Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon, honourable members and ladies and gentlemen.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before and support the work of the committee. My name is Dr. Brian Evans. I am Canada's chief veterinary officer, and I work with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, also known as the CFIA. As this committee will well be aware, the CFIA has regulatory responsibility for the safeguarding of food, animals, and plants for Canada.
Canada's existing mammalian-to-ruminant feed ban was introduced in 1997. Following the detection of our first domestic case of BSE in Canada in May 2003, an international panel of BSE experts recommended, among other things, the complete removal of specified risk material, SRM, from both human food and animal feed. I'm sure most of the committee members are aware that those are those tissues, based on research determinations thus far, that have demonstrated the potential to harbour BSE infectivity.
The government moved immediately to require SRM removal from the human food chain. After extensive consultations with stakeholders, the government announced in July 2004 that it would be requiring SRM removal from animal feed. The proposed regulatory amendments were formally published in the Canada Gazette part I on December 11, 2004.
In-depth government industry workshops were held in nine provinces from late 2004 to mid-2005 to help understand the practical challenges associated with SRM disposal, and the CFIA pre-assessed a range of possible disposal techniques. After further analysis and consultation, the final enhanced feed ban was gazetted on June 26, 2006, providing for a further 12-month transition period to full enforcement.
The principal enhancement requires that all SRM be removed from the entire feed, pet food, and fertilizer chains effective July 12, 2007. Small, non-federally registered abattoirs will be given an additional six months to comply with certain of the requirements.
While Canada's current feed ban can be expected to eradicate BSE over several decades, the effective implementation of the enhanced ban is expected to accelerate this to within 10 years. This will be achieved by removing over 99% of potential BSE infectivity at the top of the chain to avoid any possible cross-contamination in other processes.
While Canada's market recovery subsequent to May 2003 has been unprecedented and it is clear that the international community has respect for Canada's efforts and investments made in the disease mitigations to date, the need to eliminate cross-contamination opportunities in the feed system is fundamental to further market access opportunities. Industry has been strongly supportive of Canada's pursuit of official recognition on the part of the World Organization for Animal Health, known by its previous French acronym of OIE, as a BSE controlled-risk designated or recognized country.
In presenting its case to the OIE evaluation team of international subject matter experts in January this year, it was very clear that Canada's commitment to the introduction and enforcement of the enhanced feed ban on July 12, 2004, was critical to our achieving such a designation. Any indication of Canada changing its intent to implement an enhanced feed ban would provide OIE member countries with the basis to not adopt a controlled-risk status for Canada in the general session in May. Such a result would relegate Canada to the status of an unknown-risk country, with associated resulting domestic and international repercussions. For these reasons, the industry understands the benefits of the enhanced feed ban and stakeholders recognize the need to keep to deadlines on its implementation.
Although waste disposal is within provincial jurisdiction, it was determined that a contribution by the federal government to develop SRM waste disposal infrastructure was in keeping with other measures taken by the federal government to assist the industry to respond to BSE.
The federal government set aside $80 million to help provinces put in place programs that would assist industry to adapt to the enhanced regulations and for research on disposal methodologies. This funding commitment was predicated on a federal-provincial cost sharing of 60% federal-40% provincial funds, with an expectation that industry would also contribute to these waste management and research costs. Provinces submitted program proposals to AAFC that outlined actions they would take in the context of industry needs.
When this government announced the enhanced feed ban, authority was also provided to proceed with the $80 million commitment. Allocations among provinces were finalized according to the proposals submitted and the needs articulated. Care was taken to ensure that the results of the programs would lead as much as possible to an equivalent outcome across the country and that they would address the needs of smaller abattoirs.
Given that this is a federal contribution to provincial programs, the provinces will be responsible for the development and implementation of the SRM waste disposal programs, including the receipt and evaluation of project proposals, the approval of individual projects, and the determination of which costs will be recovered. Although some provinces have included research as an eligible activity, most provinces will spend the bulk of the program funding for the creation of waste disposal infrastructure, such as SRM rendering facilities, incinerators, landfills and for transportation of SRM material.
As with other program transfers by the federal government to provinces, the federal contribution is specified through federal-provincial agreements, now being finalized. There is specific provision to permit the inclusion of provincial contributions since December 2004 and federal contributions to expenses incurred since December 2006. These agreements are being finalized with all jurisdictions, and we expect signatures from many of them within the next several weeks.
Prior to and since the publication of the regulations, we have worked with our provincial and territorial colleagues, as well as industry, to be well positioned to implement the enhanced feed bans. Since 2003, we have spent countless hours working on this. We have met on more than 64 occasions and held over 110 conference calls with the federal-provincial-territorial network, including the agriculture policy assistant deputy ministers, the regulatory assistant deputy ministers, deputy ministers, and the ministers committees to discuss and plan for the enhanced feed ban and the broader BSE recovery. This subject will continue to be an agenda item for future federal-provincial-territorial calls and meetings at every level. As well, the federal-provincial-territorial feed ban enhancement implementation task team has had a total of eight conference calls and five meetings. A federal-provincial-territorial meeting on November 29, 2006, included representatives from industry sectors.
In addition to this high-level dialogue, the CFIA has established a feed ban task force, with participation from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, to complete the federal component of implementation and to facilitate the resolution of outstanding issues involving industry and the provinces.
Over the past few weeks, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada officials and the head of the feed ban task force, Freeman Libby—who is with us today—have been meeting individually and with provinces to accelerate the sign-off of the funding agreements; to discuss each province's state of readiness with respect to waste disposal strategies for both the short and longer terms; and to better understand the impact of the new requirement on industry sectors and explore options for bringing the various sectors into compliance with the deadlines provided.
We have met with eight provinces and we will shortly meet Ontario and Newfoundland. We are also working with industry to plan for implementation. Outreach activities include national meetings with large industry organizations, regional workshops, and pre-assessment of SRM disposal methods. CFIA has also launched a national communication campaign to target key groups. Copies are available for the committee.
The industry believes in the benefits of the enhanced feed ban, and stakeholders are adamant about the need to keep to the July 12 deadline. We also believe we need to stay the course, and we are confident that everything will be done at all levels to allow the industry to meet the deadline of the enhanced feed ban and thereby maintain public and consumer confidence within Canada and beyond.
We respect both the time and the needs of the committee and would be pleased to answer the committee's questions.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.