tainted meat
One drawback to the whole announce-an-inquiry/investigation-(public- or-otherwise)-to-push-a-scandal- onto-the-backburner strategy of damage control. . .
Eventually, a nosy reporter with time (and column inches) to fill during the Christmas-to-New-Year’s news holiday may start asking annoying questions about why it still hasn’t gotten underway, which will lead to the revelation that nearly four months later, the government hasn’t even appointed a lead investigator for its promised probe into last summer’s listeriosis outbreak.
UPDATED: Who inspects the meat inspectors?
An as-yet-unnamed prime ministerial appointee, of course, with a mandate to “examine the efficiency and effectiveness of the response of the federal organizations … [and] their food safety partners.”
What’s not clear, however, is whether that will include Maple Leaf Foods or any other private company involved in the recall, despite recent media reports that suggest the outbreak could have been caused by contaminated meat slicers.
NOTE: Less than an hour after this release came out, PMO put out an updated version, which sets March 15, 2009 as the deadline for the final report.