BFO shares concerns regarding SRM requirements in Canada and the industry-wide desire to see our practices harmonized with the United States. For many years, BFO, other provincial cattle associations, the Canadian Meat Council (CMC), the Canadian Cattle Association (CCA), and the National Cattle Feeders’ Association have pressed federal and provincial officials and elected representatives at both levels of government to address this issue.
In May of 2021, Canada’s BSE risk status was upgraded from controlled to negligible, which finally paved the way to engage in meaningful discussions with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), and more specifically, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), regarding the SRM requirements. Prior to the risk status change, the likelihood of Canada amending the SRM requirements was low. Since that time, industry groups, including BFO, have ramped up advocacy efforts in an attempt to have the federal government initiate a formalized review of our SRM removal practices with the hope they could eventually be harmonized with those in place in the United States.
Some of BFO’s efforts in this regard have included motions and resolutions to the CCA Board and Animal Health and Care Committee, requests for updates from CCA and CFIA to the BFO Board, formal requests of Ministers Thompson and Flack to raise this issue with their Federal-Provincial-Territorial (FPT) counterparts at their annual FPT meetings, and discussions with individual MPs and political staff during regular lobby days in Ottawa. Regarding the latter, SRM harmonization has been one of our top federal priorities for the last several years and as mentioned, our advocacy and attention to this issue has increased dramatically since Canada’s BSE risk status was changed in the spring of 2021. This issue was formally discussed by FPT ministers of agriculture this past July in Whitehorse, Yukon.
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