It is what keeps Canada’s chief food safety officer Brian Evans awake at night.
There is a growing risk that visitors to Canada or Canadians returning from abroad will carelessly introduce a plant or animal disease that could devastate Canadian agriculture.
“Absolutely, the threat has increased,” said Evans. “Globalization, tourism and travel makes us very vulnerable.”
In early October, Evans and agriculture minister Gerry Ritz went to the Ottawa International Airport to launch the latest version of a video that warns visitors to dispose of or declare any plant or meat imports and any visits to farms while abroad.
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It will be broadcast in airports and on airplanes bound for Canada, and is available in 12 languages.
Immigrant communities also are being targeted with the message to make sure visitors or packages from the country of origin do not come with prohibited goods.
The video begins with a Canadian tourist in a foreign street market, buying vegetables to bring home. They are seized at an airport.
“The next pandemic could come from anywhere,” intones the voice-over.
Evans said the timing of the latest campaign is connected in part to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease last spring in Japan and South Korea and concerns from Canadian cattle producers about whether they are protected from its import.
“My own view is, let’s do what we can at the farm level on biosecurity but let’s not lose sight of the fact that there are other pathways through which these things can find their way into the country.”
Evans said another factor is Canada’s growing immigrant population.
“Not only are food imports going up, as a lot of people keep reminding us, but the reality is that a lot of the people settling in Canada have families coming to visit who bring food with them from the homeland,” he said. “Those are the kind of things we are trying to be proactive about.”
As well, Canadian farms often host foreign visitors, agritourists or foreign farm workers, he said.
“What keeps me awake at night is around the issue … do they make sure their shoes and clothes are clean? What are they bringing with them? Do they get care packages from home?”
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has turned over primary point-of-entry inspection responsibility to the Canadian Border Services Agency.
Evans knows anecdotally that inspectors find people who accidentally or deliberately try to bring prohibited plant or animal material into the country but he wants the CBSA to compile statistics that can be used to justify continued resources for the program.
“If we don’t have good performance information, we’re always at risk that it might come on the table and they could say ‘if you can’t demonstrate how effective it is, do you really need it?’” he said.
“I think we would be much better positioned in funding our prevention programs if we could sit down with the auditor general and say these are the number of times we have found a significant virus or significant plant pest and so it proves the program is efficient and effective.”
