Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mrs. Weatherill, for being with us, albeit it may be at a time when you're not able to give us as much as you probably would like, or could, if you were indeed at the end of your report and we actually had it to look at and you were able to explain what has transpired. So I appreciate the fact that you're here trying to deal as best you can with some of the situation.
But I will carry on with how the committee and Canadians look at how your investigation was formed—albeit late, as has been indicated. The Prime Minister talked about it last September, and it is no fault of yours when it actually started. Your appointment didn't come until January, and now, rather than getting a report—which we could have had in March if indeed it had been done by the government, when we thought it had—we're not actually looking at a final report as part of this committee, which you might have been the person to defend here and explain to us.
We're now faced with a situation where your timeline is actually after the timeline of this committee, which is problematic, to say the least. It would have been advantageous for the committee to look at your report, simply because it would have been more fulsome in helping all of us understand what happened--because that's really what we want to do--and to find a way to assure Canadians that it won't happen again.
So it really it is a case of having all Canadians understand that their food supply is safe.
I think part of the problem we're having in the opposition is the way the committee has been structured and how it looks to Canadians, who are looking to have their faith in the system reaffirmed and know they truly have a safe food system. Of course, part of that is the terms of reference of your mandate, which require you to report back directly to the Minister of Agriculture, a minister of the crown, rather than you as independent investigator reporting directly to Parliament, which would give Canadians a sense that the results were being reported back directly to them—albeit I'm not accusing anyone of changing or nuancing anything.
There are a few things I think you can answer, and I'll put them out here. As we understand, there are numerous documents and hand-written notes here and there in the Department of Agriculture and PMO dealing with this particular situation. Do you know they exist, and have you been able to get them? Will you be getting them, if you haven't received them already?
The second part of the question, which ties in with this, is whether you know through communications logs that Maple Leaf Foods was in contact at least 24 times with various ministries just prior to the outbreak, during the outbreak, and subsequent to the outbreak. Have you had an opportunity to see those? Did you know that they exist, and will you, if you haven't already, be looking at those particular documents?