Buttergeit

[myata]

And here it goes: it never happened and yet again. Concerns expressed about palm oil in Canadian dairy products.

Not going to discuss moral contracts and obligations, only how and why it came about.

And it came about when a concerned citizen, a cookbook author asked on Twitter "have you noticed something unusual here" that was immediately echoed by hundreds of consumers.

Apparently the demand for the dairy products has gone up significantly, and the industry had to ramp up quickly and there's a quick and cheap way of increasing milk production quickly and there we go but this is not about the private industry.

It's about Food Canada, Safety Canada, Public Administration Canada and so on, Canada and have we heard anything from them on the matter, before a concerned citizen noticed something unusual? Have you heard anything at all?

And so we go, yet again: first, the citizens pay for significant subsidies to the industry. Then we pay large budgets of the public oversight and control bodies that (supposedly) were tasked with protecting PUBLIC interest and health and safety of the CITIZENS. And then we pay for the third time for product with changed characteristics that someone (who I wonder?) was supposed to pronounce 1) safe and 2) satisfying the quality standards for the class and type of product.

Isn't this becoming a standard pattern with any public service in this country: the public spends huge budgets, without questions, conditions and upfront; all goes into the deep bureaucratic black box; and in the output after decades and hiccups it may get a result. Some. Something. And sometimes.

It may have been like this for the last 150 years and why fix something that's "working"? Ok. But will it work as well for the next 150? Or even thirty?

 

[myata]

Yesterday a representative of the union of public workers was on air defending possible inefficiencies in procuring large amounts of IT products when public service started working from home in the early period of the epidemics. Sure, a heroic achievement and millions of (taxpayer) dollars successfully consumed. Done. Cheers. High five!

Only one minor problem, forgot about the palm oil, the buttergeit. Otherwise all is moving fine and smoothly and management bonuses are coming in as usual. It knows very well how to take care of itself, even buying ahead huge stocks of outdated iPhones for itself at a trifle "saving" to the taxpayer. And everything else, as usual. A huge bureaucratic system that runs itself, takes care of itself and modernizes itself. How could it go wrong?

[OftenWrong]

11 hours ago, myata said:

It may have been like this for the last 150 years and why fix something that's "working"? Ok. But will it work as well for the next 150? Or even thirty?

I don't think it was like this for the last 150 years. We didn't have the miracle of modern food chemistry for one. Cows were milked by hand. The last 150 years were probably more like  golden age than where we are headed for now. The end of the line. The end of the street.

"Maid of moo, now that we meet, here at the end of this old street,

here at the end of this old race,

Maid of moo, how sweet, how sweet!

But lo, the Garbage Truck cometh!"