Shirley McClellan Ought To Resign

By Alan Clark

(July 20, 2003)

    For all k.d. Lang has accomplished, her "beef stinks" comment brought her to the attention of many more Albertans than her enjoyable style of crooning ever did. And for all the vilification that was wrought upon poor k.d. following her comment, she really didn't have any effect on Alberta's multi-billion dollar beef industry. The same cannot be said of Shirley McClellan, Deputy-premier and Alberta Minister of Agriculture. Shirley McClellan has brought utter devastation to the beef industry, not only in Alberta but across Canada. Shirley McClellan, Canadian Agri-Minister Lyle Vanclief, and all their provincial counterparts are incompetents who should jointly and severally, resign.

    Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy or BSE or Mad-Cow disease, is nothing new. Scientists and legislators have known of this disease since at least 1987. So far the reaction of governments has been to confiscate and eradicate any animals which are believed to have come into contact with other infected animals. In the most recent out-break, this has been exactly the action taken by Alberta and Canadian officials. As usual, our elected officials have done nothing to prevent the disaster and are now patting themselves on the back for doing such a great job of handing out tax-payer's money to those in the industry who have been wiped-out as a result of government incompetence. If the British experience is to be replayed in Canada, then the few cheques being mailed out now are just the tip of the iceberg. British costs to the tax-payer have already exceeded C$9.4 billion.

    While handing out cheques seems to be the only function of government anymore, the reality is, if they had only looked at the scientific data and acted, as opposed to reacting, they could have eliminated this whole affair before it ever got started. Shirley McClellan needed only two facts to act: 1) The incubation period for BSE is between 4 and 8 years making the disease virtually undetectable in cattle before the age of 4 years and; 2) Alberta's cattle industry slaughters over 95 percent of beef cattle before the age of 20 months. Armed with these two facts, the Alberta Agriculture Minister could easily have made a pro-active law which simply stated that no cattle shall be sold for slaughter after the age of three years. There would have been minimal impact on the industry. Instead, Shirley McClellan did nothing. She simply sat in her office waiting for the industry's inevitable collapse.

    If Shirley McClellan ever had anything nasty to say about k.d Lang's harmless comments about beef, then she owes Ms. Lang an apology. Shirley McClellan has presided over the wholly preventable devastation of one of Alberta's corner-stone industries, one which brought over $10 million daily to our economy. For that she owes us her resignation.