I only have five minutes, which is very short. So I will ask you a series of questions that you may be able to answer later, once you have taken note of them. I think that will be the easiest way.
Ms. Swan, my first question is for you and it concerns a letter that you sent and that was co-signed by Dr. Butler-Jones, from the Public Health Agency of Canada, and Mr. Rosenberg from Health Canada. On April 20, 2009, you wrote to the Ontario Health authorities to tell them that they had sent the samples to the wrong place. You indicated that they should have been sent to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency laboratory in Scarborough rather than to Health Canada.
In his testimony on April 23, 2009, that is, three days after he signed the letter, Mr. Butler-Jones told us here in the committee that the Ontario Ministry of Health officials actually did the right thing by sending the samples to Health Canada. So I would like to know whether you too have changed your mind about this.
I would also like to know what you think the ideal ratio would be in terms of the number of plants that each inspector should be responsible for. Do you have enough inspectors to implement that ratio? In the case of the Maple Leaf plant where this unfortunate incident took place, we know that a single inspector was responsible for seven plants. I think that he is now responsible for just one plant. From the start of the subcommittee's study, it has been clear to everyone here that one inspector being responsible for five, six or seven plants was much too high a ratio. In your opinion, what is the ideal ratio? Do you have enough inspectors for that ratio?
Furthermore, is it normal practice for inspection reports to be changed well after the fact, as we have heard about here in testimony? Is it customary in the agency for inspectors to have to make changes to their reports weeks after writing them? Former agency employees have told us that that is not the usual practice.
Dr. Williams, who is also Ontario's Chief Medical Officer, told us that there was a lack of compliance with the CFIA's emergency protocol in the sense that you were supposed to set up an emergency operation centre and that was not done. I would like to hear your comments on that.
Finally, on the product recall, we heard testimony here in the subcommittee that you allowed Maple Leaf to issue voluntary recalls and that the alert was sent out three days after Ontario provided notification of the problem.
That is my list of questions for the moment.