Mr. Minister and officials, thank you very much for being here.
Before I ask my questions, Ms. Swan, as I mentioned to you earlier, for the record I would like to thank you and your officials again for the help that you gave Costin Cold Storage. There was a question of trying to store their apples, and you were able to navigate a lot of bureaucracy to help them store their apples in the United States. They really appreciate that, so thank you.
Minister, recently you made a recommitment to putting an end to the Canadian Wheat Board as we know it. You're saying that decisions on the Wheat Board will be made in Canada, but there is fear by some that one way you would like to do this is to allow the current text to remain unchallenged at the Doha negotiations, which would then do away with state trading enterprises by 2013.
Could the committee be provided with a study or a document that would indicate that the government has actually undertaken an accurate accounting of a possible economic impact on grain farmers that would occur in 2013 and the years afterward if no action is taken to challenge this text and, as a result, farmers lose their marketing board?
That's my first question. I'll rattle them off and hope that we'll have time for some answers.
My second one concerns food safety. Minister, your own special investigator, Sheila Weatherill, made a number of recommendations following her investigation of the 2008 listeriosis crisis. These recommendations include an assessment of the compliance verification system; an audit into CFIA's actual resource requirements, which you said would be completed early this year; and the hiring of an additional 70 food inspectors.
To your knowledge, is it true that the compliance verification system has not yet been evaluated? How many inspectors have actually been hired, and have they gone through the hiring process? The audit was to be completed by January 2010; apparently there has been a delay.
Here's my second question. According to the CFIA and the agriculture union, inspections of domestic plants are conducted just once a week, while those shipping internationally are inspected every 12 hours. Both undergo the same set of tests, which means the only difference is that food for Canadian tables is checked less often. I am wondering if you can explain this double standard and why there are fewer resources for a Canadian inspection.
Third, it's been two years since the listeriosis crisis that killed 22 Canadians. How many boots are actually on the ground today? We hear figures, but how many new inspectors are actually on the ground today?
Finally, CFIA has been told to recruit 170 new inspectors to meet the shortage, yet it will soon be responsible for a mandated wage increase and a cost-of-living increase, and there is a budget freeze, so where will you cut CFIA's operational budget to make up the difference, and how will CFIA equip new inspectors, given its lack of resources?