Calling for the resignation of a cabinet minister is the easiest gambit for any opposition.

It is also the laziest, most knee-jerk substitute for substantive debate and until ministers start standing in their place and accepting opposition counsel to end their political career, it is merely part of the daily Ottawa charade.

Shout “resign” too often and too loudly and the already diminished currency of the demand is totally devalued.

Tom Mulcair knows this.

So when the NDP leader rose last week to call for the resignation of Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz, it was something worth listening to, because Mulcair has been consistent on two matters — the principle of ministerial responsibility — and his aversion to that reflexive opposition call for resignations.

Since assuming his role as opposition leader last spring, Mulcair has pushed Stephen Harper ministers to assume responsibility of their file, most notably Defence Minister Peter MacKay on the F-35 debacle.

But this was the first time he demanded a minister step aside.

The fallout from the tainted beef scandal continued over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Ten people, from Alberta to Newfoundland, are ill or recovering. Almost 2,000 products have been recalled, making it the largest beef recall in Canadian history.

The severe financial repercussions for the Alberta beef industry have already begun.

So, where does the food chain and the political chain intersect?

Ritz is just the most recent reminder that the problem is often not the act, but the reaction, and in this case, he failed Canadians.

No one expects Ritz to micromanage the XL Foods plant in Brooks, Alta., the epicentre of this crisis.

This is also not the listeriosis breakout of 2008 which took 20 lives, certainly not the tainted water scandal of Walkerton.

But it is also not over yet.

It is, however, much more than Ritz (and much of the national media) deemed it initially.

Ritz initially denied there was a problem and fell to the usual Harper government fallback of defending industry when it should have been reassuring consumers.

When it became clear there was a problem, he disappeared.

He was not in the House of Commons to rebuild confidence in consumers, or take questions, he blithely defended meat quality at a Saskatchewan luncheon as the crisis grew, he cut short a briefing in which he referred to anything that knocked him off his talking points as a “technical question.’’

He returned to Ottawa only last Thursday — and did answer questions for two days — but then refused interview requests and ducked all the major political talk shows over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Mulcair and the NDP methodically built a case.

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They reminded Canadians of the listeriosis crisis four years ago, and Ritz’s failed career as a comic when he referred to the crisis as “death by a thousand cuts ... or should I say cold cuts.’’

When told that someone had died in Prince Edward Island, he jokingly expressed his hope that it was Conservative tormenter Wayne Easter, a Liberal MP from the province.

Finally, last Thursday, Mulcair accused Ritz of doing nothing to change the system for four years, of withholding information from Canadians, of falling behind the American system in flagging a problem.

“That represents a serious breach of ethics and ministerial responsibility. The minister of agriculture has no other choice — he must step down.’’ Mulcair said.

The beef scandal broke almost 27 years to the day of the most celebrated tainted food scandal to ever hit the Canadian Parliament, the tainted tuna scandal which cost Progressive Conservative Fisheries Minister John Fraser his job.

Fraser’s resignation came at a different time in Canadian politics, however.

He was out of a job days after the story was broken by CBC’s the fifth estate, even though, as it turns out, no one was sickened by the tuna he allowed to get to supermarket shelves.

But in that day, ministerial responsibility meant something. It was not some abstract argument from the opposition benches.

Despite his calls for the principle to apply in 2012, Mulcair is likely harkening back to an era lost to the mists of nostalgia.

Ritz will keep his job, or at very least, he is safe as long as he in the crosshairs.

Ministerial responsibility is not the logical outgrowth of the need to point fingers and draw blood.

It is an underlying principle of our system that says the responsibility to protect starts and ends with the minister.

Tim Harper is a national affairs writer. His column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. tharper@thestar.ca