BOTTOM LINE: A new Bill to modernize the Canadian regulatory system for food is making its way through the legislative process. Introduced in the Senate in early June 2012 and now before a Senate Committee, the Bill's purpose is to enhance the safety of food in Canada, protect consumers by targeting unsafe practices, better control imports, institute a more consistent inspection regime across foods, strengthen food traceability and back it all up with whalloping big penalties.

REPLACING NUMEROUS ACTS BUT NOT FOOD AND DRUGS ACT

The Safe Food for Canadians Act (Bill S-11) would repeal the Fish Inspection Act, the Canada Agricultural Products Act, the Meat Inspection Act and make related amendments to a host of other Acts, including the Customs Act and the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act. The new Act wouldn't replace the Food and Drugs Act; rather, it would run parallel to it, focusing on food safety.

HIGHLIGHTS

Similar to the Food and Drugs Act, the Bill contains a prohibition on false or misleading advertising (and manufacturing, labeling, selling, etc.). Repeating the prohibition on representations that are likely to create an erroneous impression of a food's character, quality, value, quantity, composition, merit or safety, Bill S-11 adds "origin" and method of manufacture or preparation to the list.

It also includes a mandatory licensing and registration regime for anyone importing food products or transporting them across provincial borders (although those with licenses under existing regimes would not need to apply for new ones). The Bill contains offences for tampering with food or for making misleading representations that a food product was tampered with so as to be unsafe. The Bill also ramps up fines for non-compliance to the tune of $5,000,000 and/or two years imprisonment for the most egregious conduct.

IMPORTANT REGULATIONS TO COME

The devil may also prove to be in the details of the as-yet undrafted regulations. Regulations to come will, among other things, prescribe standards for food preparation, quality and grading, and require systems to track food products through the supply chain.

FOCUS ON FOOD

The new Act wouldn't replace the Food and Drugs Act; rather, it would run parallel to it, focusing on food safety.

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