You've asked a number of questions there.
I'll try briefly to deal with them, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I'd encourage the committee to think about HACCP or HACCP-based programs as having been constructed using a very powerful tool of analysis. HACCP is a toolkit that you use to apply the best knowledge available to the organization that's developing the program about what the hazards are and the measures that can be taken to control those.
HACCP is a component of a good food safety management system. There are other components to a food safety management system, and I think the witness last week was talking about some of those components. Unfortunately, I didn't stay past the ringing of the bells and the vote in order to hear all of his comments.
If you look at a standard, and let's say ISO 22000 is an example of a food safety management system standard, there are some definite best practices built into that standard that would require the validation that a system is actually delivering the results it was intended to produce. Those principles need to be applied, whether they are government mechanisms or industry mechanisms, in order to provide greater assurance.
HACCP is not a silver bullet. HACCP or HACCP-based systems are not perfect, but they are the best practice we have now as to how to develop a food safety management system, and the associations that are part of the coalition have definitely endorsed that approach. It is consistent with the international approach endorsed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission. All of our largest trading partners have gone, and are still going, down that route, and there are new advances that will add to it, which we should be looking at as to how we move forward. You'll see some of that in the government's safe food strategy, the FPT safe food strategy, when it comes out.