CFIA pauses traceability regulation change; cattle groups working to dispel misinformation push

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What sort of prompted the response from the beef industry groups to sort of call out that there was misinformation out there about traceability? Well, I'm going to take you back in history. I think in 2011, the beef industry approached the federal government and say, hey, you know what, we need a traceability system if we want to market beef around the world, we want consumer confidence. Let's have a traceability system. So it's been worked on for many years and there's been slow progress and you know, this is built in and there certainly has been meetings and dialogues, etc. It all goes with the territory, certainly feedback from industry. They published and Gazette 1 and then there was a public comment period. They got my understanding, over 1200 comments. They, you know, we could through them, how can we tweak this system, how we can improve it, you know, how can we make it affordable, workable and not slow down the speed of commerce? And then, you know, eventually this has to get off the ground. If you want a traceability system for consumer confidence to export around the world, you will have to implement it at this time, at some time. And they were heading for this year 2026. Now unfortunately, people, you know, they will say, well, we never heard of it before. And I would back up and say, well, you know, beef farmers Ontario, we do publish the magazine five times a year. We do put out industry updates. We put one out just right before Christmas. Maybe that was poor timing going into the holiday season, but we also have a beef Bulletin board. So it's, if you follow the beef industry, talking about traceability is not new. What has happened though, I think it was people have just ad libbed what was going to go on and it already came into effect in January 1st of this year, which is not true. It's. Yeah, they were kicking tyres to get this thing up and going. But, you know, basically then what happened? There's a firestorm in social media. I know the, our office in Guelph at the Beef Farmers of Ontario, lots of questions being directed. Certainly directors on the board of Beef Farmers Ontario, we are doing county and districts AGMs in the month of January. This has prompted a lot of questions, a lot of misinformation going around and there's always the fear of the unknown. And thank you for that because I think like there's several components to this whole conversation. One, there's the entire conversation of what do we have for traceability in Canada, why do we need it and what changes over time are we going to see through a traceability system? And we're obviously talking about beef here, but part of these regulations includes changes for sheep, for goats, for, for other things, for other animal classes as well. And so, you know me personal, I have had to keep tabs on these through real agriculture, of course, but also through being a producer. And to your point, you know, the way the process works in Canada is we have these proposed regulations, we have a consultation period, then the regulations actually get written up, then they have to be published, then there's an implementation phase. So. But I always feel, and I feel like this is what happened last week as well, is that it seems to me the consultation process gets sort of brushed off because people, they are time consuming, they're not a lot of fun as far as, you know, there's serious stuff that you got to sit down and really think about if you want to add any thoughtful thoughts to them and those sorts of things. But it always seems to me producers always seem incredibly surprised when a regulation comes out. But we've had consultation up to that point. And to your point, Craig, from a producer group's perspective, producer groups work hard to try and keep producers apprised of what is potentially happening or consultations. But we still seem to always land here where a proposed regulation or a soon to be implemented regulation comes out and people act like they have no idea. So I guess one of my questions is, you know, is that part of the pushback you're hearing from membership is that they didn't know or is it about the traceability requirement changes, proposed changes themselves that are causing issues. It's a case of both as far as, I think for some it's a case of, hey, we're going to land on Mars. And I didn't know I'm on this flight. I mean, as far as communications, I think as an industry, we do put out a lot of communications. I did a county meeting yesterday and you know, the crowd is the one. The one person spoke up and said, if you want to be informed, you would have been informed. But there's a lot just don't want to be informed. They don't take the time. And that will always be the case. We won't reach people and they are totally shocked. I think the other part, part two of this is, you know, when you look at it and there's, yeah, it's going to change my life. It's, it's going to be an inconvenience. And I'm, you know, I think a lot of people, it's the fear of change. Agriculture, we, you know, what's the saying in agriculture? We move the industry one funeral at a time because they were slow to adopt. We're slow to uptake anything new. We're set in our ways and that's always going to be the case too. So going forward, yes, give credit to cfia. We have to kick it off the ground sometime if you actually want a traceability system. And it will be a slow implementation happening. It will be a long Runway. It will be not about enforcement, it will be about an education, but it has to start at some point. So we saw that also related in the transport regs. Right. We had changes that rolled out for the transport regulations. For the first two years it was an information drive, not an enforcement drive for the transport regulations. But when we hit that two years again, we saw people were shocked to learn suddenly that these rules were in place. Now, the flip side of this is what's actually in the regulations, which, as I can tell and in conversations I've had, there are still people who feel that the revisions that are in the proposed regulations are cumbersome. And of course, there are those that are going to call it overreach. It's my understanding a lot of these would essentially add a layer of reporting movements that we haven't had before. Craig, what are some of them, the pushback you are getting or what are the key points in the proposed regs that seem to be causing the most consternation for some ranchers? Well, I think it's, I think One of them is restrictions on their freedoms. Like, all of a sudden they have to do a little bit more. They have to report tracing in, not tracing out. That will cause, you know, obviously grievances out there, because all of a sudden I'm going to have to report numbers of cattle movement coming into my operation or whether it's, you know, an auction mart or whether it's a processing plant. And that causes concern. I mean, and obviously there are some. A certain age group will say, hey, this isn't for me and I can't do this. We have to stay the same. But I'm going to quick tell you a quick storey. I have an employee, he's 30 years old, he grew up with cell phones and laptops. And I asked him yesterday, does this intimidate you? And he said, not at all. And he said he doesn't feel the restrictions on it. And he gave me a great storey. He said, if you want my generation to invest in the beef industry, you want me, you know, time, blood, sweat and tears and especially money. Why wouldn't you take out an insurance policy on traceability? That won't cost you money, but it will cost you some time. Why wouldn't you not put it in place? Why would you want to have, you know, another BSE case where borders close and lose a generation of producers? So I thought he hit it and hit it on the nail on the head. And, And I, you know, I, I told the storey yesterday, you know, I'm old enough when they brought in seatbelt laws and there were a lot of people, grumpy people, saying, I've been driving for 50 years and I have the right to put my head through the windshield. So I'm not changing. But today, you know, society, especially the next generations of drivers come along, you know, it's just common, it's just habit. You just jump in the vehicle, put seatbelt on before you turn on the ignition. So, yes, there's going to be a lot of pushback and it will be slow growth. But eventually, if you want to compete with the world and you want consumer confidence, you want a traceability system now. And that's. That's maybe one thing I do want to touch on is, and you mentioned bse, I'm someone who. That has been a formative part of my career and for many people, of course, it has been. And you're right, the younger generation did not go through that. But, you know, technology and this idea of traceability is. It's much more something you can wrap your head around. Much, much easier. But the traceability system that we had in place for bse, you know, for what it was actually, you know, thank goodness we had what we did. At the same time, I think as an industry, we've continually been trying to address a true traceability system. We have RFID animal identification, but realistically, there are still gaps on movement, on finding animals, on where they've been. And I do understand that there are going to be people that just fundamentally don't agree with. At the same time, there are also going to be producers who are in this for the long haul and recognise the value in exactly that insurance system of being able to not just identify animals, but also be able to track and trace where they came from or where they've been. So, from that perspective, Craig, for you, what is the value of having a functional traceability system for Canadian bees? Well, I'll turn to Australia. They've been a quarter century of traceability. They kicked it off in 1999. Did they have growing pains? Did they have to tweak the system? Did they have pushback? Yes, but they are confident if it's a food safety reason or if there's a disease outbreak, they can restrict it regionally without closing borders. And they have some swagger because they say it has worked well enough now that we incorporated sheep and goats and. And their real swagger is we get the premium markets. That mean the European Unions and I have producers saying, well, no, it's because they don't implant. Well, sorry to say, Australia implants a lot, a lot of cattle. And yes, people will say, well, they don't. Processing, don't. They don't do carcass washes. Well, you know, companies like Cargill, who have several plants, or more than several, several plants in Australia, they do carcass washes. They captured that European Union market. We can't. That says something right there. You know, I hear beef producers say, you know, you have to go after foreign markets. It drives price, it makes a higher standard of living for us. And when we can't get into a European Union, a country like Australia can. I'm saying there's missed opportunities going forward here. All right, Craig, we're going to leave it there. As you mentioned, meetings are coming up. This is the busy winter meeting season for all producers, of course, who may be interested. Where can they go for more information from Beef Farmers of Ontario? Well, we, you know, certainly go to our website. There's. We have a lot of information on there. If you're some of the county and district meetings are over. But yeah, if you're in an area that you can get to county district meetings, come on, you know, come out. We'll have staff there. We'll have directors. We spread out the throughout the province taking these meetings in. And yeah, you have questions, we'll answer. You know, in the end, I will say producers will decide what is best for the industry. But and in the end, we'll go from there. Okay. And we will keep tabs of of course, CFIA has put out a statement. And so we'll keep tabs on where this continues to go as the weeks go on. But we'll see what the final regulations are and when they roll out. Still waiting for a final word on that. So, Craig, thank you so much for joining me. I appreciate it. Yeah, I always have time for a fellow farmer.