The professional misconduct hearing of western Ontario veterinarian Ken Metzger came to an abrupt end earlier this month with the vet admitting to wrongdoing. But the issue of what a veterinarian must do to treat animals properly in large-scale farm operations according to provincial law remains open, his lawyer says.Ken Metzger, of Linwood-based Metzger Veterinary Services, likely the biggest food-animal practice in the province, pleaded guilty to four charges brought against him by his professional governing body, the College of Veterinarians of Ontario.
Allegations Metzger admitted to included failure to maintain adequate records, failure to supervise an auxiliary, and breaking an undertaking signed by him in May, 1993. Viewed as most important was failure to develop a proper veterinarian-client-patient relationship, known to vets as a VCPR.
Metzger's lawyer, Keith Millikin, Guelph, says it is clear that Metzger and other large animal vets must do more to establish proper VCPR before they can prescribe drugs for animals. A single trip to a farm, apparently, isn't enough. Millikin says that "everyone knew that an over-the-counter dispensation" was wrong. But now it is clear that "a sale to a client on the farm is not necessarily sufficient unless you have sufficient familiarity with the operation, especially with the animals to be treated.
"That may mean that farmers will have to accept more involvement on our part or on the part of other vets," Millikin says. But it remains unclear as to what exactly is enough to establish the proper relationship between vets, farmers and treated animals. This is likely to become more clear as Metzger's clinic undergoes scrutiny during the next 17 months as part of the probation period set by the college.
Metzger also faces a suspension of his practice for between seven and a half months and a year, beginning September, 1996. The length of his suspension depends on how well he meets provincial standards during the early part of the probation period which begins in April of this year and ends in September, 1997. During that time, a senior veterinarian will monitor Metzger's practice at a cost to Metzger of as much as $1,800 a month. He must also pay the College of Veterinarians of Ontario $5,000 for its legal costs before Aug. 1 of this year.
The guilty plea was entered at a discipline committee hearing in Guelph Feb. 12. Metzger was not present.
At the hearing Millikin read Metzger's apology for commenting negatively upon the integrity and fairness of the regulatory process and breaching advertising regulations.
Three other allegations -soliciting the patronage of professional services, treating animals under another veterinarian's care, and knowingly dispensing drugs for resale without establishing that problematic veterinarian-client-patient relationship were dismissed.
"From our perspective, it is important that the college agreed to dismiss the action with respect to soliciting clientele," relating to Metzger's purchase of a large quantity of the popular Resvac live vaccine for BVD, Millikin says. "By agreeing to dismiss that they can never bring that back up again."
"Nothing affects the pricing policy" of drugs and services from Metzger's clinic, Millikin says. "What we were doing before, we are not prevented from doing now."
John Henry, registrar of the college, says "I think it is an indication that the profession is capable of regulating itself."
A respected livestock operator in Huron county, who would comment only on the grounds of remaining anonymous, thinks Metzger won his battle, in spite of the guilty plea, the fines and probation.
"I think you are going to see that the code of ethics [for veterinarians] is rewritten out of this," he said. - DS
Beef cattle database on the way
By DON STONEMAN
The Ontario Cattlemen's Association (OCA) has signed an agreement with the Canadian Farm Business Management Council (CFBMC) to develop a Canadian beef cattle information base. Electronic access to information on beef production will help cover the gaps expected to be created as cutbacks close down county agriculture offices across the province, says Harvey Graham, Blackstock, president of the OCA.Farmers with suitable home computers and a modem will be able to access technical bulletins, fact sheets, research summaries and articles related to beef production in Canada.
Graham says cattlemen will be able to get beef cattle production information quickly and efficiently. And they will be able to research solutions to problems that they encounter in their production systems.
The demand for this service comes from beef producers, Graham says. Few of them go into town to the county agriculture office to get production information, he says. They either have it mailed or faxed.
The OCA got a $12,500 grant from the CFBMC for this project in 1995 and 1996 and will seek a similar grant for the following year to complete the project.
Brian Bell, Ontario agriculture ministry beef and dairy adviser in Sault Ste. Marie will act as a technical co-ordinator. He will gather, review and select material for the CD-ROM database. Completion is scheduled for the fall of 1996.
Farmers who don't have a home computer will be able to access information at 271 Internet sites across Canada. Crysler-area farmer Dorothy Middleton, CFBMC, says these sites are the key into the Internet for farmers who don't otherwise have access. "It is breaking down barriers," she says.
She cites the Internet site at the Alternative School in Winchester, Dundas county, as an example. Each site was established on a $30,000 grant from Industry Canada, with matching funds coming from the community. There is also a dairy data base, she says.
Chris Freiburger, Walkerton, now accesses U.S. production information from the Internet to help run his 1,000-head-capacity finishing feedlot, and would like to get information and research with Canadian context, because the same products and technology aren't always available here in Canada.
There are no current plans to put the beef data base on the Internet, Brian Bell says. "We don't have the expectation to maintain and run a web site."
By DON STONEMAN
Beef packers, deli meat-makers and supermarket meat buyers are talking to each other. That's good for beef producers.It means that they are buying as well, and further processors likely won't be seeking supplementary beef import quotas this year as markets for Canadian beef open up right here at home "A bunch of myths had been exploded," says meat industry consultant Paul MacInnes, who chaired the recent discussions of a beef industry committee assembled by Federal Agriculture Minister Ralph Goodale last year.
Imports peaked at 114,000 tonnes two years ago. Last year they totalled just over 86,000 tonnes. "Talk in the industry is we might not even be able to reach 76,409," MacInnes says, referring to the level at which imports are capped unless supplementary import quotas are invoked.
He goes even further, saying that Canadian domestic products could displace the 76,000 tonnes that are now sold here by offshore suppliers. That is equal to the 75,000 tonnes that the Canadian Beef Export Federation hopes to put into Japan in the year 2000.
It's good news to Brooks, Alta., rancher Dave Andrews, Canadian Cattlemen's Association trade committee chairman. "We knew we had the cattle available that would produce the product," he says. "We were mystified as to why we had to bring in this offshore stuff."
The committee that federal Agriculture Minister Ralph Goodale set up to deal with the problem worked very well in breaking down the barriers, Andrews says.
He and MacInnes agree that the ball is in the court of beef packers and boners, the plants that kill cows.
The report from the committee Andrews sat on and MacInnes chaired showed that two distinctly different types of beef are being imported into Canada. One type is grinding beef, which can be substituted for by Canadian cow boners, if the fat content is right. The other is lean meat from youthful New Zealand and Australian cattle. It goes into the delicatessen meat trade, but Canadian packers can fill that market too, if the meat is lean enough and the cuts are uniform in size.
The timing is perfect. There's a shortfall in beef production in Australia because of drought. And there is a bulge in the supply of cows going to slaughter as the cattle cycle in North America goes into 18 to 24 months of liquidation to bring supplies into line with demand. Before, culled dairy and beef cows in Ontario had been shipped to the U.S. because the demand for grinding meat was being served by offshore suppliers. "I think we can cut that live cattle trade off almost entirely if we do this right," Andrews says.
MacInnes' committee found that, since last May, supermarket buyers didn't want Canadian-produced ground beef because they felt it didn't meet standards. Bacterial counts were considered to be too high, and fat content varied too much from one 60-pound box to the next.
This is crucial for supermarket operators who grind one box at a time for the meat counter. If meat is fatter than the label says, they face charges from federal inspectors.
The proof is in the big meat users who used to buy exclusively offshore beef and are now using domestic sources.
A year ago, Wayne Holland, buyer for J.D. Sweid Ltd., the largest deli meat maker in British Columbia, wouldn't buy any Canadian cuts, MacInnes says. "Canadian suppliers weren't even calling him."
Now all of Sweid's beef purchases are domestic product. National Grocers, suppliers to Loblaws, Zehrs, and other supermarket chains had refused to buy Canadian ground beef. Loblaws is now happy with the bacteria levels, but there is still some work to be done on consistency of fat content, MacInnes says. It is buying beef from MGI Packers Inc., of Kitchener. MGI's buyer, Mark Ishoy, sat on the beef industry trade and development committee.
MacInnes gives full marks to Ron Usborne, Caravelle Foods, who sat on the committee. Usborne, a former University of Guelph professor, served as an independent scientific adviser and had the respect of all the participants, MacInnes says.
He also gave credit to the good management of import quotas by the federal trade department. They are administered in such a way that National Grocers won't lose its share of imports if it takes a chance on testing domestic beef.
All this extra business doesn't mean that cattle prices are going to go up. The beef industry is about to go through a radical change in the next year as huge beef packing plants in Alberta go to double shifts, warns Graeme Hedley, Ontario Cattlemen's Association general manager.
The double shifting at Cargill's High River plant and Lakeside Farm Industries Ltd., now owned by American packing Giant IBP, means that about 750,000 head of feedlot cattle that used to be exported to the U.S. and killed there will be processed in Canada instead.
Kill numbers will go up and the supply of carcasses will increase dramatically a year from now, Hedley says. The beef could be processed here, and jobs kept here in Canada. A substantial amount of imported cuts from offshore could be displaced, Hedley says.
More beef raised and slaughtered in Western Canada could displace some of the beef in Eastern Canada that has come in from the U.S.
Certainly the cattle that are fed here will be killed here, Hedley says. But there will be more competition created in the meat trade in this country.
Beef will flow to the highest price. It could be to Eastern Canada or the U.S. and displace offshore imported product. "If we get a price differential between single A and double A marbled cattle, it makes single A hip cuts more competitive with the imported product and we can move it into the processing trade," Hedley says.