Education over enforcement: Government prefers not to shut down Nunavut restaurants

The Government of Nunavut has been working for a year to make food inspection reports available online, but says it just doesn't have the means to do it yet.

Nunavut is the only jurisdiction in Canada where health inspections aren't readily available to the public. It took CBC News an Access to Information request to obtain them.

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"We don't have the capacity to do that," said Michele LeBlanc-Havard, an environmental health specialist with the GN.

"But we've made it a priority and we are looking at an online system. We've invested in the software and the hardware."

An analysis of inspections from 2014 and 2015 found two-thirds of those inspections passed without any violations.

Still, the GN doesn't make a point to inform the public one way or the other. Toronto's DineSafe program, for instance, posts the latest inspection near a restaurant's main entrance, with a green-yellow-red poster depending on how the inspection went.

"We haven't done that and we haven't really had the capacity to do that," LeBland-Havard said.

"Most of the restaurants that you can compare to the south are in Iqaluit. The communities tend not to have full-scale restaurants outside of the hotels, and then those particular establishments are very well controlled in terms of food safety."

Education better than enforcement

When it comes to restaurants that have health violations, the Government of Nunavut's approach is education is better than forcing a place to close down.

"That pays far greater dividends in the long run for the public's own health," LeBlanc-Havard said.

"I've been in an organization where we write tickets and do closures, and what you typically find in those situations is you don't get a lot of compliance. So you're much better off getting people on side and being educated, and changing their behaviour."

LeBlanc-Havard says she doesn't think the GN has forced an operator to close a restaurant within the last three years, but said some restaurants have voluntarily closed down so its staff can take food safety courses offered by the GN, for free.

A formal food safety plan at Baffin Deli

The most prominent example of education over enforcement occurred at Iqaluit's Baffin Deli in 2014 and 2015.

Food inspections from that timeframe showed inspectors recommended Baffin Deli not be issued a business licence because of the severity of its violations.

The deli never closed and its business licence was never suspended by the City of Iqaluit, but the deli did put together a formal food safety plan — at the direction of the Department of Health — and deli staff attended a food safety course. By May 2015, inspectors noted a big improvement.

LeBlanc-Havard wouldn't comment on any specific establishment, but said for a restaurant to be shut down by the GN, there would have to be a number of "very high-risk" repeat infractions.

"In environmental health, we do everything risk-based," LeBlanc-Havard said.

"So if we find an issue or a problem, we speak to an operator, corrective action is taken, and if it's something that puts the public at immediate risk, then that stops immediately, and then we get compliance and we feel confident the public isn't at risk.

"I think that's the only reason we haven't issued a public service announcement or a public health advisory, because we felt the corrective action was significant and meaningful enough not to put the public at risk."

Why not deny the licence? 

Following CBC's initial report on Nunavut food establishment inspections, some Iqalungmiut took to Twitter to ask why the City of Iqaluit didn't shut down the deli itself.

Mayor Madeleine Redfern tried to provide some context, though the violations happened before she took office. The City of Iqaluit declined CBC's request for an interview.