Mr. Chair, I'm disappointed to hear Mr. Easter, because it seems he's already made conclusions.
I get the sense that he wants failure out of the investigation you're doing. The reality is that this investigation is set up to succeed, it's set up to be open, and it's set up to be transparent. I think that is frustrating the opposition. We can see this today in some of the things they've been pointing out. They want to find blame; they want to find political damage.
The problem is that this government has set this up so that it will work, so that it will open up the facts and will, as we said earlier, independently examine the factors that contributed to the listeriosis outbreak and make recommendations. I understand how that may frustrate him.
Also, I want to point out that he sees grounds for criticism in your not having the power to subpoena and not having the power to demand documents. You have indicated multiple times today that this has not been an issue; that you've been able to obtain the information you need and have been able to obtain cooperation of witnesses as you've wanted it. This is a red herring that the opposition can't be allowed to get away with putting forward.
I would like to talk to you about one of the issues that came up the other day. That is that both Maple Leaf and CFIA indicated, as a root cause of the listeriosis outbreak, that biological material was deep in the slicers in establishment 97B, which ended up being the breeding ground for listeria.
Mr. McCain said that Maple Leaf had had positive test results for listeria in the environment for a few months before the outbreak, but because the mandatory reporting had been cancelled in 2005 under the Liberal government, they didn't feel the need to report this. Brian Evans expanded on this point, that environmental testing is critical to seeing a problem. I think he pointed out that it might not have identified this specific issue, but at least the information would have indicated that there was a trend of some sort. That's why the government has acted and on April 1 made a number of changes to the protocols.
Are you in a situation now to make any comment about those protocols and about whether you feel they've improved the situation? Or is this something on which you want to reserve judgment?