The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has significantly improved inspection of imported food since an internal audit found serious gaps in import inspection, a senior CFIA official said last week.
This autumn, the agency’s chief auditor said inspection of imported food does not have enough rigour to assure consumer safety.
“In my opinion, CFIA management of imported food safety has deficiencies that represent multiple areas of risk exposure requiring significant improvements related to the governance, control and risk management processes,” agency chief audit executive Peter Everson said.
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On Nov. 18 during an appearance before the House of Commons agriculture committee, CFIA associate vice-president for programs Paul Mayers said improvements have been made.
The government announced a $223 million five-year fund in the Food and Consumer Safety Action Plan that targets imported food.
He said in 2009 and 2010, CFIA and Canadian Border Services Agency conducted 62 “border blitzes” to inspect food imports.
“The audit forms an important part of our continuous improvement and we’ve responded to its findings in terms of improving our controls in terms of imported foods,” he said.
Mayers said part of the government focus in spending the $223 million is on funding “on-the-ground inspection.” He could not say how many inspectors have been hired to deal with imported food.
CFIA auditor Everson said the agency had no comprehensive system in place to make certain imports are safe.
“While initial foreign country equivalency assessments were conducted with some countries (for example, United States), periodic foreign country equivalency audits are only partially delivered and no foreign country equivalency controls are in place for food commodity programs other than meat, fish and seafood and egg,” he wrote.
