And I’m the best goalie in Australia (not).

Press release before publishing – and peer review – reached new depths as academics at the University of Guelph proclaimed Canada’s food safety system the best in the world, in a report released today by the Conference Board of Canada.

“Canada has one of the safest and healthiest food systems in the world as confirmed by this study,” said Rona Ambrose, Minister of Health. “Our Government remains committed to our continuing efforts to further strengthen Canada’s food system to ensure that Canadian families can continue to have confidence in the food they buy and eat.”

According to the executive summary (you have to sign up to get the report) “food safety data segmentation and limitations hamper the world’s ability to select, build up, monitor, and evaluate food safety performance. Currently, there is no metric that captures the entire food safety system, and performance data are not collected strategically on a global scale. Therefore, benchmarking is essential not only to help monitor ongoing food safety performance but also to inform continued food safety system design, adoption, and implementation toward more efficient and effective food safety preparedness, responsiveness, and accountability.”

And what academic report would be complete without a call for “funding future food safety data collection is recommended, as is hosting a food safety summit for nations to find consensus on common robust food safety performance measurements, drawing on metrics from this study, among others.”

Canada, striving for mediocracy.