1. Preamble

The Conseil des appellations réservées et des termes valorisants establishes a program to accredit certifying bodies operating within any given area of Canada or throughout the entire region, which carry out certification programs for food products resulting from agriculture or aquiculture, and are to be sold in either their raw or processed forms, in accordance with one or more specified standards.

This section specifies the accreditation procedures for those bodies that apply to the CARTV to be granted accreditation for any of the above-mentioned programs. However, these procedures do not concern bodies that certify products that are not covered under Canada’s Organic Products Regulations from outside of Québec (according to the requested accreditation scope) and sold in Québec. Bodies that certify these types of products must meet the requirements of the recognition program for bodies that certify products from outside of Québec, which is administered by the CARTV.

In this text, the term “Board” refers to the body having decisional jurisdiction in matters involving the approval of certifiers, whose mission is to monitor designation for products that the applicant hopes to certify in Québec. Decisions regarding granting, maintaining or refusing accreditation fall under the exclusive domain of the Accreditation Board. In addition, the Board shall determine the certifier's accreditation scope, including any extension or reduction of its scope.

The CARTV is committed to supplying evaluation and accreditation services to applicants in their efforts to obtain accreditation so that they may:

1. Demonstrate their capacity to operate their certification program in an objective and competent manner;
2. Operate their program within a plan that will serve accredited organizations in an equitable manner;
3. Create confidence in the certification services they provide to firms, and also to consumers and to public authorities, both on the Québec and international markets.

The CARTV procedures used to evaluate certifying bodies that submit applications for accreditation must fulfill the general evaluation and accreditation requirements that pertain to certifying bodies, as described in ISO/IEC Guide 17011:2004.

Many of the definitions used in these regulations are consistent with the standard terminology used in ISO 9000:2000 and ISO 17011:2004.

Accreditation is obtained as the result of a rigorous process. Whether applying for accreditation or for its renewal, applicants can expect to undergo several distinct control stages: starting with the preliminary request analysis, followed by examining documentation, forming an auditing team, on-site evaluation, the audit report’s on-site evaluation drafting, report analysis and validation, and accreditation decision and delivery. The CARTV is committed to carrying out each one of these stages in a competent and impartial manner, ensuring that the end result of the accreditation exercise will be one of quality.