Thank you.
Not necessarily in order of importance, I would say that the principle that each import shipment being sampled and analyzed is one that we want to be careful of. If we want to have predictable and orderly trade in agricultural commodities and further processed foods, we're going to have to accept the certifications of other food safety regimes and jurisdictions.
Re-inspection of exports from Canada by competent jurisdictions, including those in the United States, introduces a terrible level of uncertainty. We've seen that in the meat sector in the past two years. Re-inspection as a matter of course is probably not a great idea. If we wish to demand of importers that they get an import permit or a phytosanitary certificate. re-inspection is probably a bad idea. We probably don't have the resources to do that when you apply it to all commodities.
Should there be public disclosure about incidents? I think that's a very healthy thing to do. I think we need public disclosure from CFIA about their ongoing target surveys of foods regardless of what they're worried about—allergens, microtoxins, contaminants. Public funds are being spent to gather information that is valuable to the public and all stakeholders, and I certainly agree with that.
I can't comment on AC21.
Is the toothpaste out of the tube, as we said in our Canada Grains Council submission on the LLP policy? We can expect genetic traits that are no longer in active commercial production, but were in the past, to persist in the environment and in the seed supply and so forth, through volunteers and long-term persistence in the genetic material. So yes, the toothpaste is out of the tube for the major field crops that are grown and that have a large number of genetically modified approved varieties.