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Farm-Scape, Episode 2263

The Canadian Food Inspections Agency expects proposed revisions to Canada's Health of Animals Act to be published in Canada Gassette-1 some time in the coming months.

Since last December the Canadian Food Inspection Agency has been informally gathering stakeholder input on proposed changes to portions of the Health of Animals Act that deal with transportation.

Senior Staff veterinarian Dr. Gord Doonan reports input received has been high quality and helpful and, as the result of that input, a number of changes are now in the works.

"We have received comments from a little over 100 individuals or organizations and these represent a wide range of interests from industry through researchers, transporters to the general public and also animal welfare and animal protection organizations.

We've also received comments at meetings that we've attended across the country on invitation to explain what we're thinking about doing. We had begun with some proposed ideas and, as a result of the input that we've received, we've adjusted some of those proposals.

We've kept the same concept but changed some of the details. For example one of the things we would like to do is reference some existing standards and we're not sure if we can legally do that or not.

We can see that some of the stakeholders would like us to do that and we agree with them and we are now passing that on our regulatory affairs and our legal services to advise us as to whether we can do that or not and, if so, how we can do it."

Dr. Doonan notes the formal comment period will begin once the revised proposal is published in Canada Gassestte-1 but the hope is that any concerns will have already been addressed during the informal comment period.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.