Senators laid bare the everyday realities of expired food on remote shelves and unsafe drinking water in the Northwest Territories, while celebrating Arctic resilience through Winter Games.
How are products that are 2 years past Best Before still on shelves to buy? I don't mean why haven't they been tossed, I mean how was it that these products were not purchased before they passed that date? How long had they sat on a shelf before they were purchased? Were they recently delivered to the store to be sold? If so, who was responsible for that? So many questions, I hope there are answers.
Thank you Mike. I appreciate your efforts to bring these items to our attention. I wasn't expecting an answer to my questions, but rather hoping that the same questions were being asked of the people who share responsibility for delivering these products to the stores. I know that CFIA is diligent about inspecting food stuffs that are entering Canada (my wife works for a food importer). I don't know anything about the other 2, nor really about what CFIAs role is in inspecting food bound for the north.
I live in a rural area and my home has it's own well. I test the water and if I started to have issues with the well, I am responsible for dealing with it.
Back in the 1990s I worked in BC including flying into remote reserves, "boil water" was a familiar issue. I spoke to one of the traditional elders who shrugged and said the gubbermint installed a treatment plant but it stopped working. Eventually the gubbermint will fix it.
I found that mindset as foreign to me as that of migrants publicly defecating and dumping garbage on streets. Oh... Canada... :(
How are products that are 2 years past Best Before still on shelves to buy? I don't mean why haven't they been tossed, I mean how was it that these products were not purchased before they passed that date? How long had they sat on a shelf before they were purchased? Were they recently delivered to the store to be sold? If so, who was responsible for that? So many questions, I hope there are answers.
The North West Company runs most of these outlets, yet responsibility is split between them, CFIA and Indigenous Services. No single fix in sight. See the debate here: https://sencanada.ca/en/content/sen/chamber/451/debates/063db_2026-04-15-e
Thank you Mike. I appreciate your efforts to bring these items to our attention. I wasn't expecting an answer to my questions, but rather hoping that the same questions were being asked of the people who share responsibility for delivering these products to the stores. I know that CFIA is diligent about inspecting food stuffs that are entering Canada (my wife works for a food importer). I don't know anything about the other 2, nor really about what CFIAs role is in inspecting food bound for the north.
I live in a rural area and my home has it's own well. I test the water and if I started to have issues with the well, I am responsible for dealing with it.
Back in the 1990s I worked in BC including flying into remote reserves, "boil water" was a familiar issue. I spoke to one of the traditional elders who shrugged and said the gubbermint installed a treatment plant but it stopped working. Eventually the gubbermint will fix it.
I found that mindset as foreign to me as that of migrants publicly defecating and dumping garbage on streets. Oh... Canada... :(