CSPC 2018

Organized by: Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Alyssa Daku

Setting risk tolerance is considered essential for governmental departments, agencies and private sector entities facing resource constraints. Without an ability to eliminate every risk, organizations must, so the argument runs, distinguish levels of risk that cannot be tolerated from those that can be. Yet, regulators with mandates to protect public health and safety have often struggled to concretely define levels of risk they would be willing to tolerate, as several reports from the Auditor General of Canada have highlighted. Establishing a specific risk tolerance sets a benchmark against which an organization’s own performance can be judged, increasing transparency and helping to make risk management more targeted and deliberate. At the same time, declaring a risk tolerance level may create legal liabilities or implicate trade obligations. Moreover, many public health risks are inherently dynamic and complex, and keeping risks to tolerable levels may become difficult as the internal and external risk environments evolve. Finally, admitting a level of risk is tolerable may clash with a public expectation that no risks to human health are tolerable.

In light of these difficulties, risk tolerances are often left vague or undefined. But should they be? Should regulators declare their tolerable levels of risk? Or are the concerns with defining risk tolerance simply too great to make defining risk tolerance worthwhile? Speaking directly to this question, the proposed debate centers on the following motion: “Be it resolved that regulators can and must set concrete, measurable risk tolerances.” Moderated by Alyssa Daku, Chief Data and Risk Executive at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, the panel will bring together a diverse array of panelists from Canadian federal agencies, departments, academia and risk management consulting – who will vigorously argue for both sides of the issue.