Serious gaps exist in the ability of the Canadian Food Inspection
Agency to ensure the safety of Canadian food, an influential
parliamentary committee has concluded. A report to Parliament from the
House of Commons public accounts committee says the agency is weak in
two key ways:
- Follow-up CFIA compliance investigations and enforcement for food
plants found in contravention of food safety rules is haphazard.
- The federal agency has too little control over the often
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less-than-adequate performance of food plants producing for local or
provincial markets and regulated by municipal or provincial governments
rather than federal authority.
“Given the agency’s commitment to protect the health and safety of all
Canadians, it is of paramount importance that all efforts be undertaken
to correct both these serious weaknesses to the federal food inspection
programs,” said the committee chaired by Canadian Alliance Alberta MP
John Williams.
The committee, after hearing testimony from officials of the federal
auditor general’s department and the CFIA, acknowledged the agency has
made progress in recruiting new inspectors and in trying to ensure the
food sold to Canadians is as safe as possible.
However, it said there is disturbing evidence that the CFIA does not
always make sure plants it finds operating at less than federal
standards are making amends.
“In a review of a sample of inspection files on establishments that had
either recalled food or been prosecuted in the past two years, cases
were found where compliance actions were insufficient to achieve timely
correction of the problem, either because of limitations in the
legislation or failure by the inspector to take more serious compliance
action,” said the report.
It told the federal agency to strengthen its auditing role, to strongly
follow up actions in underperforming plants and to present an
implementation plan and results for the current fiscal year.
The issue of federal control over non-federally regulated food and meat
packing plants is more vexing and constitutionally complicated.
Plants producing food for sale only within local or provincial markets
are regulated by provincial or municipal governments, and have lower
standards than national or international markets require. Plants
producing for interprovincial or international markets face CFIA
inspection.
The public accounts committee and several generations of auditors
general have said such jurisdictional niceties are irrelevant when it
comes to food safety.
The CFIA and the federal government have insisted that while federal
and provincial governments co-operate on food safety issues, the
federal agency has no jurisdiction over provincial or municipal plants.
The all-party committee called for a more aggressive CFIA plan to
negotiate rules with provinces and to report to Parliament by March 31,
2003, on how it will do better. The federal government is required to
formally respond to the committee’s recommendations this year.
