At least two to three times a year Public Health Inspector walks in unannounced into a premise that handles food with the purpose of assisting to prevent and reduce foodborne illness.

Bound to do their job, inspectors can note any infractions during the inspection expecting food operators to correct violations immediately or even force business to shut down the food premises.

“Of course I get scared when they walk in,” said Anju Chopra when asked about the announced inspections.

“First we get scared but we have to confident with what we do,” she added. Chopra has been working as a supervisor at the 80 Rideau street Tim Hortons location for 9 years.

Infractions

Two types infractions are observed during inspections; ‘critical’ infraction, which often presents an immediate or potential health risk required to be corrected immediately, and; a ‘non-critical’ infraction which presents a minimal health risk, often required to be corrected before next inspection.

Clicking on the double arrow to the left of the map produces two tabs: one for a summary, the other for the legend.

(Map showing Ottawa’s Tim Hortons’ as ‘Critical’ in blue spots as True and ‘non-critical’ infractions in red spots as False. Source: Ottawa Public Health)

For Tim Hortons, between the years 2015 and 2019 they received 133 ‘critical’ infractions while 258 were ‘non-critical’ according to the data provided by City of Ottawa from Public Health Inspections.

(Map showing infractions received by Tim Hortons in Ottawa between 2015 and 2019. Source: Ottawa Public Health)

 

Overall, Tim Hortons has the highest number of infractions since 2015, with a total of 391 infractions reported by Ottawa Public Health.

The second food operator with high number of infractions is Subway with 321, followed by McDonalds with 249 infractions.

(Map showing inspected food operators with violations in Ottawa. Source: Ottawa Public Health)

“There is a significant number of Tim Hortons establishments,” said Blayr Kelly, a supervisor with Public Health Inspections.

“To some degree that would make sense just from a numbers perspective and the number of inspections that would occur in Tim Hortons versus another one-off establishment,” she added.

Despite having such high numbers, Tim Hortons number of inspections and categorized infractions over the years have significantly dropped since 2015.

In 2015, Tim Hortons restaurants had a total of 97 infractions but slightly increased in 2016 with 111 infractions just that year. In 2019, Tim Hortons received 25, a difference of 72 infractions within four years.

Change in Policy  

The significant drop could have largely been contributed by the change in policy of the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations that was enforced on January 15, 2019.

Ottawa Public Health has reported that the fundamental changes to the regulations is licensing, preventive control and traceability.

Licensing allows food business owners to take certain actions through licensing such as taking responsive actions when non-compliant activities are found. Preventive Controls are protocols that must be met by all food businesses while traceability requires food operators to be able to trace how the food got to the customer and backward to the supplier.

Such change in regulations amongst others have set high standards in food safety says Martha Healey, founder of the Healey Law Office & Regulatory Consulting.

Even though there is so much at hand for food operators to be consistent with the regulations, Healey says that such regulations are needed to keep the public safe.

Healey also mentions the concerns food business owners have after receiving infractions is if they have done enough to make their food safe and if there is more they can do. “We want to work with the operators, owners and food owners,” said Kelly.

“It’s important that they have a strong understanding of the expectations that they have and what is needed of them to comply,” she added.

On the same matter, Chopra feels confident that their Tim Hortons is maintaining health and safety requirements, pointing out at the certificate they received after their last inspection on October 22.