I think that food safety is a question of marketing, and everyone who has been before this committee, including Carla Ventin, has said so.
Frankly, in response to Mr. Lemieux, I am alarmed. Those aren't alarmist comments. I'm alarmed simply because I too felt that there was an amount of vagueness and evasiveness in the answers we received on Tuesday, and I'll say that outside of this committee as well.
I was at a food town-hall in Guelph, which Mr. Fraser was at, about a month ago, and food safety was an issue. There are 224 people who've been cut, and we're still not told how many of those will be inspectors. Some $21 million will be cut. Somehow we're told that if you cut something out of the budget with respect to food safety, it must mean that we've reached the target, reached the mark. But I'm not convinced of that at all. It concerns me to learn that only 2% of our imported food is inspected, as compared with 100% of exported food. That's the very issue that we have to tackle here.
Mr. Kingston, I invite you to continue your comments.