Integrated Agency Inspection Model – Consultation Draft (December 4, 2013)
Annex F: Glossary of Terms

This glossary of terminology is designed to standardize the language used by the CFIA's Animal, Plant and Food Business Line and support consistent interpretation of terminology used in the inspection program.

Applicant

Any person who applies for permission.

Biocontainment

Application of measures and procedures implemented to prevent the spread and release of pests, diseases and contaminants from a site.

Biosecurity

A set of practices used to minimize the transmission of pests, diseases and contaminants including their introduction (bioexclusion), spread within populations (biomanagement), and release (biocontainment).

Certification

Written assurance from a competent authority that commodities or preventive control plan systems conform to requirements.

Commercial

Refers to the frequency and volume of activities conducted by business and industry for trade.

Commodity

Any product and/or thing regulated under any Act or regulations administered or enforced by the CFIA.

Competent authority

A government agency or department having jurisdiction to perform a regulatory or enforcement function or both.

Contaminant

Any biological, physical, chemical agent or other substance that is present in a regulated commodity and that compromises human, animal or plant health or the environment.

Control measure

Any action or activity that can be used to prevent, control or eliminate a hazard or mitigate the risk.

Corrective action

The steps that a regulated party takes to address non-compliance, which can include controlling affected product, conducting root cause analysis and modifying procedures to prevent recurrence.

Corrective action request (CAR)

A document issued by the CFIA to a regulated party in cases of serious or critical non-compliance. The corrective action request describes the non-compliance and requires the regulated party to take corrective actions.

Critical non-compliance

Immediate impact on human, animal or plant health or the environment or repeated serious non-compliance.

Cross-contamination

A situation that occurs when hazards are transferred from one commodity, input, or surface to another.

Distributor

A person, including a wholesaler, who distributes commodities or other regulated materials.

Distribution centre

A warehouse or other specialized building that is stocked with commodities or things to be redistributed to retailers, wholesalers or directly to consumers.

Employee

A person who is conducting activities for and/or on behalf of an establishment or a premises.

Establishment

Any place, including a conveyance, where a commodity is produced/manufactured, prepared, stored, transported, packaged or identified (including labelling).

Exporter

Any person who prepares or sells or trades commodities from Canada to another country.

Exposure assessment

The qualitative and/or quantitative evaluation of the likely intake of or exposure to biological, chemical or physical hazard by humans, animals, plants or the environment.

Food grade materials

A designation that means that a material is safe for human consumption is permitted to come in contact with food contact surfaces or is food intended for human consumption.

Hazard – Biological

Any illness- or disease-causing pathogen, micro-organism, pest or vector that poses a danger to human, animal or plant health or the environment.

Hazard – Chemical

A chemical substance that poses a danger to human, animal or plant health or the environment.

Hazard – Physical

Any foreign materials that are not normally found in a commodity and that pose a danger to human, animal or plant health or the environment.

Importer

Any person in Canada who imports commodities into Canada.

Input

Any incoming materials used to prepare, process, or produce regulated commodities.

Licence

Formal permission from the regulatory authority to conduct a regulated activity.

Monitoring

The act of conducting a planned sequence of observations or measurements of control parameters to assess whether a control measure is under control.
(Codex)

Not ready-to-eat food

Foods that require a cooking step before consumption by consumers for safety. The cooking step is required to kill pathogenic micro-organisms that may be present in the food.

Objective evidence

Information directly collected by an inspector through observation, measurement, testing or other means.

Oversight

Activities designed to determine whether a regulated party is complying with Acts and regulations administered or enforced by the CFIA and whether regulated commodities meet regulatory requirements.

Permissions

A formal consent granting legal authorization to a regulated party.

Pests

Any species, strain or biotype of organism injurious to or impacting on human, animal or plant health or the environment (including prions).

Premises

A geographically defined location that includes lands, establishments, buildings and facilities (for example, greenhouses, corrals, assembly or auction yards).

Prepare or Produce

Includes to grow, process, treat, preserve, handle, test, grade, code, collect, hatch or slaughter or to do any other activity in respect of the regulated commodity.

Preventive control plan

A combination of control measures that, when taken as a whole, provide for a science-based approach to managing risks posed by hazards and contribute to achieving compliance with regulatory requirements.

Primary producer

A person who grows, raises, or harvests agricultural or forestry products or animals.

Product identification

Any document or device associated with and/or attached to a product that allows the CFIA to distinguish that product from another (such as labels, tags, tattoos, stamps, microchips).

Ready-to-eat food

1. do not require any further preparation or cooking before consumption, except perhaps washing/rinsing, thawing or warming for aesthetics or palatability.
2. are in a form that is edible without additional preparation to achieve food safety.
3. are ordinarily consumed in the same state as that in which they are sold.

Regulated Area

A designated area (e.g. compartments and zones) subject to regulatory control.

Regulated party

A person (including an individual, corporation, partnership or organization) who is subject to the Acts and regulations administered by the CFIA.

Representative sample

The collection of a selected portion or subset of the thing that is intended to provide information on a given characteristic and that accurately reflects the characteristics of that thing.

Risk-based inspection

A method, using risk factors, to prioritize and manage inspection activities.

Risk characterization

The qualitative and/or quantitative estimation, including attendant uncertainties, of the probability of occurrence and severity of known or potential adverse health effects in a given population based on hazard identification, hazard characterization and exposure assessment.
(Codex)

Sanitation

Cleanliness appropriate to the operations of the regulated party.

Serious non-compliance

Potential impact on human, animal or plant health or the environment

Surveillance

A process which collects records and analyzes data systematically to inform regulatory decision making and influence actions to be taken.

Systems-based approach

An integrated, flexible, multi-faceted approach to analysing and managing risk that considers the underlying actions of all of the steps or processes and controls that make up commodity production or preparation.

Validation

Obtaining evidence that a control measure or combination of control measures, if properly implemented, is capable of controlling the hazard to a specified outcome.
(Codex)

Verification

The application of methods, procedures, tests and other evaluations, in addition to monitoring, to determine whether the control measure is or has been operating as intended.
(Codex)

Violation

Any contravention of the Acts or regulations administered or enforced by the CFIA or any refusal or neglect to perform any duty imposed by or under the Acts or regulations.

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