For more than a year, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has had to wage a behind-the-scenes campaign to convince American officials that Canada’s meat inspection system is as safe as theirs.
At stake was access to the American market for products from more than 30 Canadian meat plants.
It follows an audit in summer 2003 during which staff of the United States Department of Agriculture food safety and inspection service alleged widespread deficiencies in Canada’s inspection system.
A CFIA official says shipments from two plants were disrupted for a brief time in 2003 but since then, trade has resumed pending a final resolution of the differences.
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“There is no disruption in trade now and we are continuing to work to resolve the remaining issues,” said FrŽdŽrique Moulin, national manager for international programs at the CFIA food of animal origins division.
The federal inspection agency has insisted the Americans drew improper conclusions from their audit, misinterpreting differences between the
Canadian and American systems as deficiencies in the Canadian system.
At the Canadian Meat Council, executive director Jim Laws said his meat packer members are not being affected by the Canada-U.S. disagreements.
“I know they are still working on some issues but from our level, there is no impact right now,” he said in an interview.
(See U.S. meat system report, page 2)
“There is a constant effort to reach equivalency between programs in the two countries and that is what is going on.”
When the issue flared up, however, it was far more serious than a political debate over whether Canadian inspection systems are as effective as American systems. The Americans were demanding tougher Canadian inspection standards or else access to the American market would be restricted or cut off for many inspected plants.
According to an internal CFIA briefing note prepared for a January 2004 meeting and obtained through access-to-information legislation, the Americans demanded in a September 2003 letter that Canada improve its inspection practices.
The U.S. audit covered 31 meat plants, including ready-to-eat product plants, and concluded that inspection systems were lacking in them all. Complaints included Canada’s two-decade-old policy of not inspecting all meat processing plants every day if their safety record is good.
The CFIA’s first response was to fire off a letter to Washington challenging the
results.
“The (agency) contended in the letter that many of the audit findings were inappropriate and incorrect because of the auditors’ propensity to automatically deem identified differences between the Canadian and U.S. systems as deficiencies,” according to the CFIA briefing note.
Moulin from CFIA said the 2003 USDA audit of the Canadian system was routine and not the result of the May 2003 discovery of a BSE case in Alberta. CFIA also audits foreign plants licensed to send product to Canada.
She said the results surprised Canada because audits are supposed to judge Canadian practices against the rules of the Canadian system, which had previously been judged to be equivalent to the U.S. system. Instead, the auditors judged Canada’s practices against American practices and when they were different, designated them inadequate.
The alleged deficiencies ranged from differences in the way Canada tests for E. coli and some bacterial infections, to the Canadian system requiring only occasional inspector visits to low-risk plants, rather than having inspectors on-site in meat processing plants on every shift. Inspectors are required to be on-site in slaughter plants.
Moulin said three of the five major American complaints have been settled through their agreement that Canada’s different way of dealing with inspection produces equivalent safety results to the USDA system.
Two issues remain unresolved. Canada is preparing to collect data through pilot projects on testing for some bacterial presence in final products and justifying risk-based frequency of inspection rather than daily inspection in all plants. The goal is to demonstrate that the Canadian system produces results as effective as the American system.
