Health of Animals Act

Marginal note:Regulations — generally

• 64 (1) The Governor in Council may make regulations for the purpose of protecting human and animal health through the control or elimination of diseases and toxic substances and generally for carrying out the purposes and provisions of this Act, including regulations

  • (a) prohibiting or regulating the importation, exportation and possession of animals and things in order to prevent the introduction of any vector, disease or toxic substance into Canada or into another country from Canada;

  • (b) for subjecting animals and things that may transmit a disease or toxic substance to quarantine or requiring their destruction on importation into Canada and for requiring the disposal on importation into Canada of things that may transmit a disease or toxic substance;

  • (c) requiring proof of the fact that animals imported into or passing through Canada have not been brought from any place where there was, at the time of their embarkation, a disease or toxic substance;

  • (d) prohibiting or regulating the importation of garbage into Canada and regulating the handling and disposal of garbage imported into Canada;

  • (e) governing the use of food lockers on ships in Canadian waters in order to prevent the introduction of any disease or toxic substance into Canada;

  • (f) for controlling or eradicating, or preventing the spread of, vectors, diseases and toxic substances and for quarantining, segregating, treating or disposing of, or for dealing generally with, animals or things that

    • (i) are, or are suspected of being, affected or contaminated by a disease or toxic substance,

    • (ii) have been in contact with or in close proximity to animals or things that were, or are suspected of having been, affected or contaminated by a disease or toxic substance at the time of contact or close proximity, or

    • (iii) are, or are suspected of being, vectors, the causative agents of disease or toxic substances;

  • (g) for segregating and confining animals within certain limits, establishing areas of inspection or quarantine and establishing eradication areas where animals may be inspected, segregated and tested for any disease or toxic substance;

  • (h) prohibiting or regulating the movement in Canada of

    • (i) animals, animal products, animal by-products, vectors, the causative agents of disease, animal food, hay, straw and fodder, and

    • (ii) things that are used in respect of animals and that may be affected or contaminated by a disease or toxic substance;

  • (i) for the humane treatment of animals and generally

    • (i) governing the care, handling and disposition of animals,

    • (ii) governing the manner in which animals are transported within, into or out of Canada, and

    • (iii) providing for the treatment or disposal of animals that are not cared for, handled or transported in a humane manner;

  • (j) for declaring as infected, and constituting as an infected place, any airport, market, pen, railway yard, stockyard, conveyance or wharf on or in which any animal, animal product, animal by-product, animal food, hay, straw or fodder, or any other thing used in respect of animals, is exposed for sale or is placed for the purpose of transit;

  • (k) prohibiting or regulating the movement of persons and conveyances within, into or out of infected places;

  • (l) for purifying any place or thing that is likely to contain a vector or be contaminated by any disease or toxic substance;

  • (m) for causing or requiring notice to be given of the appearance of any disease or toxic substance among animals;

  • (n) prohibiting or regulating the holding of markets, fairs, exhibitions or sales of animals;

  • (o) for exempting any disease or toxic substance from the operation of any of the provisions of this Act or any regulation, for the imposition of terms and conditions governing the exemption and for otherwise dealing with the disease or toxic substance;

  • (o.1) exempting, with or without conditions, any animal or thing, or a person or activity in respect of an animal or thing, from the application of this Act or the regulations or a provision of this Act or the regulations;

  • (p) regulating the conduct and operation of zoos and game farms;

  • (q) prescribing sanitary and health measures for establishments in which animal semen and animal embryos are collected, stored, frozen or processed and generally regulating the manner in which they are collected, stored and distributed;

  • (r) prohibiting or regulating testing for diseases;

  • (s) prohibiting or regulating the importation, exportation, preparation, manufacturing, preserving, packaging, labelling, storing, testing, transportation, sale, conditions of sale, advertising for sale, use and disposal of veterinary biologics and regulating their purity, potency, efficacy and safety;

  • (s.1) respecting quality management programs, quality control programs, safety programs, preventive control plans or any other similar programs or plans to be implemented by persons who conduct any activity regulated under this Act;

  • (t) prohibiting or regulating the feeding to animals of any thing that could introduce or spread any disease or toxic substance to animals;

  • (u) regulating the construction, operation and maintenance of animal deadyards, rendering plants and animal food factories;

  • (v) regulating the importation, exportation, preparation, manufacturing, preserving, packaging, labelling, storing, distribution, sale, conditions of sale and advertising for sale of products of animal deadyards, rendering plants and animal food factories;

  • (w) governing the issue, renewal, amendment, suspension and revocation of licences, permits, approvals, certificates or other documents on such terms and conditions as may be required for the purposes of this Act;

  • (w.1) requiring persons to take or keep samples from any animal or thing and to provide the Minister or an inspector or officer with, or with access to, those samples, and respecting the manner in which those samples are to be taken or kept and the manner in which they are to be provided or access to them is to be provided;

  • (x) requiring animals and things to be marked or to have affixed to them tags, seals or other devices for the purposes of this Act, authorizing inspectors or officers to mark animals and things or to affix to them tags, seals or other devices for the purposes of this Act, and prohibiting the removal, breaking, tampering with or altering of those marks, tags, seals or other devices;

  • (y) establishing and governing a national identification system for animals that provides for standards and means of identification;

  • (z) requiring animals to be identified under the system established under paragraph (y) when the ownership or possession of them changes or when they are transported or otherwise dealt with;

  • (z.1) governing the manufacture, sale, distribution or use of any means of identification used in the system established under paragraph (y);

  • (z.2) governing the collection of information and statistics, the publication of studies and the conduct of surveys on any matter related to this Act or the regulations;

  • (z.3) requiring persons to prepare, keep or maintain documents and to provide the Minister or an inspector or officer with, or with access to, those documents, and respecting

    • (i) the information in those documents,

    • (ii) the manner in which they are to be prepared, kept or maintained,

    • (iii) the place where they are to be kept or maintained, and

    • (iv) the manner in which they are to be provided or access to them is to be provided;

  • (z.31) requiring persons to provide to the Minister or any other person authorized by the Minister, in the form and manner that the Minister or other person, as the case may be, directs, information in relation to animals or things to which this Act or the regulations apply, including information in respect of their movements, events in relation to them and places where they are or were located;

  • (z.32) governing the identification of places in respect of which information is to be provided under regulations made under paragraph (z.31);

  • (z.33) prohibiting or governing the use or disclosure of information provided under regulations made under any of paragraphs (y) to (z.1) and (z.31);

  • (z.4) prescribing any fees or charges, or the manner of calculating any fees or charges, required for carrying out the purposes and provisions of this Act or the regulations; and

  • (z.5) prescribing anything required by this Act to be prescribed, other than anything to be prescribed by the Minister.

• Marginal note:Paragraph (1)(a) — designation of disease

  (1.1) Regulations made under paragraph (1)(a) may, among other things, authorize the Minister to designate, by notice, diseases for the purposes of those regulations.

• Marginal note:Non-application of Statutory Instruments Act

  (1.2) The Statutory Instruments Act does not apply in respect of a notice given by the Minister under a regulation made under paragraph (1)(a).

• Marginal note:Paragraph (1)(a) — importation of animals or things

  (1.3) Regulations made under paragraph (1)(a) that regulate the importation of animals or things may regulate those animals or things after their importation.

• Marginal note:Paragraph (1)(z.3)

  (1.4) Regulations made under paragraph (1)(z.3) may, among other things, require persons who conduct any activity regulated under this Act and who become aware that an animal by-product, an animal food, an animal product, a product of a rendering plant or a veterinary biologic presents a risk of harm to human or animal health or the environment or does not meet the requirements of the regulations to provide written notice to that effect to the Minister or an inspector or officer.

• Marginal note:Regulations respecting birds

  (2) The Governor in Council may make regulations for the purposes of maintaining or improving the quality of bird stock and of controlling or eliminating diseases and toxic substances among birds, including regulations

  • (a) regulating the production, marketing and distribution of birds and hatching eggs;

  • (b) prohibiting or regulating the movement of birds and hatching eggs;

  • (c) requiring hatchery operators to register with the Minister annually the names and addresses of persons who act as agents in the marketing of birds produced at the operators’ hatcheries;

  • (d) prescribing the types, sizes, specifications and labelling of packages used by hatchery operators for the marketing of chicks; and

  • (e) governing sanitation in or about hatcheries.

• Marginal note:Interpretation

  (3) Subsection (2) shall not be construed so as to limit the application of subsection (1) in respect of birds.

• Definitions of bird and chick

  (4) For the purposes of subsections (2) and (3), bird means a bird that is or has been in captivity and chick means a bird that is less than seventy-two hours old.