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A Global News investigation has revealed that restaurants in Nova Scotia can go up to six years without being inspected by the province’s regulators.

A key concept in the investigation is risk-based assessment, which determines how frequently restaurants will be examined by provincial inspectors.

Most provinces, including Nova Scotia, employ a risk-based assessment method.

Each establishment is labelled as high, medium, or low risk of leading to foodborne illnesses.

Risk is determined by a variety of factors, including the number of patrons the restaurant serves, the health of the people who are expected to eat there, what it serves and how food is prepared.

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High-risk restaurants are establishments that serve food to people that are immunodeficient, such as in hospitals or schools. A medium establishment would be a restaurant like McDonald’s, while a low-risk establishment would be something like a farmer’s market.

Nova Scotia is supposed to carry out an inspection every six months on high-risk locations — the longest time between inspections in Canada, where most provinces use a standard of every three or four months.

The province also has the most infrequent inspections for medium-risk restaurants, as provinces throughout Canada normally use a standard of every six months, while Nova Scotia uses every 12 months.

The only province that has a longer inspection frequency for low-risk establishments is Newfoundland, which inspects every 24 months.