The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has a mandate to safeguard food, animals and plants, thereby enhancing the health and well-being of Canada’s people, environment and economy. A top priority for the CFIA is to mitigate risks to food safety, and the health and safety of Canadians is a key factor in terms of the design and development of CFIA programs.
The CFIA, in collaboration and partnership with industry, consumers, and federal, provincial and municipal organizations, is continuing to work towards protecting Canadians from preventable health risks related to food and zoonotic diseases.
As the current and future economic prosperity of the Canadian agriculture and forestry sectors relies on a healthy and sustainable animal and plant resource base, the CFIA is continually improving its program design and delivery in the animal health and plant resource areas in order to minimize and manage risks. The CFIA also performs extensive work related to the protection of environmental biodiversity in an effort to protect the natural environment from invasive animal and plant diseases and pests.
A key factor in the ability of the CFIA to deliver on its mandate is its reputation and credibility among Canadian consumers, and these variables are a key part of the CFIA’s values and drive its actions, internally and externally.
The CFIA retained the services of Nanos Research to conduct a public opinion research study to gather the views of Canadian consumers, focusing on reputation, trust, messaging and other brand attributes that allowed the CFIA to manage and develop the CFIA brand. It also sought to identify the best ways to communicate with stakeholders, as well as the impact and origins of disinformation or misinformation.
The specific research objectives were as follows:
- Identify updated measures for key Agency performance indicators
- Track trust and reputation in the CFIA, scientists and other institutions
- Gather data on other brand attributes that allows the Agency to manage and develop the CFIA brand across all business lines
- Measure the percentage of Canadians who agree that CFIA’s activities help ensure food sold in Canada is safe
- Conduct key driver analysis to understand the role awareness, trust and confidence have on overall performance
- Assess consumer familiarity of the CFIA and its mandate, particularly the Agency’s role in food safety as well as protecting plant and animal health. The goal being how to improve awareness of all the Agency’s responsibilities (including management of Potato Wart)
- Test key messages and brand attributes
- Identify reachable segments of the population
- Assess understanding of existing communication tools and tactics
- Assess preferred methods of communication for each segment
- Collect demographics to allow for examination of the results with a Gender Based Analysis+ lens
- Explore the trust of consumers in messages from CFIA, especially in comparison to other spokespeople or institutions
The quantitative portion of the engagement included tracking questions to measure changes in the key indicators of awareness, understanding, trust, confidence, and other brand attributes that influence perception of overall performance.
Quantitative Methodology
The survey is comprised of 2,282 Canadian consumers, 18 years of age and older. This sample of Canadians includes an oversample of 100 individuals in Prince Edward Island.
The survey sample was drawn from two sources:
- the Nanos Probability Panel, which contains about 48,000 Canadians who were randomly recruited to join the panel by land and cell lines with live agents
- a supplemental random recruitment of adults by land and cell lines to ensure coverage of PEI.
The resulting sample contains individuals who were all randomly recruited by telephone, thus allowing a margin of error to be associated with the research. All respondents self-administered the survey online.
The online survey was conducted between January 21st to February 1st, 2025, in English and in French. The survey programming was tested extensively online in both languages.
The margin of error for a random survey of 2,282 Canadians consumers is plus or minus 2.0 percentage points, 19 times out of 20 (95% confidence interval).
Qualitative Methodology
The qualitative component of this research program featured online focus groups among Canadian consumers, 18 years of age and older.
Focus groups were conducted among consumers in the following regions/provinces:
- Quebec (two groups)
- Ontario (one group)
- Atlantic Canada (one group)
- Prairies (one group)
- British Columbia (one group)
The two (2) Quebec groups were conducted in French and the remainder were in English. Each session was up to 90 minutes in length.
Each group had between 5 and 10 participants, with 10 being recruited per group to achieve this target. A total of 47 participants attended the focus groups out of a total of 100 individuals recruited.
Readers should note that qualitative research is designed to reveal a rich range of opinions and interpretations rather than to measure what percentage of the target population holds a given opinion. These results must not be used to estimate the numeric proportion or number of individuals in the population who hold a particular opinion because they are not statistically projectable. The focus group research will allow the CFIA to gauge the views and gather in-depth insights from specific regions.
To view the full report in English, click here.
To view the full report in French, click here