The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in an email on April 8 that new admissibility requirements for commodities originating from Greece have been set up in CFIA’s Automated Import Reference System (AIRS).

WHY IT MATTERS: Data from Greece’s tourism industry show over 300,000 arrivals in that country from Canada in 2024 alone.

According to the World Organization for Animal Health, Greece began reporting cases of foot-and-mouth disease on March 15 with nine infected cattle at a farm on the island of Lesvos, marking the country’s first such cases since 1994. Its most recent cases, in sheep and one cow on the same island, were reported March 29.

Greece’s cases so far have all occurred on farms in the northern regions of that island, in the Aegean Sea off the west coast of Turkey. So far, 438 animals in total have been confirmed infected.

The findings make Greece the fifth European Union member country currently under foot-and-mouth restrictions from Canada. Hungary, Slovakia and Cyprus all reported cases last year, while Bulgaria is the lone EU member country “not usually considered free” of foot-and-mouth disease.

Germany regained disease-free status last month, while CFIA’s restrictions on Austria were lifted last September.

While findings of the disease in Greece are so far limited to Lesvos, Canada’s new restrictions apply to the entire country, unlike certain other nations such as Brazil, Argentina and Peru in which CFIA classifies some but not all provinces or states as free of foot-and-mouth disease.

What products are prohibited?

At-risk commodities covered by Canada’s import ban include live animals and germplasm; animal products and byproducts; uncooked meat and meat products; raw milk and milk products made from raw milk, such as unpasteurized cheese; unprocessed manure; laboratory material; blood products; livestock feed and equipment that has been in contact with affected animals; raw or unprocessed pet foods; raw hides, skins, wool, antlers, horns, hooves; and any other non-heat-treated products or byproducts from vulnerable animal species.

Species vulnerable to foot-and-mouth disease include hogs, cattle, bison, sheep, goats, camelids (llamas, alpacas) and cervids (deer, elk, moose) among others.

CFIA’s restrictions apply to any at-risk products dating as far back as 28 days before the first symptoms were detected in an affected country.

Foot-and-mouth disease, according to CFIA, is a viral disease characterized by symptoms including blister-like sores on the tongue and lips, in the mouth, on the teats and between the hooves; foot lesions, accompanied by acute lameness and reluctance to move; and loss of appetite or milk production. The virus can spread between animals through direct, indirect or airborne transmission.

Canada is free of the disease and has not reported any cases of the disease in livestock since 1952, when an outbreak in southeastern Saskatchewan is believed to have originated with a visitor from an infected farm in Germany, carrying the virus either on clothes or an infected sausage.

Advice for farmers visiting Greece

Canadians are still free to travel to Greece, but CFIA recommends they avoid visiting farms when doing so. Travellers who do visit farms should make sure clothes and footwear worn during those visits are free from soil or manure. Footwear should be cleaned and disinfected, and dry-cleaning of the clothes worn is recommended.

Travellers should also avoid contact with susceptible animals, including farm and zoo animals and wildlife, for 14 days after returning to Canada.

For farmers who travel to Greece, contact with farm animals is not recommended for five days upon return to Canada, when “strict personal decontamination measures” are applied to clothes and footwear, CFIA says.

Travellers also must declare all food products upon arrival in Canada. Generally, CFIA says, meat and dairy products from foot-and-mouth infected countries won’t be allowed, but foods that are “cooked, shelf-stable, commercially prepared and hermetically sealed” may be.

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“After extensive producer engagement and input from provincial beef organizations, the Canadian Cattle Association (CCA) does not support proceeding with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency’s (CFIA) currently proposed amendments to Part XV of the Health of Animals Regulations (Identification and Traceability),” the organization said in a post to social media on Monday.

It added that it supports livestock traceability for disease preparedness, market access and confidence in the beef sector. The association said it and provincial groups will convene a task force “to work for producers on a risk-based, industry-led approach to disease preparedness and emergency management.”

The stance comes after outcry from beef producers across Canada earlier this year, who expressed concerns about “government overreach” and burdensome regulation.

The changes, which included reporting animal move-ins within seven days and more robust requirements around premise identification numbers and required reporting, were first intended to roll out this spring. The Canadian Food Inspection said in January that it would pause the publication of proposed amendments after hearing producer concerns.

The proposed regulations are aligned with the industry-led Cattle Implementation Plan, which was established by all sectors of industry at the National Cattle Traceability Summit in August 2011 and adopted in 2016.

On Jan. 9, CCA president Tyler Fulton posted a message to social media platform X, noting those concerns from membership.

“Be assured the Canadian Cattle Association has and will continue to advocate for a traceability system that works for ranchers and feeders and beef farmers,” he said.

He added, however, that being able to. move quickly to disease threats is key to the beef sector’s business.

“Given the Canadian cattle industry’s reliance on export markets, we need to be prepared and have the tools available to manage animal disease events quickly and efficiently,” he said in the same post.

—With files from Janelle Rudolph

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“Easing trade barriers is crucial for market expansion, and this new protocol will streamline the export process, diversify Canadian apple exports, and meet the evolving preferences of Mexican consumers,” said Canadian Produce Marketing Association president Ron Lemaire in a federal news release on Tuesday.

The change allows the CFIA to inspect and register cold treatment facilities which eliminates the need for in-person inspections by Mexican officials.

Cold treatment is a phytosanitary process related to control of pests, according to the CFIA’s website.

The CFIA will maintain a list of registered facilities in Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Exporters will be required to use these facilities to ship apples to Mexico.

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“CCA has launched an online traceability feedback survey to ensure that producers have an opportunity to share their feedback,” the organization said on social media.

It includes 15 questions, including the importance of traceability to the Canadian beef industry, level of support for “enhancing” the current traceability system and the regulations’ importance to producers.

This gathering of information comes nearly one month after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency announced that it was pausing the publication of proposed amendments to Part XV of the Health of Animals Regulations, which that was intended to occur this spring.

The move followed weeks of outcry from beef producers across Canada.

The proposed regulations are aligned with the Cattle Implementation Plan, which was established by all sectors of industry at the National Cattle Traceability Summit in August 2011 and adopted in 2016. A summary of the plan can be found on the CCIA website.

Many worry that the regulations will unnecessarily burdensome for those who raise, move, feed, and purchase animals.

Across social media platforms and at meetings, producers expressed concern with “government overreach” and said they would not comply with the regulations.

Many producers and provincial organizations also said there had been insufficient communication on the part of industry leaders, the CFIA and the Canadian Cattle Identification Agency.

“The Canadian Cattle Association has, and will continue, to advocate for traceability systems that work for ranchers and feeders and beef farmers,” CCA president Tyler Fulton said in an X video Jan 9.

“Given the Canadian cattle industry’s reliance on export markets, we need to be prepared and have the tools available to manage animal disease events quickly and efficiently.”

Local cattle associations such as Alberta Beef Producers and the Saskatchewan Cattle Association have scheduled producer meetings, with SCA hosting two traceability information meetings in February, weeks after the annual general meeting where traceability and the CFIA were the hottest topics.

“We encourage Saskatchewan producers to take a few minutes to participate and ensure your experience and concerns are reflected in ongoing discussions around traceability,” said SCA on social media.

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“Just a reminder, CCIA, we are the responsible administrator,” general manager Ashley Scott said during the Saskatchewan Beef Industry Conference.

“CFIA, they are the regulator and the enforcer.”

A responsible administrator is defined as “someone responsible for delivering a traceability program defined by federal regulations.”

These federal regulations are set by the Canada Food Inspection Agency, responsible for safeguarding food safety. It also sets the objectives of the National Livestock Identification and Traceability program.

“The Livestock Identification Traceability program provides accurate and up-to-date livestock identity, movement and location information to mitigate the impact of disease outbreaks and food safety concerns and natural disasters,” Scott said.

The traceability regulatory changes introduced in Canada Gazette I were working toward Canada Gazette II, which includes the proposed changes that the cattle industry was against.

The changes, which face opposition by some in the cattle industry, include:

• Identification and registration of premises where livestock are kept or collected.
• Identification of livestock.
• Domestic movement reporting of livestock.

The changes align with the Cattle Implementation Plan developed by the Canadian beef industry in 2016.

The biggest adjustments for producers include:

• Obtain or keep current a premises identification number (PID) from a provincial government.
• Include a PID when purchasing CCIA approved tags.
• Report information related to identification of cattle and their movement.
• Report move-ins within seven days.

“The proposed regulations do contain a permission that if a producer does not have a PID (premises identification) … that they can report all the necessary PID associated information, such as the legal land description, contact info, etc., when movements of herd (occur) or tags are purchased,” Scott said.

In Saskatchewan, PIDs have been required by the provincial government since 2017, and origin and destination PIDs must be included on livestock manifests as of 2025.

The CCIA and the Saskatchewan Cattle Association developed a cheat sheet for understanding the incoming regulations that was shared during the SCA’s recent annual general meeting.

According to that document, reporting requirements vary for producers, transporters, feedlots and auction marts, but most of the onus is on producers.

They must report move-ins to their sites, community pastures, vet clinics, cattle shows and exhibitions, although the requirements of each move-in varies slightly.

For yard move-ins, producers would be required to report the PID of the departure and arrival sites, the date and time of cattle departure and arrival, individual tag numbers of arriving cattle and the license plate number, including province, territory or state of the truck that delivered the animals.

It’s the same for community pastures, except instead of individual tag numbers, producers must report the number of head being moved. Reports of both departure and return are required.

A few more steps are required for veterinary clinics and cattle shows, including the date and time when the cattle left the departure site and when they returned and time of arrival to the clinic or show, and when they leave.

Auction marts are required to report the move-in, but the transporter or producer is required to provide information such as departure PID, date and time the cattle departed and license plate information.

Auction marts will not need to report individual tag numbers, but feedlots will.

Scott didn’t answer any specific questions from the floor and advised producers to ask the SCA to forward their questions to the CFIA or contact the agency directly via email.

“In the CLTS Resource Centre, you will find those step-by-step guides and instructions that will make using the CLTS easier,” Scott said.

She said the CLTS is the easiest way to report movements to the CCIA by using the web portal or mobile app, uploading an Excel file or using web services, which is the best option for software providers and high-volume reporters.

The CLTS also works offline, allowing producers to enter information and save it to upload when they have access to Wi-Fi or cellular data.

A less preferred option, though still accepted, is sending tracking information via mail.

“It wouldn’t be our preference if everybody submitted a paper record,” Scott said.

“We still take them, and when we receive them, we will reach out to that client and we’ll confirm the information. We do enter it in the system on their behalf.”

She said the CCIA has updated the CLTS in an effort to ease reporting and ensure compliance. Certain fields were added, such as arrival date and time, as well as a movement reporting module, both of which are optional right now but will be mandatory when the CFIA regulations take effect.

“The movement record is an alternative reporting option, primarily when the departure site chooses to initiate the process,” Scott said.

“The preexisting movement event in the CLTS is a recommended method and allows the destination site to report movements.”

Producers at the conference voiced concerns that producers don’t know enough about the CLTS and aren’t using it.

Scott assured the audience that the system and its uses would be better explained in the coming year.

She said the focus in 2025 was on educating dealers, while in 2026 the CCIA will concentrate on producers and auction marts.

This will include explanatory videos and training sessions if producers and industry groups are interested in helping organize them.

However, changes to the regulations are still to come, and no one is quite sure what to expect.

“Based on everything being paused right now, we could see further changes,” Scott said.

“The information shared is just what was readily available from CFIA after industry consultation.”

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The Agriculture Union represents 4,500 of the approximately 6,400 CFIA workers.

A union press release issued Jan. 28 said 1,370 jobs will be cut due to the federal government’s austerity measures. There were no details yet on where and when the cuts would occur and which operations would be affected. However, Agriculture Union president Milton Dyck said cutting food safety leads to obvious outcomes.

“More people will get sick from preventable food-borne illnesses, more poultry and livestock will die from avian flu and other diseases, and our food production industry will suffer,” he said.

The union said staffing at CFIA has declined three per cent in the last 10 years, compared to the overall 30 per-cent rise in the federal public service.

It noted U.S. president Donald Trump’s administration has also gutted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, putting the quality of imported food in doubt as well.

It also cited a media report saying the CFIA can’t handle multiple emergencies.

Dyck said food recalls rose by 150 per cent in the last decade. The government is putting short-term savings ahead of health, he added.

The CFIA has not yet responded to a request for more information.

Job cuts affect meat, poultry inspection

In a letter to staff obtained by Western Producer, CFIA president Paul MacKinnon said decisions were guided by four principles: protecting front-line inspection capacity and emergency readiness; not reducing positions without reducing work; staying focused on the core mandate of food safety, animal and plant health, science and emergency response; and simplifying the structure for clearer accountability and faster decisions.

A screenshot, provided by the union, of where savings will occur indicates the highest number of jobs affected, at 299, are categorized as “realignment for clear accountability.”

However, 117 jobs related to meat inspection operational efficiencies are impacted and 98 are cut for poultry slaughter inspection modernization.

Forty job cuts represent reduced daily shift inspections in non-export meat plants.

Effective April 1, the agency will also have a new organizational structure.

“The agency will move to a business-line model focused on Food Safety and Science, Animal Health, and Plant Health, supported by a Policy, Trade and Business Enablement Branch,” MacKinnon wrote. “This structure will better align accountability with the risks we manage, and the outcomes Canadians expect from us.”

He also said established employment transition processes will be used, including voluntary departure and selection for retention.

“My commitment is to minimize impacts, proceed with fairness and respect, and offer concrete support to impacted employees,” he said.

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Glacier FarmMedia — The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says it will hold off on posting new traceability regulations for now.

The agency issued a statement Jan. 10 after public confusion about whether the amendments to the Health of Animals Regulations, announced in 2023, were actually in force. Some thought they took effect Jan. 1, but they had not yet been introduced in Canada Gazette, Part II, which is a key legislative requirement.

CFIA had expected to publish the regulations, developed along with industry organizations, in the spring. They would have included required premises identification numbers to purchase ID tags, movement reporting when cattle leave their home operations and reporting the arrival of cattle within seven days.

Producers said these regulations would be costly and onerous.

Last week, provincial and national beef organizations issued statements about the issue, noting the regulations weren’t in place but also that producers had concerns. Some asked for CFIA to postpone the introduction until these could be addressed.

On the weekend, CFIA said it was aware of the concerns.

“These amendments are not currently in place and have not been finalized,” it said.

“The CFIA has consulted with industry, associations and governments regarding the proposed amendments and will continue to do so. The CFIA will pause any publication of the regulations until the proposed changes are more widely understood and concerns are heard and taken into consideration.”

Some producers on social media suggested CFIA had “snuck” in the regulations late last year as a way to exert control over them. But the draft regulations were published in Part 1 of the Canada Gazette in 2023 and a 90-day comment period followed. The agency published a What We Heard report in 2024 to summarize what it had heard.

The proposed changes will be phased in once they are published.

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This is the last of its informal seed modernization consultations before it publishes draft amendments to seed regulations the agency said in a news release. The process of modernizing Canada’s seed regulations has been ongoing since 2020 — since 2019 for the potato sector.

Up for feedback are a series of proposed changes to seed potatoes and Part 2 and 3 of the Seeds regulation. The proposals fit into three categories:

• Reduce red tape
• Support the well-being of the industry
• Protect farmers, consumers, markets and the environment

Feedback on the costs and benefits of the proposed policy decisions is also welcome, the CFIA said.

The online consultations are open to any interested parties, including industry members and the general public. They close Feb. 5.

The agency said it will report results of the consultation early in 2026. It will then seek targeted input from stakeholders before publishing draft regulatory amendments in the Canada Gazette.

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The regulations are not yet in effect and have not been published in the Canada Gazette, Part II. That is expected later in spring.

However, some people believe new movement reporting systems are already in place.

They are supposed to be phased in over time and help the industry respond more quickly to animal disease outbreaks and food safety incidents while maintaining market access.

The Canadian Cattle Association said it is working with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to ensure the regulations follow the industry-led Cattle Implementation Plan.

“There is significant misinformation being shared on social media regarding CFIA’s proposed traceability regulations,” the organization said.

“No new regulations were implemented on Jan. 1, 2026. CCA will continue to work with provincial members and governments to ensure that any proposed changes work for producers. We are calling for a pause to address the concerns that we are hearing.”

The proposed regulations would require premises identification numbers to be used to purchase identification tags, report movement of cattle and report arrival of cattle within seven days.

An online petition launched Jan. 8 to stop the changes said they threaten cattle operations.

“I believe that these regulations in the long term will lead to total government control, echoing concerns from the European agricultural sectors,” wrote Julia Fairbrother in launching the petition.

She said current tracking systems are effective, but the new regulations don’t consider that some producers don’t have cellular service or the proper technology to keep up.

“I don’t know a single rancher who doesn’t know where his/her cattle are at all times, or whose cattle they neighbour with, so why does the government need to know where everything is at all times?” she wrote.

The petition had 893 verified signatures the morning of Jan. 9.

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On that day, backbench Conservative MP Arnold Vierson — who represents the Peace River-Westlock riding in Alberta — stood next to members of the Canadian Beekeepers Federation and Alberta Beekeepers Commission to highlight obstacles facing the honey sector.

Those included some now well-known problems that have seriously cut at honeybee stocks and hurt producers’ bottom lines in recent years, as well as a brand new parasite threat looming — tropilaelaps mites, or t-mites.

WHY IT MATTERS: Packaged bee trade, and whether or not the U.S. should be allowed as a source, has been a hot topic among a beekeeping sector where persistent production problems have pushed some farms to the edge of viability. Beekeepers in favour of the idea aren’t backing down.

Parts of Canada, including Manitoba, have suffered a string of hard winters where many colonies failed to survive. The industry is embroiled in an increasingly difficult battle with varroa mites, with products previously used to control the parasites no longer delivering the same results.

Linked to those, the debate over bulk packaged bees from the U.S. has roared to the forefront in recent years. Without replacement stock, beekeepers with poor bee survival often split hives, something that limits their honey harvest that year.

Some beekeepers want the U.S. border thrown back open, after decades of restriction due to pest and disease risk. Earlier this year, the CFIA shut down a list of industry proposals that had been submitted in the hopes of convincing the agency that those pest risks could be mitigated. That, in turn, frustrated beekeepers, who felt the agency had dismissed them out of hand.

That same day, Vierson brought a new motion forward in the House of Commons, the M-22 Honeybee Importation and Regulation motion.

Vierson’s motion would put five recommendations on the table for the CFIA:

• restore free trade of honeybee packages from safe zones in the United States (something that industry had argued for in its rejected list of proposals),
• develop a clear, consistent methodology for assessments,
• work with beekeepers to review and update the national farm-level biosecurity standard,
• partner with Animal Health Canada to create a tropilaelaps mite emergency plan, and
• improve and speed up the approval process of management tools for bee pests, such as varroa mites.

Drama on honeybee trade

The blanket ban on U.S. packaged bees doesn’t make sense, argued Peter Awram, director of the Canadian Beekeeping Federation. Awram said the CFIA has held the line on the packaged bee ban since 1987, despite mounting evidence that there are significant risks from bees brought in from the list countries that the CFIA does allow.

“They want to say the U.S.A. is dangerous, yet they are allowing from places that are easily 10 times, if not 100 times, more dangerous,” he said.

The cross-section of the beekeeping sector that stood with Vierson Nov. 25 suggests that perhaps Canada should halt packaged bee shipments from these designated safe countries. That’s partly from concern over emerging pest threats, and partly to underline what they see as CFIA’s inconsistency.

They note beekeepers are free to import queen bees from approved zones in the U.S., which suggests risk can be appropriately managed.

The CFIA, meanwhile, argues that the risk of queen bees is a much different thing than bringing in packages that contain hive material. The industry’s rejected submission, which would have set up trade from select areas of the U.S., also needed zoning approval from U.S. officials, the CFIA said in a summary report earlier this year.

Danger from abroad

The current list of approved countries doesn’t take proper account of t-mite risk, the motion’s advocates say, nor do they seem to acknowledge that countries on the approved list aren’t varroa-free. Australia, one of the last bastions against varroa, had its defences breached in 2022. In 2023, authorities decided that eradication of the mite was no longer achievable.

The current list includes:

• Australia
• New Zealand
• Chile
• Italy, and
• formerly included Ukraine

Australia is only 93 kilometres from tropilaelaps-infected Papua New Guinea at the closest point between the two countries’ nearest borders, those in favour of M-22 worry.

The packages from the approved regions are also simply not very good for Canadian production, Awram said. Mismatched seasons and 16-hour flights take their toll on the bees, killing many of them before reaching Canadian shores.

“The danger from outside of North America is far greater than any benefit we get,” he said.

“We import a very tiny amount of stock from Australia, New Zealand, Chile (and) Italy. The stuff we get from those areas, it’s poor for a number of reasons. Some of it is the genetics. The genetics from those regions just are not well-adapted for what we have.”

Awram has verified at least one example of high varroa mite content in packages from New Zealand.

“The lowest was at four per cent varroa in there, which means four mites per 100 bees in a package — up to 20 per cent. According to the regulations from CFIA, it shouldn’t be more than one per cent, but this is the way it is.

“It’s just a bad idea from a biological point of view to be pulling (packages) out of the southern hemisphere.”

The promise of U.S. bees

The situation would change if beekeepers were allowed to bring their packages north from the U.S., he said. They would arrive much faster, and in trucks, which allow greater control over shipping conditions.

“You can have somebody who actually knows how to take care of them watching the temperature and things like that,” Awram said. “This is what was done for decades and decades before 1987. They were brought up by truck, and we never had (these) sort of transport problems.”

CFIA report creates bad blood

Some beekeepers — Awram included — saw the CFIA’s denial of their proposals earlier this year as the final straw.

Along with set safe zones for trade, industry associations across Canada had pitched measures like transport inspections upon entering Canada, current import conditions of queens being expanded for packaged bees, using of best management practices to limit risk and evaluating the impact on inter-provincial movement.

The CFIA, however, responded that “after careful evaluation of all input received, the CFIA concluded that no feasible, scientifically-supported (sic) mitigation measures are currently available to bring all identified risks within acceptable levels,” an Aug. 6 agency statement read.

“As a result, Canada will maintain its current import restrictions and will not permit the importation of honeybee packages from the United States at this time.”

Awram — who maintains the recommendations were based on sound science — sees the feedback as evidence that the CFIA cannot be engaged on a scientific level.

“We’ve been fighting this non-scientific nonsense forever. They did this new risk assessment and despite the fact that there’s plenty of scientific evidence to the contrary, they still made the same claims.

“We’re not talking about an issue that is going to be solved by showing the scientific data or being logical. There is a block somewhere in the CFIA,” he said.

Industry ban not a done deal yet

Those who appeared in Ottawa in November, however, don’t represent the whole honey sector in Canada.

Ian Steppler of the Manitoba Beekeepers Association, who serves on the Canadian Honey Council’s (CHC) tropilaelaps mite committee, said the CFIA has been actively working to minimize beekeepers’ woes. He has been among those representing beekeeper interests with the CFIA on several fronts.

Manitoba’s official beekeeping organization was among those pushing the CFIA to reassess risks posed by U.S. bee shipments in the face of high winter losses.

Steppler says not every beekeeper will want to cease importing packages under the current protocols.

“There’s also a lot of beekeepers who will say, ‘Well, we utilize these packages from overseas to make up replacement losses, which is important to our industry, and if (the countries are) following all the surveillance protocols and preventative measures to ensure the pest doesn’t get in their country, then that should be enough to mitigate the risk.’”

Although the Canadian Beekeepers Federation and Alberta Beekeepers Commission have made their stance on these packages known, any industry-wide decision to push for reducing or stopping the import of bee packages from CFIA-approved countries will depend on what the various industry organizations say at their annual general meetings, Steppler noted.

“Our (MBA) meeting is in March and we’re going to be presenting that question to our membership to see where they would like to land on that position,” he said.

Awareness efforts pay off

Connie Phillips, Alberta Beekeepers Commission executive director, believes the press conference, in addition to the delegation’s well-attended Honey on the Hill reception, broadened awareness of the plight of beekeepers in Canada.

“In addition to what Arnold put forward, we had brought materials and information to that event that we could hand out or people could take away. That just reiterated what Arnold was presenting in his motion.”

The delegation, which Philips was a part of, also met with the Conservative Party of Canada caucus, officials at the Mexican embassy and representatives of the United States Department of Agriculture . She believes these meetings were fruitful.

Phillips is optimistic about the future of the Canadian beekeeping industry but urges mindfulness when planning the future.

“I think they’re just really on the cusp of a big paradigm shift in the industry and a needed one. So that’s good. But I also think we have to be careful how we go about it so that you have time to grow into that change, rather than just ripping the Band-Aid off all at once.”

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