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Earlier this week I was beyond happy to see an article, posted by Juilana L'Heureux, about a Vermont couple who make tourtières for their community every year around Christmas. The article should have been a feel-good promotion of our culture.
However, when I opened it, my heart sank, and dare I say my hackles went up. Directly below the title (and lovely pictures of the couple making their beloved tourtières) was a notice and link to a follow-up article about how the couple had been shut down by the Vermont Department of Agriculture based on some of the specifics in the article. While I understand the reasoning, it didn’t sit right. Something needs to change.
The reason they were shut down was simple and logical: They were selling a meat-based product without the commercial refrigeration and freezing requirements. Anyone can understand that. However, the issue of commercial regulations being applied to a personal, seasonal, cultural, community “thing” is where that simple logic goes out the window.
While money was exchanged, this was not a business. This was an activity; one that’s not specific to us. If we pick any ethnic culture, we can find examples of seasonal treats similar to our tourtière. And within those ethnic communities, we can find those individuals willing to make those treats for others. The individuals can not (and do not) meet commercial regulations. So why did “we” get shut down?
Because it was printed.
Due to the nature of my job, I’ve dealt with regulations for over 25 years. I’ve also dealt with their exceptions, both written and unwritten. I’ve come across no shortage of those implied, generally understood, exceptions that “technically” don’t fit but everyone seems to agree to, due to the nature of a specific situation.
The big factor that allows these types of exemptions to exist, is the fact that what is being exempted is never written. It’s generally understood by all parties (regulators included) that as long as it’s not officially happening, no one is forced to look into it and apply the rule.
In the case of TourtièreGate, the perfect storm occurred: a printed story, including all the key details, was put right in front of the “wrong” people. The Department of Agriculture HAD to acknowledge it, and do their job.
So what needs to change? Should feel-good cultural stories like this not exist? Non-sense, they absolutely should. It is NOT the publication’s fault this happened. Should the regulators be damned? No- they were doing their job. One that, for what it’s designed for, prevents mass illness. This was NOT the Department of Agriculture’s fault.
What needs to change is simple: the unwritten rules - the exceptions - need to become written. Unless we formally exempt certain limited cultural activities from commercial regulations, or at a minimum adjust them accordingly, we can pretty much snuff out those activities.
I’m not advocating for rogue gutting of regulations. I’m advocating realistic, individual, logic-based practices that go outside of the blanket regulations that are designed as catch-alls. That concept is simple, but the reality of determining those exemptions would be difficult.
But it needs to happen. Otherwise, cultural activities either exist in the shadows and/or disappear entirely. We don’t need a regulation to see how that would be a terrible thing.
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