Danielle Smith is calling her meat tweet a mistake.
Over the weekend the Wildrose leader agreed with a suggestion that potentially tainted beef be served to the province’s “hungry.”
About 1 million pounds of beef from XL Foods was dumped in a landfill near Brooks on Sunday.
On Monday Smith admitted she shouldn’t have made the comment.
“If you can’t explain something in 140 characters, then you shouldn’t try to talk about it on Twitter. So I’ve learned a lesson there,” she said.
She also defended her stance insisting the disposal is a waste.
“There’s been a lack of communication and so I don’t think it’s well understood that we did have 5.5 million kilograms of meat that was certified by the CFIA as being cleared of E. coli. That was what we were talking about,” she stated.
The comments sparked discussions between many Albertans Sunday with people falling on both sides of the issue.
NDP leader Brian Mason took to twitter to announce his disgust at the suggestion.
“I'm appalled that a public official would suggest feeding tainted meet to ABans living in poverty,” he posted.
Hope Mission volunteer Brady Ciochetti told CTV Edmonton he was offended by the suggestion.
“Because she already knows it’s tainted,” he explained.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency did confirm that there was a process to treat tainted beef.
“That high temperature treatment is an establish process for dealing with contaminated product and it ensures that all of the bacteria are destroyed,” CFIA spokesperson Lisa Gaultier told CTV Edmonton.
Either way, Smith said the main focus now needs to be on getting the plant to reopen.
12 million pounds of recalled beef will be destroyed in total at the request of the company.
With files from Sean Amato
