Health Canada, in an email, said PMRA employees are coping with a large number of safety evaluations, thus delaying its decision on glufosinate.

Related stories:

• Regulatory model “broken” in Canada – says BASF
• Canadian farmers need level playing field for regulations – says Minister MacDonald
• Conservative MP introduces bill to speed approvals of seeds, fertilizers

“The target timeframes for post-market reviews typically vary between two to four years … depending on the complexity of the re-evaluation, availability of data, stakeholder engagement and other factors,” Health Canada said.

“However, like many other regulators (in other countries), PMRA is facing a backlog of post-market reviews.”

Agency experts began looking at the health and environmental safety of glufosinate-ammonium in 2018. It expects to complete the evaluation in 2027.

Liberty, which has glufosinate-ammonium as its active ingredient, is a popular herbicide on Canadian farms. It’s used to control weeds on fields seeded with BASF InVigor canola, hybrids that have tolerance to glufosinate. It’s also sprayed on weeds in other crops in Canada, the United States, South America and dozens of other countries.

The herbicide is not used in Europe, where the registration of glufosinate expired in 2018 and was not renewed. The European Union classified the herbicide as presumed toxic for human reproductivity.

BASF rejects that assessment, with its website saying it was based on lab studies where rats were exposed to “doses impossible under realistic and responsible conditions of use.”

“Glufosinate-ammonium has been used safely for 30 years… and to-date, there are no known cases of harm to humans when applied according to labelled instructions.”

The PMRA launched its special review of glufosinate after France “prohibited all uses due to health reasons,” Health Canada said.

Meanwhile, the PMRA started a re-evaluation of glufosinate in 2019. Re-evaluations of pesticides happen every 15 years, which is required under the Pest Control Products Act.

The PMRA merged those efforts into one evaluation.

“There is substantial amount of information to analyze as part of these reviews,” Health Canada said.

“Products containing glufosinate ammonium can continue to be used according to the current label directions during these evaluations.”

However, the PMRA will not permit new uses of glufosinate, until the evaluation is complete.

As part of a plan to speed up reviews and decisions, the PMRA wants to focus its attention on pesticides that require more oversight.

“PMRA will continue to explore opportunities to streamline its processes and optimize resource allocation,” Health Canada said. “Thereby supporting industry competitiveness and reinforcing the PMRA’s ability to deliver on its core mandate over the long term.”

During a media scrum at the federal, provincial and territorial agriculture ministers conference in Winnipeg, MacDonald said he’s pushing the federal agencies to do better.

Related stories in this issue:

• Regulatory model “broken” in Canada – says BASF
• Ten years to study a pesticide? PMRA dealing with a backlog of post-market reviews

“We need a stable regulatory environment. We need an even playing field with the countries that we trade with. We need to expedite those (regulatory) decisions much more quickly and much more effectively,” MacDonald said Sept. 9, inside a hotel ballroom in downtown Winnipeg.

“We’re starting to see a change in that. We’ve seen in presentations, here, today (by) CFIA. We’ve seen a change in them. But we need to keep pushing that.”

For some time, agricultural associations and companies have complained that decisions on pesticide safety and approvals for new agri-technologies were bogged down in Ottawa.

Global investors and agri-tech firms had noticed the problems in Canada.

“Companies are getting the impression that Canada is a very difficult place for the regulatory registration process … we’re getting a really bad reputation,” said Scott Day, a Manitoban who works for Fall Line Capital, a California company that invests in farmland and ag technology.

Day made his comments in November 2023.

In Winnipeg, MacDonald was asked if Canadian farmers and the ag industry are at a disadvantage, compared to other countries, because of the regulatory burden in Canada.

“We may have been,” he said. “It’s economics. We can’t have our farmers at a disadvantage … (It’s) the timing and speed that we (need) to adjust. That’s a cause for concern, sometimes.”

The federal bureaucracy has responded to MacDonald and Prime Minister Mark Carney, who called on all federal departments to look at their regulations and cut “red tape” July 9.

The departments had 60 days to complete their reviews. Health Canada, which oversees the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, released its report on red tape reduction Sept. 9.

In an email, Health Canada said it will make multiple changes at the PMRA and how it regulates pesticides, including:

• More joint reviews, with trusted foreign regulators, to avoid duplicate assessments of pesticide safety and give the PMRA a head start in its evaluations
• Exempting low-risk products from renewals

MacDonald and provincial agriculture ministers met with PMRA reps at their meeting in Winnipeg.

“Kudos to them for coming here and showing us how they’re adapting,” MacDonald said. “I think we’re seeing advances at (the) CFIA and PMRA. And we hope that continues.”

Challenging the regulatory approach in Ottawa is crucial because Canadian farmers must be competitive on the global stage, said Alberta’s minister of agriculture, RJ Sigurdson.

He was encouraged by the tone at the Winnipeg meeting and what he heard regarding federal regulations.

“We’ve seen some indications that we just haven’t seen in the past. We do see some movement. I will say, it needs to move faster.”

They say smaller abattoirs are at risk due to cost-prohibitive regulations, and communities may want to be proactive to keep facilities and jobs.

Justin Marcotte, a director of the South East Butcher Block Co-operative, said it took a lot more time and money than expected when a co-operative formed to take over and expand Davis Meats in Alameda. They knew the owner, Murray Carnduff, faced a list of building upgrades that he didn’t want to do so close to retirement.

Yet local abattoirs face long waiting lists, and the producers didn’t want to see theirs close.

A group formed the co-op in 2021, broke ground in 2023 and finally opened in August 2024.

Marcotte told the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association convention about 230 shareholders have contributed $1.2 million to the project.

In retrospect, the $1,000 minimum buy-in was too low, he said, and it probably should have been $5,000. A plan to offer consumer shares at $500 each exists but hasn’t been pushed, he added.

The project was eligible for a $500,000 rebate through the Saskatchewan Lean Improvements in Manufacturing program, but only after some lobbying. Marcotte said the rebate is for equipment, but much of an abattoir is cement. For example, coolers are part of the building and not stand-alone pieces.

The new building, on the same site as the former Davis Meats, was built to provincially inspected standards but is currently only health inspected.

Carnduff is managing the operation, but still intends to retire soon, and it employs nine full-time and eight part-time students and a part-time bookkeeper. Marcotte said 80 per cent of the staff are women, and half are younger than 19.

Two students have taken the butchery course at Olds College, which he said is a win because it brings skilled labour back to the community.

“We’re supplying lots of rinks, golf courses, baseball diamonds, as well as our retail front,” he said.

“Then we’re wholesaling to some of the Co-ops, some of the C-stores.”

Product is also available at Regina’s Rosemont Hardware, which is known for carrying and promoting local value-added products of all types.

The plan was to process 20 animals per week, but about a dozen are going through now. They will slaughter any type of animal but not fowl.

Marcotte said the business has a hot cooler so it can do custom slaughter. The facility features an outdoor knock box to keep the animals as calm as possible. After it is knocked, the overhead door lifts and both the chute side and floor move hydraulically to roll the animal into the building for slaughter.

He said it’s tricky to operate the slaughter and retail sides of the business.

“We really could use a retail manager to help focus on that, but payroll is what we’re watching right now,” Marcotte said.

“We are currently making some pretty heavy mortgage payments and once we get rid of those, we’ll start paying dividends to our shareholders.”

The board is looking at establishing a second cut line, and future opportunities include pet food and using waste for biogas. But for now they are focusing on keeping the business going and finding a replacement for Carnduff.

Marcotte said their research found the province had 79 health-inspected abattoirs, and only 16 had more than five employees. Sixty-one of them had sales of less than $3 million.

Many of the licences were grandfathered, he said.

Succession may be “scary” over the next five to 20 years, he said.

Marcotte said the province has to ask what it wants medium-sized slaughter capacity to be. Will the next generation want to be business owners and will they have the capacity and capability?

Communities are going to have to be creative to keep theses businesses going, he added.

Asked if the South East plan is replicable, he said it is easily done but will cost more than many would think because of the inspections and engineering. A plan to add a bathroom caused a three-week delay, and eventually they scrapped it in favour of progress on the building.

“We built it to be provincially inspected just in case the health-inspected guidelines change down the road or we decide that that’s where we want to get to. Right now, there’s no benefit to us to be provincially inspected,” he said.

He also said it’s unlikely an existing building could ever be renovated to be provincially inspected because it would just be too expensive.

Canadian Cattle Association director Lynn Grant suggested the province could create a franchise model for abattoirs so others don’t have to go through the same learning process.

“A community that wants to be prepared to raise the money should be just able to go,” he said.

Marcotte agreed.

“I don’t think any of us realize how close to losing abattoirs we are in Saskatchewan, and that is just the regulatory approval,” he said.

On March 18, agriculture minister Kody Blois announced that one of his key priorities is” enabling a competitive advantage and (a) level playing field for Canadian agricultural products.”

Blois backed those words with actions to change Canadian Food Inspection Agency regulations. The proposals could cut the regulatory burden for farmers and agri-food processors, including plans to speed up approvals for alternative sources of feed.

“This measure will alleviate the burden of tariffs on animal feed producers by increasing the number of approved feed ingredients from within Canada or from other countries,” Blois said.

Any reduction in paperwork or improvement in approval times is welcome news in Canada’s feed sector. Last year, the Animal Nutrition Association of Canada (ANAC) said the federal government has been too focused on regulatory “sticks.”

For instance, red tape prevents feed formulators from using feed additives that are available in the United States and Europe.

“We need the right (regulatory system) and policies in place to allow the feed industry to innovate,” Melissa Dumont, ANAC executive director, said last June.

ANAC is just one of many industry groups that have lobbied against the regulatory burden on agriculture.

There are dozens of examples, but producers and industry representatives have loudly complained about the federal carbon tax, the paperwork and time required to hire a temporary foreign worker and federal plans to “transform” the Pest Management Regulatory Agency and how it oversees pesticides.

“The PMRA’s current direction threatens to cripple the regulatory system and drive innovation out of Canada, without any benefits for health and environmental protection,” says a CropLife Canada letter sent in January to the deputy health minister.

Tyler McCann, managing director of the Canadian Agri-Food Policy Institute, said Blois’ March 18 announcement about the CFIA may represent a real shift in Ottawa.

“It commits to action…. It makes competitiveness a priority,” McCann said on X.

“The biggest impact may be the signal sent to the bureaucracy that the old way of doing things is over. This should have ripple effects.”

In his statement, Blois suggested that things have changed.

“We will continue to use all available measures to reduce red tape, streamline our processes, modernize our regulations.”

In addition to speeding up approvals for alternative sources of feed, the ag minister wants to reduce other CFIA regulations:

• • Explore the idea of increasing the maximum slaughter age for feeder calves from 36 to 40 weeks, which is something that is welcomed by Canada’s veal industry.
• • Examine removing unnecessary or outdated labelling requirements for fresh fruit and vegetables.
• • Harmonize Canada’s BSE enhanced feed ban regulations with the United States.

The last one is a significant cost for Canada’s beef sector. Canada bans certain animal tissues, known as specified risk material (SRM).

The enhanced feed ban regulations are intended to ensure that SRM, which has been excluded from the human food supply since July 2003, is also excluded from animal feed, pet food and fertilizers, says the CFIA website.

“Removing specified risk materials (SRM) is costly and puts Canada’s beef industry at an economic disadvantage,” Canadian Cattle Association past-president Nathan Phinney told Glacier FarmMedia.

“The costs of the Canadian SRM regulations place a significant burden on our industry, costing approximately $31.7 million annually.”

Contact robert.arnason@producer.com