Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Let me thank my colleague across the way for his intervention and his description. I would use the word “reckless”, perhaps not towards him but towards what actually happened to XL when it had the largest beef recall in Canadian history. I'd say that was somewhat reckless.
However, one needs to put things in context, it seems, Chair. It's like opening up the door in the winter and saying, “I think the chill just blew through.” My friend across the way has suggested that our behaviour is such that we shouldn't mention these things, that we should just close an eye. It sounds like Monty Python's old tale of nudge, nudge, wink, wink, let's not bother.
The reality is that we had a listeriosis outbreak in 2008 that killed 23 Canadians. We then embarked on two studies, one of which was by this Parliament and actually came out of this committee. My good friend Alex Atamanenko proposed that we have a subcommittee to study that very event, and we did, and came forward with a number of recommendations. The government decided in its wisdom that we'd also do a study at the same time. They asked Sheila Weatherill to come in and do it and then accepted the recommendations that she brought forward. We argued that recommendation 7 still hasn't been fully implemented, and according to Carole Swan, they didn't do an audit. Sheila Weatherill was very explicit about that.
Then we come to this year and we have the largest recall of meat in this country's history. My friend across the way would say you really shouldn't say too much about that. You should really be quiet and be nice.