IT SHOULD not happen to a Canadian. The nation that likes to see itself as a North American Scandinavia — squeaky clean, politically correct and happy to offer well-meant advice to others — is reeling under the twin blows of a new Sars outbreak and a case of “mad cow” disease.

As if it was not bad enough to be the Sars capital of the Western world, the indignity of having the US refuse to import its beef has thrown Canadians into a bout of anxious introspection. “It’s not good news. I don’t think there’s any way we can dress it up,” John Manley, the Canadian Finance Minister, said.

“One has to wonder what the gods are going to throw at us next,” commented a gloomy Marc Levesque, a senior economist at the Toronto-Dominion Bank.

Toronto’s mayor, Mel Lastman, said: “I thought we had everything wrapped up, and now this.” The city had even launched its own advertising campaign, with the slogan: “Come to T.O. (Toronto, Ontario) It’s safe to come.”

The city is still deciding whether it will pull the advertisements that it was planning to run on US television this week. The latest outbreak will be beaten, the mayor insisted. “We are going to make Toronto safe.”

Jean Chrétien, the Canadian Prime Minister, and Ralph Klein, the Premier of Alberta, took a leaf from John Selwyn Gummer’s book and decided to demonstrate their confidence in Canadian beef by eating it in public. Chrétien chose steak, but Klein went the full-Gummer and munched a burger.

Across the immensity of Canada, a few dozen people falling ill in Toronto and a cow keeling over in Alberta ought not to cause a national crisis. But this is to overlook the paper-thin self-confidence of Canadians, and the importance to them of the beef industry.

When Sars first hit Toronto, it was simply bad luck. Travellers from Hong Kong had landed and spread the infection before it was realised how easily it could be caught and what precautions were needed to control it.

The US was luckier. By the time its first Sars cases arrived it had learnt from others’ experiences and can now look north with something of a smug expression. Nobody has died of Sars in the US, despite its rickety healthcare system. In well-managed Canada, 27 have died — the only place outside Asia where anybody has died from the disease.

But the news of a further 33 possible cases is particularly wounding. When the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggested in April that travellers should avoid Toronto, it was subjected to a withering blast of Canadian indignation.

Toronto was safe, insisted its mayor, and the WHO lifted its advice 12 days ago. But on Thursday officials said that they were investigating several more possible cases.

Over the weekend the number rose to 33, and 500 people were sent into quarantine. “We’re treating them as Sars. We’re isolating their contacts. We’re isolating them in hospital because we’re working to wrestle this one down to the ground,” Colin D’Cunha, Ontario’s commissioner of health, said.

The “mad cow” case is more puzzling and potentially even more damaging. Canada had a single case of “mad cow” disease before, in 1993, but that was in a cow imported from Britain so the blame was easily shifted.

This time, the Angus cow appears to have been Canadian born and bred. It was slaughtered in January, when it appeared to be unwell. Inspectors deemed it unfit for human consumption and kept its brain for testing.

On Tuesday, the results of the tests were published, confirming that the animal had bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), better known as “mad cow” disease.

More than 100 head of cattle from the farm where the affected cow last lived have been slaughtered, and 16 farms — 11 in Alberta, three in British Columbia and two in Saskatchewan — have been quarantined. Animal-protein feed, in which cows were fed on the reprocessed remains of other cows, was the main transmission route for BSE among British cattle. It has been banned in Canada since 1997. But there were reports over the weekend that the remains of the Alberta cow were reprocessed into chicken feed — which is legal — and then fed to cows on three British Columbia farms, which is not.

How the cow caught BSE remains to be discovered. It is possible that it arose spontaneously, as may have happened in Britain, too. If so, the ban on recycling animal carcasses to ruminants will have avoided a national disaster in Canada on the same scale as in Britain, where BSE cost at least £4 billion.

A second, more sinister, possibility is that it might have transmitted from deer and elk, which suffer a similar spongiform disease widespread in wild herds in the American Midwest, with a few cases in Saskatchewan and Alberta, but there is no evidence that it can transmit to cattle or to human beings.

When the steaks are high

Politicians seldom like to be photographed eating. It makes them look greedy and risks embarrassment. But even the most spin-conscious politicians will make an exception if the stakes — or, in Canada, the steaks — are high.

The current determination to court publicity began with Sars. Jean Chrétien, the Canadian Prime Minister, and Ernie Eves, the Ontario Premier, rushed to a Chinese restaurant to tuck into chow mein and show that the community need not be ostracised.

Last week it was BSE. Chrétien (again) and Ralph Klein, Alberta Premier, demonstrated their faith in Canadian beef in the most public way possible, by eating it.

Were they wise? In May 1990, John Selwyn Gummer, Minister of Agriculture at the time, attempted to demonstrate the safety of British beef by feeding a hamburger to his daughter Cordelia.

Six years later British beef was shown to be the cause of a disease which has now killed more than 100 people. All that anybody now remembers about Mr Gummer’s long career in politics is that picture. A picture can leave a nasty taste.

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