On June 7, the Harper Government introduced legislation to reform and unify the Canadian Food Safety system. We post below a complete text of The Safe Food for Canadians Act (S-11, 1st Session, 41st Parliament) which was tabled in the Senate on Thursday. There will be a great deal of superficial discussion of the SFCA in the media, often written by commentators who have read only the Press Releases and are telling you more than they know. Our readers, Regulatory Food Science professionals, will want to read the complete document.

The copy posted below is the best currently available copy. When the official copy is available from Publishing and Depository Services, we will replace this preliminary document with the official text.

Particular attention should be paid to the Criminal Penalty provisions in Sections 39-45 and to the Registration and Licensing provisions in Sections 20-21.

The Preamble to S-11 reads:

An Act respecting food commodities, including their inspection, their safety, their labelling and advertising, their import, export and interprovincial trade, the establishment of standards for them, the registration or licensing of persons who perform certain activities related to them, the establishment of standards governing establishments where those activities are performed and the registration of establishments where those activities are performed