As the honourable member pointed out, there's accountability across the entire production chain. That's been well recognized, as has the success of our programs. I wouldn't want anybody to walk away saying the success of BSE is based on CFIA. It is based on producer participation. It's based on every component of the production system doing its part.
We have, as you have pointed out, identified over the past period of time, as we've increased our degree of vigilance with additional resources looking at compliance with feed bans—and in fairness, with the full support of some of the industry sectors, which themselves have identified that they had a problem, that a mistake had been made, which led to restrictions being placed on various animals for a period of time until we could ensure traceability, for our future surveillance purposes, but also to meet our international certification obligations....
In the vast majority of those cases, it's been our experience that those companies have come up to the plate and have entered into a settlement with the producers affected. It hasn't been 100%. Negotiations are under way to try to resolve those that haven't been done.
CFIA feels that although we don't have the legislative authority, as you say, to jump in and make it mandatory for these companies, we are able to point out to them that beyond the economic impact directly on the producer, who are their primary clients in use of that product—and they have an obligation to meet that marketplace need—they are also creating other economic disadvantages for other components of the Canadian industry, whether in feed exports, whether in meat exports.... It's not always just the live animal component.
What we have been trying to do is facilitate a collective pressure to come onto these organizations, saying that they have to stand up and do the right thing. It's also important for the international community to see them stand up and say, “We've taken responsibility for this and have addressed it.”