Key Messages from the first Stakeholder Committee Meeting - September 26 and 27, 2002, Ottawa, ON

Background/Context

• The Veterinary Drugs Directorate's (VDD's) Stakeholder Committee met for the first time in Ottawa in late September 2002 for a full day and a half. [This followed from a commitment made by Health Canada (HC) at the February Stakeholder Workshop].
• We represented a wide range of interests - industry, the environment, producers, veterinarians, consumers, academia and animal welfare. As well, the senior management team of the Directorate and representatives from Health Canada's Inspectorate and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) participated as ex-officio members of the Committee.
• It was our first opportunity to find out more about each other, our respective organizations and our interests in veterinary drugs.

What happened at the meeting

• During the meeting, the group identified 15 priority issues and selected four to discuss in detail as to how we could collectively move forward:
  
  • Maximum Residue Limits (MRLs)
  • Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)
  • Collaboration between HC, the CFIA and the industry/other stakeholders
  • Animal welfare
• In discussing these issues we identified a set of actions to move the issue forward, and decided which of our organizations might be best placed to take on certain tasks.
  
• We agreed to inform the members of our respective organizations about the issues discussed during the meeting and to support individually and collectively the directions that emerged from these discussions.
• In talking about the first four issues indicated above (because of their pressing nature), it was recognized that work will continue on the other issues, and the Committee will return to them, as well as reporting on progress for the four priority items, at its next meeting.

Next Steps

• The next meeting will be held in May 2003 and consideration of priority issues will be an item on the agenda for that meeting.
• Equally as important, at the next meeting we will report on the progress the Committee has made (collectively and individually) on the set of action items that we have developed on the four priority issues.
• In addition, Committee members will be invited to a special meeting at the end of November to discuss MRLs and the related collaboration between HC, CFIA and stakeholders and to help identify how to move forward.
• The highlights report from this meeting will be posted on VDD's Web site by the end of October.
• This was a first step for this Committee - and very positive one - in establishing longer-term relationships that we anticipate will lead to concrete improvements in the way we handle veterinary drugs in Canada.