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Canadian Food Inspection Agency
A key player in combating food fraud in Canada is the The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). Their mission is "safeguarding food, animals and plants, which enhances the health and well-being of Canada's people, environment and economy". The CFIA encourages science-based risk management to reduce food safety risks to Canadians.

As well, the CFIA is responsible for industry compliance with all federal acts and regulations by enforcing the registration and inspection of food processing plant and testing products. One of the main concerns of the CFIA is to develop and implement policies and standards set out by Health Canada. By doing so, CFIA ensures the safety and nutritional quality of all food sold in Canada.

A key piece of legislation is the Food and Drugs Act (FDA) of Canada. Its primary function is to protect the public against health hazards and fraud from the sale of food (including beverages), drugs, medical devices and cosmetics. The FDA includes food labelling, advertising and health claims. As such, the CFIA is responsible for the food recall process as one part of their system. The CFIA works in collaboration with Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada, as well as provincial and territorial health authorities.

There are three federal governmental departments that have complementary roles in the development of the FDA.


 * The Canadian Food Inspection Agency: is responsible for the enforcement of the health and safety requirements in the FDA, establishing non-health and safety food labelling policies.
 * Health Canada: role is to set safety and health related regulations, policies and guidelines.
 * Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC): provides information and support to help industry understand regulatory requirements in order to get innovative foods into the marketplace.

Combating Food Fraud in Canada
There is growing concern with the adulteration of food products in Canada. In 2010, the Grocery Manufactures Association reported that five to ten percent of food sold commercially are subjected to adulteration. An internal tracking system has been developed to track food products as it moves from the farm gate to plate.

In the past two years (2011-2013), the CFIA investigated the purity of extra virgin olive oils from importers. The CFIA made 40 samples and found that twenty percent of the products failed to meet the international standards for olive oil or extra virgin olive oil.

More recently, in 2013 there is an increase concern with food fraud involving fish and seafood. The Canadian Centre for DNA Barcoding (based in the Biodiversity Institute of Ontario at the University of Guelph) and working in conjunction with Oceana (a non-profit conservation group) carried out a massive sampling effort in the United States. They collected 1,200 seafood samples from 700 restaurants and stores across 21 states. By using the Barcode Of Life Database, or BOLD, they exposed a wide spread seafood mislabeling or substitution of species of the more expensive fish species with "cheaper" species. According to the results, they have found one third of the samples were mislabeled, always substituting for a more desirable species.

How to Avoid Misleading Food Labels

 * 1) Read the ingredients list.  In Canada, ingredients are listed in order by weight.  The most abundant ingredient would be listed as the first ingredient.
 * 2) Disregard the healthy claims made by the manufacture.  Most of the words used are unregulated so, it has no little to no meaning in health terms.
 * 3) Avoid vague language on labels and containers.
 * 4) Ask your food server/butcher/food seller where the products are from and how it was harvested/cultivated.