Food In Canada

Meat-safety violators can now be fined

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The federal government is allowing the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to issue monetary penalties to enforce meat food safety


Ottawa – Food safety violations in the meat processing industry can now be subject to a fine.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) can now issue monetary penalties to businesses that do not meet Canada’s meat safety requirements.

The new regulatory amendment expands Administrative Monetary Penalties (AMPs) to the Meat Inspection Act and the Meat Inspection Regulations, 1990.

The federal government says the regulations will take effect immediately.

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The CFIA will be working with the Canadian meat industry to help gradually transition to the new regulations. The amendments to the Agriculture and Agri-Food Administrative Monetary Penalities Regulations were published in Canada Gazette, Part II on July 16, 2014.

The CFIA says this regulatory amendment will allow CFIA inspectors to issue an AMP for non-compliance with 84 provisions of the Meat Inspection Act (MIA) and the Meat Inspection Regulations (MIR).

These provisons include items related to: food safety (control programs such as HACCP) and non-food safety (labelling and consumer protection).

AMPs do not replace existing inspection and enforcement tools, adds the CFIA, but instead offer the agency an additional tool in managing non-compliance situations.

The expansion of the AMPs to include the MIA and MIR supports other activities being undertaken by the CFIA, such as those outlined in the Healthy and Safe Food for Canadians Framework.


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