– NDP Health Critic France Gélinas today demanded a full public review of the McGuinty Liberals’ slow response to the tainted meat crisis, which has directly led to the deaths of at least six Ontarians.

“We need a full review to determine whether the provincial government did all it could to prevent the listeriosis outbreak and whether it is properly equipped to address similar outbreaks in the future. The government’s reaction to date has been ‘too little, too late’,” said Gélinas, MPP for Nickel Belt.

Since listeria is a reportable disease, Gélinas noted that the provincial government should have known about the first death in June – a full month before it marked an increase in listeriosis deaths and more than two months before Maple Leaf Foods finally issued its product recall.

“In this case, two months is a lifetime. For a government that claims all went as it should, the response was incredibly slow, especially when you consider that lives are at stake. Doctors are telling us that if they had known of the risk earlier, they would have been able to alert and closely monitor vulnerable patients,” said Gélinas.

Gélinas added that more than three years have passed since Justice Roland J. Haines made 113 recommendations as part of his landmark report on Meat Regulation and Inspection in Ontario. Many of the recommendations, including the establishment of an Ontario Food Inspection Agency, have yet to be implemented.

“The Haines report insisted that the public should have complete, consistent and accurate information. What we have instead is a troublesome vagueness about dates and locations of cases – and a Health Minister who is missing in action,” said Gélinas.