Thank you very much. I'll speak to the imported food and equivalency, and I'm sure my colleague will speak to some of the specific issues around inspector protection.
First of all, as for the reference to imported food not being inspected for food safety, that's simply not correct. When I appeared on Monday, I made it clear that the level of oversight for various commodities is determined on a risk basis. So, for example, imported meat products are subject to 100% oversight.
Now if you are referring only to physical inspection, which is only one component of an effective oversight regime, then not every lot of product that arrives at our ports is subject to physical inspection. That's certainly true. We did commit at the previous appearance to providing data to the committee with respect to the range of inspection approaches for various commodities.
In relation to equivalency, in fact, over the last year CFIA conducted 10 audits. I also noted this at my appearance on Monday, and we committed to share with the committee the list of countries that had been visited. In fact that list includes Russia, the European Union, Japan, Malaysia, Korea, China, Cuba, Oman, Peru, and again, the European Union.
Equivalency is a critical part of our overall strategy. We work very closely with key trading partners to evaluate their systems. If they can demonstrate to us that their system achieves the outcomes that the Canadian requirements reflect, then after that formal process we may confirm equivalency, and on the basis of that equivalency our approach to oversight may shift with regard to, for example, the certification of products coming from those systems to Canada as an important part of the overall continuum of regulatory oversight.
I'll turn to my colleague regarding the issue of specific oversight as it relates to protection of inspectors. But I will note with regard to the issue of treatments that there is much more to it than simply what happens at the port. As you are probably aware, the Food and Drugs Act and its regulations stipulate maximum residue limits for many compounds and include, as well, a generic limit for those compounds for which a specific limit is not set. In the context of those maximum residue limits, the CFIA operates a national chemical residue monitoring program. So the basis upon which we determine whether products that are exported to Canada meet our requirements is not limited to whether or not the inspector at a port can determine what treatment was provided.