Business Alert – US

The Canadian government released in December 2011 a report on actions it has taken on a set of recommendations to improve the safety of domestically-produced and imported food. The recommendations were included in a report by an independent party that examined what Canadian authorities and the private sector could have done differently to prevent a listeriosis outbreak in 2008 that caused the death of 23 Canadians. That report recommended a number of steps to strengthen Canada’s food safety system and minimise the likelihood of a similar outbreak in the future. According to a press release by Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, some of the most relevant actions taken since September 2009 include:

• identifying and fast-tracking the approval of food safety interventions such as food additives that reduce the growth of Listeria monocytogenes and other pathogens;
• hiring 170 additional full-time inspectors to increase CFIA’s presence in federally registered meat processing plants;
• developing new detection methods for Listeria and other hazards in food that reduce testing time and enable more rapid response during food safety investigations;
• using innovative lab technologies in outbreak investigations and expanding the outbreak detection lab network to include public health and food safety partners across Canada;
• supporting national public health surveillance to improve collection, reporting and analysis of a wide range of health information;
• providing Canadians, including those most vulnerable, with the information they need to reduce the risk of a food-borne illness through a new online food safety portal and national public information campaigns;
• updating the Foodborne Illness Outbreak Response Protocol, which guides how all levels of government work together to respond to a national or international outbreak;
• ensuring that health risk assessment teams are available 24/7 to support food safety investigations; and
• building surge capacity in order to respond more quickly and effectively to potential future food-borne illness outbreaks.

Canadian authorities have also reviewed their food surveillance activities for imported food under the government’s Food and Consumer Safety Action Plan. This plan consists of a series of initiatives to modernise and strengthen Canada’s safety system for food, health and consumer products and better support the collective responsibilities that government, industry and consumers have to ensure product safety.