Canada's ag industry welcomes CFIA changes
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
by SUSAN MANN
Most of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business’s farmer members say the Canadian Food Inspection Agency doesn’t provide good service.
In fact, only one in five members said CFIA provided good overall service when asked for their assessment five years ago as part of a report card the federation issued on the agency. The federation has 7,200 agri business members with 75 per cent being farmers and the rest being farm-related service providers.
Marilyn Braun-Pollon, federation vice-president for agri business, says they hope that the service improves following the CFIA’s Monday release of a Statement of Rights and Service. Accompanying the statement is a series of guides that will outline roles and responsibilities and what businesses can expect when interacting with the CFIA. The guides are for: consumers, producers, processors, animal transporters, importers and exporters. The federation along with other industry stakeholders helped develop the guides.
In announcing the introduction of the rights and service statement, federal Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz says in a press release the government is “taking steps to strengthen communication and interaction between the agency, consumers, producers and the entire value chain so that we can all better work together to ensure safe food and a strong agriculture industry.”
As part of the announcement, the CFIA says it will establish an Office of Complaints and Appeals to handle queries about service delivery, administrative errors and regulatory decisions. It will begin operating April 1. Until then people with complaints about CFIA’s service can direct them to local offices for resolution.
Ritz says the new complaints and appeals mechanism will provide businesses with a more transparent and accessible way to register their concerns.
In a background document accompanying the statement’s release, the CFIA says the rights statement was created to formalize the principles the agency uses to govern its interactions with farmers, consumers and others in the industry. The principles are: transparency, accountability and service.
Braun-Pollon says their “agribusiness members had been telling us that CFIA needed to dramatically improve how it interacts with its stakeholders.”
She says some of the problems farmers and others have encountered with the agency’s staff include: an overall lack of customer service, inconsistent interpretation of regulations between different levels of management, varying applications of regulations, and inconsistency with the way permits are handled.
But one of the members’ biggest frustrations is there hasn’t been anywhere to turn with a concern about customer service or a disagreement with a regulatory decision, she says. Farmers can now use the newly created complaints office to ensure CFIA is being fair and accountable.
The federation will monitor the effectiveness of the complaint mechanism closely. “We welcome the announcement and CFIA’s commitment to better service, fairness and accountability,” she says, noting they hope the new focus on better service is reflected in the agency’s culture and in how staffers interact daily with farmers.
Producer groups also applaud the statement’s release. Travis Toews, president of the Canadian Cattlemen’s Association, says while there’s always a degree of tension between the industry and its regulators “we think this initiative is going to provide some real predictability to the industry and ensure more accountability out of CFIA.” And there’s now a mechanism to deal with real issues.
Gary Stordy, public relations manager with the Canadian Pork Council, says the complaints and appeals mechanism will give farmers with problems a one-stop location to file their concern and they should get a timely response back. They won’t have to waste time trying to figure how to deal with a situation or determine whom they need to talk to. “It really cuts through the red tape.” BF