Front Burner - Alberta beef, outbreaks and the flaws of industrial farming

Episode Date: May 21, 2020

Canadian cattle farmers are having a hard week. The beef industry was already struggling after deadly mass outbreaks of COVID-19 hit the heart of Canada’s meat processing industry in Alberta, causing temporary closures, slowdowns in production and a backlog of cattle. Then on Tuesday, president Donald Trump mused about the possibility of terminating trade deals that allow for imports of live cattle into the U.S. Paula Simons is an independent senator from Edmonton and a former journalist who covered Alberta's cattle industry. She was also one of the first to speak out about food inspector safety during the pandemic. Today she shares her thoughts about Alberta beef, meat processing and why she thinks industrial farming needs to change.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Pia Chattopadhyay. We have trade deals where we actually take in cattle, and we have a lot of cattle in this country.

And I think you should look at the possibility of terminating those trade deals. That was U.S. President Donald Trump on Tuesday, announcing a $19 billion bailout for American farmers and scaring the living daylights out of Canadian cattle farmers. We're very self-sufficient and we're becoming more and more self-sufficient, probably one of the reasons I got elected. You see, the U.S. imports live cattle from only two countries, Mexico and us. cattle from only two countries, Mexico and us. And our beef is mostly from Alberta, a province that's already struggling after mass outbreaks of COVID-19 hit the heart of Canada's meat processing industry, causing temporary closures, slowdowns in production, and a serious backlog of cattle. McDonald's says it can't get enough Canadian beef to meet the demand and is looking elsewhere. Consumers at the supermarket may find less selection. If you do want beef, you will be able to find it. Prices may go up though. With me now is Paula Simons.

She's an independent senator from Edmonton and a former longtime journalist who covered Alberta's cattle industry. Senator Simons was also one of the first to speak out about food inspector safety during the pandemic. Today, we're talking beef, meat processing and the strength of Canada's supply chain. This is FrontBurner. Senator Simons, first off, welcome to FrontBurner. I'm very happy to be here. So I want to talk with you about a very devastating story to come out of this pandemic. And that, of course, as you well know, has been the mass outbreaks at Canada's largest meat processing plants, the Cargill plant in High River, very badly hit.

It is the site of the single largest outbreak of COVID-19 in North America. We're talking about people that are elbow to elbow, changing rooms that are just crammed to the brim. It's so scary to go into work every day wondering, am I going to contract this virus? And when I contract this virus, will I die from it? But all told in Alberta, more than 1,500 meat processing plant workers have contracted this virus and at least three workers and one family member have died. You have spoken out about the safety of food inspectors. What is most concerning to you? Well, the size of the outbreaks, not just at the Cargill plant in High River, but at the JBS plant in Brooks, and the Harmony plant, which is just on the

outskirts of Calgary. I mean, it's deeply concerning because we have such a concentration in our meat packing sector when three plants are in peril like this. I mean, obviously the first concern is for the frontline workers, but also it affects the integrity of the entire beef system in Canada because those three plants provide 85% of the country's beef and are major sources for our export markets as well. And so I was concerned as a human being about the safety of the workers, but also very concerned about the integrity of the beef economy in Alberta, what it would mean to our ranchers and our feedlot operators, if those plants were offline,

and what does it mean for consumers? And so because I'm a senator and I operate in the federal realm, the occupational health and safety piece for the employees of the meatpacking plants is in provincial jurisdiction. So I started thinking, okay, well, what are the federal implications of this? And the obvious one is that they are federally inspected plants and it's federal meat inspectors who are working in those environments. And I should say at least 40 meat plant inspectors in Canada, 21 of them in Alberta, have contracted COVID-19 according to their union. And while inspectors continue to fall ill, the union says the federal government

is threatening disciplinary action against employees who refuse to be reassigned to work at COVID-19 infected meat plants. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it's a balancing act between ensuring the food supply continues to flow and protecting workers' safety. And among the infected are 18 of the 37 inspectors at Cargill near High River, which is south of Calgary. So this is hitting all levels, if I can put it that way, of the meat industry. Right. And you know, what happened last week is I've been speaking to the United Food and Commercial Workers, which is the union that represents the employees of the meatpacking plants. I'd spoken to the Cattlemen's Association, I'd spoken to the feedlot operators, and I thought, what's the piece I'm missing is the CFIA inspectors. So I spoke to their union last week.

And it was at that point that the union representative told me about these 40 cases across the country, 21 in Alberta, 18 at the one plant. And at that point, most of that information was not yet public. And as you will know, because you and I worked together back many eons ago in the Edmonton Journal Newsroom. In the last century at the Edmonton Journal, yes. I mean, I was a journalist for 30 years. And when I spoke to the union rep and I said, well, is this information public? And he said, oh, yeah, it's public information. I said, well, I haven't seen it anywhere. And so I went to Twitter, as I am wont to do. And I tweeted out this information. And it created quite a ripple effect because I think people

hadn't realized just what the consequences of this were. I mean, part of the problem is that it's very difficult to keep people safe in a meat packing plant. The temperatures are chilly to keep the meat safe. And as a result, those cold temperatures are very good for the virus. People work in very close proximity because if you think of it not so much as an assembly line, but a disassembly line, people are working elbow to elbow breaking down the carcasses. And one of the other reasons that there are so many vectors for

transmission in a meatpacking plant is because it's a very loud environment and people have to shout above the noise to be heard. And just that loud talking can also create, you know, we won't use the word moist because the prime minister got mocked for using the word moist, but it certainly, when people are shouting, it allows for that kind of transmission. And finally, it's very humid. There's real moisture. And when I spoke to the union representatives, they said part of the problem is that when the inspectors were given masks, and even when they had shields, the humidity, the moisture would build up under the shield and the mask would become soaked. And it wouldn't be very effective for protecting people against the spread of COVID-19. Fabian Murphy is the national president of the Agriculture Union, which represents Canada's food inspectors. Under normal circumstances, you know, adequate personal

protective equipment, such as a respirator in this case, would normally be provided. And normally what would happen is if you can't provide that protection against the hazard to the worker, then you wouldn't assign the worker those duties. This is all fascinating. I have never been inside, I'm like most Canadians, I've never been inside a meat processing plant. And here you are, Senator Simons, and I'll call you Paula, only to say that you were shining a light on these kinds of issues as a journalist, and many years later, here you are taking it up as a senator in a different way,

of course, in the political realm. Why is it so important to you to shine this light at this point? You know, I was thinking about this, and I think part of it goes back to my days as an investigative journalist. Isn't that a grand term for it? But I was a, you know, a columnist and reporter for the Edmonton Journal during the bovine spongiform encephalopathy outbreak in Alberta, at a time when the Americans closed their borders to Alberta beef, when other countries closed their borders to Alberta beef, when other countries closed their borders to Alberta beef. The USDA closed to imports of all live cattle

after a case surfaced in Canada of BSE, the so-called mad cow disease. Since the border closure, three more cases were discovered, all traced to Canadian herds. And I remember how absolutely devastating it was for the economy of my province and for Alberta's reputation for the brand of Alberta beef. And I know how absolutely essential it is that we have the best meat inspection procedures in North America, if not the world. It is absolutely

essential to protect the health of Canadians and to protect the reputation of Alberta's, one of our marquee products. And so when I heard how many food inspectors were out sick, I thought, well, then who's inspecting the beef? And I want to be really clear about this. COVID-19 is not a foodborne illness. There's no evidence that you can get COVID-19 from your hamburger or your pot roast. But CFIA inspectors are in those plants to look for all other kinds of foodborne illnesses and risks. And you need inspectors for the plants to operate. Without them, nothing gets processed. Well, not only do you need inspectors, but you need inspectors who are properly trained and skilled. And one of the problems has been the CFIA has had to hire a

bunch more inspectors to backfill the people who've been ill. The union is alleging that people are being asked, people who are not meat inspectors, to go into those plants. And then there are real concerns because how confident would you be if your employer told you to go back into that situation? I mean, and I want to make it really clear, I'm desperately concerned for the employees of Cargill and Harmony and JBS, many of whom are new Canadians, fairly recent immigrants to Canada, who are working in very dangerous and difficult situations at the best of times. I mean, at the best of times, working in a meatpacking plant is a very physically and emotionally difficult task.

So I'm very concerned about those workers. I'm very concerned about the fact that there's been so much community spread. The potential for spread from these epicenters in these plants is devastating, not just to the beef industry, not just to the frontline workers, but to the whole rest of the Calgary health region. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization,

empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Help me understand this one, Senator. Help me understand this one, Senator. Two Alberta plants produce 70%, about 70% of our country's federally inspected processed beef. Why is this industry so reliant on only a few big processors? kid growing up in Edmonton, we had a whole packing district right in the center of the city. I mean, you would leave the hockey games or the Klondike days on the LRT and you would go through the packing town on your LRT car and smell the rendering. And it was very much a situation where, I mean, Winnipeg had packing plants, Calgary had packing plants. I mean, there were lots of smaller abattoirs and slaughterhouses in centres across the West. And over time, there's been tremendous corporate concentration because I think in part, people didn't really appreciate having these facilities in urban centres because they are complicated neighbours when you're bringing livestock through a city,

I mean, literal livestock. So, I mean, the plants became more and more concentrated as the smaller plants closed down. But then, you know, this is what we've seen all across our food supply chain is that COVID-19 is exposed to us all of the vulnerability of all our food supply chains, because if you concentrate production and processing in a few key centres, it means that if one of those centres goes offline, the whole thing becomes a bit tottery. The long-term answer for some more small-scale plants to pick up the slack. When we're so reliant on two big packers to do what they do, there literally is not an option to fill that void.

Still, the owner of this feedlot says Canada needs major processors to fill export quotas and keep costs down. There's not a lot of profit there. It's a very small, low-margin business. We can't afford any more costs, and I don't think you want to pay more for a steak. You know, the other thing, we know that there are a lot of worried cattle ranchers and farmers right now. So take me into Alberta again, what is the biggest challenge currently facing cattle farmers and feedlot operators? Well, I mean, now that the Cargill plant is back open, they're feeling I

think, a lot more comfortable because at the time that the Cargill plant closed, when I spoke to the Cattlemen's Association, they told me that they were postulating that they could lose a half a billion dollars this year. It doesn't look right now like that's going to happen, but we have to make sure that we keep infection out of those plants and keep all the workers in those plants safe if we want to keep our beef supply chain breaks down for moving sweaters to the gap or moving canned tomatoes to the loblaws, you can store the canned tomatoes. You can store the sweaters. Cows are cows. They are living, breathing, feeling creatures. And you can't just store them someplace. So if you maintain them on a feedlot, there are questions about what kind of feed do they get? I mean, do you keep on giving them the diet you would if you were preparing them for slaughter? Or do you have to find a different kind of maintenance diet so that their weights don't go up or down in ways

that are inappropriate? So, you know, you're talking about the management of a really complicated commodity. These are not widgets. These are cows. And so for ranchers, I mean, this is calving season. You have new calves entering the field. Usually calving season is a hopeful time of year for Sherry Coppithorn Barnes, not this spring. Our business is based on natural cycles, the environment and working with the land. And so we don't have the ability to be able to say, stop calving cows, or we're not going to plant right now because we're not sure what the market's going to look like in October. And it's, you know, it's fine to say, stop calving cows, or we're not going to plant right now because we're not sure what the market's going to look like in October. And it's, you know, it's fine to say, well, ranchers can just put the cows out to pasture.

But the industrialization of our meat processing system has really intensified over the last 20 years. And sure, it's possible that you can go to your farmer's market, that you can go to your local producers, and that you can get small scale, locally produced organic beef that's slaughtered at small provincially inspected abattoirs and buy your meat that way. That tends to be a lot more expensive. That is a niche product for people who can afford it and who have the resources to access it, who can go to a farmer's market, who can order online from a small local producer. If you're a regular person and you're buying your meat at a big grocery store or a wholesale outlet like a Costco, I mean, that's how most Canadians and most Albertans buy their beef.

So it's very difficult to assume that we can all go to a boutique beef consumer model. Or, you know, when I started tweeting about this, people said, well, people should just stop eating meat. And that would certainly be kinder to the cows. And it would certainly mean that people didn't have to do the very difficult, dirty work of working in a packing plant. But that is also not something that you can wiggle your nose and we all become vegan. There are huge economic, health, and social consequences to that kind of disruption, too. Yeah, there's never simple solutions to complex problems.

No. And, you know, again, I mean, the pork industry is feeling the pinch as well. They supply six million live hogs to the U.S. every year, but with several large American processors shut down, they're not needed anymore. A farm on Prince Edward Island was recently forced to euthanize hogs because there was no place to send them for slaughter. And although Alberta is really the center of beef processing in Canada, there are other plants around it.

But I think I want to stick with Alberta again, because Alberta's had a tough goal of it for some time now on so many fronts, oil prices right now, you know, fewer jobs for so many workers, not to mention flooding up north. For Jessica Rieman, it's all been overwhelming. Her wedding was already postponed due to the pandemic. My wedding dress is sitting in my house. I have no insurance, nothing because I live on a floodplain and the water level is above my garage door. And now this, this shock. How important is beef to Alberta's economy? You know, it's one of our major export commodities. It's really important to our whole food supply chain, but it's also important to our sense of self. I remember

during the height of the mad cow bovine spongiform encephalopathy crisis, back at a time when I could spell encephalopathy without having to look it up. And at the time, Premier Ralph Klein, who was the premier then, had said something that I thought was quite offensive about Japanese culture after the Japanese had closed their border to Alberta beef. And I wrote a column for the paper, taking the premier to task for his comments about Japan. And in the aftermath of that, I got a last minute invitation from the Japanese consulate to come to a dinner party at the Japanese consul. So my husband and I came and the consul general said to me, I don't understand. He said, in Japan,

when we had our bovine spondyloform encephalopathy outbreak, everybody stopped eating beef. Just everybody, nobody would touch it. And here in Alberta, he said, you are all eating more beef than ever. Why is that? And I said to him, you know, it's in part because even for people who don't eat a lot of beef, Alberta beef is one of those marquee brands in which the whole province has this really deep sense of pride. And, you know, people unironically during the BSE crisis put stickers on their car that said, I heart Alberta beef. I had one on my refrigerator. It is sort of part of the amour propre of Alberta to think of beef as, you know, the cowboy, as that symbol, that stereotype of Alberta identity. And so that even people who are, like me, certainly not cowboys, and like me, you know, dabble in vegetarianism, certainly not cowboys and like me you know dabble in vegetarianism um i ate a lot of beef that summer because it was sort of like an act of patriotism and so i think you know when i saw

these figures about the number of meat inspectors who were falling ill i i flashed back to the to the devastation the bse crisis wrought on Alberta. And I thought, I want to do whatever I can to make sure that nothing like that happens again. Yeah, food is part of culture too, right? So this is Alberta culture we're talking about. And it's an enormous, ginormous industry, $15 billion industry in Canada. And I want to end with you, Senator, ultimately talking about how you think or hope this pandemic will alter the beef and meat processing industry in Canada, or will it? processing industry in Canada, or will it? I think that we need to rethink fundamentally our relationship with food. Most of us don't stop to think about the morality or the humanity behind the things that we eat every day. And I think, you know, my grandfather, when he first came to this country as an immigrant, worked in a meatpacking plant in Winnipeg. And it was a

rotten job that he spent the rest of his life talking about how miserable it had been. So I think a lot of people don't stop to think about who is putting the food on their plate and where it's coming from. And we can see right now, I mean, to veer off meat for a minute, the number of farmers all across Canada who are in crisis now because they can't get the temporary foreign workers they usually bring in in the summers to help them with harvest. I mean, we take a lot of this labor for granted and don't think about the human beings who are putting the food on our plates and are keeping our food costs low. And as our supply chains start to fray, And as our supply chains start to fray, COVID-19 has exposed for a lot of us the vulnerability of the way our food gets to our plates.

And if we have a rethink, not just about the way we handle cows, but the way we handle strawberries and lettuces and broccoli, I think these are really hard questions that we're being asked to face. Because in a world in which we've globalized supply chains and take for granted that food and labor can flow freely across borders, a world in which borders are going to be far less porous is going to return us to first principles on a lot of these questions. Senator Simons, thank you for once again just bringing this to our attention and really helping us understand the impact of all this. I appreciate you making time for us.

Well, I'm delighted to be able to speak with you. Take care. Before I go, I just want to let you know that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has responded, adding that the number is cumulative and does not take into account employees who may have since returned to work. The CFIA also said it is following health and safety guidelines by providing masks and face shields to all meet inspectors. There's also a pre-shift questionnaire for inspectors and veterinarians and if sick, they are asked to stay home. And lastly, the agency said it works with local public health authorities to determine the risk of exposure for CFIA employees and their need for self-isolation and testing. That's all for today.

I'm Pia Chattopadhyay. Thank you for listening to FrontBurner. We'll talk again tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.