Campbell Soup boss Doug Conant told the Canadian Embassy in Washington last night that the U.S. should abandon its two-regulator format for food and adopt a one-agency model like Canada’s, which would be more effective than product-label laws, adding,

“If the government of Canada can monitor the safety of its food products with one single food-inspection agency, why can’t the United States?”

There are probably other reasons Conant would like to clone the Canadians. If there’s ever an outbreak of foodborne disease, the public will hear about it last from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. In last year’s listeria shitfest in which 22 died, the Chief Medical Officer of Health for the province of Ontario, Dr. David Williams, complained that CFIA waited nearly a month to inform health officials that contaminated ready-to-eat meats were being distributed to grocery stories — a dangerous delay in issuing a product recall.

But Dr. Brian Evans, executive vice president and Chief Veterinary Officer of Canada, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, wrote in the Ottawa Citizen that CFIA acted promptly once they were informed of a food source associated with two illnesses in a nursing home. Scientific evidence of contaminated meat products was confirmed on the evening of Aug. 16, 2008 and the CFIA issued a public advisory and recall eight hours later in the early morning hours of Aug. 17, 2008.

Apparently, only positive product tests count as real science at CFIA. Epidemiology, dead bodies, these are mere distractions. Is that really what the Campbell’s dude is endorsing?