(Alice McFarlane/farmnewsNOW Staff)

By Alice McFarlane

Canadian canola

CFIA president to head delegation to China

Apr 5, 2019 | 2:19 PM

The federal agriculture minister says if and when a Canadian delegation travels to China to discuss the canola trade feud the president of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) will take the lead.

The federal government wants to find a scientific solution to the dispute. Marie-Claude Bibeau sent a letter to her Chinese counterpart with a request to send a delegation of experts to China to examine the issue.

The CFIA’s Dr. Siddika Mithani will head up the discussions.

Speaking to the House of Commons trade committee, Mithani said sometimes the way the testing is done is different from one country to another.

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“The sampling methodology may be different, the testing methodology may be different,” Mithani said. “Therefore it’s critical for us to have those technical discussions.”

Mithani said that’s why face to face communication is the best way to work through the differences.

“Also looking at what is their level of acceptable risk of the pest so it’s not just the methodology but a much bigger discussion around level of acceptability of risk and what it means to each country in the context of canola,” Mithani said.

A delegation would also include CFIA’s team of plant health specialists as well as technical experts from the prairie provinces.

Mithani was appointed president of the CFIA on Feb. 27.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF