The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is currently undertaking the scheduled five-year review of the Safe Food for Canadians Act (SFCA), including a public consultation period that ran from March to May 2024. While the consultation is now closed, the review is ongoing and has created opportunities for discussion between regulators and the industry.

Purpose of the review

The purpose of the review is to assess if SFCA is meeting its objectives, including improving food safety and consumer protection oversight across all food commodities; having effective, streamlined, and strengthened legislative authorities across food commodities; and enhancing market access opportunities for Canadian food industry. The five-year review is required under section 68 of the Act.

Scope of the review

The scope of the SFCA review is the provisions and operations of the Act itself, including resources and enforcement. While the review does not directly include an assessment of the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR), it is nearly impossible to discuss the Act without considering the operation of the Regulations, which are the true drivers of resource use and enforcement under the SFCA.

CFIA acknowledged that comments related to SFCR could be made in the public consultation, but only "if they relate to gaps or issues associated with SFCA… or any of its authorities."

Having now completed the planned stakeholder early engagement, CFIA is analyzing comments and developing the final report for submission to Parliament, targeted for April 2025. The report may be the basis for future legislative changes.

Coronavirus pandemic's impact

The first five years of SFCA saw circumstances that no one would have predicted in 2012 when the Act was first adopted, not least among them, a global pandemic. Now there is an opportunity to reflect and consider the extent to which SFCA supported (or hindered) the introduction of flexibilities during the COVID-19 pandemic and whether it is otherwise working as intended to support the food industry and ensure a safe food supply for Canadians.

For example, CFIA used Ministerial Exemptions, available under Part 8 of SFCR to alleviate a shortage in food supply, as one tool during the pandemic. Ministerial Exemptions allow for exemptions from the Act or regulations; however, the scope is limited by SFCR, despite the broad language about exemptions in SFCA. CFIA also relied on tools outside the legislative framework, such as policies and enforcement flexibilities, to address concerns that arose during the pandemic but did not amount to a shortage issue (e.g. labelling). Could changes to the legislative framework better equip regulators to respond to emergencies in the future?

SFCA implementation

Aside from acute considerations brought to light by the pandemic, COVID-19 undoubtedly affected the overall implementation of SFCA framework, especially inspections. SFCA was designed to establish an outcome-based regulatory framework. However, based on the discussions we've observed, a significant focus for industry in this SFCA review is a seemingly inconsistent, prescriptive approach to inspection activities contrary to the intent of the Act.

SFCA's outcome-based approach was largely hailed by CFIA and stakeholders as a flexible, results-driven approach that would enable consistency across food commodities while supporting industry innovation and adoption of new best practices. This may be true in theory, but as with so many things, the devil is in the details. In this case the details are SFCR, CFIA guidance and policies, and inspectors. Whether this can be addressed through legislative changes arising from the five-year review of the Act remains to be seen.

This article originally appeared in Food in Canada and is republished with the permission of the publisher.