by Cameron Prince
Executive VP, Regulatory Affairs, TAG; Managing Director, TAG Canada.
Former CFIA VP of Operations
We have recently learned that the agency will be cutting 587 jobs and transitioning another 1,371 as part of the Government of Canada’s overall downsizing exercise. The reductions will occur over three years with a targeted savings of $100 million in three categories: organizational transformation and realignment, changes to program delivery, and positional reinvestment.
Decision-making in these exercises is never easy and having been part of several of these in my career with CFIA, I can see some recurring themes and some new directions in this round of CFIA cuts. There are some programs that need to be eliminated or placed in the private sector which will now go forward. This is a good thing. On the other hand, the reality remains that reductions of approximately 10% of CFIA’s workforce will have impacts in delivery of food, animal, and plant health programs.
The CFIA cuts where I have the most concern is with organizational restructuring. The Agency will now move to a Business Line structure which is not a new idea and has been tried before. The new model will have 4 independent Operational Areas reporting functionally to the VPs of Plant, Animal and Trade Business Lines, but administratively to the VP of Food and Policy. In theory, this could work, but when the main delivery arm of the Agency is under multiple bosses, it will be confusing to work with and will blur program accountabilities.
The issue here is that consistency of program delivery has always been one of CFIA’s biggest challenges. The VP/Branch Heads, in this new CFIA structure, will be challenged to bring the levels of consistent delivery expected, and that industry has pushed for since the beginning of CFIA.
An area in which I expect to see pushback is the reduction of daily shift inspection presence in non-export meat plants. This does set a bit of a conundrum, as it really is not necessary to have an inspector on the line all the time in all these plants. However, it is required that plants exporting to the US meet the same standards as are required of plants within the US – which is daily presence of an inspector at all US export meat plants. The difficulty comes when it is questioned as to why exported foods should be more closely inspected, thereby perceived as “safer,” than foods to be consumed by Canadians. There isn’t a really good answer to this.
The overall reinvestment of positions (stated as 260 in Operations and 20 in policy, programs, and science) sounds good – as the new positions are to be created in national teams focused on high-risk food sectors, large-scale food safety investigations, and emerging risks. However, at this point, there is no clarity in what programs these teams will operate. And with people being moved around and needing new training, there will certainly be a disruption in activity – including the high-risk areas to which personnel are being shifted.
With all that, there are a few areas I do see as sensible, primarily under the third category of program delivery:
- Pet export modernization. Pet foods are largely unregulated in Canada but require an animal-health certificate for export (not related to pet food safety). Moving this to a third-party with digitized certification makes sense and will reduce the administrative burden on CFIA veterinarians. It will also likely mean that CFIA will need fewer veterinarians which will be strongly contested by the union representing CFIA veterinarians.
- Discontinuing fruit and vegetable destination inspection services and turning that over to a third-party is also a smart initiative, as CFIA inspectors don’t need to be spending their time arbitrating produce issues between dealers. These resources would be better applied to food safety issues.
- Similarly, phasing out vehicle washing stations in Newfoundland and Labrador is a good move. I can remember this being discussed at the very beginning of the Agency in 1997. There is very little scientific justification for this activity. This reduction is long overdue.
Overall, I do see some sensible cuts in the CFIA’s plan, but I fear that there will be fewer resources available for food safety. I think what is forgotten by almost everyone is that there were no new field inspectors allocated for CFIA Food programs in 2017 to 2019 when the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations were brought in. These regulations meant that thousands of newly licensed food manufacturers were placed under new mandatory food safety requirements. Due to insufficient in-plant inspection resources, and misaligned priorities, many of these licensed firms have never had CFIA inspections. Recent inspections of some of these facilities show significant compliance gaps. Sadly, at least one significant food illness outbreak has occurred in this under-inspected sector.
These proposed cuts are just adding to this fundamental CFIA food program resourcing shortfall.
