Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good afternoon. My name is Jaspinder Komal and I am the executive director of the animal health directorate at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the deputy chief veterinary officer of Canada. The CFIA is a science-based regulatory agency ded

Agriculture committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning. My name is Jaspinder Komal and I am the executive director of the animal health directorate at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. It is a pleasure to be here. I appreciate the opportunity to participate in this study and to provide

Agriculture committee  As I said, we've been consulting for the last 10 years, and there are various ways to consult with our stakeholders. Normally we would meet with our stakeholders whenever we have a chance to meet with them, and we inform them at my level and levels above me. We always have meetin

Agriculture committee  Thank you again, Mr. Anderson. I want to go back to your previous comment. We have consulted in the last year and a half, two years, but we have been talking to the industry for the last 10 years, so it's not that they weren't aware that these changes would be coming at some poi

Agriculture committee  I take your point, but I think we always said that these changes would be made whenever we have an opportunity to make them. We have been updating the industry on our progress from time to time. We have taken the value chain round table, for example, as a forum to talk to the ind

Agriculture committee  Yes. They were aware of the changes we were making with respect to the food, water, and rest intervals of the time prescription. We start with the science on this, as I said. Since 1977 more science has been available on the welfare of animals and how animals behave when they are

Agriculture committee  Thank you for your question, sir. As I said, we looked at all these factors, along with the standards in Canada, Europe, the United States, Australia, and New Zealand. In the past, the Health of Animals Regulations were very prescriptive. Now the focus is more on results, but t

Agriculture committee  Thank you for your question. A provision was in fact added to the regulations requiring everyone who looks after these animals to receive training, as stipulated in international standards. From the time they leave the farm, the animals go through many hands: they are loaded on

Agriculture committee  Thank you again for your question. The U.S. has standards for times. It has one standard, I think it is about 28 hours, but it also has provisions in its standard to move a little bit up and down so, for instance, if somebody says there are unforeseen circumstances that have come

Agriculture committee  It's a very good question. Yes, as I said, the transportation of these animals is a very stressful event for them. Animals in Canada are transported many times in millions of numbers. For young animals, we have a prescribed time, which is very tight, very short, shorter than for

Agriculture committee  In the current regulations, the regulations that were published in 1977, there's no distinction. In the proposed regulations, we have tried to make it clear to the animal handlers or the industry what “compromised” means and what “unfit” means. We have tried to prescribe that in

Agriculture committee  Okay, thank you. I will try to finish it. We have clearly defined the regulations for the unfit and for compromised animals. We have defined the conditions for making them travel if they become compromised or if they're compromised before they're put on a transportation vehicle

Agriculture committee  There's been a lot of adjustment ever since these regulations were first published in 1977. For example, we had upwards of 400 slaughterhouses across Canada, and I think currently the number of federally registered establishments may be less than 100. That is not to say that anim

Agriculture committee  For this part of the regulations, we are prescribing the time, but we're saying that it's also the outcome. If during the transport time animals become distressed or sick, or if something else happens, the transporter has to assess and maybe reduce the intervals for travelling.

Agriculture committee  And maybe reduce that interval of the time for travelling these animals. Instead of travelling them for 36 hours, if the trucker thinks that animals are getting sick, that the temperature's not very good, or that it's too cold or too hot, they need to make an assessment of how fa