Agriculture committee  Thank you for that question. We have for many years delivered inspection activities in three of the ten provinces: British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. In delivering those services, under an arrangement with those provinces—all provinces in Canada have their own inspect

Agriculture committee  That's absolutely right. The safety systems themselves are not changing; it is a question of who is doing the delivery.

Agriculture committee  Thank you for that question. After the Weatherill report and in response to the Weatherill report, there were a number of reviews done of CVS, including an audit. They proposed various things and I would say the overall result of the reviews, one being an audit and one being wh

Agriculture committee  And so I'll continue with my response—

Agriculture committee  —which was going to say that one of the areas identified by the front line was a need for more training. There was funding, post-Weatherill, to train meat inspectors in slaughter and processing, which has been carried out. In addition to that, in last year's budget there was mo

Agriculture committee  I guess I would add quickly that we have occupational health and safety committees established in all of our areas, and nationally to the extent that issues do arise regarding the safety of our inspectors vis-à-vis chemical residues or anything like that, actions are taken and me

Agriculture committee  Thank you for that question. I think it's a bit of a multi-part answer. We certainly hear feedback about inconsistency in our inspection activities.

Agriculture committee  On a very specific issue, we will go out to the area and we'll find out what happened in that area. We have a group of specialists who I guess consider inspection activities across—

Agriculture committee  It can be within 24 hours; it can be shorter than that.

Agriculture committee  They tend to be responded to in order of priority. When we have a scenario where a line is shut down or a shipment is held up, the response is very quick.

Agriculture committee  You've given me a specific example, and I would say it would never go to six weeks if a line has been shut down.

Agriculture committee  We are setting up a separate office and structure internally that will deal with that and ensure there are service standards for responding and acknowledging.

Agriculture committee  We are setting this up for April 1. I don't have those service standards with me now. I don't know if Paul has them. We can certainly get them. We will know them in a couple of weeks.

Agriculture committee  I think the complaints mechanism is a very critical aspect of that. Training is a very critical aspect of consistency in inspectors. Inspection modernization, which my colleague mentioned in his remarks, will also be a very critical piece in improving consistency in inspections.

Agriculture committee  We are responsible. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is responsible for recruitment and for the training of the inspectors. In the last budget, in the context of the funding received for modernization, there is a tranche of that funding that will be dedicated to putting togeth