A few days ago, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) issued a restricted license to XL Foods' Brooks, Alberta facility, allowing processing about 5,100 carcasses that were in the plant at the time of its closure due to E. coli bacteria contaminated ground beef. Now the CFIA announced that if XL Foods' control plan works effectively and consistently, they would permit the facility to resume its normal operations - even before the end of the week.

"The speed at which XL Foods Inc. begins normal operations is solely dependent on their ability to demonstrate that they can produce safe food," CFIA said in a statement Saturday. "We are ready to continue our assessment as soon as the company resumes activities."

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The Brooks facility that slaughters cattle and processes beef is the center of one of the biggest meat recalls in Canadian history, with millions of pounds of beef suspected to be contaminated. XL Foods also stirred up discussion over the weekend after an announcement of having to lay off about 2,000 plant employees due to "uncertainty" from CFIA over a timeline when they could resume normal operations.