Organic Products Regulations, 2009

The amendments to the Organic Products Regulations (OPR) have been published in Gazette du Canada, Part I:

http://gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p1/2009/2009-02-14/html/reg1-eng.html

Note that these are published for your comments. The public comment period will last 75 days.

The new proposed regulation with various changes as indicated in the Regulatory Impact Analysis Statement that accompanies the regulations.

In the proposed Regulations, a new section is included that would limit the scope of their application to food and drink intended for human consumption and food intended to feed livestock, including agricultural crops used for those purposes, and would also apply to the cultivation of plants. Neither aquaculture nor fertilizer products would be subject to the proposed Regulations.

The proposed Regulations would maintain the incorporation by reference of the CGSB CAN/CGSB 32.310, Organic Production Systems - General Principles and Management Standards (referred to as the CGSB 310 Standard) and the CAN/CGSB 32.311, Organic Production Systems - Permitted Substances Lists (PSL Standard). The PSL Standard sets out all of the substances permitted to be used in the production of an organic product.

One of the objectives of these proposed Regulations is to ensure that the organic integrity of a product is not compromised at any stage of preparation. In respect of an agricultural product, CAPA defines "preparation" as including: processing, slaughtering, storing, inspecting, grading, packing, assembling, pricing, marketing and labelling. Provisions would be included to address the certification of packaging and labelling activities, the slaughtering of organic livestock and the transportation and storage of organic livestock, and organic products.

Under the COR, it would be the agricultural product that is certified and not the process.

The proposed Regulations would require that a person who wishes to obtain certification for an agricultural product apply within 12 months of when the agricultural product is expected to be marketed as an organic product. that organic certification be renewed on regular basis, within 12 months from the date of granting.

International Trade - there are numerous provisions included in the regulations relating to requirements for products imported or exported to/from countries that may or may not have agreements with Canada.

Labelling - The proposed Regulations would improve consumer protection by strengthening the rules surrounding the labelling of organic products by linking the proposed Regulations and the requirements in the CGSB 310 Standard with respect to the calculation of organic content and permitted non-organic ingredients.
Legend (Logo) - Note there is a new logo with similar colours to the one proposed in 2006.

Accreditation Bodies are now known as Certification Verification Bodies (CVB). A proposed list of the CVBs and the Certification Bodies that will be accredited under the Canada Organic Regime (COR) will be published in the near future.

OTA Canada has posted some information on the revised standards on their website at http://www.organicnewsroom.com/2009/02/organic_trade_association_appl_1.html

Revised Standards

The 2008 revised standards were released in mid-January (dated October 2008) and are currently available from the Canadian General Standards Board for a total of $63 (including GST) for both the General Principles standard and the Permitted Substances List (PSL). Originally this total price was set at $183 but has since been negotiated down. There is still hope to negotiate a lower price and to have it posted online as was the case for the 2006 standard. Stay posted. The standards are currently available at http://www.tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca/cgsb/on_the_net/organic/index-e.html.

The new standards have numerous changes to improve the clarity of the intent of the standards. This is especially true in the livestock section and the PSL where there has been numerous changes. This is an ongoing process as work continues to keep the standards up to date.