Thank you, honourable member.
Very briefly, on the issue of what I believe Mr. Michael McCain was alluding to, the issue of consumer awareness or consumer education is a very significant element of a robust food safety system. We certainly do have an obligation to inform Canadians of risk and how those risks are being mitigated on their behalf.
With respect to listeriosis, and listeria itself, in fact there has been advice to the public, and issues on listeria have been posted on the Health Canada website for a long period of time. The issue is, are we keeping it current and are we keeping it in front of Canadians so that it resonates with them? I think that's a very honest question that we have to collectively look at. But there certainly has been information available to Canadians on the website and through the “Healthy Canadians” website that speaks to the risks associated with listeria, and the risks particularly for vulnerable populations, those who are immuno-compromised, those who are aged, women who are pregnant, and young children.
So that information is out there, but we need to keep it out there and visible at all times for people to really understand what risks do exist and what they can also be doing in terms of proper food handling to deal not just with listeria, but I would say equally with E. coli, with salmonella, and with campylobacter. As people have pointed out, these are risks that you can't see, you can't smell, you can't taste, and you can't touch. So you need to know that it's there and you need to be taking precautions at all points across that.
Again, we fully accept this obligation to educate, to inform, and to keep ourselves aware.