Mr. Chair, I guess you leave me no choice; I have to go to the facts of the matter. The fact of the matter is that Ms. Weatherill has no authority to subpoena witnesses and no authority to gain documents. She reports to the very minister, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, of one of the departments under investigation. Further, as was reported by Ms. Weatherill in response to this committee, we now know that six of the senior staff on her team are from four departments: Agriculture and Agri-Food, CFIA, the health authority, and Environment. Three of those departments are tied up in or are under investigation in the matter of listeriosis. Now, if you don't call that.... Then she reports to the minister, the very minister who's in charge, and he can decide. He said he will make the report public. As far as we know, to date she hasn't interviewed the minister.
So don't try to fool the Canadian public that this isn't an investigation to provide cover for the minister and the PMO, because it is.
My question on point number two is this. You say that you would like to create a Canada-U.S. food safety authority and also create a single meat inspection standard. I think Ms. Nicol talked about a uniform program at the national level within Canada. I don't know whether you both mean the same thing, but I think a lot of us on this committee are very concerned about, say, the small family sausage operation. If they have to meet Canadian Food Inspection Agency standards, they'll be out of business. Yet they provide safe, high-quality food. So we're very worried about one national standard, which will leave the playing field open to the big companies, such as Maple Leaf and so on, because they're the only ones that can afford it and also probably the only ones that have the staffing to handle the immense amount of paperwork required by CFIA.
Could I get comments back on what you really mean, Mr. Laws and Ms. Nicol? And how do we ensure that there are some of those small family operations...which provide high-quality product to the local market, primarily, as well?