Monday, February 25, 2019

Safe Food for Canadians Regulations III


Benefits of Safe Food for Canadians Act 
The Safe Food for Canadians Act synchronize several parts of the legislation which includes the Canadian Agricultural Products Act, the Fish Inspection Act, the Meat Inspection Act, and the food provisions of the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act. These acts were created during different time intervals due to their criticality to the food trade and consumer safety of Canadian citizens and trade. However, modern food safety and trade regulations require more comprehensive updated simplified systems than those of the pervious acts where Safe Food for Canadians Act bridges the gap while introducing  new tools to manage modern food safety risks, hence helping to simplify the process to ease the industry stakeholders. The synchronization will create a greater consistency in rules and regulations, while providing consumers with a safer food supply, where legislation will also create new export opportunities for Canadian producers, and enhance the protection of imported food commodities. Thus, new act has made Canadian food safety system stronger while reducing overlaps for Canadian food producers, where act provides industry with clear, consistent and straight forward inspection and enforcement rules so they can best meet their responsibility provide safe food for consumers. Further, act strengths Canada's world class food safety system while providing greater consistency for Canadian businesses, whether they produce food for the domestic or the international markets.

Traceability is the ability to track any food through all its stages of production, processing and distribution, which is an increasingly important element of food safety. Thus, legislation gives the CFIA the ability to develop innovative regulations to trace and to take action on potentially unsafe food commodities with more stringent controls on prohibition against selling food commodities that have been recalled. Nonetheless, the consumers will be safer from threats related to food commodity tampering, deceptive practices and hoaxes, where Government has new means to take swift action against these kinds of activities and to build additional safety into the food system through the food producer or importer to the consumer. Thus, applicable penalties and fines also increase to deter willful or reckless threats to health and safety.

In addition, adoption of the new act will provide more authority with clarity in rules and regulations for Canadian food commodity exporters and for trading partners importing food commodities to Canada. The newly introduced import control measures will help improve the existing import safety measures by clearly prohibiting the entry of potentially unsafe food commodities into Canada, where act has provisions to register or license importers, while binding them accountable for the safety of the food commodities they brought into the country. On the other hand, more countries are strengthening their import measures on food items in recent years, where they required that the foods imported be certified, reflecting a growing international effort to ensure food safety. Hence, the new legislation provides the CFIA the authority to certify all food commodities for export, allowing for a consistent approach to Canadian export certification. Nonetheless, new legislation has aligned Canada’s food safety system with its major trading partner USA, where the Food Safety Modernization Act will accept Safe Food for Canadians Act allowing Canadian export certification to provide more flexible, modern and timely responses to new international trade requirements. It also enables Canadian exporters to be more competitive abroad and open access to an even greater number of international markets by further aligning world class food safety systems with that of its key trading partners.
Major Changes to Previous Regulations
The new regulations include requirements of previous 17 parts including the following:
Trade;
Licenses;
Preventive control measures;
Traceability;
Commodity-specific requirements;
Recognition of foreign systems;
Ministerial exemptions;
Inspection legends;
Packaging;
Labelling;
Grades and grade names;
Seizure and detention;
Organic Products.

Some of these requirements are phased in to reflect different levels of industry readiness and the concerns of small businesses that are involved in importing food, or preparing food for export or for interprovincial trade. Nonetheless, SFCA also provides authority to incorporate by reference in the regulations documents that are internally or externally generated as of a particular date or that may change over time. Thus, flexibility to change the regulatory framework through an incorporated document whenever required, would allow the CFIA to make its more responsive to concerns of industry and consumers by responding more promptly, where necessary, to modern science and innovations, which might otherwise require regulatory change. Incorporated documents that may change from time to time, but before making changes to internally generated documents; the CFIA would consult with stakeholders in a similar way as consultations for regulatory changes and in accordance with the CFIA’s Incorporation by Reference (IBR) Policy.

Exceptions and Exemptions
Any exception or exemptions are set out in the new regulations, based on an analysis of the food safety risk that may cause any hazardous effects to the general public. Hence, an exception from the written PCP requirements is proposed for some regulated parties that generate $30,000 or less in annual gross food sales (i.e. micro-sized businesses). However, this exception will not apply to regulated parties that slaughter food animals from which meat products for export or inter-provincial trade are derived, or that prepare meat products, dairy products, fish, eggs, processed egg products, or processed fruits and vegetables, or if an export certificate is requested.

Exemptions from licensing, preventive controls, and written PCP requirements are also proposed, unless an export certificate is requested, for
Alcoholic beverages;
Food additives; and
Some of the unprocessed foods that will be further prepared (e.g. grains, oilseeds, pulses and other foods such as green coffee beans and hops) before consumption. Such foods must be labelled with the words “For Further Preparation Only”, and may not be prepackaged food for consumers, which are listed in a schedule to the new regulations.

The new regulations would also include certain exemptions similar to those that exist in current federal regulations, such as food for personal use, food carried on any conveyance that is intended for the crew or passengers, or food for analysis, evaluation, research, or a food exhibition provided that the food is part of a shipment that weighs 100 kg or less or, in the case of eggs, is part of a shipment of five or fewer cases. Food that passes only in transit through Canada is exempt, provided the shipment travels in bonds.

Importation of non-compliant food or inter-provincial trade of non-compliant food to be subsequently brought into compliance (e.g. through relabeling the food) would be permitted provided that the food is imported by a license holder, is clearly labelled with “For Further Preparation Only” and is brought into compliance within three months from the day on which it was imported or traded inter-provincially, unless a longer time period is granted by the Minister.

Export
Under the SFCA, the Minister may issue export certificates, where new regulations would provide the process by which a regulated party may request an export certificate, if there is a requirements, i.e., fulfill a foreign government requirement. Nevertheless, exporters are permitted to meet foreign customer requirements that may differ from certain requirements of the new regulations. But those differences are required to be substantiated by documentation (e.g. a contract or a description of a foreign government requirement).

Membership Requirements for Buyers and Sellers of Fresh Fruits and Vegetables
The Licensing and Arbitration Regulations were cancelled, where new regulations require that buyers and sellers of fresh fruits and vegetables be members of the Fruit and Vegetable Dispute Resolution Corporation (DRC) to obtain an exemption from the trade of fresh fruit or vegetable provisions in Part 2, Division 2 of the new regulations. The DRC is a non-profit, membership-based organization serving the produce sector that offers dispute resolution services (e.g. mediation and arbitration) to its members, where over 80% of fresh fruit and vegetable buyers and sellers are already members of the DRC.

Meat
Changes to previous requirements for meat will increase the alignment with requirements for other foods regulated by the CFIA to the extent possible given meat-specific food safety risks, i.e. previous mandatory inspection requirements for all imported meat products has been removed, and replaced with targeted inspection requirements based on risk. Nonetheless, mandatory licensing of meat storage facilities also removed except for persons who would handle and store imported meat products for inspection.

Exemptions for some existing meat product–specific requirements are introduced for meat products, i.e. frozen pepperoni pizza; that contain a mixture of ready-to-eat meat and other non-meat ingredients, which are treated as more similarly to all other prepared foods.

Recognition of Foreign Systems
The new regulations prescribe the standards to be met for the minister to recognize a foreign system of inspection for meat products and shellfish, and to recognize systems for preparing meat that are used in meat product establishments. The new regulations also provide for circumstances in which ministerial recognition must be suspended or cancelled. On the other hand, systems that are recognized under the MIA or FIA will be continue to be recognized under the new regulations.

Ministerial Exemptions
The authority for the minister to exempt food from requirements for the purpose of test-marketing a food that is new or of alleviating shortages has been expanded to all foods. Thus, ministerial exemptions can be granted only when they would not result in a risk of injury to human health and, with regards to test-market exemptions, when they would not confuse or mislead the public or disrupt the normal trading patterns of industry or the normal patterns of food pricing.

Inspection Legends
Provisions related to inspection legends that existed in previous commodity-specific regulations made under the CAPA, where the FIA and the MIA will be carried over as usual under the new regulations.

Container Sizes and Standard Weights
Requirements for standard weight and container sizes that previously existed in commodity-specific regulations under the CAPA, the MIA, the FIA and the CPLA have being included in the new regulations.

Labeling and Standards of Identity
The new regulations has made some changes to requirements relating to labeling and standards of identity provisions, i.e. for processed eggs, where new changes has grouped similar provisions together and reduced duplication and differences where possible.

Labeling provisions have being included in the body of the new regulations whereas standards of identity has incorporated by reference in the new regulations and maintained by the CFIA (in accordance with CFIA’s Incorporation by Reference Policy).

Previous requirements of the CPLA and its regulations apply to prepackaged food sold in Canada, including food sold within a province, which has been included in the new regulations. The intra-provincial application of these requirements will be maintained.

Grade Requirements
Grade requirements in previous regulations have been consolidated into two documents, which has being incorporated by reference in the new regulations:
1.           The new Beef, Bison, and Veal Carcass Grade Requirements shall be maintained by the Canadian Beef Grading Agency (CBGA) according to conditions outlined in a Memorandum of Understanding between the CBGA and the CFIA; and
2.           The new Canadian Grade Compendium would consolidate all other Canadian grade requirements in a single document organized by commodity and maintained by the CFIA.

Organic Products
Under the Organic Products Regulations, 2009, only the producers of organic products and anyone labeling and packaging organic products are required to be certified. Thus, new regulations has expand certification to include other service providers to allow organic integrity to be maintained along the entire supply chain. In addition, the new regulations has included the organic certification of aquaculture products too.

Reference