A commercial cooking company pleaded guilty Thursday with four offenses to the pace after a huge epidemic of E. Coli to the Calgary daycare covered hundreds of sick children.
Fourling Minds Inc. was charged after the eight -week epidemic declared in September 2023.
There were at least 448 infections, and 39 children and an adult were hospitalized due to a serious illness.
The pleadings came to what had been planned as the first day of trial, and a joint submission of lawyers recommended a fine of $ 10,000.
Justice Mathieu St. Germain said he wanted to spend time to examine the facts and make a decision to determinate the sentence for May 27.
“As we know, this is an important question and it is necessary to receive appropriate care as you did to negotiate this agreement,” said the judge.
“Now it’s my turn to give him the same level of care and make a decision.”
Health officials said the main thing had provided breakfast, lunch and snacks to their own daycares as well as several separate daycare centers.
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The day after the declaration of the epidemic, the company was reported for three health violations, including a lack of appropriate disinfection methods, infestation of pests which included cockroaches and foods carried without temperature control.
A report last year said that the epidemic was probably linked to meat bread, but it could not be determined for sure if the bacteria came from a contaminated ingredient or something else.
The province also launched a third -party examination which made recommendations to better protect the health and safety of children in approved childcare services.
A declaration of facts agreed presented to the court indicates that during the food period of the spirits with four other daycares, from October 2022 and August 2023, he worked without commercial license for food services.
In 2021, an administrator of the company sent an e-mail to the Alberta Health Services requesting what steps were necessary to operate its food services but did not receive a response, said the court document.
“It has not been established that the feeding of the Minds to obtain a commercial license in food services caused the incident,” he said.
The lawyer to feed the spirits, Steve Major, told the court that his client took what happened very seriously. This is a first offense, he added, and the exact cause of the epidemic remains a mystery that must be examined in a separate trial.
“I implore the court here not to bring passion, emotion, venom … of this (civil) procedure,” said Major. “The break of E. coli is different from what this procedure is intended to approach, which is a failure to have a catering license,” said Major.
“Our client had a kitchen license. This place was not a popsicle stand in an alley … it was a commercial restaurant.
“It was an administrative box that was not checked.”
