OTTAWA - Canada has won recognition from an influential international panel for taking the proper measures to control the risk of mad cow disease.
A review panel of the World Organization for Animal Health is recommending Canada be among the first small group of countries classed in the "controlled risk'' category for the brain-wasting disease.
The United States is also known to be among the first group, although the list of recommended countries has not been publicly released.
The classification is expected to help further open world markets to Canadian beef exports, and should provide scientific weight to Canada's legal arguments against countries that remain closed.
The world panel made its recommendation last month, triggering a 60-day response period from the 168 member countries in the organization. They will formally decide whether to ratify the recommendation at their annual general session in May.
Dr. Brian Evans, head of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, said Friday the designation is based on an exhaustive set of criteria that improves on the old international system which ranked a country's risk of bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or BSE, from zero to high.
Canada has had nine cases of mad cow disease but has implemented aggressive monitoring and control measures that are being recognized by the international body.
"It speaks to Canadians that the international community has respect for the mitigation measures that Canada has not only adopted, but also the degree to which they've been implement and enforced,'' said Evans.
He said he's not aware of any objections to date to Canada's designation during the response period and expects the classification will help restore beef export markets hurt by Canada's BSE experience.
"By achieving this designation it allows Canada then to make its case . . . that we have a legitimate opportunity at the international level for those countries to expand trade,'' he said.
And because the animal-health panel is recognized by the World Trade Organization, Canada can use the classification to launch official trade complaints if countries still refuse to allow Canadian beef imports.
"It adds significant strength to Canada's (legal) case should it wish to do so,'' said Evans.
Agricultural Minister Chuck Strahl welcomed the recommendation.
"Should the preliminary categorization be adopted, it would provide further proof, endorsed by animal health experts, that Canada has taken responsible actions to manage BSE that are internationally recognized,'' he said in a statement.
The world panel decided in 2005 to adopt new definitions for BSE risk categories.
The new categories are negligible risk, controlled risk or undetermined risk. Countries such as Australia that have had no cases of mad cow disease -- but can also show strict monitoring measures and stringent feed controls -- will likely fall in the negligible category.
Canada could move to the negligible risk category no earlier than 2013, under rules that state it must be 11 years since the birth of a country's most recently recorded BSE case.
No country has yet been recommended for the undetermined risk classification, according to Evans.
He said the old classification system, which included zero risk, was flawed because no country can realistically prove such a designation, given BSE's long incubation period.
Countries without any proven cases of BSE but also lacking effective monitoring systems could not get the highest rating under the newly adopted system.
