The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail exposed serious flaws in Canada’s food-safety system with a disturbing account of how the Canadian Food Inspection Agency had failed to protect Canadians. The investigation began after three people died and many were sickened by a listeria outbreak linked to plant-based milks produced at a factory in Pickering, Ont., in the summer of 2024. It took months of work by reporters Grant Robertson and Kathryn Blaze Baum. Their series detailed how the agency had adopted an algorithm based, in part, on information supplied by companies to determine which facilities were prioritized for inspections and which were not. The Pickering facility had not been inspected for years. The Globe proved that during the 11 months that listeria was known to have been in the plant before the recall, no inspector was sent. Had the bacteria been detected by an inspector earlier, deaths might have been prevented. The algorithm effectively allowed some food-manufacturing companies to police themselves and avoid being flagged for inspection. Once the series was published, the federal minister of health ordered a complete review of the algorithm and how it should be changed. In addition, the Pickering facility was closed permanently.