That's an excellent question, Mr. Chairman. It lets me talk about the role of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency with regard to import control.
The standards in effect for products offered to Canadian consumers, whether they come from Canada or from foreign countries, are the same. The standards established by Health Canada for pesticide residues, or other products used in harvesting, are the same, whether the product is imported or comes from Canada. The Agency has an annual plan for sampling domestic and imported fruits and vegetables, which, moreover, you can consult on our Web site, or which I can send to committee members. You can see the annual results, which show that a number of samples have been analyzed and the degree of compliance determined by the various analyses conducted by the Agency.
If my memory serves me, the majority—more than 90 percent—of the samples meet standards. I even believe that the percentage of samples of Canadian and imported products analyzed by the Agency that meet standards is greater than 95 percent. Non-standard products are identified by our import control system and are subject to more frequent sampling.
In addition, the Agency conducts visits to countries that export fruits and vegetables to Canada to ensure that they have established the necessary mechanisms, sampling programs and scientific infrastructure necessary to meet our standards.