Certainly. It surrounds the fact that if you look at the frequency of inspection at meat plants, it's a daily presence with veterinarians there at all times; whereas in other sectors, for instance, at a fish plant, it's my understanding there might be an inspector there only once a month, or at dairy facilities the inspector is there only once every six weeks. It is quite a paradox.
There are also some things in the Meat Inspection Act. The meat sector requires, for instance, in regulation 110, that for every new package of meat a label has to be pre-registered with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. If we have a new package of ready-to-eat salami, the package goes to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and we have to pay $100.
It might take them six weeks or eight weeks to approve the particular label; whereas the dairy industry can put a new yoghurt at a retail store and not have to get the label pre-registered. We argue that this makes no sense. We still have to comply with all the rules, as does the dairy industry, but it just doesn't make any sense. We have seen several examples in which the label's being approved doesn't add anything to food safety, for instance.
What does, though, is that in meat factories, because the inspectors are right there every day in the room where a product is being made, they can read the label and say, “The list of ingredients says that there's this, this, and this.” They can see exactly what goes in at that time. That is where the real food safety issue is, because, particularly with labelling, you don't want any allergens that would cause a food safety issue. That's just one example. There are several others.
It's just a matter of fairness. Why are these rules applied to the meat industry that don't apply to other sectors? That's one example.
Just working from Mr. Valeriote's comment, there are probably advantages to having inspectors go to different places. It would strengthen the food safety system, if they can use their expertise from another sector. We believe it builds on their expertise and is an opportunity for the inspectors to bring more to the table. In fact, it probably makes their jobs as inspectors more interesting as well. Rather than having to go to the same facility every day, they could go to different parts of the food chain and build on their knowledge and build a career with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.