The COR is a non-traditional regime for the CFIA. The SFCR provide a federal program for the regulation of Canadian organic products. The COR is designed to build on the existing system of domestic accreditation and certification.
The CFIA is the competent authority that oversees the COR governing the use of the Canada Organic Logo. The CFIA enters into agreements with Conformity verification bodies (CVBs) provided these bodies meet the criteria established by the SFCR and CFIA. For the purpose of the SFCR, the CVBs are designated by the CFIA to assess, recommend for accreditation and subsequently monitor certification bodies (CB) meeting the applicable accreditation criteria as set out in the SFCR.
The accredited CBs are responsible for the organic certification of food commodities and organic product packaging and labelling certification. CBs employ inspectors to assess the practices of organic operators to verify that they comply with the regulations. These inspectors are referred herein as verification officers (VO). The VO provides the results of their assessment to their CB for evaluation. The CB, in turn, certifies as organic only those products that comply with requirements of the regulations.
In order to facilitate the import/export activities and to verify that importing country requirements are equivalent or in compliance with the COR, an equivalency determination between Canada and another country shall be performed. Such determination may result in reducing the importing country's rate of verification and avoid additional certification in the country of origin.
The CFIA is responsible for compliance verification and enforcement of the regulations which activities include label inspections in the marketplace and audits of CVBs.
Building on the existing organic certification system, the SFCR set out the functions of the COR's 2 oversight bodies: CVBs and CBs.
