The Canadian Food Inspection Agency bureaucracy is a major impediment to the government’s goal of expanding domestic packing plant capacity, opposition MPs alleged last week at the beginning of an attack on the agency that they promised to sustain through autumn.
From one of the early heroes of the BSE crisis, the federal agency is being portrayed in Ottawa as a growing problem.
In a campaign that a Conservative official said will continue and broaden in following weeks, MPs used the House of Commons question period and the Commons agriculture committee to accuse the CFIA of throwing unnecessary regulatory roadblocks in the path of potential new packing plants.
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They complained that CFIA rules on plant blueprints and minor structural issues have been impediments to investors.
“The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has hindered them at every turn, dragging out regulation after regulation,” southern Saskatchewan Conservative MP David Anderson said in the Commons Nov. 4.
“When will (agriculture minister Andy Mitchell) remove the CFIA as the industry’s main obstacle to increasing Canadian cull cow slaughter capacity?”
Mitchell promised the agency will become more responsive to industry needs but he defended its role in the system.
“We will not remove the CFIA from protecting the health and safety of Canadians,” he said.
“That is an absolute. There is a need at the same time to operate administratively efficiently and to operate in a way where we can encourage and work with proponents.”
Conservative MP Gerry Ritz complained about “CFIA minions’ unwarranted stalling of increased domestic slaughter capacity for cull cows that has nothing to do with health and safety but paving parking lots.”
At a committee meeting Nov. 4, Ritz tried to win unanimous approval for a motion that would reduce CFIA funding until it improved its performance.
It had broad support, including from some government MPs, but Liberal Wayne Easter blocked approval, insisting that while CFIA has had its problems, the government has instructed the agency to become more client -friendly.
“Cutting its funds is simply not going to accomplish anything.”
A Conservative official said no decision had been made late last week on re-introducing the CFIA motion in mid-November when Parliament resumes after its Nov. 8-12 Remembrance Day break.
“We may have made our point with the motion but we definitely plan to pursue the CFIA angle on a number of issues, trying to pry open some of the closet doors that they have had shut over there,” he said.
In the Commons Nov. 5, Alberta Conservative Leon Benoit picked up the theme, complaining that CFIA has blocked the construction of new locally owned packing plants.
“The government continues to be part of the problem instead of the solution,” the Vegreville-Wainwright MP said.
“In fact, how many plants has the CFIA approved in Western Canada in the 18 months since the BSE crisis hit? The answer is none.”
Easter, who is Mitchell’s parliamentary secretary and was substituting for the minister while he returned to his Ontario riding for the birth of his fourth child, said the CFIA understands the problem and will send officials to affected plants to speed approvals.
“The bottom line has to be the protection of the food and security of Canadians and in terms of our exports around the world,” he said.
In the early months of the BSE crisis, CFIA received only good reviews for its efforts to track down the infected cow and determine what had happened.
Since then, despite the government’s pledge that its BSE recovery program includes faster CFIA approvals, critics have said the agency has been an impediment, a stickler for rules on paved parking lots, the size of drain pipes and the location of lights in proposed new plants.
“The CFIA definitely is part of the problem,” New Democrat Charlie Angus complained last week.
