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Ranchers.net

Meat inspector's rigorous standards led to beef with bosses



PAUL WALDIE

From Tuesday's Globe and Mail

May 16, 2006

Canada



Dr. Scott Frazee has been a veterinarian with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for 10 years and he knows all about the pressure meat inspectors face from the food industry.



But what he never expected was how quickly his own bosses at the agency would succumb to that pressure and potentially put food safety at risk.



"I was shocked," Dr. Frazee said from his home in Berwick, N.S. "It's difficult to do your job even with support, but in this case there was no support from my own employer."



For the past three years, Dr. Frazee has been battling the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) over the way it handled complaints about his meat inspections at Larsen Packers Ltd., a Nova Scotia pork plant owned by Maple Leaf Foods Inc.



The plant is one of the largest in Atlantic Canada. It employs roughly 600 people and processes about 2,000 hogs a day. Dr. Frazee joined the agency in 1996 and has been head veterinarian at Larsen since 1997, leading a CFIA team that includes one other veterinarian and six meat inspectors.



When plant manager Mike Larsen and a group of hog producers complained that Dr. Frazee was rejecting too many hogs, the agency suspended him from the kill floor and launched a review of his inspection techniques.



Despite three independent assessments that upheld Dr. Frazee's conduct, his duties continued to be restricted after Mr. Larsen and the producers took their complaints up agency ranks to the regional director. In one letter to a senior agency official, a group of hog producers said that, if Dr. Frazee was not removed, they would take their hogs to other facilities. "No other option is acceptable," the letter warned.



Dr. Frazee was eventually restored to his position on June 25, 2003, after two months of wrangling between the plant and CFIA, but his fellow inspectors were stunned by the agency's actions.



After his reappointment, Dr. Frazee asked the agency to look into how it handled the situation, alleging the agency buckled under intimidation. When his request was ignored, he took his case to the Public Service Labour Relations Board. The CFIA rejected his allegations and argued before the board that it did its best to resolve a difficult issue.



In a decision released last week, the board backed up Dr. Frazee's concerns and ordered the agency to review its actions. Adjudicator Léo-Paul Guindon ruled that the repeated requests by Mr. Larsen and the producers to remove Dr. Frazee amounted to "harassment and coercion."



"The expressly stated objective of the industry was to have Dr. Frazee removed off the kill floor and, later, out of the Larsen Packers Ltd.'s plant," Mr. Guindon said in his ruling. He added that the agency sent the wrong signal by suspending Dr. Frazee before properly assessing the complaints.



Jeanette Jones, a spokeswoman for Maple Leaf, said the company and Mr. Larsen were unaware the issue had gone to the labour board. She said they will review the decision and make any necessary changes.



"The vets play a very important and valuable role at these facilities," Ms. Jones said.



A CFIA spokesman said the agency is reviewing the ruling.



The tribunal heard that Dr. Frazee's case was not the first. "This is becoming an all too frequent occurrence in this Agency," Maureen Harper, a vice-president with the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, which represents the veterinarians, said in a letter filed with the board. "Plant management makes a complaint to CFIA if they perceive a vet is too stringent in performing his duties, which causes an economic loss to the plant and CFIA pulls the vet from the job to keep the industry happy. And we dare call ourselves a regulatory Agency!"



Industry pressure is a concern for veterinarians across Canada, said Alan Phillips, a union official who represented Dr. Frazee. Mr. Phillips said many veterinarians simply quit because of the stress. He added that Dr. Frazee was the first to fight back and his case has already resulted in important changes.



Dr. Frazee, 37, is still working at Larsen but his relations with management remain strained. "Life hasn't been quite the same since. I wish it never happened in the first place," he said. "It's hard to hold your head up going down the halls some days, but you got to put the smile on anyway. Right?"





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