A story today in the National Post reports that Canadian farmers have filed four class-action suits  seeking compensation for losses of more than $9-billion since 2003 due primarily to government mismanagement of BSE. 

C’mon food industry, the government isn’t your mom.  You should not continually rely on regulators to protect you from everything, and expect them to know the risk associated with your business better than you do.  The government is there to support public health and create an infrastructure to produce safe food and control disease.

Cameron Pallett, the lawyer representing the cattle farmers was quoted today as saying that the Canadian government lost track of cattle imported from the UK in the 1980s and 90s and that "the government released a report in 2006 that said the likely cause of Canada’s BSE crisis was one of these cows — whoops."  Mr. Pallett also goes on to say it took 18 months for Canada to act on a World Health Organization recommendation in 1996 to ban feed containing cattle or sheep remnants. 

So why didn’t the cattle industry force a defacto feed ban by requiring that their input suppliers not use risky products? That could have been done without the government’s help — farmers, not the government, actually bought the feed.

Even if Pallet and his clients are correct about the mismanagement, how many other cows with the BSE were not counted or couldn’t be counted?  We still know little about BSE appearance and transmission.  How well has the industry been implementing feed restrictions? The Edmonton Journal suggested not very well in 2005 (CFIA found mislabeled or problem feed during inspections) — but went on to also blame the government.

It’s garbage to suggest that the economic impact of BSE in Canada can be blamed primarily on one player.  Like many food safety issues everyone from farm to fork had a role to play. 

It’s expected that farmers, processors, distributors, retailers and food service operators know the risks that come with their raw ingredients, processes and final products and how to manage them. If there are problems, it’s industry’s job to fix them. And if they can’t, they face the repercussions.