OTTAWA – As Parliament gets ready to begin debate on plans for a new national food inspection system, a senior federal bureaucrat has assured the food industry that Ottawa is not planning to loosen its control.
“It is significant … to note that throughout this whole process of re-organizing food inspection and quarantine services, neither deregulation nor decentralization are considered as preferred policy options,” said Ron Doering, executive director of the Office of Food Inspection Systems, in a recent speech.
He noted the irony, since both those ideas carry “force and popularity” in today’s political debate.
Read Also
Canola oil transloading facility opens
DP World just opened its new canola oil transload facility at the Port of Vancouver. It can ship one million tonnes of the commodity per year.
Doering, expected to head the new Food Agency when it is created next year, said in a speech to the National Dairy Council there is no mood to loosen government control of the system.
Play necessary role
“During the past 15 months of consultation with industry, the provinces and consumer groups, not a single group has advocated deregulation in food inspection,” he said. “The government’s role is recognized as legitimate and necessary.”
Doering said it is the same for those who fear food inspection could become part of the shift of power from Ottawa to the provinces.
Even the jurisdiction-conscious provinces recognize the need for national standards in an export business.
“No Canadian province, industry or consumer group wants food inspection to be decentralized,” he said. “Any effort to move in this direction would be vigorously opposed by all sectors.”
Doering said there are financial and policy reasons. Product destined for interprovincial and international trade requires higher inspection standards than product destined for sale inside a single province.
Provinces don’t want to pay
These higher standards cost money and it is “an expense that provinces would not want to assume.”
However, while there is no mood to decentralize control of the system, there is a need to co-ordinate and harmonize inspection standards between the two levels of government, said Doering.
