Agriculture committee  Thank you very much. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, and honourable members. It's a pleasure to be with you this morning as we continue to collectively advance Canada's interests in food safety. My name is Brian Evans. I am the chief food safety officer and chief veterinary officer

Agriculture committee  Thank you, honourable member. Mr. Chairman, I think the honourable member raises a very important point, and that is that the food supply is very much global. Part of the role of the CFIA, obviously, is to ensure that those products that enter Canada must meet the same standards

Agriculture committee  Thank you for the question, honourable member. Mr. Chairman, I'll ask Paul Mayers if he could address the issue of the labelling.

Agriculture committee  Again, thank you, honourable member. Just to clarify, in the case of apple juice or apple juice concentrate coming from other countries, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, there is a combination of activities undertaken. There is that which we endeavour to do in the country

Agriculture committee  We have a presence in China. They may not necessarily visit the field directly. We have done audits. We have dispatched Canadian auditors to China in response to verification of activities of how the inspection system is operated in China, to validate the regulatory controls, to

Agriculture committee  Currently, Mr. Chair, the situation is such that the inspection activities carried out by the CFIA are not cost recovered to the importer in that regard. We are proposing at this point in time, on a go-forward basis, a licensing regime that would provide us with a different range

Agriculture committee  Thank you, honourable member. In answer to the question, I will make two quick points at the outset. The poll referenced was done by Globe and Mail and Nanos. Obviously I take the member's point very clearly. If one looks at those who believe that the level of inspection is the

Agriculture committee  Thank you, honourable member. Perhaps I will share this answer with Paul Mayers.

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, honourable member. I'll reiterate, Mr. Chair, that with respect to the CVS system, there was a comprehensive review done in response to the Weatherill report. That review took place at three different levels, and we can reiterate those points if it's so des

Agriculture committee  I guess my short answer to that is that CFIA was asked...because the determination of the review, as it related to the resourcing side, was done third-party. It was removed from CFIA to ensure that there was a very transparent, credible exercise done. So we generated the number

Agriculture committee  Thank you very much, honourable member. Mr. Chairman, again, I have testified at this committee on multiple occasions, and I'm firm in my view—a view that has been reinforced for me by experts in Canada and beyond—that the food safety is about a system. It's not about a single i

Agriculture committee  Absolutely. Obviously, changes were incorporated into Canada in response to the tragic issues of 2008, even in advance of the Weatherill report, as to how we ourselves and well as the private sector undertake to surveil both the environment and the end product. The trigger on th

Agriculture committee  I can't say with enough passion, I think, how much we value the contribution of this committee to our efforts to ensure food safety for Canadians. We also recognize the passion, commitment, and professionalism of our front-line staff and what they do each and every day--each and

Agriculture committee  Thank you, honourable member. Mr. Chair, I'll answer the first portion, and I'll ask Cameron Prince if he can address the second issue on the 72 hours' notice to adjustments. With respect to produce entering from the United States, again, I think it's important for us to resta

Agriculture committee  Thank you, honourable member. Mr. Chair, I would echo that from a CFIA perspective. I would suggest that CFIA is one of the most audited organizations in Canada. Canada is a global supplier of food. We are one of the preeminent suppliers of food at the global market. We are audi