Government ministers usually like the power of their office and any loss of responsibility can seem like a demotion of sorts. But I suspect the recent transfer of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) from Agriculture Canada to Health Canada probably came as a relief to federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz.
The transfer was done quietly and involves mainly its food safety inspection services. Other responsibilities such as economic and trade issues, animal health and plant protection services were left with agriculture. The transfer of CFIA to Health Canada seems appropriate and is a better fit, since Health Canada was already involved with food safety policy. The Public Health Agency will also fall under Health Canada.
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It seems logical to have all human food safety-related responsibilities under one minister. However, when the next food safety calamity happens, the minister of health may not appreciate the transfer as much as the agriculture minister. The minister of health will now have to face the inevitable barrage of criticism from opposition parties and public service unions about the latest threat to food safety. Demands will now be made that the health minister must resign whenever a food inspection failure occurs.
I understand the concept of ministerial responsibility, but it always baffles me as to why a minister’s resignation will somehow resolve whatever problem has happened under their watch. But I digress.
When that political pressure happens Minister Ritz will feel some sympathy for a besieged health minister, but he would sure not miss the uncomfortable spotlight.
The advantage of having a health minister in charge is that there would no longer be a perceived conflict of interest. Ag ministers always had to tread a fine line as to whose interests they were protecting — growers, processors, retailers or consumers. All were both beholden to and represented by the Ag Department. During the BSE crisis, clearly the minister of the day had difficulty defending many of the agency’s actions to the livestock industry. Some questionable CFIA decisions had serious impacts on beef exports, because they seemed more political than technical.
One of the problems agriculture ministers faced with the CFIA was that it tended to operate as if it was beyond the minister’s control. It didn’t help that from past experiences government politicians wanted to stay far away from food safety issues, since they usually had bad political consequences. When that happened the CFIA seemed to operate with impunity.
Now the health minister will have the honour of riding herd on this prickly agency and Minister Ritz can now go back to protecting the interests of the Canadian agriculture industry and helping develop new markets for Canadian food products. That alone makes the CFIA transfer worthwhile.
