Listeria Hysteria, by Pierre Lemieux

Occasionally, planes crash, cars collide, and listeriosis kills. If anybody were able to stop these accidents, it would be government bureaus like the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).

A CFIA inspector may “at any time enter any place or stop and enter any vehicle in which the inspector believes on reasonable grounds there is any meat product or other thing to which this Act applies”. Anybody around, continues the Meat Inspection Act, “shall give the inspector all reasonable assistance … and shall furnish the inspector with any information the inspector may reasonably require”. Moreover, “[n]o person shall obstruct or hinder, or make any false or misleading statement either orally or in writing to, [sic] an inspector while the inspector is engaged in carrying out his duties or functions”. Offenders risk fines and jail sentences.

CFIA’s constituting law allows the bureau to order that any product “be recalled or sent to a place designated by the Minister”. The agency can impose fees for its inspection “services”. Under the 63-page Meat Inspection Regulations, every meat processing establishment must be registered (yes, there is a meat processor registry!) and its operator licenced. The CFIA can shut down a plant which does not meet regulatory requirements. Among the profusion of regulatory requirements, for example, “every registered establishment in which food animals are slaughtered shall be equipped with offices, dressing rooms, shower facilities and lavatories for the exclusive use of inspectors”. Inspectors are stationed at meat processing plants like the Maple Leaf plant in Toronto. Again, the violation of these requirements is punishable by fines and jail time.

These exorbitant powers are not new. The Meat Inspection Act dates from 1985, the first regulations were adopted in 1990, and the CFIA was created in 1997. How terrible the situation must have been before! How many of our loved ones must have died from contaminated food!

I have not talked about the other 50 laws and regulations administered by the CFIA. I have not mentioned the powers of the new Canadian Public Health Agency, born from a bill introduced by the Liberals in 2005 and then reintroduced and adopted by the Conservatives in 2006. Nor have I delved into the powers of provincial public health bureaucracies. Remember, they can stop a train in the middle of nowhere and detain everybody on board.

Now, these exorbitant powers are apparently not enough. Reacting to the listeriosis outbreak, the Prime Minister declared that “[i]t’s necessary to reform and revamp our food – and product – inspection after some years of neglect”. The Agriculture Minister boasted that the CFIA, which has hired 200 additional inspectors since the Conservatives took office, will hire 58 more this year. We still don’t know what caused the listeria contamination, but we can certainly hear the hysteria.

Cooling down a bit, we should understand that the incentives of a private meat processor are to avoid the sort of catastrophe that now befalls Maple Leaf: it’s a question of profits and perhaps of corporate survival. Note incidentally that if a meat processor is a large, established company, it is also in its interest to have tough and expensive government regulations to keep potential competitors out.

But what are the politicians’ and the bureaucrats’ incentives? The more threatened public health appears to be, the more they can persuade the populace to increase their resources and their power. As journalist H.L. Mencken wrote, “[t]he whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary”.

Let’s render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s: the state often gives people good reasons to be scared – like by killing them. From Soviet Russia to Mao’s China through Nazi Germany (the latter being a very civilized country until then), it is estimated that, during the 20th century, states have killed 262 million of their own subjects, not counting interstate wars (according to Professor R.J. Rummel’s calculations). Nobody would have forecasted this in the euphoric first decade of the century.

Is a world of zero risk desirable? Imagine thousands of state agencies with powers like the CFIA’s. Imagine government inspectors peeping into whatever individuals do and barking orders. In fact, this ideal world has more or less existed: it was called the Soviet Union. It still exists in hellish places like China, Cuba, and North Korea, not to mention Islamic countries. The problem with such a world was diagnosed by Latin poet Juvenal: “Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?” – who will protect us against our protectors? Tyranny is much more dangerous than listeriosis.

A world of zero risk is impossible. The question is whether it is better to run the risk of liberty or the risk of tyranny. In case of doubt, it is highly advisable to err on the side of liberty.

Listeria Hysteria by Pierre Lemieux

Listeria Hysteria
by
Pierre Lemieux