The federal government is proposing to relax meat packing plant regulations to make compliance less expensive and to make it easier for provincially registered plants to seek federal registration.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says food safety standards would not be affected.
“Pursuing the proposed amendments would provide greater flexibility to federally registered establishments in how they might meet regulatory requirements while removing some redundant and overly prescriptive non-food safety requirements currently constituting irritants to the sector,” the CFIA said.
The regulatory changes are partly a response to a 2011 decision by federal and provincial agriculture ministers to look for ways to allow provincially registered packing plants to export product across provincial boundaries.
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The federal government leans heavily on producers to “take one for the team” and risk their livelihoods without any reassurance of support.
The rules now allow cross-border trade, nationally or internationally, only from federally regulated plants.
It first appeared that the ministers were suggesting rules that would allow inter-provincial exports from provincial plants but not out of the country.
The Canadian Meat Council, which represents more than 700 federally registered plants, objected and the CFIA compromise is to make it easier to qualify as a federally registered plant but not to set up two tiers.
“CFIA had the option to do plants that are just inter-provincial but their decision was to have just one federal system and we agree with that,” said Ron Davidson, the council’s government and media relations director.
Still, the council has raised issues with the CFIA about the proposals, including whether foreign countries that buy Canadian meat products agree with the proposed changes.
“We have asked for quite a number of clarifications, elaborations and assurances,” said Davidson. “We have not said we accept or oppose them. We seek information.”
The proposed changes would allow processing of game for the hunter in federal plants and change rules about the space needed to separate the handling of edible and inedible products.
Still, the CFIA said upgrading to federal status could cost up to $1 million per provincial plant .
