Thank you.
Mr. Kingston and the rest, thank you so much for taking the time to come before this committee today.
Mr. Kingston, you made two comments that are echoing in my mind right now: one, short of resources and inspectors; and two, just a matter of time that it's going to happen again.
It's for that reason, really, that we were compelled to request this meeting today. We're convinced that of all the recommendations that have been made through the various reports that have been presented--in fact, this Conservative government is failing to really implement any of the recommendations--that's of concern to us, that you lack the resources.
I'd like you to comment particularly on an understanding we have that in fact the human resources that you have, the number of inspectors that you have, somehow defies numbering.
Ms. Weatherill's report says, and I'm quoting at page 39, “we were unable to determine the current level of resources”. Yet on May 14, 2009, in the House of Commons, this is what the minister said: “We are in the neighbourhood of 3,228 inspectors. I have seen numbers that roughly half of those are involved in meat, but of course that number expands and contracts....”
Could you clarify for us in some way what exactly is happening? My sense is that somebody is being misled, and it's either the Canadian public or the investigator.