Claims in the provincial legislature that the Atlantic Beef Products plant on Prince Edward Island destroyed 125 beef carcasses are “completely unfounded,” the company’s chairman said Friday.
The allegations were made during question period in the legislature earlier this week, the provincial government said in a release.
“The plant has never had any reason to dispose of carcasses,” company chairman Jim Casey said in the release. “We take great pride in our quality control and operating standards.”
It had been alleged Tuesday (Dec. 8) in the legislature that 125 beef carcasses had to be destroyed at the plant following a freezer breakdown at the Albany facility.
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The claim was made after Tory ag critic Jim Bagnall first asked Agriculture Minister George Webster to explain how the plant’s management team dealt with the alleged malfunction.
“There can be malfunctions from time to time, or equipment failure, and our staff up there would get on that issue as soon as possible,” Webster replied in Hansard. “Any mechanical device can fail from time to time, and the issue is to get it repaired as soon as possible and keep losses as low as possible.”
“Your management committee couldn’t have been doing too well when you lost 125 carcasses of meat in one week because of a malfunction in your freezers,” Bagnall said. “Why would not staff not pick up that your freezers are broken down before you would lose 125 carcasses of beef?”
Bagnall then asked who was responsible for removing the alleged carcasses, to which Webster replied, “I don’t think any individual can predict a mechanical failure within a system, so I don’t believe it’s poor quality workmanship, as the (honourable) member indicates, it was apparently an incident that happened, and we’re working our way through that.”
“Who hauled the carcasses out of there?” Bagnall said. “Who was given that contract?”
Webster replied he would “take that (question) under advisement and find the name of the person who removed the so-called product.”
The Atlantic Beef plant, which has lost money since it opened in late 2004 but is the Maritimes’ only federally-inspected slaughter capacity, is co-owned by beef producers and the P.E.I. government. The province last summer said it would seek private-sector buyers for the facility.
