Seven years after a newspaper series focused attention on restaurant inspection in Toronto, the local paper in the sleepy borough of Guelph, Ontario, 40 miles down the road, has seen fit to run a story about four local restaurants getting fined for food safety infractions.

It’s the first local coverage I can recall. And I lived there a long time.

In 2004 I had a student call the local health unit and ask for inspection information about a few Guelph restaurants. She was told to file a written request with the Board of Health and await a response in the mail; 4-6 weeks.

So while seemingly every jurisdiction in Canada and the U.S. was figuring out the best way to make restaurant inspection information public and meaningful — even Jessica Simpson, exactly as pictured, left,  gets it — the city of Guelph, Canada’s self-proclaimed food safety center, did what it does best — be a bureaucrat.