or standards in Canada for diverting potentially contaminated product dominated Wednesday’s question period and was the topic of an emergency debate.

“Is this the kind of self-regulation that the Conservatives think will actually protect Canadians or are we just waiting for the next disaster?” New Democrat Leader Thomas Mulcair asked.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper replied it was up to the CFIA, not politicians, to decide how the industry should be regulated.

The agency’s own timeline indicates the CFIA was unaware of the festering food crisis until Sept. 4, when U.S. officials alerted them they had intercepted a shipment of contaminated beef trim at a Montana border crossing and Canadian inspectors found a tainted lot at an unidentified Calgary facility.

Still, inspectors would wait two days to formally ask XL to see the test results that would reveal the problem and four more for them to be provided by the company.

By the time the data were finally supplied, at least five people had fallen ill after eating steak at an Edmonton barbecue that was tainted with bacteria that’s since been genetically linked to the Brooks facility.

XL Foods officials could not be reached for comment Wednesday, but CFIA president George Da Pont said there were delays by the company in providing the results, something proposed legislation would address.

“We have limited authority to compel immediate documentation,” Da Pont said.

“There’s a provision in that (Safe Food for Canadians Act) to authorize us to do that.”

In the wake of a second set of positive tests at the Sweetgrass, Mont., border crossing on Sept. 12 that prompted a U.S. ban on XL product, the CFIA launched an in-depth review that would find the company wasn’t always following its stated “bracketing” protocol of diverting each lot or carcass before and after one that tested positive.

“There were a few instances that we could document where they did not divert either the one before or the one after,” Da Pont said.

The CFIA has stated it acted swiftly in identifying problems during the on-site review and issuing seven corrective orders to the company.

But a 2005 audit of the plant by U.S. officials indicates that at least one of those problems — considerable dripping condensation above the trim line — was pinpointed at least seven years ago, along with CFIA’s lackadaisical attitude about maintenance issues.

“The only recorded incident of condensation . . . had no preventive measures and the only corrective action recorded was that no product was involved,” the Food Safety Inspection Service auditor noted.

“Most other non-compliances had the same types of incomplete descriptions.”

While Da Pont dismissed the condensation problem as unlikely to cause meat contamination, Arsenault appeared to differ in his view.

“Condensation can be an issue if it’s not managed properly,” he said.

“Where you may have problems is if your environment can’t chill down fast enough, if the humidity allows for that bacteria to grow.”

CFIA records show that a dozen lots of contaminated beef also eluded detection by the Brooks plant’s testing program in 2010 and 2011, and were only caught later by inspectors at an XL operation in Calgary that was processing carcasses.

“I think it says that something got out and that our follow up surveillance system caught it as it’s designed to do,” Da Pont said.

While he’s been absent from the House of Commons all week, Federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz visited the Brooks facility Wednesday and spoke to reporters in Calgary afterward.

Ritz said the plant will resume operations only after the CFIA has confirmed to him in writing that public health will not be at risk.

“While we understand that ranchers, farmers and industry need a strong processing sector, we all agree that the success of the industry must be founded on food safety,” Ritz said.

“Canadian consumers are and will continue to be our first priority.”

Arsenault said seven corrective-action requests have been issued to the company, but to date none of them have been completely satisfied.

The agency suspended the operating licence of the country’s second-largest beef slaughter and processing facility last Thursday, and Arsenault said XL won’t be allowed to resume operations until all the deficiencies have been corrected

More than 1,500 items and an estimated 1.4 million kilograms of meat have now been recalled from grocery chains across the country and in 40 states south of the border.

Alberta’s health authority is investigating nine cases of E.coli poisoning that either are or could be linked to tainted meat from the XL plant. In Saskatchewan, public health officials have said there are 13 patients who have fallen ill, including three whose food histories indicate they ate product that has since been recalled.

© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald

Original source article: Health inspectors say tainted beef at XL Foods exceeded 5% of production on some days (with video)

By The Canadian Press, Calgary Herald October 3, 2012

TORONTO – Enbridge’s controversial Northern Gateway project could help boost the price Canadian oil producers see by opening up access to the Asian markets, Enbridge chief executive Al Monaco said Wednesday.

Monaco said that without access to the West Coast, Canadian producers will face a further discounting in oil prices compared with international benchmarks caused by a supply glut at a key storage hub in Cushing, Okla.

The glut has caused oil priced at Cushing — the WTI benchmark — to trade at a discount to other international benchmarks.

“I don’t think that is a tenable situation in the longer term,” he said.

Monaco called the $6-billion pipeline project, which faces significant opposition from groups concerned about possible spills from the pipeline, or from a tanker on the West Coast, a strategic project for the country.

“The bottom line on Gateway I think is this: It is a highly strategic project to Canada and there is general agreement that accessing the Asian market is in our interest,” he told an investor conference Wednesday.

“As a resource driven economy, there’s no question that Canada needs access to tidewater and the project is going to generate billions in terms of spinoffs, thousands of jobs and benefits to communities.”

In addition to the Enbridge project, Kinder Morgan has proposed its own $4.1-billion Trans Mountain project that would expand an existing pipeline from Alberta to the Vancouver area.

A joint review panel has been holding public hearings on the Northern Gateway project this year and is expected to report by the end of next year.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark has also set out five conditions before her government will back the project, including provisions for aboriginal consultation and the province receiving a “fair share” of the economic benefits.

Northern Gateway would carry roughly 525,000 barrels of bitumen a day from Alberta’s oilsands producers to Kitimat, B.C., where it would be loaded on tankers headed for Asian markets.

By Karen Kleiss, Edmonton Journal October 3, 2012

EDMONTON – The provincial government must pass water laws that put people and rivers first, or else risk water shortages, huge public costs and environmental degradation, a new report says.

One week after the Redford government announced provincewide consultations on the future of water management in Alberta, the watershed protection group Water Matters released an 18-page report urging the province to prioritize long-term protection of river health.

The groups points to policies adopted in Oregon, which promote conservation while respecting the rights of senior water licence holders.

“Alberta needs laws and policies that clearly lay out not only the government’s social and economic goals, but also the government’s responsibilities and obligations to protect river health,” the report says.

Author Bill Donahue of Water Matters says that “without rivers that are healthy, everything else falls apart.

“Alberta has really laid the foundation for pretty risky scenarios that could ultimately result in huge public costs,” Donahue said, noting the Australian government introduced policies similar to those in Alberta and ended up budgeting $8.9 billion to buy back water from licence holders to keep rivers flowing during a severe drought.

“If we wait until one of these really bad droughts hits Alberta, then all bets are off the table,” he said.

Henning Bjornlund is the Canada Research Chair in Water Policy and Management at the University of Lethbridge. He agreed with Donahue and said “the real problem is that we have overcommitted the water” in some Alberta water basins.

“The fear is that if you really start to use all of what you’re entitled to use, then we would have a real problem,” Bjornlund said.

“That’s why it is important to do something now. Because every time we see a new development, or processor, or subdivision, that water is being used. When someone is already depending on water, then it is significantly more difficult, costly and politically volatile to do something about it.”

The freedom to transfer water rights was first introduced in 1999, when the province passed the Water Act. The market didn’t heat up until 2006, after the province stopped granting new licences for the South Saskatchewan River Basin, and people who needed water were forced to start buying water rights from existing licence holders.

Since 2003, roughly 80 water licences have been transferred, Environment and Sustainable Resource Development spokesman Wayne Wood said.

During the Progressive Conservative leadership race in 2011, Premier Alison Redford said the government has been “dancing around the (water management) issue for six years” and has implemented a “piecemeal” approach.

She said at the time she is open to using water markets where necessary and that she would set up an expert panel to spell out the options.

“Albertans need to have policy options put before them,” Redford said. “That is going to take some intense, sophisticated discussion.”

Public consultations on the future of water management in Alberta are slated to begin in the fall of 2012 or the spring of 2013.

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© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

By Ryan Cormier and Brent Wittmeier, Edmonton Journal October 3, 2012

EDMONTON – A class-action lawsuit filed against XL Foods by a man who contracted E. coli claims the company concealed knowledge of poor quality control at its Brooks plant to maintain profit and avoid negative publicity.

Edmontonian Matthew Harrison, 30, claims that XL Food steaks he consumed Sept. 5 made him “extremely ill” with E. coli and led to abdominal cramping, vomiting, headache and fever. He was hospitalized for treatment, his lawsuit states.

“Somebody needs to be held accountable for this,” Harrison said at a Wednesday news conference. “The meat should have never left the plant. Obviously the checks and balances aren’t in order.”

The addition to the physical illness, Harrison claims he suffered “mental distress, emotional trauma and fear for his health.”

XL Foods had “negligent quality control, monitoring, processing, storage, distribution and sale of certain beef products,” the lawsuit alleges.

It also claims XL Foods breached the Fair Trading Act by misleading customers who believed they were buying safe food products.

Harrison’s lawyer Richard Mallett said his company, James H. Brown and Associates, has got “dozens” of calls from as far away as Ontario since word of the lawsuit hit the media Tuesday afternoon.

“As the news gets out, people start to realize, ‘hey, I was really sick,’” Mallett said. “They’re talking to their doctors and then giving us a call.”

Harrison alleges the company was negligent because it failed to test beef products properly, failed to ensure and follow proper quality control, failed to hire enough food safety experts, failed to properly train staff and failed “to recall all of its tainted beef immediately up learning that people were becoming ill after ingesting them.”

The lawsuit alleges XL Foods knew of its poor quality control and purposely withheld that knowledge from the public for its own financial self-interest and reputation.

The lawsuit hasn’t named Costco, where Harrison purchased the grilling steaks linked to E. coli, or the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, although Mallett said additional parties could be named defendants at a later point.

Statements of claim contain allegations not proven in court.

The lawsuit also says E. coli was first detected at an XL Foods plant in Brooks Sept. 4., but the company claimed there was no link between E. coli cases and its beef as late as Sept. 26, after beef recalls were done.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency temporarily shut the Brooks plant Sept. 28

The lawsuit, which is the beginning of an attempt to build a class-action suit, does not name a financial figure. Other claimants could join the lawsuit in the future, although a judge will have to certify the lawsuit as a class-action before it can proceed. Mallett said there may be a framework for different effects suffered by claimants.

A class-action lawsuit is launched on behalf of an undetermined number of people who may otherwise launch individual suits that are difficult to prosecute. Lawyers will have to advertise for any claimants who believe they are entitled to a portion of any award.

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Edmontonian Matthew Harrison’s lawsuit against XL Foods

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal

By Paula Simons, Edmonton Journal September 28, 2012

© Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal