Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has three elements to its mandate. Certainly, food safety is the number one priority, but we have equally important responsibilities in terms of protecting Canada's animal-based resources—an animal health responsibility, if you will—and Canada's plant-based resources, a plant health responsibility. In this case, the issue is of both the firewood itself and any wooden pallets used in transporting the firewood. Wooden pallets, as you can imagine, are used in the transport of many, many products, so the movement of plant pests in wooden pallets is an important phytosanitary consideration, and that's why CFIA plays a role in that respect.
We work very closely, in the context of the question, with our counterparts in the U.S.—the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. Indeed, there's a very high level of collaboration around the management of plant pests. In fact, the Regulatory Cooperation Council includes one initiative that relates around the issue of wood and pallets in terms of the international standard, ISPM 15, which relates to the heat treatment of these commodities. In the context of the specific example that you raise, we are aware of it and have worked hard with our U.S. counterparts.
Mr. Chair, if you will indulge me, I will just explain what happened. When a regulatory agency, in terms of the import of products, identifies non-compliance, it normally then moves that particular exporter to a higher level of scrutiny, and that happened here. So rather than the occasional inspection of products—not every single shipment is automatically inspected—companies where a non-compliance is identified then move to an intense level of inspection, and that would explain why they went from a level they were used to, to an increased level of intensity as it relates to their exports to the U.S. In that continued inspection they also then had further non-compliances, which continued, resulting in the unfortunate situation.
In working with the company, we were able to provide the company with some advice around heat treatment, which I understand they took up and as a result were able to resolve this issue. But as well, using this as an example, we've continued to work with our colleagues in USDA to explore how we can make for a more predictable trading regime as it relates to wooden pallets, recognizing the impact that can have on trade. Whether you're talking automobiles or firewood, wooden pallets can have an impact in terms of that trade, so it is extremely important for us to address it from a regulatory perspective.