The one thing I agree with what you're saying there, Mr. Allen, is that this is of critical importance. Then I'm puzzled by the fact that your party constantly votes against funding for these types of issues. I know that you rail against an omnibus budget bill, and it's your right to do that, but when we get into the supplemental estimates, they're very specific. I'd be hopeful that you'd be able to support those when we bring that forward on the biosecurity piece because traceability is, of course, a very large part of that.
We take traceability very seriously, as do our provincial counterparts and the industry as a whole. We're well on our way. For a number of years, we were starting to slide. We were getting behind the Americans and the Australians when it comes to traceability. I'm happy to tell you that's no longer the case.
We have the vast majority of our product now traced. We did analyze and assess during the XL recall that there was a gap between the wholesale and the retail side. There's great bar-coded traceability on the retail side. There's great biosecurity from the farm gate right up through to when it goes into that slaughter capacity. There's a bit of a hole there that we need to put a lot more emphasis on. We'll be doing that. We'll be addressing that as we move forward. I'm looking forward to the report on the XL situation.
I agree with you that it is of critical importance. That's why we've pushed very hard and spent a significant amount of money to do that. There's a new property being developed in Guelph, Barcode of Life. The federal government has invested some $84 million in that procedure. That lets you then assess exactly what's in this and that. It's very hard to distinguish certain fish from each other. It's very hard, as you rightly point out, when it's hamburger on the shelf, to figure out what is in there.
With that particular procedure, they can identify every part and piece, almost right down to the molecule. There are some exciting things happening in Canada simply because we've embraced traceability. We've drawn in that type of investment, as I've said, such as Barcode of Life in Guelph.
I'm sure Mr. Valeriote is well informed on that issue.