Inspection capacity

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) is dedicated to safeguarding the health and safety of Canada's food, plants and animals which supports a healthy and competitive agriculture and agri-food sector.

Inspectors on the ground are an important element of the regulatory system, but they represent only part of the investments by the CFIA to protect Canadians. These investments include:

• Setting the rules by maintaining modern regulations, policies and programs that reflect new emerging threats and new technologies
• Promoting compliance by working with industry and other key stakeholders to provide them with the information and tools they need to meet safety outcomes
• Monitoring and enforcing safety rules by assessing, preventing and responding to a constantly evolving environment while taking enforcement action when needed, and through diagnostic and surveillance activities with cutting-edge technologies in an effort to safeguard food, animals and plants
• Granting permissions by providing regulatory approval in the form of licences, permits and registrations to industry and stakeholders, once they meet all requirements
• Developing international science-based rules, standards, guidelines and policies and promoting the Canadian regulatory system with foreign trading partners to contribute to market access
• Supporting program delivery through internal services including: management and oversight, communications, legal, human resources, financial management, real property management, materiel management, acquisition management and information management and information technology

To underscore its commitment to openness and transparency, the CFIA posts information about field inspection and laboratory professional capacity, inspection and scientific specialist capacity and, management and support capacity full-time equivalents (FTE):

• 2021 to 2022 CFIA full-time equivalents
• 2020 to 2021 CFIA full-time equivalents
• 2019 to 2020 CFIA full-time equivalents