The Health of Animals Act and Regulations provide the legislative and regulatory authority for the Animal Health Import Program, which includes live animals, animal products and by-products, semen and embryos. Current legislation contains separate requirements for the United States and countries other than the United States. Policies are developed to interpret and explain the regulations. Import requirements, with risk-mitigating conditions based on these policies, are developed and entered into the Agency's Automated Import Reference System (AIRS).
Major policy changes require scientific risk analysis and generally include consultation with Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) staff, affected industry sectors and trading partners. While a zero-risk approach is no longer possible for most diseases, the goal is to ensure that any risk incurred is as low as possible.
Policy development is expected to be in compliance with international standards such as those of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH; founded as Office International des Épizooties (OIE)), which is an animal health standard setting organization. Where policies exceed the WOAH standard, scientific justification must be provided.
Where human health concerns exist and a Health Canada policy is developed, the CFIA implements the policy on behalf of Health Canada.
In addition, equivalency agreements exist with many countries and these must be considered and respected when policy is developed.
Finally, all policies must respect the conditions of the World Trade Organization and the negotiated Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreements.
Apart from the Health of Animals Act and Regulations which provide our regulatory framework, numerous factors are considered in establishing import policies and requirements: