Nunavummiut can now access restaurant health inspection reports

People in Nunavut can now access health inspection reports on demand.

On Friday, Nunavut's health department launched the first iteration of its publicly accessible inspection database. Until now, the territory was the only jurisdiction in Canada that didn't have health inspections readily available for the public to view.

While the territory conducts environmental health inspections of a wide array of venues — everything from restaurants to school cafeterias, arenas to wastewater treatment plants — only results from food establishments will be available to view, for now.

Inspection results will be published online and sorted by community in a spreadsheet. They'll then be colour-coded into green, yellow and red.

"Green means no infractions, yellow indicates there are minor infractions and red indicates there are severe infractions," said Nunavut's acting chief public health officer Dr. Ekua Agyemang.

"We believe that posting these results online, along with visibly posted permits, will reassure Nunavummiut that these food institutions meet food safety standards."

Agyemang says copies of the full inspection report won't be immediately available, because the department is still working with the software company on having them translated in Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun — which is also why only results from food establishment reports are available for now.

"I think it allows for greater transparency, especially with the department of health and the community," said Desree Gammon, one of Nunavut's four environmental health officers who conduct the inspections across the territory.

"They can see that we're working to make sure that they're safe, and they also have the power to decide where they eat. They can go and check themselves to see whether the place they frequent is up to code."

A screenshot from Nunavut's new health inspection database, launched on June 14. (Nunavut department of health)

Gammon says the department aims to inspect various establishments across Nunavut twice a year. Most infractions she finds are minor, she said, and are corrected on the spot at the time of inspection.

"If there is something that's going to be a detriment to the community's health and safety, we will stop it. And we don't leave until it's corrected," she said.

With the colour-coding system, "you may see some facilities that are colour coded as yellow, but they've been given time to correct these infractions and they may not be something that would adversely impact their health."

Results from health inspections across Nunavut are now readily available to the public. Previously, reports were only accessible through access-to-information requests, like these documents CBC News obtained as part of a 2016 investigation into the issue. (Nick Murray/CBC)

New regulations were the last hurdle

The launch of the territory's first such database comes almost eight years after a CBC News investigation found that Nunavummiut did not have immediate access to food inspection reports.

Until now, health inspection reports were only accessible through access-to-information requests. Some of the barriers the Nunavut government faced in publicizing them over the years included not having the capacity to post them, the technology to digitize them or the ability to translate them. Until recently, most inspection reports were handwritten.

The final hurdle the government cleared in order to start publishing the reports happened in May, when new food safety regulations came into effect under the territory's Public Health Act.

The new regulations also included language where any member of the public can be provided a copy of an inspection report upon a request to the chief public health officer.

Food operators must also "conspicuously" display information detailing where the public can access the published reports, and the process for requesting a physical copy.

The regulations also require all food-related establishments to have a permit to operate, though Nunavummiut who sell food at bake sales, community markets or from their home kitchens won't need a permit if the food they're preparing is identified as "low risk."