Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal

cart-tacc.gc.ca (wrong domain) failed; correct is cart-crac.gc.ca; no current plan located

Completeness

• Document shelf: 17 rows (17 archived · 0 staged · 0 pending · 0 missing)
• Backgrounder: on file
• Strategy-evolution brief: not written yet
• Custody audit: 17 of 17 row(s) audited, all clean
• Last verified: 2026-07-30 · this org has had a full discovery-verification pass (our discovery-verification log)

Endpoints

• Website
• Open data: not yet verified
• API: not yet verified
• RSS: not yet verified
• Newsroom: not yet verified
• FOI / access requests: not yet verified

Document shelf (17 rows)

Backgrounder

Source: this library's internal records — a mechanical research draft, not independently reviewed for publication; reproduced as-is.

Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal - backgrounder

Backgrounder / GOV-Q10-WAVE1-d1 / 2026-08-04 / registry row: fed-canada-agricultural-review-tribunal (this library's government-document registry) / lens file for this org's series briefs

Mandate & statutory basis

The Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal (CART) is "an independent administrative tribunal that makes impartial decisions about administrative monetary penalties and warnings imposed for alleged violations of Federal agriculture and agri-food legislation and regulations" (https://cart-crac.gc.ca/index-en.html). Its current statutory basis is the Agriculture and Agri-Food Administrative Monetary Penalties Act, S.C. 1995, c. 40 (AMPA) (https://federal-organizations.canada.ca/profil.php?OrgID=CART&lang=en). CART reviews Notices of Violation and Minister's Decisions issued for alleged violations under a family of federal statutes, including the Canada Agricultural Products Act, the Safe Food for Canadians Act, the Health of Animals Act, the Plant Protection Act and the Pest Control Products Act (https://cart-crac.gc.ca/decisions-laws-rules-procedures/legislation-en.html).

Roles, responsibilities & scope

CART conducts hearings and issues written decisions determining the validity of alleged violations of agriculture and agri-food law and the associated administrative monetary penalties or warnings (https://cart-crac.gc.ca/index-en.html; CART Annual Report 2024-25, https://cart-crac.gc.ca/transparency/ar-2024-25-en.html). Its caseload has grown substantially in recent years: in fiscal 2024-25 CART received 66 new files (up 57% from 42 the prior year), closed 65 files, issued 43 decisions on the merits, and ended the year with 32 files outstanding - an 89% increase in caseload over the two years from 2022-23 to 2024-25 (CART Annual Report 2024-25, https://cart-crac.gc.ca/transparency/ar-2024-25-en.html). CART operates independently of government and receives registry, legal, communications and administrative support from the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada (ATSSC), a shared-services organization serving multiple federal tribunals (same source).

Governance & reporting line

CART members are appointed by the Governor in Council on the recommendation of the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, for terms of not more than five years, holding office during good behaviour and removable by the Governor in Council for cause; members must be knowledgeable about or experienced in agriculture or agri-food, and the Chairperson plus at least one other member must be a lawyer of at least ten years' standing at a provincial bar (or an equivalent-standing notary in Quebec) (https://cart-crac.gc.ca/ourwork-ourpeople/tribunal-members-en.html). As of this review the Tribunal comprised one full-time Chairperson (GCQ-5 classification) and three part-time members (GCQ-3 classification) (current roster at https://cart-crac.gc.ca/ourwork-ourpeople/tribunal-members-en.html; individual names omitted here per this brief's descriptive-cataloging convention). CART reports through the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food to Parliament (https://federal-organizations.canada.ca/profil.php?OrgID=CART&lang=en), consistent with the registry's tribunal classification (registry row fed-canada-agricultural-review-tribunal).

Budget scale

CART does not publish a separately isolated operating budget in its public annual report; its registry-support functions (registry, legal, communications, administration) are delivered and funded through the Administrative Tribunals Support Service of Canada rather than through a CART-specific appropriation line (CART Annual Report 2024-25, https://cart-crac.gc.ca/transparency/ar-2024-25-en.html). ⚠️ still being checked - no CART-specific total expenditure figure for FY2024-25 was located this review; given the ATSSC shared-services model and a Tribunal complement of one full-time and three part-time members, CART's own direct cost footprint (excluding shared ATSSC overhead) is presumptively small relative to typical federal tribunals, but this has not been confirmed against a Public Accounts or Departmental Plan line item this review.

Institutional history

The Tribunal's lineage traces to 1983, when amendments to the Canada Agricultural Products Standards Act established a review body initially responsible for reviewing Board of Arbitration licensing decisions for fruit and vegetable dealers; the founding Act was renamed the Canada Agricultural Products Act in 1985 (https://cart-crac.gc.ca/ourwork-ourpeople/tribunal-history-en.html). Its jurisdiction expanded significantly from 1997 onward: the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was created that year, bringing agricultural-inspection matters under the Tribunal's purview, and an administrative-monetary-penalties review system was introduced allowing persons to contest Notices of Violation before the Tribunal; between 2000 and 2005, regulations extended its authority to violations under the Pest Control Products Act, Health of Animals Act and Plant Protection Act (same source). The Tribunal was officially renamed the "Canada Agricultural Review Tribunal" in 2009, with its scope further extended to the Meat Inspection Act in 2014; the Safe Food for Canadians Act, passed in 2019, gave CART "exclusive jurisdiction for hearing and deciding on all matters falling under the agriculture and agri-food administrative monetary penalties system" (same source). CART's registered annual-report series in this archive runs continuously from 2008-09 through 2024-25 (this library's government-document registry rows for registry id fed-canada-agricultural-review-tribunal).

Strategy evolution brief

No strategy evolution brief written for this org yet.