Operational Guidance: Food Animal Slaughter – Preventive Control Inspection – Implementation Verification

1.0 Purpose

The purpose of this document is to provide guidance to Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) inspection staff on Preventive Control Inspection (PCI) procedures related to verifying that the operator/ licence holder meets the regulatory requirements related to slaughter of food animals.

This document is intended to be used in conjunction with other guidance documents as referenced in section 3.0 of this document.

2.0 Authorities

Refer to Operational procedure: Food preventive control inspection – Implementation verification, section 2.0.

3.0 Reference documents

Please refer to the "Reference documents" section of the following documents:

4.0 Definitions

Refer to Operational procedure: Food preventive control inspection – Implementation verification, section 4.0.

5.0 Acronyms

Refer to Operational procedure: Food preventive control inspection – Implementation verification, section 5.0.

6.0 Operational procedure

This operational guideline provides inspection guidance specific to verification of regulatory requirements related to slaughter. Where more specific guidance is required than what is provided in the Standard Inspection Process (SIP) and Operational procedure: Food preventive control inspection – Implementation verification, these will be indicated in this section.

6.1 Prepare for inspection

Refer to SIP, section 3, step 1, Operational procedure: Food preventive control inspection – Implementation verification, section 6.0 and section 6.1 and Appendix 5 – Guidance for weekly case management of this operational guidance (OG). In addition to the general guidance provided in those sections, the following applies:

Prepare the toolkit

In addition to the list of equipment found in SIP, section 3.5, the following equipment is needed to complete the ante-mortem examination verification:

Inspection tags referred to in Operational guideline: Food regulatory response guidelines

6.2 Conduct the inspection

Refer to SIP, section 4, step 2 and Operational procedure: Food preventive control inspection – Implementation verification, section 6.2. In addition to the general guidance provided in those sections, the specific guidance provided in appendices of this OG applies.

Implementation Verification tasks in section 7.0 of this OG as well as all annexes of the Operational procedure: Food preventive control inspection – Implementation verification, section 7.0 apply to a slaughter establishment.

Appendix 5 – Guidance for weekly PCI case management of this OG describes the routine weekly PCI case management as well as management of weekly PCI cases when a non-compliance is observed during the week.

6.3 Communicate the results

Refer to SIP, section 5, step 3 and Operational procedure: Food preventive control inspection – Implementation verification, section 6.3.

Appendix 5 – Guidance for weekly PCI case management of this OG describes the communication of inspection results when a non-compliance is observed during the week as well as when the weekly PCI case is deactivated.

6.4 Conduct the follow-up inspection

Refer to SIP, section 6, step 4 and Operational procedure: Food preventive control inspection – Implementation verification, section 6.4.

Appendix 5 – Guidance for weekly PCI case management of this OG describes the follow-up on weekly PCI cases when a non-compliance is observed during the week.

7.0 Appendices

Appendix 5: Guidance for weekly PCI case management

Slaughter sub-districts will follow a weekly case management for inspection cases with Preventive Control Inspection Plan (PCI) trigger (referred to as weekly PCI cases in this appendix). A different case management is followed for inspection cases with Sample Collection Plan and Commodity Inspection Plan trigger.

This appendix only lists additional case management principles that are unique to slaughter sub-districts. For details, please refer to SIP and Operational procedure: Food preventive control inspection – Implementation verification guidance document.

1. Routine management of weekly PCI cases

Planning, Reporting and Analytic Division will upload 52 PCI cases at the beginning of each fiscal year, 1 for each week of the fiscal year in DSDP. These will appear in the inspection case queue for each sub-district (slaughter establishment).

A weekly PCI case assigned to a week can be identified by its "Due date" (end date of the week, which will be a Sunday) in the inspection case queue which can be filtered for the sub-district (slaughter establishment).

PCI Compliance Verification of a System tasks (for recording inspections based on sub-elements) (PCI-CVS) as well as PCI-Implementation Verification tasks (PCI-IV) can be added to a weekly PCI case.

Veterinarian with Supervisory Authority (VSA) (previously called Veterinarian-in-Charge [VIC]) or designate will select and enter the PCI inspection tasks in the "Inspection task" sub-grid of each weekly PCI case with:

all daily PCI-IV tasks
all weekly PCI-IV tasks
some PCI-IV tasks (monthly, quarterly, biannual and annual) to be delivered in that week
some PCI-CVS tasks to be delivered in that week

Note

If, based on experience, the VSA or designate anticipates that a PCI-CVS or PCI-IV task delivery will take longer than a week, an additional PCI case can be created manually and these PCI-CVS and PCI-IV tasks can be added to the manually generated PCI case
For ease of tracking, data entry and inspection reports with non-compliances, especially for daily PCI-IV tasks, use the "Customizable Name" field within the task to differentiate the duplicate daily tasks (for example "2023-02-20 - Animal Welfare, Handling")

VSA or designate will assign the "Lead inspector" and "Inspection supervisor" to each weekly PCI case and if needed, also add, to "Inspection team" section, names of all other inspectors who will be assigned to different PCI tasks in the weekly PCI case.

Note

An inspection task may be assigned to more than 1 inspector; in such cases:

each inspector should enter individual "Task time entries" on the same day the task is performed
each inspector should enter their initials along with entering their information in the "Document and record review", "Interviews", "Observations", "Findings" and "Notes" sections

Verification activities for all PCI tasks in the weekly PCI case should be completed between Monday and Sunday of that week (residual data entry may take place on the first working day of the next week).

A initial walk-through is required if a sub-element task is added to the scope of the PCI case or if a walk-though has not been conducted in the last 8 weeks. Otherwise, the inspector can use their judgement to determine if an initial walk-through is necessary.

An opening and closing meeting:

must be conducted and recorded for each weekly PCI case
must be conducted but may not be recorded for a commodity inspection case
does not have to be conducted or recorded for a sample collection case

An opening and closing meeting can be a short meeting and can be combined for both PCI and commodity inspection cases. The opening meeting can take place at the same time as the closing meeting conducted for the previous week and the closing meeting can take place at the same time as the opening meeting for the next week. When opening meeting of one week is combined with the closing meeting for another week, same date and time can be entered into both of the inspection cases.

Note: if a non-compliance is found during completion of inspection tasks in the commodity inspection or sample collection cases, a closing meeting is required in order to communicate the non-compliance and it must be documented in the appropriate case (commodity inspection or sample collection case).

The weekly PCI case should be deactivated by the end of the first working day of the next week:

select "Document type" as "Final inspection report"
after printing the inspection report, rename the PDF copy of inspection report as "Final Inspection Report for [enter end date of the week]" (for example "Final Inspection Report 2023-02-26")
only a document that is saved as document type "Final inspection report" and when attached to the "Documents" sub-grid will show up on My CFIA portal upon case deactivation

2. Management of a Non-compliance

When a non-compliance is observed:

verbally notify the licence holder as soon as possible and on the same day when the non-compliance is observed ("Complete corrective actions date", the time-frame for completion of permanent corrective actions (but not for interim corrective measures) begins 1 day after the verbal notification takes place)
enter data for the non-compliance in DSDP on the day of finding a non-compliance or latest by the end of the next day (select "No Impact" for "Impact assessment" because PCI-IV tasks should not impact the Establishment-based Risk Assessment (ERA) rating of the establishment)
at time of data entry for a non-compliance, generate a follow-up inspection case for the non-compliance observed, enter a due date for follow-up (Follow-up inspection date) within the follow-up inspection case, and validate the case
keep the weekly PCI case open, continue data entry for the remaining PCI tasks in that weekly PCI case
an inspection report with all non-compliance is issued after the end of the week, however, if requested by the licence holder, issue an interim inspection report prior to deactivation of the weekly PCI case by means other than through the My CFIA portal (such as in person/email/fax):
- the "Inspector information" section of the interim inspection report will contain the "start date" but not the "end date" because the weekly PCI case will still be open
- after saving a PDF copy of the interim inspection report, amend the name of the PDF document to "Interim Inspection Report for [enter date on which interim inspection report is issued]" (for example "Interim Inspection Report for 2023-02-23")
- attach the interim inspection report to the "Document" sub-grid (while leaving the section "Document type" blank) for Access To Information and Privacy (ATIP) purposes
attach the final inspection report to the document sub-grid of the case as "Document type" "Final inspection report"
deactivate the weekly PCI case by the end of the first working day of the next week (after deactivation the final inspection report and the associated non-compliance information will be visible in the licence holder's My CFIA account)
if a new non-compliance, directly related to the initial non-compliance, is observed, record it in the inspection task of the follow-up inspection case referred to above; this is continued until the date of follow-up assigned to the follow-up inspection case
if a new non-compliance, which is not directly related to the non-compliance found earlier in the week, is observed during completion of the same task during the same week (for example Animal Welfare, Handling IV task), follow the process above (verbal notification, generating a new follow-up inspection case etc.):
- if requested by the licence holder, issue an interim inspection report prior to deactivation of the weekly PCI case (see above for guidance on interim inspection report)
- if an interim inspection report is printed manually for the second non-compliance, the interim inspection report will include both the first and the second non-compliance; this should be explained to the licence holder to avoid any confusion
- keep the weekly PCI case open until the end of the current week, and deactivate it by the end of the first working day of the next week
if a non-compliance directly related to the initial non-compliance is found after the date of follow-up assigned to the follow-up inspection case, initiate regulatory response; however do not close the follow-up inspection case until a state of compliance is re-established:
- an interim inspection report is issued when non-compliance is found after the date of follow-up (see above for guidance on interim inspection report)

Note: it is possible that the follow-up inspection case will be deactivated before the weekly PCI case is deactivated. For example, if a non-compliance to animal welfare is observed on a Monday and the due date for follow-up is Thursday of the same week, the follow-up inspection case may be closed on Thursday if a state of compliance is re-established by Thursday. The weekly PCI case will still be open until the end of the first working day of the next week.

For general inquiries related to this Operational Guidance Document, please follow established communication channels, including submitting an electronic Request for Action Form (e-RAF) (accessible only on the Government of Canada network).

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