Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for coming.
Let me just read a line from what we heard earlier: “Most Canadians first heard of Listeria from us, despite how common it is.” Those are the words of Michael McCain earlier this evening. It begs the question, at least for me, on behalf of Canadians.... Mr. McCain, by all means, as the spokesperson and CEO of Maple Leaf, has a responsibility, and may indeed want to speak about his responsibility, and he did do that. But where were we, as government agencies, whether that be Public Health, if you believe that's appropriate, the Minister of Agriculture, who is responsible for CFIA, or the Minister of Health, who is responsible for the health of the country? Where were they in all of this process?
I think if you went out this door and walked down Wellington Street and asked ten Canadians, who do you think speaks about listeriosis, they would say Maple Leaf or Michael McCain. I think that's an indictment of us, as a government, and it's an indictment of the systems we've put in place to protect Canadians that the CEO of the affected company is seen as the true spokesperson. As well intentioned as he was, as forthright as he was, and as honest as he was, that's not his responsibility. His responsibility is to speak for Maple Leaf, and he's done that. Our responsibility is to Canadians, and it seems to me we fell down on that one. I'd like a response on that.
I'll go to Mr. Prince because I see he is the operations manager. I have a couple of things. I don't know if you can answer them at the moment or not, but you can get back to us, as Mr. Bellavance has said. The information we received in the House from the minister was that 200 new inspectors were hired. Could you break that down for me as to who actually works in meat inspection and who works on the plant floor?
We also heard there is going to be an additional 58 inspectors hired. Have they been hired, and if so, are they doing meat inspection or are they doing other things? As you articulated through your opening statements, you do many other things besides simply meat inspection, which is highly important. You look at imports, you look at foreign plant material, and you look at foreign species of insects, which can have devastating effects across this country. So there are other things you do. You also have specialists who work in labs and all those sorts of different places. When folks think of CFIA, they sometimes think everybody is inspecting meat or food substances, and that's not necessarily the case.
Could I get comments on those two specifics?