The Canadian government announced yesterday that from now on, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) will now publish information about its compliance and enforcement activities being taken to protect the safety of the Canadian food, animal and plant supply.

The Government of Canada has begun publishing information on its compliance and enforcement activities on its website. The information includes:

• food imports that have been refused entry into Canada;
• federally registered food establishments whose licenses have been suspended, cancelled or reinstated; and
• notices of violations with warning and penalties, including identifying repeat offenders of animal transport regulations.

Why wasn’t CFIA already publishing this information? The U.S. does.

As part of its transparency initiative, CFIA also announced on the same day it is introducing a silver metal badge for its inspection staff.

This inspection badge represents the first of three phases to be implemented as part of the CFIA’s Employee Identity Program. This program aims to enhance the identification of Agency staff and easily demonstrate a sign of regulatory authority to inspect and/or enforce CFIA legislation.

Transparency sounds like a funky idea, until there’s nothing to see.