Gerry Ritz’s feel good beef tour

Instead of attending to his duties in the House of Commons, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz has been spotted in Saskatchewan. From his public statements to local papers it looks like his new responsibility is to sugar coat the current E coli outbreak that has shut down 1/3 of all beef production in Canada.

His statements found in The Battlefords News-Optimist speak for themselves:

“Is there an epidemic of E. coli outbreaks? Turns out there’s not,”

“We had some great Canadian beef for lunch. I don’t know where it came from; I don’t care. I know it’s good, I know it’s safe. You have to handle it and cook it properly. Certainly, we’ve identified some anomalies in the XL plant, we’ve addressed those in the proper way based on science, based on international protocols and we’ll continue to do that and work our way out of this.”

While Canadians concerns grow and the E coli illness numbers increase the Agriculture Minister is busy sugar coating the largest beef recall in Canadian history.