There are many aspects of what's going on with this particular budget that may, and probably will, affect consumers.
For example, the question was asked in CFIA that if we're not doing something for all other products, why should we do it for meat. It was about monitoring and targeting problem suppliers. The answer was simple, except they presumed there was no answer, so they went on to just cut it.
The answer is that meat is huge in volume and huge in risk. There's no food commodity that poses a more serious risk to humans than meat does. It's as simple as that. The program that was in place, which has been disbanded now, was never the subject of consultation with anybody, not to mention the Canadian public. That is one that puts Canadians at risk.
There is the issue of label verification, nutrition facts, etc. If you in any way need that information, for example, if you're diabetic or a celiac and you rely on that information for life and death decisions every day—those programs are all being cut.
I've heard them say they're not being cut, that they're still doing that, but if you talk to the inspectors, they haven't been doing it for two years. They were told to stop doing this two years ago, pending the evolution of this budget, which would can it forever. Again, it was not subject to public debate.
There are big concerns.
I'm not sure that the people who made the decision understand what they decided on. In fact, I reported recently about totally conflicting viewpoints between the minister and senior executives in CFIA. If what the minister said was correct, that's great, because he believed that these things weren't being touched. The senior executives of CFIA were going around the country telling all the staff the exact opposite as they were cutting them.
That's an issue. It's one of the reasons we asked for a meeting with the minister. I think he needs to know this stuff.