Thank you, Mr. Allen. I see a number of issues there.
I'll begin with animal transport. As you know, we just announced recently the increase of penalties on anyone handling animals in an inhumane way. I'm talking about penning or transport or whatever it is. The final package on animal transport per se is in the final consultation phase with industry. It should be available to everyone early in the new year--that's my best guess--barring any unforeseen things.
Certainly, we're hopeful that we can get that out as quickly as possible, but we want to make sure that industry is involved. They're going to have to be the ones that measure up to these new rules and regulations. We want to make sure that it's not going to be overly onerous, but that it still gets the job done that we see is needed out there.
On tree fruits, yes, it was unfortunate that the canner closed. We did work with the local growers. We were talking, hopefully, about a cooperative could be established and do something in that vein.... Farmers themselves decided that peaches weren't the future and they were going to pull out and go into grapes, and so on, and we're not going to interfere with management of a farm-by-farm situation. I understand the costs of production and so on. There are discussions ongoing on how you do an insurance-based programming that would allow that to happen and not be countervailed. That's still a body of work that needs a lot of work.
One of the situations that we brought in based on how we saw that type of thing happening was product of Canada labelling, to make sure that when it said “product of Canada”, it was. The level that was targeted was 98%. There's been some discussion around that: whether that's too much, what can be exempted, how long the exemption list can be, and whether that has to be on the label. Those discussions are ongoing. We've done some tremendous work on that in the last little while.
I'm still very bullish, personally, as the minister, to maintain the 98%. I think there are a lot of other labels that can be used, such as “manufactured in Canada”, or “processed in Canada with foreign ingredients”. There are a lot of things that could be done to still maintain that truth in labelling. Like you, if it says “Canadian”, I want it to be Canadian, I really do. Our farmers agree with that. Our processors have some concerns. Some of them have been using foreign product to bolster their capacity. Good for them, but I think they should note that on their label.
On the situation with apples refused in the U.S. but accepted here, do you have a specific case? I'm not aware of one where we have accepted a rerouted shipment of any type of fruit, but if you have a case, we could certainly look into it. As was done in the case of Dutch peppers, which were being brought in here at what we felt was less than the cost of production, it takes an intervention by the producer groups of that commodity through CBSA, Canada Border Services Agency. Then we certainly would do everything we could to make that happen.
Paul or Carole?
I don't know of any particular situation at all, but if you do, please let us know because that is not on.
We are working to increase our communication with the USDA on many, many different levels, right from the pesticides that are used on through to harmonizing some of the science that we agree on and moving forward in a more comprehensive manner so that we can actually do more with less, as could they, in recognizing each other's science. The U.S. constantly audits us on a number of different fronts in the processing sector, as we audit them. We have actually delisted plants in the U.S., the same as they have delisted plants here from time to time, depending on the issue.
As you said, in this particular audit--and I'll have Carole or Paul fill in the blanks on this--25% showed problems varying from “the drain wasn't this...” or something as innocuous as that, down to three that they did delist, which came back on stream very, very quickly. Why it's not up on CFIA's website probably has something to do with privacy laws in the U.S., but perhaps Carole or Paul want to explain that and why we don't make that information available to Canadians too.