Thank you, Mr. Chair.
As my colleague from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency mentioned, the threat to the Canadian pork industry posed by the outbreak of African swine fever in Eastern Europe and Central Asia is serious and one that we are working very hard with CFIA to prevent.
The CBSA is responsible for enforcing CFIA's policies as they apply at the Canadian border point of entry. The agency fulfills this role by screening travellers for inadmissible food, plant and animal products, and ensuring that commercial shipments are released, refused or referred to CFIA for further inspection in accordance with CFIA release recommendations. It should be noted that goods from affected countries, such as uncooked pork products, continue to be inadmissible to Canada.
In managing the border, the Canada Border Services Agency works closely with CFIA to ensure that goods that may pose a threat of spreading African swine fever into Canada are interdicted at the earliest opportunity. To this end, the CBSA has taken several steps, both operationally and in terms of outreach to the public, to help prevent ASF from being introduced into Canada.
Some steps include strategic redeployment of our resources, including food, plant and animal detector dog teams, to focus on flights of primary interest from ASF-affected countries; increasing vigilance in the monitoring of travellers and goods arriving from ASF-infected countries; ensuring that our officers have the training and awareness they need to be vigilant when screening travellers; and ensuring readiness by collaborating with CFIA to develop operational response plans, should they be required.
With respect to our outreach to the travelling public, the CBSA has also taken a number of important steps. We have placed ASF warning posters in 13 languages at 18 Canadian airports and even locations outside of Canada. We have distributed leaflets to inform travellers of their responsibility to declare food, plant and animal items, and we have posted advisories about African swine fever on CBSA web pages and social media. We have conducted outreach to airlines and airports in international locations via CBSA liaison officers who are posted overseas, and we have identified additional means for the CFIA to request ASF messaging, such as on the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada website for electronic travel authorizations and visas to Canada.
To increase compliance, the CBSA enforces the CFIA's agriculture and agri-food administrative monetary penalties system for contraventions of the governing legislation. Under this system, border officials may issue agriculture and agri-food monetary penalties of up to $1,300 to travellers who fail to declare pork products.
Finally, budget 2019 earmarked $32 million over the next five years, starting in 2019-20, with up to $5.8 million per year ongoing, to increase the number of detector dogs at the CBSA. Over the next few years, the CBSA will acquire and train 24 new food, plant and animal detector dog teams for deployment at high-risk ports of entry, with our first deployment of six teams at major airports by the end of the calendar year 2019.
We've received the mandate, and we've begun to act.
This concludes my opening statement. I would be happy to take any questions you may have.
Thank you.