Facilitating Agricultural Regulatory Modernization Act

This bill, called the Facilitating Agricultural Regulatory Modernization Act, changes how Canada approves certain agricultural products by allowing faster, provisional approval when a product has already been approved by other trusted countries or foreign jurisdictions. It amends four laws — the Feeds Act, the Fertilizers Act, the Seeds Act, and the Pest Control Products Act — to create a new category of "trusted jurisdiction" (a foreign country or region designated by regulation). If a livestock feed, fertilizer, seed variety, or pesticide is already approved for sale or use in at least two of these trusted jurisdictions, Canadian regulators must generally grant it provisional approval or registration within 90 days of receiving a complete application, unless problems are found. Full, final approval can follow once a complete review is done. The government can also make regulations about how much weight to give to evidence from these trusted foreign regulators when evaluating such products.

The bill also changes the Food and Drugs Act so that the Minister of Health can, by order, declare that certain legal or regulatory requirements are considered met for a veterinary drug based on a decision or documentation from a foreign regulatory authority — effectively allowing Canada to rely on trusted foreign drug approvals for veterinary medicines, similar to the approach taken for feeds, fertilizers, seeds, and pesticides.

Overall, the bill aims to speed up Canadian regulatory approval processes for agricultural inputs and veterinary drugs by allowing reliance on assessments already completed by trusted foreign governments, rather than requiring entirely separate Canadian evaluations from scratch.

This bill amends the Feeds Act, Fertilizers Act, Seeds Act, Pest Control Products Act, and Food and Drugs Act to create a system of provisional approval or registration for products already approved in other countries, and to let the Minister deem certain Food and Drugs Act requirements met based on foreign regulatory decisions.

• Trusted jurisdictions — Cabinet may designate, by regulation, foreign states or their subdivisions as "trusted jurisdictions" under each of the four acts; the list and criteria for designation are not set out in the bill itself.
• Mandatory provisional approval — for feeds, fertilizers, and seeds, if a product is already approved in at least two trusted jurisdictions, the Minister (or, for seeds, the Registrar designated by the President of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency) must approve or register it provisionally within 90 days of a complete application, unless it is found non-compliant during that period.
• Reliance on foreign evaluations — regulations may set out how much weight the Minister can give to evidence and information from a trusted jurisdiction's approval process when evaluating an application, rather than requiring independent Canadian evaluation of that evidence.
• Pest control products — applicants may apply for provisional registration using foreign review information from at least two trusted jurisdictions; the Minister must register the product provisionally within 90 days unless health or environmental risks or value are found unacceptable, and the Minister may also consider trusted-jurisdiction evaluations when assessing comparative risk and value.
• Veterinary drug deeming power — under the Food and Drugs Act, the Minister may, by order, deem specified requirements of the Act or regulations to be met for a veterinary drug (or therapeutic product or food) based on a foreign regulatory authority's decision or documents, subject to any future regulations under paragraph 30(1)(j.1).
• Matters left to future regulation — the specific designation of trusted jurisdictions, the duration and cancellation rules for provisional/final approvals, fees, and the extent of reliance on foreign evidence are all left to be defined through regulations rather than fixed in this bill; no reporting, review, or sunset mechanism is specified in the text.