FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 1998-04-01

New agreements promise global recognition

The Standards Council of Canada has signed two agreements intended to ensure that Canadian firms' ISO 9000 registrations are recognized abroad.

Until now, companies that wanted to do business outside Canada often sought registration from an organization accredited in their target market. Under the new agreements, participating accreditation bodies will recognize the Standards Council's accreditation program as equivalent to their own. This will encourage foreign firms to accept Canadian ISO 9000 registrations as readily as those performed by a locally accredited registrar.

One of the agreements was developed by the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), which is made up of 26 national accreditation bodies. The agreement was signed by 13 IAF members from Australia and New Zealand, Canada, China, Europe, Japan and the United States. To be eligible to sign the MLA, participants had to undergo a peer review process that determined their adherence to internationally accepted requirements.

A parallel second agreement was developed by the Pacific Accreditation Cooperation (PAC), which is made up of accreditation bodies from the Asia-Pacific region. The PAC agreement was signed by accreditation bodies from Australia and New Zealand, Canada, China and Japan.

ISO 9000 is an international series of quality management standards developed by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for application in any type of organization. Businesses can demonstrate that their quality management systems conform to ISO 9000 standards by having them assessed by registration organizations. Registration organizations are accredited to ensure that registrations are conducted according to internationally accepted procedures.

The Standards Council is the Canadian accreditation body for ISO 9000 registrars and the Canadian member body of ISO. It is a federal Crown corporation whose mandate is to promote efficient and effective voluntary standardization.

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