Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to address AGRI committee members today.
Before I begin, I would like to acknowledge that I'm addressing you from Ottawa, on the unceded, unsurrendered territory of the Anishinabe Algonquin nation.
I will address the committee in English, but I invite members to raise their questions or share their comments in the official language of their choice.
I have asked two individuals from the CFIA to join me today to help address the pressing questions that the members of this committee will wish to advance. They are Sylvie Lapointe, vice-president of the policy and programs branch, and David Bailey, chief plant health officer of Canada and executive director of the plant health and biosecurity directorate.
First and foremost, on behalf of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency as a whole, I want to acknowledge the deep impacts that our colleagues and their families and friends who live and work in P.E.I. are experiencing as a result of the two latest findings of potato wart in October of this year.
Mr. Chair, let me start by stating that the CFIA works with stakeholders to develop national farm-level biosecurity standards and producer guidance documents for several crop and animal-based sectors. The development process is supported by CFIA in partnership with the Department of Agriculture and Agri-Food under the Growing Forward agricultural policy framework. Crop biosecurity prevents, minimizes and controls the introduction and spread of plant pests at the farm level.
Let me start with the overarching potato wart domestic long-term management plan, which was agreed upon with the United States and was put in place following the first detection in P.E.I. in the year 2000. As part of this plan, land restriction controls are put in place on individual fields to restrict the movement of affected potatoes, plants, soil and other articles that could result in the spread of potato wart outside of the regulated fields.
There have been 33 detections of potato wart in P.E.I. in the last 21 years, including one detection in 2020 and the two recent October 2021 detections. With three detections in 12 months and two ongoing investigations, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, or APHIS, indicated that they would seek to amend their existing federal order to prohibit the import of all fresh potatoes from P.E.I. U.S. federal orders prohibit or restrict the importation or entry of any plant, plant part or article if they determine that the prohibition or restriction is necessary to prevent the introduction or dissemination of a plant pest into or within the United States.
With knowledge of pending changes to the existing U.S. federal order, it was deemed necessary to proceed with a voluntary suspension of export certification of P.E.I. fresh potatoes destined to the U.S. The CFIA also introduced separate new measures through a ministerial order to restrict the movement of potatoes from P.E.I. to the rest of Canada as a means of preventing the spread of the pest. The current risk mitigation measures prevent the transmission of potato wart from fresh potatoes produced in regulated fields. These risk measures align with those in the 2015 U.S. federal order. The CFIA stands firmly on the science behind these measures and believes they reduce any risk of potato wart spread to a negligible level.
APHIS is seeking clear scientific data demonstrating that the resumption of trade is safe, and it is looking for assurances that the quarantined area is controlled and does not pose a risk. To this end, the CFIA is committed to sharing details from its ongoing investigations into potato wart in P.E.I. As you will know by now, timelines associated with an investigation such as this depend on a number of factors. Although we are accelerating efforts for sampling and testing, the completion of the investigation is difficult to project, and its accuracy cannot be compromised by expediency for fear of not satisfying the import requirements of a desired market.
Mr. Chair, in an effort to keep my remarks as brief as possible, I may have neglected to cover specific items of interest or to provide the desired level of detail. My colleagues and I remain available to take questions. We will endeavour to answer them to the best of our ability.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.